On Netflix: SMALL CRIMES (2017)

SMALL CRIMES
(UK/France/US - 2017)

Directed by Evan Katz. Written by Evan Katz and Macon Blair. Cast: Nikolaj Coster-Waldau, Robert Forster, Jacki Weaver, Gary Cole, Molly Parker, Macon Blair, Pat Healy, Michael Kinney, Daniela Sandiford, Shawn Lawrence, Larry Fessenden, Tara Yelland. (Unrated, 95 mins)

Based on a 2008 novel by Dave Zeltserman, the Netflix Original film SMALL CRIMES belongs to that ever-growing post-BLUE RUIN subgenre where names like Jeremy Saulnier and Macon Blair keep turning up (you could also lump BAD TURN WORSE in there, even though it was made by others). Saulnier (GREEN ROOM) isn't involved in SMALL CRIMES, but Blair is, as a co-writer and co-star, just a couple of months after his excellent I DON'T FEEL AT HOME IN THIS WORLD ANYMORE also bowed as a Netflix Original. Shot in Quebec but set in small-town America, SMALL CRIMES recalls BLUE RUIN more than the visceral horrors of GREEN ROOM or the Coen Bros. aura of the misanthropic I DON'T FEEL AT HOME,. It's more of a character study centered on Joe Denton (GAME OF THRONES' Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a disgraced ex-cop who can't stay out of trouble. Dubbed the "Slash Cop" by the local press after a knife attack that left current District Attorney Phil Coakley (Michael Kinney) with significant scarring, Joe has just been paroled after six years in prison, during which time his wife took their two daughters, changed their last names, moved far away, and got a restraining order against her ex-husband. Once he's out, everyone seems to be lining up for revenge, from Coakley's seductive daughter (Daniela Sandiford) to his former partner Lt. Dan Pleasant (Gary Cole), who reminds him that they have some unfinished business. On the take before he was sent to jail, Joe had a side job with Pleasant on the payroll of mob boss Manny Vassey (Shawn Lawrence). Manny is on his deathbed in the last stages of colon cancer, but he's been subpoenaed to testify to a grand jury by Coakley. Coakley wants to reopen the investigation into the mysterious "suicide" of a cop who was about to expose Joe and Pleasant's corrupt dealings with Manny, who wants to clear his conscience before he dies. Pleasant tells Joe he needs to whack Manny to kill Coakley's case and make amends for all the trouble he caused him, and once that's done, he'll see about getting him in contact with his daughters, since he's owed a favor by a family court judge he helped cover up a fatal hit-and-run. But killing Manny in a matter of a few days proves virtually impossible, as he's under constant protection by his men and his empire is being run by his hot-tempered, idiot son Junior (Pat Healy), who warns Joe to stay away.

Joe is the perfect kind of antihero for this subgenre: a hapless shit magnet who can't stop fucking everything up. He talks a lot about "second chances" and "making things right," but even he knows he's full of shit. No one knows him better than his tough-love mother Irma (Jacki Weaver), who tells it like it is compared to his more enabling father Joe Sr. (Robert Forster), an arthritic, retired firefighter who just can't say no to his son. But you can see from his mournful expressions and his slumped shoulders that Joe Sr. knows his son is a lost cause. Staying out all night his first day out of jail and drinking at a bar, Joe returns home the next day to scornful criticism from Irma and tries to deflect it by showing off the sobriety chip he received in prison. She calls him out immediately, spitting "You expect me to be happy that you didn't drink while you were in jail?" Joe begins dating Manny's nurse Charlotte (Molly Parker), and the more involved they get, the darker the cloud you can practically see looming over her. Joe may have feelings for her, but first and foremost, he sees her as a way to get to Manny to save his own ass.

Danish actor Coster-Waldau, with a flawless American accent, is very good as Joe, who starts every day with the best intentions but can't maintain the illusion for very long, not even to himself. He's matched by Weaver and Forster (an unsung national treasure), both doing magnificent work as loving parents who can't figure out where they went wrong ("I saw something in you when you were young and I didn't do anything about it," his dad tells him as he's kicking him out of the house, adding "You bring mayhem with you, Joe"). Cole has one of his all-time great "Gary Cole" roles as the sarcastic and ironically-named Pleasant. Whether he's barking out some great quotables ("You're battin' zero, shithead," "Goddamn, I miss high school!" and "Figure it out! Put in some work instead of gettin' your dick wet," when Joe leaves Charlotte's place and tells him he can't get to Manny, and "If you can't clip Manny, clip the mutant," referring to the disfigured Coakley). Cult movie scenesters will also enjoy the brief appearances of Healy (THE INNKEEPERS, COMPLIANCE) and the ubiquitous Larry Fessenden--once a promising filmmaker before becoming the Michael J. Pollard of his generation--as a strip club manager. Director/co-writer Evan Katz (CHEAP THRILLS) lets the proceedings play out at a leisurely pace but, as things are wont to do in creative endeavors involving Macon Blair (who also has a supporting role as the younger brother of the "suicide" cop), things get much more dark and bleak as doomed inevitability runs its course. Even though he spent six years locked up, Joe is the kind of guy who can talk his way out of most dilemmas--dilemmas that he usually creates for himself. But as SMALL CRIMES reaches its legitimately shocking conclusion--the kind of ending that would probably induce an audible collective gasp from an audience if this was playing in theaters--it becomes clear that he's just about exhausted all of his chances and any amount of goodwill even from those closest to him. The story gets a little convoluted at times, especially in the way that Katz and Blair take almost the entire film to really let you in on what Joe did to end up where he is, but when the pieces fall into place, SMALL CRIMES is a worthy addition to the Six Degrees of Saulnier subgenre, if you will, and one of the better Netflix Originals of late.

On VOD/Netflix Instant: THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN (2014)

THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
(US - 2014)

Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon. Written by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa. Cast: Addison Timlin, Veronica Cartwright, Gary Cole, Anthony Anderson, Edward Herrmann, Joshua Leonard, Denis O'Hare, Travis Tope, Ed Lauter, Andy Abele, Spencer Treat Clark, Wes Chatham, Lance E. Nichols. (R, 86 mins)

Charles B. Pierce's revered 1976 cult classic THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN provides the foundation for this reboot/meta-sequel of sorts that makes the creative decision of incorporating the existence of the original film into its story. A thriller dramatizing a series of murders in the small Texas/Arkansas border town of Texarkana in 1946 by a sack-hooded killer dubbed "The Phantom," SUNDOWN '76 has enjoyed a devoted following over the years despite its uneven structure and dismal comic relief, unwisely provided by Pierce himself as numb-skulled deputy Sparkplug. As a director, Pierce (THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK) is Pierce the actor's biggest fan, repeatedly killing the momentum with Sparkplug's wacky antics, blithely oblivious to how much damage his slapstick self-indulgence does to an otherwise well-made, chillingly effective film. A drive-in hit in its day, SUNDOWN '76 is still embraced by horror fans who are obviously more forgiving of Sparkplug than I am--I don't exaggerate when I say Pierce's endless clowning ruins his own movie. There's no doubting SUNDOWN '76's influence: its killer's "Sackhead" look was blatantly copied for the pre-hockey mask Jason in FRIDAY THE 13TH PART 2 (1981).

Co-produced by GLEE and AMERICAN HORROR STORY mastermind Ryan Murphy and, like every current horror movie, "from the producer of PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and INSIDIOUS," SUNDOWN '14 takes place in present-day Texarkana, still a tiny town forever haunted by the events not just of 65 years earlier, but by the movie itself, now such a cult classic that its drive-in showings and TV airings have made it as much of the town's history as the murders that influenced it. In a way, orphaned teenager Jami (Addison Timlin) is herself a victim of the SUNDOWN mythology even though she was born decades after both the murders and the movie. Years earlier, frightened by the movie being shown and someone wearing a sackhead hood at a sleepover, young Jami called her parents to come and pick her up and they were killed in a car accident on the way home, leaving Jami to be raised by her grandmother Lillian (Veronica Cartwright). After leaving a showing of the movie because of her obvious discomfort, Jami and her boyfriend Corey (Spencer Treat Clark) are accosted in a nearby dirt-road Lovers' Lane by a sackheaded copycat who brutally kills Corey. Jami escapes, but the murders continue, prompting the sheriff (the late, great character actor Ed Lauter, who died in 2013, shortly after the film's completion) and his asshole deputy Tillman (Gary Cole) to bring in Texas Ranger Lone Wolf Morales (Anthony Anderson, very good in some unexpected casting) to help find the madman. Meanwhile, Jami and shy library archive staffer Nick (Travis Tope) conduct their own investigation, leading them to none other than Charles B. Pierce, Jr (Denis O'Hare), who insists he knows the copycat killer's true identity.

Anchored by a strong performance by the charming Timlin, who looks and sounds like the second coming of late '80s scream queen Jill Schoelen (THE STEPFATHER, POPCORN), SUNDOWN '14 is a surprisingly effective sleeper that deserved more exposure than it got from the relaunched Orion Pictures. Scripted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa (a writer on GLEE and AHS who also penned 2013's dreary CARRIE remake) and directed by Murphy's GLEE/AHS vet Alfonso Gomez-Rejon, who utilizes numerous visual tricks like some De Palma split-diopters, long tracking shots, and impressively swooping and well-choreographed crane shots. These days, it's expected that a reboot of this sort will be filled with self-conscious snark and shock value in place of actual horror (especially coming from so many AMERICAN HORROR STORY personnel), but SUNDOWN '14 is legitimately scary, with Sackhead's attacks--several of the '76 film's more iconic kills are restaged here--startling, brutal, and utterly relentless. But beyond it just being an unexpectedly solid fright film, SUNDOWN '14 is ambitious and very clever, with special attention given to showy filmmaking technique, giallo-inspired color schemes, and inspired mise-en-scene, from the jarring ways Gomez-Rejon has Sackhead enter the frame when you least expect it to the sardonic placement of a dead-end road sign.

There's also the scathing visual commentary of a billboard of finger-pointing, fear-mongering, Bible-thumping Reverend Cartwright (the late Edward Herrmann in one of his last roles) forming the backdrop of a shot that puts his judgmental visage right between two gay male high-school students about to have sex in a car before Sackhead attacks. Another scene set in a junkyard filled with signs of all the defunct Texarkana businesses that have gone under or left town over the years is essentially eulogizing the passing of small-town America. The empty streets and boarded-up storefronts of downtown Texarkana reveal a town decimated by past tragedies from which it can never recover and those ghosts are everywhere. Without the 1976 movie to keep it in the public consciousness, this dark part of the town's history could pass on like those who lived through it. But when it comes to cinema, everything is immortal. SUNDOWN '14 isn't flawless (the idea of Pierce Jr coincidentally living on the outskirts of Texarkana all these years is a little too convenient) but it subverts almost all expectations in an era where old-school horror fans usually approach these things, if at all, by preparing for the worst. There isn't a loud music cue or a pointless jump scare to be had and it makes a loud-and-clear statement regarding its stance on "Sparkplug" by completely Jar-Jar Binksing the character to a two-second, non-speaking walk-on. Like a serious SCREAM without the sense of smug self-awareness that its success spawned, and even at times recalling everything from the investigative obsessiveness of David Fincher's ZODIAC (2007), the meta-before-it-was-cool WES CRAVEN'S NEW NIGHTMARE (1994), and the movie vs. reality elements of Bigas Luna's cult oddity ANGUISH (1987), the 2014 revamp of THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN is a smart, unnerving, and ferociously uncompromising film that's far better than it has any right or reason to be. It's pretty much an anomaly in today's horror scene. If this was a found-footage remake, you know it would've opened on 3000 screens instead of getting dumped on VOD.