On Blu-ray/DVD: THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER (2017); CROOKED HOUSE (2017); and BEYOND SKYLINE (2017)

THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER
(UK/Ireland - 2017)

Greek auteur Yorgos Lanthimos (DOGTOOTH) reteams with his LOBSTER star Colin Farrell for this brilliant mindfuck that puts Greek myth and tragedy into modern American suburbia and turns it into a dark and disturbing arthouse horror film. Shot and set in Cincinnati, OH, one of the most quintessentially midwest American cities, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER takes its time, building tension, and methodically tightening its grip. Farrell is Dr. Steven Murphy, a renowned cardiologist with a wife, Anna (Nicole Kidman, who starred with Farrell in last year's THE BEGUILED, which was shot after SACRED DEER but released first), teenage daughter Kim (Raffey Cassidy) and young son Bob (Sunny Suljic). Unbeknownst to his family, Steven frequently meets with Martin (DUNKIRK's Barry Keoghan), a polite but troubled 16-year-old. The nature of their relationship isn't revealed until much later, but it appears to be a Big Brother or a mentor-type situation, as Martin's father is dead and his mother (Alicia Silverstone) doesn't seem to be all there in the two years since his passing. After Steven invites Martin to meet his family, the boy's neediness escalates and he starts showing up at Steven's office unannounced, demanding he come to his mother's house for dinner, watch GROUNDHOG DAY with him ("It was my dad's favorite movie") and psychologically manipulating and slowly seducing Kim. Then Martin drops the hammer and Steven is forced to contend with the extent of what the awkward teenager has in store for him and his family.

To say anymore would involve far too many spoilers, but THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is hypnotic in ways we rarely see since the loss of Stanley Kubrick. The shot compositions, the long, static takes, and the cold, antiseptic interiors of the hospital and the Steadicam prowling its endless hallways like some sort of Overlook Medical Center all cast that vividly Kubrick spell, at least until the third act when things take a more pronounced Michael Haneke-inspired turn. Lanthimos has fashioned a film that is stilted and awkward by design. These characters are recognizably typical American people but they often talk like they're from another world, effectively emphasizing and almost darkly satirizing the cold detachment so vital to Kubrick. People say inappropriate things with little or no provocation: everyone is fixated on Steven's "beautiful" hands and they're mentioned in practically every other scene. "Do you have hair under your arms?" Bob asks Martin. It's the kind of movie where Martin's mother will start sucking Steven's thumb after he declines dessert and when he's uncomfortable and tries to leave, she sternly intones "I won't let you leave until you've tried my tart." It's the kind of movie where Steven impulsively tells his nine-year-old son that as a child, he once jerked off his drunk, passed-out stepfather ("The sheets were covered in sperm..."). And what prompts Steven to tell a colleague (Bill Camp) at a swanky gala hospital event "Our daughter started menstruating last week..."? Dysfunction is everywhere and the perfection of the American dream is all surface. Steven and Anna love one another but their sex life is bizarre--she strips and lies motionless, almost corpse-like, while he gropes himself, and it's a technique Kim mimics when she tries to initiate her idea of sex with an uninterested Martin, indicating that she's probably watched her parents. The film pulls no punches with its harrowing finale, and like any Lanthimos film, THE KILLING OF A SACRED DEER is decidedly not for everyone (it's closer in spirit to DOGTOOTH than the darkly comedic THE LOBSTER, the latter seeming downright commercial in retrospect). But it's filled with outstanding performances by actors tasked with difficult roles (especially the quietly remarkable turn by Keoghan, who's even better here than he was as the doomed George in DUNKIRK), spellbinding camera work and cinematography by Thimios Bakatakis, and a unique and uncompromising vision on the part of its creators. Lanthimos is one of the masters of today's cinema. (R, 121 mins)



CROOKED HOUSE
(UK - 2017)

Kenneth Branagh's middling remake of MURDER ON THE ORIENT EXPRESS became a surprise hit in the fall of 2017, but another Agatha Christie adaptation arrived a couple of weeks later and no one knew about it. That's a shame because CROOKED HOUSE, while still flawed, is an overall better film despite Sony's apparent disinterest in promoting it, opting to dump it on 16 screens and VOD with no publicity at all (it wasn't even a theatrical release in the UK, where it premiered on Channel 5). Christie's novel, published in 1949, has fallen through the cracks over the decades even though it was one of the legendary writer's personal favorites of her work. She was especially proud of the incredibly uncompromising ending, which could be why there's never been a CROOKED HOUSE movie until now (there was a four-part BBC radio drama in 2008), and why this adaptation might've been a tough sell for mainstream audiences, even with the presence of some fine actors and a script co-written by GOSFORD PARK screenwriter and DOWNTON ABBEY creator Julian Fellowes. Fellowes' screenplay dated back to 2011, when Neil LaBute was originally attached to direct and Julie Andrews, Gabriel Byrne, and Gemma Arterton set to star. That fell apart in pre-production and the film eventually got made several years later with Gilles Paquet-Brenner (SARAH'S KEY, DARK PLACES) at the helm, reworking Fellowes' script (RAPA NUI writer Tim Rose Price is also credited) and losing all of the initially attached cast. Crooked House is populated by some of Christie's most loathsome characters, whose narcissism and misanthropy are obviously what initially drew LaBute (IN THE COMPANY OF MEN, YOUR FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS) to the project. Paquet-Brenner tones that down a bit, but CROOKED HOUSE still contains some of the most bitterly sniping repartee in any Christie work.

Charles Hayward (Max Irons) is a British spy-turned-private eye in 1950s London (the film moves the book's setting ahead about a decade). He's hired by former flame Sophia Leonides (Stefanie Martini) to investigate the death of her grandfather Aristide (Gino Picciano), an obscenely wealthy tycoon and diabetic who was poisoned when his insulin was replaced with clear liquid eye medication. The chief suspect is his young trophy wife Brenda (Christina Hendricks), a Vegas showgirl who's of course treated with disdain and scorn by his greedy heirs, all of whom stay at the gargantuan family mansion to form one of the most dysfunctional families in the Christie universe. There's Aristide's eldest son and Sophia's father Philip (Julian Sands) and his washed-up ham actress wife Magda (Gillian Anderson); their obnoxious teenage son Eustace (Preston Nyman) and already cynical young daughter Josephine (Honor Kneafsey); Aristide's pompous youngest son Roger (Christian McKay) and his wife Clemency (Amanda Abbington); and Lady Edith (Glenn Close), the spinster sister of Aristide's late first wife and the only remotely likable one of the bunch aside from the wise-beyond-her-years Josephine. Lady Edith knows the entire family is a scheming nest of vipers and tries to help Hayward in his investigation, which is eventually taken over by dogged Scotland Yard Chief Inspector Taverner (Terence Stamp), who decides Hayward's feelings for Sophia are compromising his ability to handle things on his own. Like THE LIMEHOUSE GOLEM, another recent British period mystery, CROOKED HOUSE starts out clunky and uneven but gets much better as it goes along, especially once Taverner takes charge and puts his foot down with this family of assholes. The film gets a big boost from Stamp, who still can still command the screen and is a much more interesting actor than the bland Irons (the dreadful BITTER HARVEST), who's just not believable as a former spy and has a way to go before he's on the level of his dad Jeremy. CROOKED HOUSE admirably doesn't cushion the blow of its ending, but part of me wonders how astonishingly mean-spirited this would've been in the hands of Neil LaBute. As it is, the film stumbles a bit in its first half, with uninteresting flashbacks to Hayward's romance with Sophia in Cairo (who cares?), but once an attempt is made on young Josephine's life and Stamp's Taverner has had it with everyone, it turns into a reasonably solid film that's worth seeing. (PG-13, 115 mins)



BEYOND SKYLINE
(US/China/UK/Canada/Singapore - 2017)

Offering further proof that anything can get a sequel in today's global market, BEYOND SKYLINE arrives seven long years after everyone instantly forgot about SKYLINE, a dismal Brett Ratner-produced alien invasion saga that nevertheless made back its paltry budget and was a big success in Asia, so here we are. Shot in late 2014 and into early 2015, BEYOND SKYLINE didn't enjoy the wide release, multiplex exposure its predecessor was given, instead bowing on VOD with the lowest possible expectations. But strange things can happen when nobody's looking, and while it's not a great movie by any means, BEYOND SKYLINE is a vast improvement, functioning as a de facto mulligan with the original film's writer Liam O'Donnell getting behind the camera (replacing veteran visual effects guys The Brothers Strause, still onboard as two of 29 credited producers) to do it right this time. You can almost sense O'Donnell's eagerness to wipe the slate clean since the two holdover characters from the original (played by different actors here) are killed off almost immediately,  shifting the focus to the PURGE franchise's Frank Grillo as Mark, a lone wolf, alcoholic, widower cop (is there any other kind?) and his rebellious teenage son Trent (Jonny Weston) caught up in the alien invasion. Stuck in the underground subway tunnels, Mark and Trent team up with a few others, including transit employee Audrey (Bojana Novakovic) and homeless guy Sarge (Antonio Fargas), to evade the aliens but they end up being sucked into a hovering ship anyway, where Trent gets his brain ripped out and planted into an alien, thus reborn as an otherworldly species. While in the ship, Mark encounters Elaine, the pregnant survivor from the first film (Samantha Jean replaces Scottie Thompson) whose child is born with alien DNA after fiance Jarrod (Tony Black replaces Eric Balfour) was made part-alien after a brainectomy. Elaine dies giving birth, and Alien Jarrod sabotages the ship, which crashes in Laos, where Mark and Audrey meet a small band of resistance fighters led by Sua (Indonesian action star Iko Uwais). Oddball scientist Harper (Callan Mulvey) surmises that the alien blood of Elaine's child, who's growing at an accelerated rate and looks three years old after two days, might be the key to defeating the aliens, but in the meantime, Mark and Audrey team up with Sua, his sister Kanya (Pamelyn Chee), and eccentric warrior The Chief (Yayan Ruhian) for some one-on-one martial arts showdowns with the invaders, at which point the film moves from THE PURGE: SKYLINE to THE RAID: SKYLINE.

Considering its $15 million budget and a couple of dubious-looking CGI explosions, BEYOND SKYLINE looks as convincingly "big" as any over-budgeted Hollywood blockbuster opening on 3000 screens. Once again, Grillo is a believably hard-as-nails tough guy hero and things get pretty good once RAID stars Uwais and Ruhian turn up midway through. Aside from needing to look at SKYLINE's Wikipedia page because I had no memory of the Elaine/Jarrod storyline, BEYOND SKYLINE pretty much works as a standalone film, and one that's surprisingly engaging considering how needlessly convoluted it is and how bad SKYLINE was (have you ever met a SKYLINE fan?). O'Donnell takes too long getting to them, but anything goes once Uwais and Ruhian are introduced, and when you add Grillo into the mix (which is interesting since Grillo was at one time attached to the still-unmade American remake of THE RAID), along with some unabashed, over-the-top R-rated violence, BEYOND SKYLINE becomes something SKYLINE never was: entertaining. (R, 106 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: BURYING THE EX (2015); ROBOT OVERLORDS (2015); and bonus Netflix Instant exclusive STATEN ISLAND SUMMER (2015)

BURYING THE EX
(US - 2015)

While he pays the bills and makes a comfortable living in television directing episodes of shows like HAWAII FIVE-O and SALEM and has a ubiquitous, fan-friendly presence on the internet through the Trailers from Hell web site, it would be nice if Joe Dante could get better feature film offers as he enters his emeritus years. A distinguished graduate of the Roger Corman factory, the 68-year-old Dante made his name with cult classics like HOLLYWOOD BOULEVARD (1976), PIRANHA (1978) and THE HOWLING (1981) before making it to the majors with the Steven Spielberg-produced GREMLINS (1984) and EXPLORERS (1985), and later hits like THE 'BURBS (1989) and SMALL SOLDIERS (1998). Long-praised for his twisted and anarchic, Looney Tunes-inspired humor (most apparent in 1990's GREMLINS 2: THE NEW BATCH), Dante found himself more or less blackballed after the colossal failure of 2003's LOONEY TUNES: BACK IN ACTION. Since then, he's made ends meet with TV--his politically-charged "Homecoming" was probably the best episode of Showtime's MASTERS OF HORROR--but for a beloved genre auteur, Dante's big-screen career is a shambles. He directed the wraparound segments of the dreadful anthology film TRAPPED ASHES (2008), and his 3-D '80s throwback THE HOLE (2012) was OK, but it took three years to find a distributor who only gave it very limited release. BURYING THE EX, Dante's latest attempt at a big-screen comeback, does nothing to add to his legacy. Scripted by Mark Trezza and expanded from Trezza's own 2008 short film, BURYING THE EX is yet another rom-zom-com in the vein of WARM BODIES and LIFE AFTER BETH, with a little ALL CHEERLEADERS DIE thrown in. It relies on raunch and grossout gags that are hardly Dante's milieu. Die-hards may cite the constant horror-fan shout-outs in BURYING THE EX--posters for Mario Bava's PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES and the Christopher Lee vampire comedy UNCLE WAS A VAMPIRE, several appearances by a 2012 issue of Video Watchdog, clips from movies like PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE, NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD, THE TERROR, THE WHIP AND THE BODY, THE SATANIC RITES OF DRACULA, and THE GORE GORE GIRLS, and a brief appearance by the legendary Dick Miller--as evidence that Dante's back, but in the context of the film, these elements feel like desperate cries for help, like he's doing anything he can think of to put some kind of personal stamp on this flop-sweat-soaked endeavor. At some point--maybe around the time a character is covered in projectile-vomited embalming fluid or when another brags about how he needs protein after he "busts a nut"--you forget how bad the movie is and just start feeling sorry for Dante. This guy made THE HOWLING. A garbage gig like this is far beneath him.

Horror nerd Max (Anton Yelchin) has dreams of opening his own horror-themed memorabilia and costume shop, but he's also got a clingy, shrewish, domineering but super-hot girlfriend in Evelyn (Ashley Greene). A fanatical environmentalist, she forces him to eat vegan, tosses his vintage movie posters and redecorates his apartment in a way that will reduce his carbon footprint. He arranges a meeting in a park to break up with her and on her way there, she's hit by a bus and killed. Feeling guilty, Max shuts himself off from everyone until he runs into hot pop culture horror geek Olivia (Alexandra Daddario) at a New Beverly screening of I WALKED WITH A ZOMBIE. While bonding over Val Lewton and a Fruit Brute malt at her horror-themed ice cream shop (called--what else?--I Scream), the pair quickly fall head over heels...until a slowly-decomposing Evelyn returns from the grave, revived by a promise Max made in the presence of a cursed piece of genre memorabilia to always be with her. No joke lands and no one is amusing, especially Oliver Cooper as Max's horndog half-brother, the aforementioned "nut-buster." The only saving grace is Daddario, saddled with playing a horror-con version of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl (© Nathan Rabin), but managing to pull it off in a way that's actually charming. Other than that, forget it. BURYING THE EX isn't scary and it isn't funny. It's the nadir of Dante's career and that's just depressing. (R, 89 mins)


ROBOT OVERLORDS
(UK/Canada/Ireland - 2015)

With ROBOT JOX-ish poster art reminiscent of Charles Band and Full Moon's VHS glory days and a structure that would seem to be in the wheelhouse of an in-his-prime Joe Dante, ROBOT OVERLORDS should be a lot of fun. Instead, it's a dull, downbeat dud that doesn't seem to know what audience it's pursuing. Set three years after an invasion of Earth by a race of alien robots who are constantly on patrol and keep humanity imprisoned in their own homes, ROBOT OVERLORDS follows three teenagers--Sean (Callan McAuliffe), his buddy Nathan (James Tarpey), and Nathan's sister Alexandra (Ella Hunt)--and orphaned neighbor boy Connor (Milo Parker), who accidentally discover that a jolt from a car battery temporarily disables the behind-the-ear tracking monitors that humans are now requires to wear. This allows them to set in motion a plot to take back Earth and overthrow the robot rulers, who are aided in their takeover of the planet by traitorous collaborators. One such collaborator is the loathsome Robin Smythe (Ben Kingsley), who only seems to be sucking up to the robots in order to give him leverage in his pursuit of Sean's mom Kate (Gillian Anderson), whose military officer husband (Steven Mackintosh) is missing and presumed dead. Directed and co-written by Jon Wright, whose TREMORS homage GRABBERS was an inspired and fun little monster movie, ROBOT OVERLORDS would seem to be aimed at kids but is too dark and violent for family audiences, and the longer it goes on, the more listless and generic it becomes. Kingsley, Anderson, and the younger actors are fine, but Wright fails to bring the energy and enthusiasm that made GRABBERS so enjoyable. You'd think it would be tough to make a movie called ROBOT OVERLORDS boring, but that's exactly the word to describe this barely-released misfire. (PG-13, 90 mins)

STATEN ISLAND SUMMER
(US - 2015)

Probably the worst thing to come from the SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE camp since the 1985-86 brat-pack season that brought the show as close as it's ever been to cancellation, STATEN ISLAND SUMMER was produced by Lorne Michaels, written by SNL head writer and "Weekend Update" co-anchor Colin Jost, and features many current and former SNL cast members who probably had better things to do between seasons but didn't want to piss off the boss and the head writer. Paramount buried this like a state secret, very quietly dumping it on VOD and on Netflix Instant, perhaps hoping that it'll trick less-savvy streaming viewers into confusing it with WET HOT AMERICAN SUMMER: FIRST DAY OF CAMP. Jost's autobiographical script follows the very bland and Jost-like Danny Campbell (Graham Phillips) over his proverbial Last Summer Before College. Harvard-bound Danny and his best buddy Frank (Zack Pearlman as Jonah Hill and Josh Gad) are lifeguards at Staten Island's Great Kills Swim Club, along with lunkheaded stud Anthony (John DeLuca), hot tomboy Mary Ellen (Cecily Strong), and beer-guzzling, chain-smoking slacker Skootch (Bobby Moynihan as Zach Galifianakis as Bluto Blutarsky), and all are in constant battle against uptight, Speedo-wearing boss Chuck Casino (Mike O'Brien). Danny also spends the summer awkwardly pursuing his one-time babysitter Krystal Manicucci (Ashley Greene, not having a good 2015 between this and BURYING THE EX), the daughter of feared mob boss Leo Manicucci (Vincent Pastore as Vincent Pastore as Big Pussy). The crux of the plot deals with Danny trying to blow off a forced Disneyworld trip with his loving but clingy parents (Jim Gaffigan and Kate Walsh) to have one last blowout kegger at the pool, which the nefarious Chuck Casino keeps trying to sabotage since he wasn't invited. There's also Gina Gershon as one of the horny, wine-guzzling housewives constantly pursuing Anthony, Penny Marshall as a cranky food stand manager, Will Forte as a paraplegic ex-biker, Jost and his brother Casey as laid-back, partying cops (in no way inspired by Seth Rogen and Bill Hader in SUPERBAD), Method Man as a pot-dealing ice cream truck driver, Kate McKinnon as another horny housewife, Jackson Nicoll basically playing the same kid he played in BAD GRANDPA, and Fred Armisen as Bill Murray from CADDYSHACK, the pool club's maintenance guy who spends the movie haplessly trying to combat a rapidly-growing hornets' nest.

Jost tries to balance mawkish sentimentality with post-Farrelly/Apatow raunch but nothing gels, and the degree to which STATEN ISLAND SUMMER rips off both CADDYSHACK and SUPERBAD is utterly shameless (even the opening credits have Danny riding his bike around town like Michael O'Keefe's Danny in CADDYSHACK--all that's missing is Kenny Loggins' "I'm Alright"). The much-maligned Jost has taken plenty of shots over his performance on "Weekend Update," and while he'll never be the worst WU anchor thanks to Colin Quinn, STATEN ISLAND SUMMER does nothing to win over the Jost detractors. Directed by Rhys Thomas, who handles a lot of SNL's filmed segments, STATEN ISLAND SUMMER is hopelessly self-indulgent, aggressively unfunny, and, in keeping with the Apatow influence, entirely too long at 108 minutes, almost like Jost and Thomas felt everything they wrote and shot was too hilarious to lose. With today's ever-evolving distribution patterns, some good movies get lost in the shuffle. STATEN ISLAND SUMMER is not one of them. (R, 108 mins, currently available on Netflix Instant)

On DVD/Blu-ray: SHADOW DANCER (2013) and ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY (2013)

SHADOW DANCER
(UK/Ireland/France - 2012; 2013 US release)

Some good performances help prod this dawdling IRA drama along to a legitimately unexpected finish, but until the last five minutes, it's pretty by-the-numbers.  Scripted by Tom Bradby (based on his novel) and directed by James Marsh (MAN ON WIRE, RED RIDING: 1980), SHADOW DANCER takes place in 1993 as Collette McVeigh (Andrea Riseborough), a member of a prominent IRA family in a working-class Belfast neighborhood, is nabbed by MI5 operatives after attempting to plant a bomb in a London subway station.  MI-5 official Mac (Clive Owen) offers her a chance to become an informant by reminding her that she'll otherwise go to prison and never see her young son again.  Upon returning to Belfast, she keeps her eyes and ears open for any plans her brothers (Aiden Gillan, Domhnall Gleeson) might be cooking up and finds herself hounded by a suspicious IRA goon (David Wilmot), while living in constant conflict over the well-being of her son and longstanding loyalty to her family and the cause.  Meanwhile, something isn't sitting right with Mac, the kind of rumpled, stubbled, chain-smoking agent with a perpetually-loosened tie and a wrinkled suit that he's likely worn several days in a row since he probably sleeps in his office.  Mac thinks his boss (Gillian Anderson) might be hanging Collette out to dry and starts to fear for his informant's safety.

Marsh and cinematographer Rob Hardy shoot SHADOW DANCER in a kind-of gray, dreary way that recalls the vintage kitchen sink dramas of Ken Loach and Mike Leigh (or, more recently, Andrea Arnold).  That and the performances, especially by the busy Riseborough (also seen this year in WELCOME TO THE PUNCH and OBLIVION), are fine but SHADOW DANCER unfortunately just seems content to coast on clichés.  Whether the focus is on the IRA as it is here or say, a terrorist in the Middle East, or even mobsters in NYC in other movies, this feels just like any number of other informant dramas that have come before it.  There's a template to these kinds of films and until the very end, SHADOW DANCER steadfastly refuses to deviate from it.  How many of these have we seen where the person under the gun is inherently good but drawn into bad things because of misguided family loyalty?  Or the good cop/agent who's looking out for the person whose ass is on the line, even if it means uncovering some dirty secrets that go up the chain of command?  Or when that good cop/agent shows up uninvited at his unscrupulous boss' home to confront them about what they've found out (on the weekend, no less, because of course he's working all through the weekend)?  Or when that unscrupulous boss insists they have nothing to worry about.  Or when the honest cop and the informant find they have more in common than they think, and when they're the opposite sex, you can even throw in some brief, awkward romantic overtures.  SHADOW DANCER isn't bad--you've just seen it at least a hundred times before, though to give credit where it's due, the finale, specifically the fate of one major character, is a gut-punch and almost convinces you that you saw a better movie than you did.  (R, 102 mins)



ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY
(Germany/US/Australia - 2013)

There's a strong Canadian influence to this bleak horror film directed and co-written by Eron Sheean, who also shared a screenplay credit on Xavier Gens' repugnant post-apocalyptic misfire THE DIVIDE (2012).  Given the extreme nature of that film and its sole focus being on shock value, ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY is surprisingly restrained and well-made, with solid performances (unlike THE DIVIDE, where most of the cast seemed to be in a heated contest to see who could turn in the most overwrought performance) and a strong sense of atmosphere, with good use of snowy Dresden locations and most scenes taking place in cold, empty medical labs and long hallways in office buildings.  THE DIVIDE co-star Michael Eklund takes a break from establishing himself as today's go-to horror/thriller genre psycho (he's best known as the kidnapper in Halle Berry's recent hit THE CALL) as Dr. Geoff Burton, an introverted American geneticist setting up a cancer research study at a high-tech facility in Dresden, Germany.  He's been brought there by Dr. Rebekka Fiedler (Karoline Herfurth), a former student with whom he once had a fling.  The divorced Burton is still haunted by the death of his infant son four years earlier from a rare genetic disorder that caused exterior tumors and the shutdown of all of his internal organs.  Burton immediately clashes with the creepily ambitious Jarek Novak (Tomas Lemarquis), who's conducting secret and unethical trials of a regenerative tissue drug on lab rats as the head of the research facility (DROP DEAD FRED's Rik Mayall, looking a lot like David Hemmings as he gets older) looks the other way.  Burton is bitten by one of Novak's rats and starts undergoing a transformation alarmingly similar to what happened to his son.

For most of the film, ERRORS is on somewhat similar ground as the recent ANTIVIRAL, insofar as its owing a tremendous debt to the "body horror" of vintage David Cronenberg.  ANTIVIRAL has loftier aspirations than ERRORS, which essentially just wants to be an effective slow burn chiller with a feel-bad finale straight out of the Atom Egoyan playbook that makes the ending of THE MIST look uplifting.  And it mostly succeeds.  Eklund almost channels Anthony Perkins in his edgy, nervous performance, mostly mired in melancholy grief that's constantly threatening to boil over into rage.  If you've seen Eklund turn up in as many bad movies as I have (in addition to THE DIVIDE, he's also a veteran of several Uwe Boll joints), it's nice to see him underplaying for once, though Sheean does give him some opportunities to get his Eklund on once he gets exposed to whatever virus Novak has injected into the lab rat.  The third act twist is genuinely surprising, though it does more or less write out a major character in a bit of clumsy fashion by just disappearing from the film, but overall, ERRORS OF THE HUMAN BODY is a much better work than Sheean's and most of Eklund's previous IMDb credits would lead you to believe, though be warned:  even for a Cronenberg-influenced "body horror" homage shot in a wintry Dresden in buildings with all the warmth and humanity of Fassbinder's WORLD ON A WIRE, this one's gonna bum you out.  (Unrated, 102 mins, also available on Netflix streaming)