NEXT OF KIN (Australia - 1982; US release 1985) Directed by Tony Williams. Written by Michael Heath and Tony Williams. Cast: Jackie Kerin, John Jarratt, Alex Scott, Gerda Nicolson, Charles McCallum, Bernadette Gibson, Robert Ratti, Vince Deltito, Tommy Dysart, Debra Lawrance, Matt Burns. (Unrated, 89 mins)
A genuinely unsettling gem from Australia that fans of cult horror and Ozploitation have largely kept to themselves, 1982's NEXT OF KIN is a textbook example of the "slow burn" approach that many indie horror films have taken in recent years. Of course, Quentin Tarantino has gone on the record as being one of its biggest fans, but it's almost certain that filmmakers like Ti West (THE HOUSE OF THE DEVIL, THE INNKEEPERS) and Oz Perkins (I AM THE PRETTY THING THAT LIVES IN THE HOUSE, THE BLACKCOAT'S DAUGHTER) have seen it and studied it. Made during an era when the horror genre was dominated by both slasher movies and trailblazing special effects makeup and creature FX, NEXT OF KIN is almost a film out of its time, and one that spends its first 2/3 being deliberately coy about exactly what it's up to. In the end, its reveals don't offer much in the way of surprises and twists, but that's really not important. Throughout the film's duration, New Zealand-born director Tony Williams and his co-writer Michael Heath conduct such a master class in slowly-escalating dread and screw-tightening tension, pulling it off with such confidence, style, and panache that NEXT OF KIN's biggest mystery is ultimately why neither of their careers really went anywhere in the ensuing years.
Returning to her isolated rural Australian hometown after years away upon receiving word that her estranged mother has died, Linda (Jackie Kerin) isn't really enthused about being left in charge of Montclare, the family estate that now doubles as a nursing home. On the outskirts of a podunk town where nothing much goes on ("Well, there's a new public toilet!" boasts the gruff owner of the local greasy spoon), Montclare is in dire financial straits and has seen better days, and despite the hopes of administrative nurse Connie (Gerda Nicolson) and Dr. Barton (Alex Scott) that the facility be kept open, with Connie even admitting a new resident, Mrs. Ryan (Bernadette Gibson), against her wishes, Linda is exploring all of her options with what to do with the place and its dwindling number of residents. That number only keeps dwindling as a string of Montclare's elderly are found dead, with evasive Dr. Barton declaring one a drowning in a bathtub despite Linda seeing what appear to be deep bruises on the corpse's neck that would indicate strangulation. All the while, Linda is haunted by nightmares of a long-suppressed, traumatic incident that took place at Montclare when she was a child, eventually finding corroboration in her mother's hidden diaries that detail an extensive history of madness and murder at the house over 20 years earlier. The events taking place now and manifesting in Linda's nightmares seem to mirror those documented in the tattered pages of her mother's journals, with include a foreboding warning that "There is something evil in this house." Naturally, her concerns are mostly disregarded by Dr. Barton, Connie, and hunky local firefighter Barney (John Jarratt), with whom she cautiously rekindles a romance that began back when they were teenagers.
Williams and Heath take an inordinate amount of time letting NEXT OF KIN simmer to a raging boil. It flirts with being everything from a then-trendy slasher film, a haunted house ghost story, and an Australian giallo (one brief shot on a TV screen at a diner has echoes of Dario Argento briefly flashing a huge reveal early in DEEP RED that no first-time viewer ever catches but is plain as day on subsequent watches) before it finally shows its cards in its audacious third act that culminates in an almost apocalyptic finale straight out of MAD MAX. But before that, the filmmakers establish a sense of unease with unnerving images like Linda repeatedly spotting a figure watching her from a distance or pulling into the long driveway at Montclare and catching a fleeting glimpse of someone in a red coat standing in her bedroom window. This almost glacial buildup lasts for an hour before it suddenly explodes, almost out of nowhere, when the killer pursues Linda through a mostly unoccupied wing of Montclare as she runs from room to room to hide as the pounding footsteps of the sprinting, hammer-wielding murderer could be coming from any direction. The long corridors of the home allow HARLEQUIN and WE OF THE NEVER NEVER cinematographer Gary Hansen (who would be tragically killed in a helicopter crash while filming a TV commercial later in 1982) and Steadicam operator Toby Phillips (a protege of Steadicam inventor Garrett Brown, who used it to much notoriety in ROCKY and THE SHINING, the latter a clear stylistic influence on NEXT OF KIN) to prowl the ominous halls of Montclare--which also showcases one of the genre's great spiral staircases--and indulge in some breathtaking flourishes when the camera shifts and swings in unexpected directions, whether it's some overhead shots or the startling way Williams has one of the villains suddenly bolt into the frame like a wild animal about to pounce. Also greatly contributing to the atmosphere is a moody and effective score by German electronic music pioneer Klaus Schulze (an early member of Tangerine Dream and Ash Ra Tempel), which lends a bit of a SUSPIRIA vibe and really gets under your skin.
At the time, the cast was unknown outside of Australia, though Jarratt would find some notoriety among horror and cult movie fans many years later thanks to his dark-side-of-Crocodile Dundee performance as an affable Outback serial killer in the controversial WOLF CREEK and Jarratt superfan Tarantino giving him a brief role near the end of DJANGO UNCHAINED. The very appealing Kerin, who has a striking resemblance to Nastassja Kinski, had some TV credits to her name and appeared in a few episodes of PRISONER: CELL BLOCK H, a late '70s Australian women-in-prison series that aired in syndication in the States. NEXT OF KIN remains her only feature film to date, and while she acted sporadically on Australian TV over the next couple of decades, she's better known in her homeland these days as a children's book author and storyteller. Just out in an extras-packed Blu-ray from Severin (because physical media is dead), NEXT OF KIN didn't find any attention from American distributors at the time, taking three years to get a straight-to-video release in 1985 courtesy of Media Home Entertainment offshoot VCL Communications, and then getting relaunched again in 1988 through Virgin Vision. Heath went on to write the 1984 New Zealand-made video store fixture DEATH WARMED UP and the 1992 Al Lewis comedy MY GRANDPA IS A VAMPIRE. Born in 1944, Williams had the little-seen 1978 Australian drama SOLO under his belt, as well as a handful of gigs as an editor and a cinematographer, but he followed NEXT OF KIN with 31 years of off-the-radar silence. Since 2013, he's directed three documentaries that likely haven't been seen outside of either Australia or New Zealand. Looking at it now, NEXT OF KIN should've established Tony Williams as a major new figure in horror, but he seemingly walked away, leaving his legacy in the genre to stand with one small masterpiece of its kind.
Director/co-writer Tony Williams, star Jackie Kerin, and
cinematographer Gary Hansen on the set of NEXT OF KIN.
Loosely based on Jose Saramago's novel The Double, but not to be confused with the recent Jesse Eisenberg film THE DOUBLE, Denis Villeneuve's ENEMY is one of those frustrating cinematic puzzles where the set up and the placement of the initial pieces prove much more challenging and engaging than the actual solution. ENEMY excels in its early stages in its depiction of the ennui-drenched L'AVVENTURA, RED DESERT, and THE PASSENGER alienation of vintage Antonioni fused with the cold Cronenbergian chill of Toronto high-rises that recalls everything from SHIVERS to CRASH and even Fernando Mereilles' underappreciated BLINDNESS, itself an adaptation of another Saramago novel. There's also an overt DEAD RINGERS vibe that begins with quiet, withdrawn history professor Adam Bell (Jake Gyllenhaal) suffering through small talk with a colleague, who recommends a movie called WHERE THERE'S A WILL, THERE'S A WAY. Adam rents the movie and it's a run-of-the-mill romantic comedy, but something catches his attention: cast as "Bellhop #3" is one Daniel Saint Claire, who happens to look exactly like Adam. Adam researches the doppelganger's other roles, which are limited similar bit parts in two other forgettable films from a decade earlier, and eventually goes to the office of the agency representing Saint Claire and is mistaken for him, which gets him Saint Claire's phone number and address. Adam calls the actor, whose real name is Anthony Claire, and though Anthony is initially hesitant, they meet. Their features are identical and they even have the same scar. Adam freaks out and regrets meeting, but Anthony, who has a history of cheating on his now-pregnant wife Helen (Sarah Gadon), forces Adam to go along with a swap so he can spend some time with Adam's girlfriend Mary (Melanie Laurent).
There's such an eerie, unsettling, Hitchcockian, De Palma-esque by way of Antonioni and Cronenberg feel to the first hour of ENEMY (at times, you might think it's a horror film) that it's almost enraging when you realize it's gone to such intriguing and fascinating lengths to tell such an ultimately banal story. And I haven't even gotten into the ham-fisted symbolism of spiders and webs, which wasn't part of Saramago's novel. ENEMY is borderline brilliant for 2/3 of its running time, but the back end of the script by Javier Gullon (who also co-wrote the intriguing 2007 thriller KING OF THE HILL) has all the depth and insight of someone's first and quickly-discarded draft in an Intro to Creative Writing course. The film is very well-directed by Villeneuve, who also teamed with Gyllenhaal on last year's more commercial PRISONERS (ENEMY was shot first, but released after). Villeneuve is a director who brings out the best in the actor, who was riveting in PRISONERS in a performance that deserved more attention than it got. Gyllenhaal delivers two strong performances here, even as the film starts collapsing around him in the closing sequences as--you guessed it--the lines between real and fantasy become impossibly blurred, not to mention hopelessly hackneyed. Still worth seeing for that opening hour and the powerfully dread-filled slow build...at least until it starts sabotaging itself. (R, 91 mins)
ROB THE MOB (US - 2014)
There's a slight sense of TRUE ROMANCE redux in this somewhat fictionalized account of Tommy and Rosemarie Uva, a Queens couple trying to stay on the right path after jail stints for armed robbery. Struggling in their 9-5 jobs, they started robbing mob-owned bars and social clubs. In one of their jobs, they managed to obtain a list that thoroughly detailed the Gambino and Bonnano family hierarchy, and as they got increasingly cocky and overconfident, they used it to guarantee their safety which, of course, backfired and the couple were whacked on Christmas Eve 1992. In ROB THE MOB, directed by Raymond De Felitta and written by Jonathan Fernandez, Tommy (Michael Pitt) and Rosie (Nina Arianda) aren't married, for some reason (they're planning to get married on Christmas Day, so perhaps it was a dramatic decision), and some of the names are changed, but otherwise, it mostly sticks to the story. The none-too-bright Tommy has a lifelong grudge against the local gangsters, who strong-armed, shook down, and eventually killed his florist father, so once they get desperate and he starts toying with the idea of ripping them off, Rosie can't talk him out of it, and when the money starts rolling in, she's OK with it as well. During one robbery, they get "the list" from inside the wallet of aged and slightly feeble mobster Joey D (Burt Young), and all hell breaks loose in the family, run by the reclusive Big Al Fiorello (Andy Garcia), a composite of Bonnano boss Joseph Massino and underboss Sal Vitale.
ROB THE MOB does a good job of mixing lighthearted and serious moments, as Tommy's early, haplessly clumsy attempts at pulling a social club stick-up get a reaction from the mobsters that's not unlike Richard Pryor's famous "Mafia Club" bit. But as things get serious and the stakes get higher, the shift to drama is smooth and organic. De Felitta (who previously worked with Garcia on 2009's enjoyable CITY ISLAND) does a superb job with period detail and other than some CGI effects in the closing scene, the whole film has a vivid sense of time and place and feels like it could've been made 20 years ago. The film takes place during the trial of John Gotti, whose 1992 conviction was essentially the beginning of the end for the old-school glory days of the American Mafia, and it deftly ties in an elegiac feeling for that era, though only Big Al seems aware that things are about to change. Most of the goodfellas in ROB THE MOB have seen better days but there's a comfortable complacency that's set in for them. It's a period of Mafia history that isn't glorious and hasn't been covered much in popular culture and ROB THE MOB offers a unique perspective in the "working-stiff gangster" subgenre with films like DONNIE BRASCO (1997) and KILLING THEM SOFTLY (2012). Fine performances all around from Pitt, Garcia, and Ray Romano as NYC crime reporter "Jerry Cardozo," presumably based on Gotti biographer and Mafia historian Jerry Capeci, in addition to colorful supporting turns by familiar faces like Michael Rispoli, Griffin Dunne, Cathy Moriarty, Yul Vazquez, John Tormey, Joseph R. Gannascoli, and Frank Whaley (Aida Turturro is prominently-billed but her role was cut from the film). The standout however, is Tony-winning Broadway actress Arianda in what would be a star-making big-screen breakout had Millennium released ROB THE MOB on more than 30 screens. Arianda is a ball of fire throughout, in her interaction with Tommy ("You bought me flowers!"), chewing people out on the phone at her collection agency job, or overcome with visions of fame and talking way too much when Cardozo wants to interview her. She handles the "tough moll" role in classic fashion and has a very natural, streetwise 1970s presence (these small-time Queens would-be gangsters always seem a little behind the times) that sets her apart from a lot of young actresses today, who probably would've appeared mannered and playing dress-up. It's the kind of showy role that could've easily been turned into a caricature, but Arianda keeps it under control and nails it, and if this movie had gotten any exposure at all, there's a good chance she'd be getting some legitimate Oscar buzz. On the whole, ROB THE MOB wanders a bit and isn't as ambitious or as focused as it should be, but it's a solid little film, and Arianda's performance is a big reason why. (R, 104 mins)
WOLF CREEK 2 (Australia - 2014)
In the horror genre, nine years is an unusually lengthy wait for a sequel, and after that amount of time, you might wonder why writer/director Greg McLean took so long to get to the follow-up to 2005's WOLF CREEK. And after you watch the absurdly tardy WOLF CREEK 2, you'll wonder why he even bothered. When it was released, WOLF CREEK got the attention of hardcore horror fans with its mercilessly bleak vision and its instantly iconic performance by veteran Australian character actor John Jarratt as gregarious Outback serial killer Mick Taylor. As Mick, Jarratt came across as the terrifying doppelganger of Crocodile Dundee, and the grueling film wasn't for horror amateurs. Indeed, it didn't go over with mainstream audiences (earning a rare F from the ludicrous CinemaScore), and was lumped in with the then in-vogue torture porn craze (which, to be fair, it shared some aspects), but horror scenesters embraced it and McLean was hailed as a major new talent in the genre. He returned with 2008's surprisingly good killer crocodile flick ROGUE, buried by Dimension Films after the similar and inferior PRIMEVAL beat it to theaters and bombed. McLean's been off the radar since ROGUE, and the pointless WOLF CREEK 2 isn't likely to re-establish his career momentum.
Jarratt is back, and rather than play Mick in the sinister, unsettling way he did nearly a decade ago, McLean instead has him crank it up to 11 and beyond, turning the character into a relentless killing machine with his endlessly-quipping Freddy Krueger zingers and asides ("Welcome to Australia, cocksucker!"). WOLF CREEK 2 eschews the nightmarish qualities of WOLF CREEK to go for broad horror comedy augmented by over-the-top splatter effects. Shifts in tone in a sequel are nothing new: Sam Raimi did it with 1987's EVIL DEAD 2 and it's the same approach Tobe Hooper took for 1986's THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE PART 2. It doesn't work here, nor does McLean's decision to attempt a "shifting of the protagonists" move from the PSYCHO playbook. The first hour is essentially one long chase as we spend a bunch of time with two likable German backpackers, Rutger (Philippe Klaus) and Katarina (Shannyn Ashlyn), only to have them exit as Mick's focus turns to British tourist Paul (Ryan Corr). Mick plays road and head games with Paul, eventually getting him back to his vast HOUSE OF 1000 CORPSES torture dungeon. It's hard to pinpoint exactly where WOLF CREEK 2 implodes beyond repair, but Mick plowing over kangaroos to the tune of "The Lion Sleeps Tonight" is as good a location as any. It doesn't really matter in the end, because this only exists to be THE JOHN JARRATT SHOW, with the actor's overbearing histrionics turning his second interpretation of Mick into an extended tribute to the career of Bill Moseley, whether he's screaming at the top of lungs, shouting Aussie jingles and limericks, or mowing down a friendly old couple to "The Blue Danube Waltz." Some nice cinematography and a tense opening sequence aside, the ill-advised and badly-executed WOLF CREEK 2 is just uninspired, stupid, and lazy. Here's to hoping McLean gets his mojo back before he has to shit out a WOLF CREEK 3 in desperation seven or eight years from now. (Unrated, 106 mins, also available on Netflix Instant)
