On DVD/Blu-ray: THE VOICES (2015); PRESERVATION (2015); and LATE PHASES (2014)

THE VOICES
(US/Germany - 2015)

A hired-gun gig for PERSEPOLIS graphic novelist and director Marjane Satrapi, THE VOICES is a dark splatter comedy with Ryan Reynolds as Jerry, a socially-awkward but generally nice and eager-to-please guy who works at a small-town bathtub and sink factory. Jerry has a history of mental illness and was institutionalized when he was a teenager and may have had a hand in his schizophrenic mother's death. Jerry lies to his psychiatrist Dr. Warren (Jacki Weaver), telling her that he dutifully takes his meds every day, but he's not. As a result, his home life is a fantasy world where he spends his evenings in his apartment above a vacant bowling alley, carrying on conversations with his cat Mr. Whiskers and his dog Bosco (Reynolds voices both animals--a sarcastic, foul-mouthed Scottish brogue for Mr. Whiskers and an aw-shucks, Cecil Turtle voice for Bosco). He has a crush on Fiona (Gemma Arterton) in accounting and through a convoluted chain of events, ends up accidentally killing her. He dismembers the body and stores her head in the fridge, where she whines that she's lonely and wants a friend. Lisa (Anna Kendrick) also works in accounting and likes Jerry, even sleeping with him before making the mistake of dropping by his place uninvited just as Jerry is most vulnerable to caving to the horrible suggestions made by Bosco and Mr. Whiskers.

When Jerry is off his meds and happily conversing with his cat, dog, and Fiona's head, we see his apartment through his eyes: clean, colorful and pleasant. When he tries going back on his meds, the pets are silent, Fiona's head is rotting, he has no one to talk to and is confronted with the reality that his home resembles an abattoir, with blood-splattered walls and floors and Fiona's body parts and entrails stacked in countless Tupperware containers. Satrapi and screenwriter Michael R. Perry (a veteran of TV shows like THE PRACTICE, MILLENNIUM, and LAW & ORDER: SVU) dutifully keep the film on track when it could easily fly off the rails and become a high-end Herschell Gordon Lewis film. Satrapi wisely has Reynolds underplay it, even when he's having imaginary conversations with a severed head, and they succeed in actually generating sympathy for an obviously sick person who feels tremendous guilt over his actions but can't stop himself, is too hesitant to make new friends because he's concerned his mental problems will scare them off, and is terrified to take his meds because then the voices go away and he has nothing to keep him company. It's a difficult performance that could've veered toward Jim Carrey in maximum "Allllrighty then!" mode, but even amidst the black humor and the buckets of gore being spilled, Reynolds--an underrated actor who can't seem to shake his VAN WILDER image with critics and audiences alike--is grounded and believable. It's too bad that Satrapi lets things bog down in the home stretch, the film runs about 15 minutes too long and it probably could've done without ending with a musical number. But THE VOICES is a quirky and interesting comedy/drama/horror mash-up that was an undeniably tough sell (shot in Berlin in 2013, it played at Sundance in January 2014 and only got a small theatrical release in February 2015), but has "future cult movie" written all over it...in blood. (R, 104 mins)


PRESERVATION
(US - 2015)

A sort-of YOU'RE NEXT GOES CAMPING, this survivalist horror film has a few moments of credible suspense (the creepiest being one character taking a selfie at night, with the flash revealing a split-second glimpse of a masked figure in the trees behind him), but it too often falls victim to contrivances and outright stupidity. On no less than four separate occasions, characters carelessly turn their backs on someone they thought was dead only to turn around and find them either gone or very much alive and ready for the kill. Anesthesiologist Wit (Wrenn Schmidt of BOARDWALK EMPIRE) and her stockbroker husband Mike (Aaron Staton of MAD MEN) were supposed to have a romantic camping getaway but Mike invited his war vet brother Sean (Pablo Schreiber, best known for his recurring role as a serial rapist on LAW & ORDER: SVU) along. Right from the start, things seem off: Mike keeps fondly reminiscing of sadistic childhood pranks, Wit seems distracted, and Sean, still psychologically scarred from his time serving in Afghanistan, obviously has feelings for Wit. They illegally enter a closed state park to go deer hunting and after one drunken night, they awake to find their guns, gear, food, water, shoes, Sean's dog, and Mike's cell phone gone and "X"'s Sharpie'd on their foreheads. Irrational, braying jackass Mike immediately accuses Sean of having a PTSD breakdown and wanting to sleep with Wit, and as the parties split up--Wit and Mike go off to the find their SUV while Sean looks for his dog--it soon dawns on them that they're being stalked by three masked murderers--actually teenage boys--intent on slaughtering them.

Actor Christopher Denham (ARGO, SOUND OF MY VOICE) wrote and directed PRESERVATION, and while there's intermittent instances of directorial skill, his script is really dumb. It's not just the way the characters constantly turn their backs on lethal threats, but in the predictable way everything plays out. Of course, hot-headed bro-type Mike is going to blame his brother for what's going on, and of course he's too preoccupied with taking calls from work to have time to talk to Wit, who secretly buys a home pregnancy test at a convenience store on their way to the state park. Of course, the old-school trap Mike sets in the woods will ultimately trap (wait for it) Mike, and the way Mike (notice what a dick this guy is?) carelessly leaves the necks of broken beer bottles near a rest area park will come into play much later. And how does Wit have time to set off a bunch of flares and decorate the ranger station with paraphernalia to taunt the killers in a way that references something that happened between the killers and Mike and that Wit, separated from the dead Mike (oh yeah, spoiler alert) couldn't possibly know about?  It doesn't get much dumber than Mike (this guy again) hiding in a Port-a-John while one of the killers is trying to kick the door in. Mike kicks the top off the Port-a-John and climbs out, kicking and grunting the whole way, then sneaks from the back around to the front to find the killer still looking at the door of the Port-a-John to figure out a way in, as if he could somehow miss all the noise Mike was making while climbing out of the top. Denham also tries to say something about technology and interpersonal disconnect in the way Mike and Wit can't find time to talk and in the way the killers take a break on the edge of a lake and don't talk, but rather, sit down and text one another in silence. Oh...because people don't communicate! Get it?  These kids today with the texting and the video games and the stalking and the murder. Do yourself a favor and stick with RITUALS instead. (Unrated, 88 mins, also streaming on Netflix Instant).


LATE PHASES
(US/Mexico - 2014)

An unusual if not altogether successful werewolf movie, LATE PHASES distinguishes itself from the CGI crowd by relying on practical effects that recall the nearly 35-year-old transformation work of Rick Baker on AN AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON and Rob Bottin on THE HOWLING. There's only one big transformation sequence, and Spanish filmmaker Adrian Garcia Bogliano (HERE COMES THE DEVIL) errs in showing too much of the werewolf in the attack scenes, as it looks as if the producers scoured eBay for the cheapest, rattiest werewolf costume they could find. LATE PHASES really gets a boost from an excellent performance by cult actor Nick Damici (STAKE LAND, COLD IN JULY), playing about 20 years older than his age as Ambrose McKinley, a blind, widowed Vietnam vet being taken to a retirement community by his son Will (Ethan Embry). On his first night in his new residence, Ambrose's dog Shadow and his neighbor Dolores (SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER's Karen Lynn Gorney) are killed by what's thought to be a giant dog. The useless local cops dismiss it ("This kind of thing happens all the time...old people can't defend themselves") but Ambrose, his other senses heightened with the loss of his sight, rightly feels something is off here, and not just because he dislikes the concept of retirement communities in general ("People don't come here to live...they come here to die," he tells Will's wife). Still a crack shot even without sight, Ambrose quickly alienates his chatty neighbors who want nothing to do with him (among them are GILLIGAN'S ISLAND's Tina Louise, AMITYVILLE II's Rutanya Alda, and HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE's Caitlin O'Heaney), but finds a mutual understanding in his philosophical conversations with local priest Father Roger (Tom Noonan), who has enough sympathy for old Ambrose that he arranges for church employee Griffin (THE LAST STARFIGHTER's Lance Guest) to transport him on outings when the other residents refuse to ride the bus with him.

With the coughing, wheezing werewolf having a distinct smell that Ambrose picks up on when he talks to two different coughing, wheezing characters, it doesn't take long to figure out who the werewolf is (and much like THE HOWLING's "The Colony," the werewolf situation seems to be an open secret, at least with the cops and the community staffers), but LATE PHASES is less about werewolfery and more a character study about an old man trying to find purpose and dignity in a bad situation (LATE PHASES referring to both the lunar cycle and Ambrose's life). It's an odd mix--imagine GRAN TORINO if Clint Eastwood's neighbors were werewolves instead of Hmong immigrants--that stays mostly interesting thanks to the outstanding work of Damici, who brilliantly channeled William Smith in STAKE LAND and here seems like a somber and even more stoical Charles Bronson. Only when Bogliano goes full throttle horror near the end does the film start falling apart, starting with a confusingly-shot sequence where the werewolf (one of them, at least) makes its presence known and explains itself as it transforms. Moody and character-driven, LATE PHASES has a few generous gore scenes but isn't really scary or particularly suspenseful, but when Damici is onscreen, he commands your attention. Plus, that supporting cast (Tina Louise and Karen Lynn Gorney sightings?!) is pretty fascinating. (Unrated, 96 mins)

On DVD/Blu-ray: COLD IN JULY (2014) and OBVIOUS CHILD (2014)

COLD IN JULY
(France/US - 2014)

Based on a 1989 novel by genre-hopping author Joe R. Lansdale (BUBBA HO-TEP), COLD IN JULY is the latest film from the team of director/writer Jim Mickle and writer/actor Nick Damici. Their previous efforts--2007's MULBERRY ST, 2011's STAKE LAND, and 2013's WE ARE WHAT WE ARE--were firmly grounded in the horror genre, and while the crime thriller COLD IN JULY is a departure for the duo, it doesn't lack for terrifying moments and its share of disturbing plot developments. COLD IN JULY veers all over the place in tone, but Mickle and Damici's script and Mickle's confident direction handle these shifts with expert precision:  one false note or overplayed line reading could've stalled or even derailed the momentum. And it is a relentlessly-paced piece of work, exhilarating and unpredictable, audacious and wild, the hard-boiled crime equivalent of Adam Wingard's YOU'RE NEXT. Mickle wears his love of John Carpenter on his sleeve, down to the Carpenter font title card and the pulsating, synth-heavy score by Jeff Grace. IFC didn't give this much of a release (73 screens, grossing $423,000) and primarily relegated it to VOD, but it's one of 2014's best films, anchored by a trio of pitch-perfect performances.

Set in East Texas in 1989, the film opens with picture framer Richard Dane (Michael C. Hall) and his schoolteacher wife Ann (Vinessa Shaw) awakened in the middle of the night by a burglar. After nervously loading his gun, Richard confronts the intruder and kills him after his finger slips on the trigger. It's an open-and-shut case of justifiable homicide for local cop Ray Price (Damici), who IDs the intruder as one Freddy Russell and arranges for the county to give him a quick burial. Trouble arrives in the form of Freddy's recently-paroled ex-con father Ben (Sam Shepard), who's none too pleased with Richard for killing his son and promptly begins threatening him, following him around, showing up at his young son's school, and eventually terrorizing his family. When Price informs Richard that Ben was arrested just over the Mexico border, Richard is relieved that the threat is gone but when he sees a Wanted mugshot for a "Freddy Russell" at the sheriff's office, he can see it's obviously not the guy he killed. Price starts behaving in an overly evasive fashion with Richard, enough that Richard starts following Price around, leading to the first of the film's unexpected detours. Needless to say, Price is hiding something and an unlikely alliance is formed between Richard and Ben--Richard wants to know why Price is lying to him and Ben wants to find out what's really up with his missing but very much alive son (played by Kurt Russell and Goldie Hawn's son Wyatt Russell, a dead ringer for his dad). Ben calls in a favor from his Korean War pal, pig farmer/flashy private eye Jim Bob Luke (damn near career-best work by Don Johnson), whose investigation into Freddy's whereabouts takes the film into some grim places involving the "Dixie Mafia," prostitution, and snuff films, prompting the three men to take matters into their own hands.

Hall, Shepard, and especially Johnson (who doesn't appear until nearly an hour in and when he does, he immediately steals the film from his co-stars) make such a terrific and oddly likable team that even a blatantly comedic sequence involving a car accident somehow manages to fit in with the brutal goings-on. Mickle and his regular cinematographer Ryan Samul create an extremely stylish look for COLD IN JULY, with garish reds, greens, and blues that give it an almost giallo hue at times. This extends to the gore-drenched finale, where Mickle manages to make something stunningly artistic out of blood from a blown-off head splattering a ceiling light and turning the room into a dark shade of crimson. Some elements of COLD IN JULY are reminiscent of the Coen Bros. in BLOOD SIMPLE mode, but it really is its own film, and it's the definitive cinematic statement thus far from Mickle and Damici, who've made some interesting yet flawed films but haven't knocked one out of the park until now. The brazenly original COLD IN JULY is the cold-cocking, knock-you-on-your-ass real deal. Nice job, guys. (R, 110 mins)



OBVIOUS CHILD
(US - 2014)

Jenny Slate's time as a featured player on SATURDAY NIGHT LIVE in the 2009-2010 season got off to the worst possible start when she secured her place in SNL lore by dropping an F-bomb during her first on-camera appearance. She wasn't brought back for a second season but has spent the subsequent years busting her ass on TV, with recurring roles on BORED TO DEATH, HELLO LADIES, PARKS AND RECREATION, HOUSE OF LIES, and MARRIED, and guest appearances on numerous others. She's continued building a name for herself in stand-up comedy circles, and OBVIOUS CHILD was supposed to be her big-screen breakthrough. While it received critical accolades and was riding on significant Sundance buzz, it didn't quite bring Slate into the mainstream as a headliner. It grossed just $3 million, which isn't bad for something only rolled out on 200 screens, a better tally than most things hailed as game-changers on the festival circuit only to land with a thud with the general public. Expanding her 2009 short film of the same title, which also starred a pre-SNL Slate, writer/director Gillian Robespierre handles sensitive and potentially divisive issues and takes risks in presenting a main character who she isn't afraid to show in a warts-and-all fashion. In a remarkably vanity-free performance, Slate is aspiring stand-up comic Donna, who's just been dumped by her thinks-antiperspirant-in-deodorant-causes-Alzheimer's boyfriend (Paul Briganti) right before she learns the indie bookstore where she's worked for five years is closing in a few weeks. Heartbroken Donna's sets at the comedy club turn into drunken, meandering rants, and she ends up having a one-night-stand with nice-guy video-game designer Max (Jake Lacy, "Pete" on the final season of THE OFFICE), and can't bring herself to tell him when she finds out she's pregnant several weeks later and has decided to get an abortion.

OBVIOUS CHILD handles its subject in as mature and matter-of-fact fashion as any film dealing with abortion has, and that includes Slate's portrayal of Donna, who's introduced as someone who doesn't seem to take things very seriously but her situation forces her to grow up fast and see her life in different ways. Robespierre isn't afraid to let Slate sometimes come off as mildly irritating at times, and despite the glowing reception she gets from the comedy club audience, her stand-up isn't always that funny. There's a tendency throughout to rely on Donna's obsession with scatological and bodily function-based humor and observations--though this isn't a grossout comedy, there's lots of talk about such things, and the moment Donna decides to go home with Max is right after they're pissing in an alley together and he accidentally farts in her face. It's presumably to make Donna (or Slate) a "real" and "just one of the guys" type, but Slate plays "real" emotion better in a beautifully-acted scene where she lays it all out for her judgmental, dismissive mom (Polly Draper), who responds with open arms, sympathy, and a revelation that she had an abortion herself during college. Slate and Draper play this scene perfectly and it's one of OBVIOUS CHILD's best moments. Slate's initial tendency toward the annoying and being the type who ends every sentence with, like, a question mark? dissipates as the film goes on, and her performance grows more steady and assured as Donna matures. In the end, OBVIOUS CHILD is a short and slight little character piece, charming and raunchy in equal doses and sometimes overly reliant on indie hipster tropes (it is set in Williamsburg and Brooklyn, after all), but admirably, other than a few cliches like the obligatory gay best friend (Gabe Liedman), a romantic comedy that isn't really interested in most conventions of the romantic comedy. Also with Richard Kind as Donna's dad, Gaby Hoffmann as her roommate, and David Cross in a small role as a comic friend who just scored a pilot deal. (R, 84 mins)