Tag Archives: 2023

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CAPSULE: ALTERED PERCEPTIONS (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: Jorge Ameer

FEATURING: Oran Stainbrook, Matt Fling, Danny Fehsenfeld, Vincent Giovanni, ,

PLOT: Pandemic, violence, and sedition threaten to destroy the United States; a father and son embedded in opposing political organizations are its last hope.

COMMENTS: Like most movies, Altered Perceptions ends with the standard notice, “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” I’m going to go ahead and ignore that. With characters like slimy Senator Ted DeMarcos, bigoted Governor Ron San Diego, and an obvious George Santos look-alike as a spineless henchman (sportingly portrayed by director Jorge Ameer himself), it is clear just which politico goons the filmmaker is referencing. Indeed, the protagonist’s name—Alex Feretti, son of Dr. Feretti, a Whitehouse disease big-wig—echoes a certain Dr. A. Fauci of pandemic fame.

And what a pandemic! Sure, Covid was bad enough, but it seems that the vaccines and boosters for it trigger a nasty mental deterioration coupled with homi- and suicidal violence in many who received it, especially blacks and HOMOsexuals (emphasis mimicking DeMarcos’ singular pronunciation). This leads to chaos in the country, which a gallery of secessionist goons take advantage of, ultimately requesting that all Blacks and HOMOsexuals who have received the vaccine voluntarily check in to observation facilities in America’s South and Southwest. And oh yes, it affects the elderly, too (cue not-at-all-President-Biden being called on to step down); and what with the pre-eminent disease guy (aforementioned Doctor F̶a̶u̶c̶i̶ Feretti) being a prominent homosexual, it’s all looking very bad for various put-upon groups.

The paragraph above is ill-wrought, so as to better give you an idea of the narrative flow of Altered Perceptions—and I haven’t yet even touched upon the fully-frontally nude time traveler who is desperate to enlist the help of Alex Feretti, who is not only the son of the nationally known doctor but also the top aide to Senator DeMarcos. These shotgun blasts of social commentary, interspersed with interludes of well-intentioned guesses at what a gay relationship is like, crackle over the course of two hours as we watch society collapse from both macro- and micro-focus. And before I forget, there’s a strange plot from North Korea brewing as well.

Jorge Ameer kept my interest throughout, it is true. But much of that stemmed from the constant crinkling sound I heard as the plot unfurled. The screenwriter is a neuropsychologist, and while axes are ground, its never clear what they ultimately end up swung at. Ameer is obviously earnest, but his technical (and storytelling) proficiency is only a few notches above Tommy Wiseau’s. The acting ranges from C- to B+, with son Feretti scoring the former and father Feretti the latter, rendering their interactions one-sidedly stilted. And while I don’t hold clunky special effects against anyone, others do—and are so warned.

Still, I much prefer a film’s reach to exceed its grasp than vice versa, and while I could reel off any number of further quibbles, I’d feel petty doing so. Ameer takes a stab at making a Big Movie with Big Ideas under the restraints of a low budget. If you will allow the use of a crummy double-metaphor, Altered Perceptions is like a slice of Swiss cheese: there are plenty of holes; but also like a slice of Swiss cheese, it holds together just enough to make it a notable addition in the greater Sandwich of Cinema.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… this is a glitchy, channel-surfing trawl through recent American history, where the dialogue is stylised and repetitive, the characters dumbed down, and the narrative unbelievable to the point of surrealism. Yet this is part of the point: for here, as in a Neil Breen film, artifice is foregrounded, the medium is the message, and ultimately it is the viewer’s perceptions which are altered, as Ameer – who also plays one of DeMarcos’ aides – infects us all with the maddening irrationality of America’s contemporary culture wars.”–Anton Bitel, Projected Figures (contemporaneous)

Altered Perceptions [Blu-ray]

Altered Perceptions [Blu-ray]
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CAPSULE: DARIO ARGENTO: PANICO (2023)

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Dario Argento: Panico is available for VOD rental or purchase (or free with a Shudder subscription)

DIRECTED BY: Simone Scafidi

FEATURING: , , , , Gaspar Noé,

PLOT: Dario Argento visits a hotel to write a script, while those who know or admire him praise his movies in interviews.

Still fro, Dario Argento: Panico (2023)

COMMENTS: Dario Argento: Panico gives you exactly what you would expect from this kind of biodoc: choice clips, some behind-the-scenes stuff, and a bunch of talking heads saying nice things about its subject (while awkwardly trying to avoid talking much about his twenty-first century work). The structure is mildly novel in that there is a ‘wraparound’ story: Argento, in the present day, travels to a resort to hole up and write a new script (his usual procedure). The opening cleverly juxtaposes Argento’s ride to the hotel with Suzy’s tempestuous taxicab journey to the ballet school in Suspiria. After this creepy prologue, the film follows Argento’s career chronologically, with select clips and testimony from friends, admirers, and Argento himself (both in the current day and in archival interviews). There are even a few humorous moments where the octogenarian director congenially complains about the heat, the other hotel guests, or the length of the interview.

The filmmakers interviewed here all come from the weird end of the cinema pool (each, in fact, has an entry in our Canon of 366 Weird Movies). Together, they make a case for Argento as a genuine horror auteur—one of the few, in a genre that is more often ruled by commercial considerations than artistic ones. Gaspar Noé even compares Argento’s work to the / films (which is an amazing compliment, if a bit of a stretch stylistically). Guillermo del Toro boils the work’s appeal down to its essence, declaring that Argento’s horror reveals “a cosmic sense of an angry, evil universe. Everything in Argento’s movies is trying to kill you.”

Every fan, casual or dedicated, likely has a particular curiosity about some aspect Argento’s canon. Personally, I’ve always wondered if its merely a coincidence that the director’s greatest decade (1975-1985) coincides almost exactly with his collaboration and romance with actress/writer (who was also the mother of his next greatest collaborator, Asia Argento.) Although Dario credits her as an inspiration, he already was on an upward trajectory before meeting Daria while planning Deep Red. Yet, his work begins a slow decline after their divorce. One clue comes from Asia, who explains that her mother had an interest in magic a lot of books on witchcraft. Before Nicolodi, Argento’s movies were mainly ian thrillers and gialli that had little of the supernatural in them; afterwards, his palette opens up to let in the eldritch and the paranormal. This confirmation of Nicolodi’s underappreciated influence alone made the documentary worth the watch for me.

This sort of retrospective is probably most appealing to viewers with a partial knowledge of the subject. Rabid fans will know most of this stuff already, and total newcomers won’t have the baseline knowledge to see why the connections being made are meaningful. But they perform a useful gap-filling function in the cinematic ecosystem: in this case, reminding me that I still need to catch up on Inferno.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“Throughout, Scafidi (whose 2019 biopic of Lucio Fulci proves he’s no stranger to bedeviled auteurs) presents Argento primarily as a visual artist, emphasizing the surreality of his images and the shadowy menace of his anonymous cityscapes.”–Jeanette Catsoulis, The New York Times (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: HANKY PANKY (2023)

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DIRECTED BY: , Nick Roth

FEATURING: Jacob DeMonte-Finn, Lindsey Haun, Ashley Holliday Tavares, Christina Laskay,  Clare Grant, Nick Roth, voice of

PLOT: Sam is mistakenly invited to a remote weekend reunion and people begin dying off.

COMMENTS: Hanging out in the dark basement, with fan full blast, empty soda cans piling up, and a low light pulsing from the 17″ cathode-ray television, Cannibal! the Musical hangs out with “The Mighty Boosh“. Hanky Panky enters, and Boosh gives Musical the old, Oooh boy, it’s the new guy-look. “Hey, HP, it’s… uh, great to see you!” (End scene on awkward silence.)

For dirt-cheap, you can fill your awkward silence right now for 86 minutes of “Umm…”, “Heh, uh.”, and “Bwah! What the—?”, among other remarks elicited by this, er, horror-science-fiction thingy. Sam (an awkward, civil, moustachioed Jacob DeMonte-Finn) has been mistakenly invited to a remote cabin for the weekend by Rebecca, who for reasons revealed earlier has assembled her sisters and their hangers-on. But unbeknownst to Rebecca, Sam comes with a secret—and powerful—friend in the form of a talking handkerchief named “Woody” who loves lapping up liquids.

Those of you who have read this far and gone, “Oh-ho, really?,” be well advised herewith: returning to the “basement” symbolism, the foley, practical effects, and much else in Hanky Panky are bargain-basement level. But what bargains! What mystery! What fascinating chunks of offal! And where did this melange of unpleasant and sympathetic characters come from? The directors do us the favor of killing them off in order from most annoying to least (which helps a good deal), with the final victim performing with such eccentric, jerky hamminess that I can’t help but respect the actress in question for the sheer force of her chutzpah.

The script must have seemed good enough to rope in Seth Green—as villainous alien, Harry the Hat—but while that actor fills me with the warmest of indifference, Hanky Panky is, happily, one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen. I could Recommend(ed)! it, but my boss would fire me for journalistic malpractice; I could tag it Weirdest, but my fellow reviewers would punch me in the mouth for raising their hopes. This is a paean to DIY daftness—or to phrase it as Woody might prefer, it is a moronic, masterful mess.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a stoner lo-fi sci-fi slasher comedy that starts off weird, gets a little off-putting, and then just blasts off into insanity from there.”–Douglas Davidson, Elements of Madness (contemporaneous)

Hanky Panky [DVD]

Hanky Panky [DVD]
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CAPSULE: RIDDLE OF FIRE (2023)

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Riddle of Fire is currently available for VOD rental or purchase. Blu-ray release coming later this year.

Recommended

DIRECTED BY: Weston Razooli

FEATURING: Phoebe Ferro, Charlie Stover, Skyler Peters, Charles Halford, Lio Tipton, Lorelei Olivia Mote

PLOT: Three miscreant kids search for a speckled egg they need to get the password to the TV, encountering a real-life witch on their quest.

Still from RIDDLE OF FIRE (2023)

COMMENTS: Riddle of Fire plays out like one of those kid-centered live-action Disney movies of the 70s, if the tykes were foul-mouthed (but still endearing) thieves, and the director was a drugged-out hippie. Tomboy Alice, chaste love-interest Hazel, and young Jodie (whose incongruously adult one-liners are all duplicated in subtitles in case you have trouble understanding his adoewabul accent) have no idea how good they have it on summer vacation, riding around big sky country on dirtbikes with paintball guns and no responsibilities. Preferring air-conditioned adventures, they hatch an elaborate plan to steal a next-generation video game console, but find their summer ruined when they discover mom has password-protected the smart TV. Suffering from a cold that will soon send her into a NyQuil coma, mom agrees to allow them to play for two hours if they bring her a blueberry pie. This sets the trio off on a quest which proves increasingly complicated, as they cannot obtain the pastry without first completing a series of mini-quests, culminating in the search for the film’s big MacGuffin, a lucky speckled egg. Unfortunately, the last carton of such eggs falls into the hands of a gruff “huntsman,” who also serves as hired muscle for a cult of taxidermist witches (who have a whole Mandy-for-kids vibe going on).

Shot on 16mm film (a choice that reinforces the antique feel) in summer-green mountain forests, this “neo-fairy tale” is an American folktale for the Playstation age. The landscape is speckled with red amanita toadstools, suggesting the permeating prevalence of witchcraft, while also nodding to the drug culture. The three (later four) moppets are all likable, despite being pint-sized hoodlums; their “us against the adult world” solidarity makes them easy to root for, and their loyalty to their sick mom softens their brattiness. The script, which incorporates video game tropes as naturally as fairy tale ones, is tightly constructed, leaving little to chance in its intricate web.

Although it mostly plays as a kiddie adventure flick of the type common in the 70s and into the 80s, Riddle of Fire puts oddball spins on the material whenever it can. Even taking the magical realist element of “The Enchanted Blade Gang” out of the picture, the tale has the feeling of a childhood memory: half-experienced, half-imagined, with off-key notes fluttering about. When the children steal their console, they celebrate by dancing around the prize singing a song that’s half old English nursery rhyme, half magical ritual. They sometimes slip words like “yon” or phrases like “that rather ghastly, chilling doll” into their casual conversations. Things really get strange in their 4 A.M. trip to “The Hall of Fortunes,” a mixture between a roadhouse bar and post-apocalyptic trading post where all the adults drink 40 ounces, and the only other kid in sight is painted blue and holding a trident. Since they’re unfamiliar with the adult world, the kids don’t have a sense of how terribly wrong this entire setup is; it’s a hallucination based on a hazy understanding of what grown-ups do when they’re not around.

The irony of these children undergoing the magical adventure of a lifetime in a quest to play in a much less imaginative digitized world is delicious. Somehow, we actually celebrate with the little reprobates when they achieve their goal of sitting on their butts and clicking buttons all day, which is a testament to how much we buy in to the crazy premise debuting director Razooli conjures here. Riddle of Fire is full of stylistic and cultural references, but somehow still feels largely sui generis; it will be fascinating to see where the newly minted auteur goes from here.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“… both grounded and fantastical, sweet and sad, a beautiful snapshot of childhood where kids are allowed to be weird little gremlins with opulent tastes and bad attitudes.”–Mary Beth McAndrews, Dread Central (contemporaneous)

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CAPSULE: SWEET DREAMS (2023)

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 Zoete dromen

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DIRECTED BY: Ena Sendijarevic

FEATURING: Hayati Azis, , Florian Myjer, Lisa Zweerman, Muhammad Khan, Rio Kaj Den Haas

PLOT: During the twilight of the Dutch empire, Cornelis is summoned to the family’s Indonesian sugar plantation after his father’s death, only to find that his illegitimate half-brother Karel is to inherit everything.

Still from Sweet Dreams (2023)

COMMENTS: Indonesia is a beautiful country, despite the Netherlands’ 19th-century imperial ambitions. Ena Sendijarevic’s Sweet Dream allows only occasional glimpses of the glorious landscape, instead trapping the viewer in a decrepit mansion peopled by tottering overseers and embittered local workers. This palatial home, its un-worked plantation, and its silent factory, hold untold secrets—and one very open one. The indigenous maid and the transplanted patriarch have a son, whose existence catalyses the unruly collapse of this microcosm of empire.

Three of Sendijarevic’s stylistic choices anchor her film’s covertly hostile tone. An opening foley creation of buzzes, rustlings, and sizzles promises sweeping jungle. Instead, we find ourselves trapped in 4:3 screen ratio of choking flora. The family home should feel voluminous, but each chamber is trapped by deep shots with tight camera edges. The coloring is delightful but blighted. Each room exhibits what was once a glorious coat of paint—a grand maroon hallway, a hunter green dining room, and a bedroom hued like the yolk of an egg—deteriorating badly from age and stifling humidity. Third, the music. Old, old classics, bubbling up time and again, like a remindful dirge.

Sweet Dreams‘ occasional twitches from traditional period piece make this film, if not outright “weird,”  then certainly eccentric. Sitti and Reza are Indonesian natives; the former works as a maid for the Dutch family (and is mother of the natural son), the latter is an erstwhile plantation worker. They share good-natured barbs, have an ebb-and-flow appreciation of the other, and are bilingual. A love scene between the two—classily shot, unlike an early encounter between Sitti and the patriarch—features a gushing synth score and a magically luminescent moon. Another night, Sitti dreams of Reza as a slumbering behemoth beneath vibrant moon, resting herself serenely in the palm of his semi-closed hand.

I found myself so wrapped up in the hazy claustrophobia and painterly images, that the title’s punnery didn’t hit me until well after the film; and, grim punning aside, a darkly humorous streak runs throughout. The mother writes to her son in the Netherlands with good news and bad: his father has died. The bad news is that he must come immediately to the plantation. The Dutch dolts spend much time ordering holes dug around the property, the location of patriarch’s corpse having slipped the mother’s mind. Dutch boy’s wife is afflicted further and further by mosquito bites. Dutch boy himself devolves mentally as he comes to know his half-brother—one for whom Papà crafted a toy by hand.

Sweet Dreams, alongside the soggy decrepitude of the manse and the eye-popping lushness of surrounding jungle, is heavily symbolic, even obviously so—though is no worse for its sleeve-worn metaphors. Like the family, the colonizers’ time is coming to an end, with strange fate and ill machinations auguring a discouraging future. But decay will be supplanted by the younger generation, the new generation, rising from the flames of the by-going era.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“More poem than conventional narrative, Sweet Dreams explores the tropes of the colonial fable with a romantic eye and a sharp wit. There is a little sympathy present even for its most monstrous characters, but very little mercy for anyone.”—Jennie Kermode, Eye for Film UK (contemporaneous)