A mechanical doll takes care of other toys, and human remains, until an invisible spirit brings a snowstorm inside.
Tag Archives: 2024
CAPSULE: ADULT SWIM YULE LOG 2: BRANCHIN’ OUT (2024)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Casper Kelly
FEATURING: Andrea Laing, Michael Shenefelt, Sharon Blackwood, Asher Alexander, Jesse Malinowski
PLOT: The killer yule log is back and looking for Zoe, who finds herself stranded in the Christmasy town of Mistletoe, which is planning their first annual Yule Log festival: can Zoe overcome her fear of being bashed in the head by an evil flaming log and embrace the spirit of Christmas, finding love with one of town’s clumsy hunks?
COMMENTS: Adult Swim Yule Log, which dropped without warning in December 2022, had serial killers, aliens, ghosts, and a miniature plantation owner who lived in a fireplace in addition to its centerpiece: a flying, flaming, homicidal yule log. This sequel, which dropped without warning in December 2024, seemed unlikely to top all that insanity. And, wisely, writer/director Caspar Kelly doesn’t even try: instead, as the insouciant subtitle suggests, he pivots from an absurdist comedy with genuine moments of horror to a flat-out comedy, delivering a work that simultaneously parodies horror sequels and Hallmark Christmas rom-coms, with just enough bizarre touches to keep the franchise on brand. The result is a film that, while not as constantly surprising and weird as the original, is every bit as entertaining and watchable.
There are some nods to the previous installment (a trip inside a refrigerator that mirrors the trip inside the fireplace, gratuitous cameo appearances by beloved characters in the last scene), but you do not have to have seen the first one to enjoy this: if you’ve seen any horror sequel and a trailer for a Hallmark Christmas movie, you’ll be up to speed in no time. In fact, forget most of what you know about the first movie and just think of the Yule Log as an immortal slasher like Michael Meyers or Jason (despite being the most ridiculous inanimate horror villain since the Death Bed). Zoe, the final girl of the part 1, was understandably traumatized by the experience, so much so that she now carries a woodcutter’s axe with her wherever she goes—a running joke that gets funnier as the movie goes on. Her obligatory gay best friend suggests she needs a change of scenery to leave the memory of the horror behind her. Unfortunately, due to bad luck and possibly the machinations of a man in a Santa suit (whose character I never actually figured out), she finds herself stranded in Mistletoe, a Christmas-loving town peopled mainly by clumsy hunks who make every stroll down Main Street a never-ending ordeal of meets cutes. The movie takes on a meta tone as Zoe realizes that she is in either a horror movie or a Hallmark movie—and that she has, to some extent, the power to chose between them. The cinematography neatly goes fullscreen and full color for the romcom sequences, then narrows the frame to letterbox format and darkens in grade when the horror is predominant. This motif is employed well so that it always surprises you when it happens—but then you forget about the dual format, and it surprises you again the next time it happens.
Although she was the putative protagonist of the first movie, Andrea Laing particularly didn’t stand out in what was more of an ensemble film. Here, she stretches and impresses as she switches back and forth between plucky horror heroine and emotionally vulnerable romantic lead. And writer/director Caspar Kelly proves he can succeed at whatever he sets his mind to. If you cut out the Yule log related elements to leave only the Hallmark parody, you’d have one of the wackiest comedies of 2024, something with genuine box office potential. Despite the fact that this odd little TV movie will be seen by relatively few, it would surprise me if neither Laing nor Kelly expanded their profiles after this. Laing has talent, and Kelly may be outgrowing the Adult Swim sandbox—it’s time to branch out. True, AS gives Kelly a blank check for whatever weird project that swims through his strange mind, which is commendable; but there is an entire non-basic-cable audience of cinephiles (i.e., feature film snobs) out there who are missing out on a real original’s demented creations. You can’t take the Christ out of Christmas (because who wants to sing mas carols and open mas presents under the mas tree?); but you can take the Adult Swim out of Adult Swim Yule Log. Can you imagine seeing Yule Log 3: Wreck the Halls, starring Andrea Laing, in the cinema in two years?
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
SATURDAY SHORT: ODD (2024)
The many imaginary forms of cacti.
CAPSULE: PEDRO PÁRAMO (2024)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Rodrigo Prieto
FEATURING: Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Tenoch Huerta, Mayra Batalla, Ilse Salas, Roberto Sosa, Dolores Heredia
PLOT: A man travels to the Mexican ghost town of Comala searching for his father, Pedro Páramo.
COMMENTS: Trekking through an endless expanse of desolate desert, Juan meets a man leading a train of burros. Juan explains that he’s going to Comala searching for his father, Pedro Páramo, to fulfill his mother’s dying wish. The traveler knows Pedro Páramo—pretty well, it turns out—but warns Juan that the village is deserted and his father is long dead. Juan nevertheless enters the town and finds lodging with a psychic woman who just happens to be an old friend of his mother’s (and, naturally, of Pedro Páramo). In the eerie silence of the abandoned town, strange things begin happening; then, with little forewarning, the movie shuttles us into flashbacks from Pedro Páramo’s life.
These flashbacks are presented in an entirely different style and tone from Juan’s experiences during what turns into an eternal night in Comala. The town is now drab, dusty, and decrepit, lensed in weathered browns and worn grays, but in its heyday it was lush and green and thriving. The flashbacks flow in a nonlinear stream, and there are brief moments of disorientation as the audience figures out who the characters are and at what stage of life; but the past holds no spectral magic, unlike Juan’s present. An unflattering portrait of Pedro Páramo emerges: an ambitious man, driven by greed and lust, who brings tragedy to the town. He fathers many children (mostly though seduction, adultery, and rape), kills many rivals, and has a contentious relationship with the town priest, who has as much reason to resent him as to fear him. Pedro Páramo seems to represent Mexico’s landed class, and will clash with a group of armed peasant rebels—although he chooses not to fight them, but tries to negotiate while hoping for a chance to betray them. You search in vain for a reason to like Pedro, but even his genuine loves, for a rapist son and for his childhood sweetheart, are tinged with perversity and instinctual evil.
While both parts of the film—the magical realist ghost story and the completely realist generational saga—are engaging in their own way, there is a serious imbalance between them that turns into a major flaw. The film is caught between two worlds, but chooses one over the other, as it abandons Juan’s mystical experiences in Comala at about the halfway point—just as they reach a peak coinciding with a vision of a cyclone of naked bodies spinning in the desert air over the town square. I am not sure how the original source novel handled the frequent switching between Juan and Pedro’s perspectives, but it feels wrong here; as we watch the second half of Pedro Páramo’s story play out, we keep expecting to return to check in with Juan, and that never really happens. His absence is particularly hard to take if the part of the movie that really interests you was the encounters with the town’s many ghosts, rather than the tragic backstory.
This odd pacing decision is a blow to the film, but not a fatal one. By the time Juan disappeared from the story, I still wanted to see how his father turned out in the end. Like most petty tyrants, he comes to a bad end, but only after too long of a life spent enjoying the fruits his wickedness.
Pedro Páramo was adapted from a famous and influential 1955 Mexican novel by Juan Rulfo, which was lauded by writers like Gabriel García Márquez and Jorge Luis Borges. It has been adapted once before, for Mexican television. Prieto, the acclaimed cinematographer of Brokeback Mountain, Killers of the Flower Moon, and Barbie chose this novel as his feature directing debut. Naturally, the film looks amazing, and the cast of Mexican actors unknown north of the border put in excellent work, particularly the stoical Manuel Garcia-Rulfo in the title role. The film debuted at the Toronto Film Festival and then was snatched up by Netflix, who did it a disservice by not giving it a U.S. theatrical release (therefore making it ineligible for awards season consideration). At least more people will have the chance to view it on the mega-streamer—assuming they can find it buried in Netflix’s content graveyard, international art film quadrant.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
CAPSULE: PIECE BY PIECE (2024)
366 Weird Movies may earn commissions from purchases made through product links.
DIRECTED BY: Morgan Neville
FEATURING: Voice of Pharrell Williams
PLOT: An autobiographical documentary about hip-hop producer/musician Pharrell Williams, with all interviews and dramatizations recreated in Lego animation.
COMMENTS: Pharrel Williams, of course, is well-known as the composer and producer of such hits as… um… well, I confess I can’t actually remember any of the titles. With his band/production unit the Neptunes, Pharrel has worked with a lot of other performers whose names I’ve heard but whose tunes I can’t hum: Kendrick Lamar, Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, Jay-Z, Justin Timberlake. He primarily produces and sells “beats” (as an old fogey, I still haven’t adjusted to the fact that “beats” have replaced “songs” as the primary unit of pop music). All of them have the quality of being “catchy”: i.e., unique enough to tickle your ear, but generic enough to feel familiar and comfortable.
I write the above not to praise my own snobbishness or to disparage Williams’ art. He’s clearly an accomplished pop craftsman, but his musical style just isn’t my thing. But the remarkable thing is that, by telling what otherwise would be a self-serving, by-the-book musical biodoc about a subject I don’t care about through the unexpected format of Lego animation, Williams captured my attention. It’s a gimmick, but it works: not only is it visually (and even synesthesially) interesting, but there is just enough resonance between Lego blocks and the modularity of the creative process to make for an apt metaphor.
It is, of course, amusing to see scenes like Lego Pharrell Williams meeting Lego Snoop Dogg. A plastic box labeled “PG Spray” puts a smile on everyone’s face during their audience, which embodies the carefree, child-friendly approach to Williams’ story. The film never loses its optimism that everything will always work out for Pharrell (and, it suggests, for anyone else who adopts his gee-whiz, gung-ho workaholism). But, in between the cute cubist celebrity cameos lie more ambitiously animated sequences. The Lego visuals, supplemented by digitally-applied neon, demonstrate more grandeur than expected. The tone is set in an early dream scene where a blocky yellow Triton knights young Pharrell in his undersea kingdom. It’s best exemplified by a bravura sequence where the musician explains his childhood synesthasia: he sits before speakers blaring a Stevie Wonder LP, which draw him into a trippy world where sound becomes “beautiful cubes of light cascading” over his blissed out Lego features. Pharrell’s commercial beats are depicted throughout as bouncing blocks arranged in novel geometric patterns with blinking lights attached. There also are singing whales, and a trip into space where Carl Sagan delivers cosmic wisdom. Piece by Piece may not be completely accurate, or provide much practical insight into the creative process, but it accurately conveys the ecstasy of inspiration that keeps artists slaving away at their craft. Like any mega-celebrity, Williams is primarily a marketer, devoting more care to the sizzle than to the steak. And this is great sizzle.
WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:
(This movie was nominated for review by “Anonymous,” who correctly noted “most of the weirdness is solely in the visuals, in a Fantasia sort of sense.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)
