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Apocryphally Weird

66*. I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020)

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“And the sun flicks my eyes—
It was all a pack o’ lies!
I’m awake in a lonely room.

I ain’t gonna dream ’bout her arms no more!
I ain’t gonna leave her alone!
Goin’ outside,
Git myself a bride,
Git me a woman to call my own.”

–“Lonely Room,” Oklahoma!

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , , , , Guy Boyd

PLOT: As a snowstorm approaches, a young woman travels for the first time with her boyfriend Jake to meet his parents, but inwardly she is struggling to work up the courage to end things between them. Strange things happen at Jake’s house: not only is his parent’s behavior awkward, but their ages change before her eyes. Meanwhile, the action frequently cuts to an elderly high school janitor as he makes his rounds; the third act will bring the couple into contact with him.

Still from i'm thinnking of ending things (2020)

BACKGROUND:

  • Based on Ian Reid’s 2016 psychological novel of the same name.
  • An early prestige property for Netflix, who gave it a limited theatrical release in 2020 to qualify for awards season, then kept it locked into their exclusive streaming service.
  • Several of the film’s monologues—including Buckley’s poem, her opinions on John Cassavetes’ A Woman Under the Influence, and Plemmons’ “acceptance” speech— are lifted wholesale from other people’s writings (“Bonedog” by Eva HD, Pauline Kael’s review, and A Beautiful Mind‘s Nobel speech, respectively).
  • The film-within-the-film, a romantic comedy credited to , is fictional. (Zemeckis is thanked in the credits for allowing his name to be attached.)
  • The end credits include a list of the various books, artworks, etc. referenced throughout the film.

INDELIBLE IMAGE: A cartoon pig leads a naked elderly man through the sterile hallways of a high school in the middle of the night. Bloody droplets drop from the animal’s underbelly, staining the newly-shined floor, as he plods along—maggots, he explains, as he is a maggot-infested pig.

TWO WEIRD THINGS: Ice cream in a blizzard; animated maggot-ridden pig leads naked man to awards ceremony

WHAT MAKES IT WEIRD: This labyrinth of awkward interactions, faulty memories, and uncertain identities may just be Charlie Kaufman’s most surreal film.

Original trailer for I’m Thinking of Ending Things

COMMENTS: Someone should take a pencil and catalog how many Continue reading 66*. I’M THINKING OF ENDING THINGS (2020) →

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CAPSULE: ALMA & THE WOLF (2025)

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Alma & the Wolf is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: Ethan Embry, Li Jun Li, Lukas Jann, Jeremie Harris, Kevin Allison

PLOT: Ren, a deputy in an out-of-the-way town, investigates a dog-killing wolf at the behest of his old high school crush, Alma.

Still from Alma & the Wolf (2025)

COMMENTS: A word of advice: don’t go into Alma & the Wolf expecting a standard werewolf movie, or any standard horror movie, for that matter. Focus instead on Ethan Embry’s fine portrayal of Ren, a peaked-in-high-school separated dad struggling with a drinking problem. You’ll be much happier with that approach.

“Nothing good ever comes from here, but lucky for the wider world, nothing ever leaves,” Ren says of the rural town of Spiral Creek. Ren himself is a former high school pitcher whose career ended prematurely with Tommy John surgery and whose life has been in a downward spiral since. Now a failed husband and deputy cop who’s been on this rural beat forever without much hint of promotion, he’s pinned all his hopes on his son, Jack, who’s following in his athletic footsteps and has serious athletic prospects. Ren is also interested in Alma, who seems (at times) to reciprocate his feelings, despite being a hot mess alcoholic herself. (This is a very boozy movie). Rounding out the small-town cast are a newbie cop Ren can bounce backstory off, a comic relief sheriff more interested in promoting Buddhist breathing techniques than hard policing, and a handful of colorful, trashy yokels.

As good as the acting is—Embry, as mentioned, is excellent, and the rest of the cast supply no weak notes—the special effects are noticeably poor: the mangy wolf costume is neither realistic nor frightening, there’s a head-on-fire effect that looks like it might have been made in ChatGPT, and at one point the use of rubber glass to substitute for a shattered windshield is painfully obvious. Given that Alma is more focused on drama and psychology than actual horror, these slip ups aren’t fatal, but they do imbue the film with a sheen of cheepnis that’s out of step with the professionalism of the rest of the production.

The first weird thing that happens in the story occurs when Ren suddenly promises to kill the wolf for Alma, despite his obvious reluctance and his warning that they’re a protected species and it’s a “class C felony” to kill one. Then comes his first encounter with the wolf, followed by recurring hallucinations where he glimpses the lupine taunting him. As the movie continues, the weird stuff intensifies, from the relatively subtle (whispering voices) to the elaborate (a well-staged pagan dream sequence in the woods with Alma and the talking wolf at a pagan bonfire flanked by a pair of goat-people). By the time we reach the one hour mark, confusion reigns, as the narrative seems to be spinning out of control, and occasionally contradicting itself.

Alma & the Wolf‘s twist ending turned off a lot of people. That’s understandable for viewers who didn’t go in bargaining for a weird movie: the final act makes some of the events of the rest of Alma feel arbitrary and irrelevant, and if you get invested in certain red herrings, you could feel cheated. But although the movie doesn’t quite stick its landing—it’s not tightly scripted enough, and it could have used more foreshadowing—it’s far from as abysmal as its 4.6 IMDb rating would suggest. I admire the ambition and certain aspects of the execution—specifically the performances—and although I wouldn’t give it a general recommendation, I wouldn’t advise you to steer away, either. If you’re in the mood for a well-acted, modestly-budgeted, artistically ambitious psychological thriller, you could do worse than hunting down Alma & the Wolf.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…a one-of-a-kind, surreal, nightmarish journey that will give  audiences emotional whiplash.”–Molly Henery, Blogging Banshee (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: KRYPTIC (2024)

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Kryptic is currently available on VOD for purchase or rental.

DIRECTED BY: Kourtney Roy

FEATURING: Chloe Pirrie, Jeff Gladstone

PLOT: Cryptozoology fan Kay catches a glimpse of a monster in the Canadian woods, sparking an identity crisis.

Still from kryptic (2024)

COMMENTS: I think it’s no real mystery why Kryptic fails. It’s not the fault of lead Chloe Pirrie, cinematographer David Bird, or anyone on the visual effects team. The movie is competently shot and acted; it’s a professionally assembled low-to-mid-budget genre film. There is a memorable recurring scene of, shall we say, crytpid gooeyness, and a couple of cool quick-flash shots suggesting hallucinations or buried realities: a face that suddenly takes on a demonic sheen; hands whose fingers, on second glance, appear inhumanly long. All this suggests talent on hand. And the issue isn’t really that the movie is too weird, confusing, or inconclusive, although Kryptic has more than enough strangeness to frustrate the mainstream viewer. But when it works, it works, despite the ellipticality.  No, the problem clearly lies with the screenplay.

The first thirty minutes or so, which set up the premise, are perfectly fine. Kay catches the merest glimpse of a cryptid in the woods while on an (all-female) tour hosted by a Jon Lovitz impersonator; this results in near-total amnesia. While putting together the pieces of her life from clues lying around her unfamiliar car and home, she discovers a news story about a woman named Barb Valentine, a cryptozoologist who recently disappeared—and who looks exactly like Kay. It’s a promisingly mysterious beginning, even if there is nothing especially eye-catching (the second-long encounter with the creature is even less illuminating than the Patterson-Gimlin film).

The last twenty minutes or so are also not really the problem. Some will complain that the final events explain too little, but there is at least a legitimately ian flavor to the proceedings. Most importantly, while the events of the finale are still confusing, they are at least confusing in an interesting way.

No, the problem with Kryptic is clearly its long, meandering second act. Kay follows “clues” which lead her from one mildly quirky but scarcely interesting character (nearly all of them women) to another: a hotel owner, a fellow cryptid enthusiast, a magician in a bar, a trailer park family. None of these encounters make much of an impression or provide much of a clue as to where the story is eventually heading. The only meaningful developments in the entire section occur in our heroine’s head. She starts increasingly pretending to be Barb rather than Kay—or maybe she thinks she is becoming Barb? Meanwhile, she has a lot of flashbacks (or maybe flashforwards) to the aforementioned sticky fantasy involving the cryptid, usually sparked by some observation of sex. Kryptic is not up to the challenge it sets itself of illustrating that interior character arc. The encounters that make up the bulk of the movie act are inevitably dry conversations that could be fast-forwarded through without losing much of value. It seems that the script just did not have enough decent ideas for a full 90 minutes; and yet, the movie runs 102 minutes, and feels even longer. This suggests some basic advice for new directors: when padding a film, add only the minimum amount of scenes necessary to reach feature length.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…pure high strangeness… You can’t always be in the mood for a semen-covered, super weird, mind-melter but it’s par for the course with a kooky cryptid tale.”–Johnathan Deehan, Nightmare on Film Street (festival screening)

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CAPSULE: HURRY UP TOMORROW (2025)

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DIRECTED BY: Trey Edward Shults

FEATURING: Abel Tesfaye, Jenna Ortega,

PLOT: A pop megastar who’s spiraling downward after a bad breakup has a one-night stand with an unhinged, obsessed fan.

Still from Hurry Up Tomorrow (2025)

COMMENTS: Although Hurry up Tomorrow is pitched as a “psychological thriller,” you may want to dial down your expectations for the “psychological” part, while exercising extreme patience awaiting the eventual arrival of the “thriller” aspect. Capably directed by Trey Edward Shults (They Come at Night), the movie, about a pop star losing his mind, features a ton of style. The concert scenes are decent, but there is also a lot of bold-yet-hazy lighting, disorienting coked-up disco scenes, and a pan to a burning building that’s almost Tarkovskian. The problem is, all this great style is employed in service of a pedestrian script full of music industry cliches, self-indulgence, and less-than-profound psychological insights.

The semi-autobiographical screenplay, written by star Tesfaye in conjunction with Shults and “nightlife entrepreneur” Reza Fahim, makes a stab at serious soul-searching, but fails to connect with the average movie patron. Abel, our star, starts out already at the emotional bottom; devastated by the desertion of an unknown lover, he is not merely vulnerable, but utterly pathetic, demanding his loyal bro manager (Keoghan) call his estranged beau for him, since he’s tired of leaving pleading messages on her voicemail. Abel’s eternal moping eventually leads him into the arms of groupie Jenna Ortega, whom we have previously seen torching a house. (I believe Jenna has a backstory, but frankly, my mind drifted.) She’s not really a character so much as an accusation (her name is Amina, which you might notice is a quick letter shift away from her intended plot function). Ortega gives off big Misery energy, and after an opening hour of Abel pouting, botching performances, and swilling whisky, the third act finally gets the thriller element moving. There’s a dream sequence in there, but you probably won’t remember much about it except that they managed to shoot some quick scenes in a depopulated Los Angeles, in sort of a West Coast nod to Vanilla Sky. In the end, the movie all seems to be some sort of guilty confession from Abel about the way he’s treated women, with some hints about an absent father thrown in—typical “woe is me” multimillionaire rock star complaints. But Amina’s role as anima never really works properly, because (although he has a brief moment as a cad) Abel began the film already debased and contrite. There’s no comeuppance to be had. His character arc is flaccid, because the script wants us to sympathize with him right from the get-go, instead of working through the movie to earn our sympathy.

I confess that I had seen the trailer for Hurry up Tomorrow about a half-dozen times before I was informed that the film’s pop star star was none other than former Super Bowl halftime-featured songster The Weeknd. The movie’s target audience of Weeknd fans will certainly know this going in (and will know that there’s already a final Weeknd album with the title “Hurry up Tomorrow”). Apparently, Abel Tesfaye will be retiring “The Weeknd” moniker to work under his real name henceforth; this movie may be intended as a first salvo in this new phase of his career, which will presumably include a lot more acting. I assume fans will be reasonably satisfied with the offering here; there is one big production number (performed twice to open the fictional pop star’s concerts), samples of songs scattered throughout the film, and an a capella performance at the end that’s meant to be climactic, maybe even epiphantic. As far as his acting goes, Tesfaye is not bad, if not yet up to carrying a major film as a leading man. Casting him alongside top-notch thespians like Ortega and Keoghan may not have been the best way to showcase his talents, since it’s guaranteed his co-stars will steal every single scene he’s in. Hurry up Tomorrow’s title tempts easy put-downs, but the film is totally watchable, if underwhelming; an effort that will likely only score with Tesfaye’s most intractable fans. Others can, and should, skip it.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“…an exciting vanity project with surrealist imagination but stiff writing, no stakes, limited emotional weight and an unclear narrative.”–Maria Sherman, Associated Press/Newsday (comtemporaneous)

(This movie was nominated for review by “Parmesan74 (letterboxd),” who guessed, based on the trailer, that it “seems to have the potential to be weird.” Suggest a weird movie of your own here.)

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APOCRYPHA CANDIDATE: THE SURFER (2024)

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The Surfer is currently available for purchase or rental on video-on-demand.

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DIRECTED BY:

FEATURING: , Julian McMahon, Nic Cassim

PLOT: A divorced father (Nicolas Cage) plans to buy the Australian beachside house he grew up in and teach his son to surf the waves like he did as a boy, but local “surf gangsters” torment him, insisting the beach is for “locals only.”

The Surfer (2024)

WHY IT MIGHT JOIN THE APOCRYPHA: The metaphor is obvious, but apt: this is a movie where you just catch Cage’s wave and ride it where it takes you, relishing the lack of control.

COMMENTS: As we open, Nicolas Cage (whose character is never named, merely credited as “The Surfer”) merely wants to take his kid (credited as “The Kid”) surfing on the beach where he grew up. He promises, in a bit of ironic foreshadowing, that catching a particularly gnarly wave is nothing short of a “short sharp shock of violence on the shore.” His dreams are dashed when a self-appointed surf cop in a Santa hat informs him that this public beach is for “locals only.” Outnumbered by the surf-gangsters (“Bay Boys”), Cage retreats to the overlook-cum-rest stop where he will spend most of the rest of the movie, anxiously attempting to contact his associate Mike to raise the additional $100,000 he needs posthaste to purchase his father’s old homestead on a cliff overlooking the beach. The Bay Boys’ bullying continues, however. First, Cage loses his surfboard; then, after his car battery and cell battery die, he finds himself stranded and subjected to increasing harassment. All the while, more details emerge suggesting that he may not be the completely together businessman he presents himself as, while golden-hued flashbacks suggest a youth that might not have been as carefree as he remembers.

What follows for Cage is a complete breakdown, as the script strips the bourgeoisie accoutrements of civilization away from him one by one, leaving him—at least temporarily—destitute. Accumulating a series of small wounds and suffering from short-term malnutrition and dehydration as he bakes in the Christmas sun, Cage drifts into a second-act fever dream where his very identity comes into question. About the only local who isn’t outright hostile to him is a scraggly beach bum (credited only as “The Bum”) who bunks in a discarded car in the same parking lot, and who has been bullied by the Bay Boys for decades now. Cage seems doomed to follow in his footsteps.

Theater patrons are advised to wear sunscreen, as the bright cinematography might give you sunburn, and when the screen starts wavering like high tide has briefly crested over the film, you might wonder if you’re experiencing heat stroke yourself. Francois Tetaz’s ultracool score, full of harp arpeggios and wordless vocals, takes its nostalgic period cues more from exotica than surf music, giving it a grandiose moodiness that constantly threatens to teeter into psychedelia. Finnegan’s visuals cross that line in the third act.

Cage himself is relatively restrained, more in Pig than Mandy mode; but of course, restrained for Cage can involve him force feeding a dead rat to a battered enemy. The fact that we expect, and accept, craziness from Cage makes him the perfect actor for this exercise in masculine delusionalism. Research confirmed my suspicions that this script about an upper middle-class man undergoing a midlife crisis explored via a water sport was explicitly inspired by another famous The S____er (among other sources). The Surfer, naturally, doesn’t quite reach its predecessor’s heights; it’s far more scattered, lacking its forebear’s intense focus on a single character, bringing a manospherish cult and hallucinatory red herrings into the equation. But The Surfer (suggested alternate title: The Sufferer) has a similar empathetic effect that hits home for men of a certain age and marital status.

WHAT THE CRITICS SAY:

“‘The Surfer’ is weird and wily, and while it doesn’t always connect, it maintains a strange presence that’s intriguing.”–Brian Orndorf, Blu-ray.com