FRESH d: Mimi Cave. c: Sebastian Stan, Daisy Edgar-Jones, Jojo T. Gibbs, Charlotte Le Bon, Andrea Bang. Online dating can be a drag, especially for Noa (Edgar-Jones), a bright, likable young woman who’s about to give up on romance until she meets dashing Dr. Steve (Stan). At the skepticism of her best friend (Gibbs), Noa believes she’s met her Prince Charming, that is until he takes her on a mysterious woodsy getaway where he reveals to her the truth about his intentions. Just like Noa, the less you know about Steve (and the overall film) the better. Fresh is a twisted and surprising take on the horror genre, which injects both humor and genuinely unnerving situations into its witty screenplay; this is one of the few horror comedies of recent years to make you laugh and cringe within a matter of seconds. The cast works well together, with Stan standing out in a performance that manages to break him away from his Winter Soldier superhero persona. My only complaints: the nearly two hour runtime feels too long and the intense climax ends too abruptly. B
MASTER d: Mariama Diallo. c: Regina Hall, Zoe Renee, Amber Gray, Talia Balsam, Ella Hunt, Bruce Altman. The new schoolmaster (Hall) and a freshman (Renee), both African American women, of a prestigious, but predominately white, university begin to experience creepy activity around the school while also dealing with oppression and racism. After Jasmine (Renee) discovers the land was once the site of witch trials and executions, rumors begin to circulate that her living quarters are haunted by a malevolent spirit that torments the room’s occupants until death. Is Jasmine the next target of a malignant entity, or is she just the victim of bigotry and student pranks? An ambiguous chiller using ghosts as a metaphor for racism, self-loathing, and identity, Master is well-written and spends time on its characters, building a good amount of tension. Although it lacks the “boo” moments of more traditional haunted house movies, and some of the side characters seem to exist solely to create drama, this is a decent, atmospheric film with several elements taken right out of Suspiria, and good performances from Hall and Renee. B–
NANNY d: Nikyatu Jusu. c: Anna Diop, Sinqua Walls, Morgan Spector, Michelle Monaghan, Rose Decker. Making a new life for herself in New York City, immigrant Aisha (Diop) begins working as a nanny for a wealthy family, desperately trying to save money in order to bring her child over from Africa. Her close relationship with the daughter (Decker) of the family causes feelings of guilt and remorse, and soon Aisha’s mental stability starts to crumble as she experiences visions (or are they?) of a serpent-like being that toys with her buried past. Unlike Master, Nanny unsuccessfully weaves horror movie elements into its psychological metaphors. There are interesting ideas floating around, but they’re never fleshed out or feel relevant enough to the story; they feel more like window dressing for a film that doesn’t exist. Also, to classify Nanny as a horror movie is a leap – a non-horror horror movie? Diop gives a well-rounded performance as Aisha, but it’s not enough to recommend this well-intended, but ho-hum, film. C
PIGGY d: Carlota Pereda. c: Laura Galán, Carmen Machi, Julián Valcárcel, Fernando Degado-Hierro, José Pastor. Hoping to escape the heat and her bullying schoolmates, overweight teen, Sara (Galán), takes a trip to the local pool but becomes witness to the abduction of said bullies by a sadistic killer. Out of desperation and revenge, Sara shrugs off the kidnapping and allows the killer to escape, an act that sets off a chain reaction of violence and, in the killer, creates a connection with Sara. A clever take on the serial killer movie, Piggy has several tricks up its sleeve and keeps you anchored into its sticky situations for most of the runtime. Unfortunately the film abandons its perverse set-up with a cop-out ending that results in a more conventional “happy” conclusion, sadly ruining the build-up it created. C+
RESURRECTION d: Andrew Semens. c: Rebecca Hall, Tim Roth, Grace Kaufman, Angela Wong Carbone. Hall gives a first-rate performance in this second-rate psycho-thriller about a single mother (Hall) whose past comes back to haunt her in the form of an obsessed sociopath (Roth) who once held her emotionally captive as a teenager. The film starts out well, but ditches its stride when Hall’s character becomes more and more unhinged, creating an almost unsympathetic caricature of the person we had come to know earlier. There are a few intense moments, but the ending is both frustrating and vague, and doesn’t justify having spent an hour and a half with these characters. C
SOMETHING IN THE DIRT d: Justin Beson, Aaron Moorehead. c: Justin Benson, Aaron Moorehead. Masters of making long-winded sci-fi/horror melodramas, Benson and Moorehead (The Endless) have delivered another “mind-bending” opus that, according to the Sundance Film Festival’s movie catalog, is their indie homage to Poltergeist. When a mysterious glass orb begins levitating on its own in his new apartment, an ex-con (Benson) and his unemployed neighbor (Moorehead) decide to make a documentary about the apparently supernatural phenomena in order to make some money, plunging themselves into an even more bizarre predicament than they bargained for. As with their other films, Something in the Dirt has interesting ideas floating around but they are never fully realized, with endless scenes of characters sitting around and talking about theories and pontificating on what could be happening. Sometimes actions speak louder than words, especially in a movie dealing with an overly complicated plot; if you’re going to have characters spitting out scientific theories you need to validate that with coherent action, but that never happens. There’s something very unfortunate about a dumb movie that thinks it’s smart. C–
SPEAK NO EVIL d: Christian Tafdrup. c: Morten Burian, Sidsel Siem Koch, Fedja van Huêt, Karina Smulders, Liva Forsberg, Marius Damslev. Trying to place itself alongside the psychologically intense thrillers of Michael Haneke, Speak No Evil is an example of a wannabe horror film that seems to have been made by filmmakers who are embarrassed to admit they want to make a horror movie. When a Dutch family befriends another family while on vacation in Tuscany, they quickly make a close connection, but as sinister truths are slowly revealed they begin to question their friendship. While there are elements to this film that can be classified as horror, the screenplay is trying to be something else and never commits to a solidified idea. The characters come off as cartoonishly passive and allow horrible things to happen to themselves for no reason. A holocaust metaphor, perhaps? A cold and empty movie with vapid characters and predictable twists, this has about as much to say as a Police Academy movie, but without the entertainment value. D
YOU WON’T BE ALONE d: Goran Stolevski. c: Anamaria Marinca, Sara Klimoska, Noomi Rapace, Alice Englert, Félix Maritaud. Fresh blood is pumped into the folk horror subgenre with this artsy piece of filmmaking. In a 19th century European mountain village, a newborn girl, Nevena, is cursed by a spiteful, shapeshifting witch (Marinca) who, 16 years later, takes the young woman (Klimoska) under her wing. When Nevena can’t adjust to life as an outcast demon, she tries to adjust to normality by taking the physical forms of others, including a mother (Rapace) and a male farmer (Maritaud), all with disastrous results. Those expecting a traditional witch-oriented movie in the vein of The Conjuring will be disappointed in You Won’t Be Alone‘s subtle approach to the material. Narrated and told exclusively through the eyes of Nevena, the film is at its center a character study; in many ways it’s a coming-of-age tale that just happens to be about a witch in the 19th century. Although the film often gets swallowed by its overly artistic theatrics, the story is so rich and rewarding you won’t care. B
WATCHER d: Chloe Okuno. c: Maika Monroe, Karl Glusman, Burn Gorman, Madalina Anea. After settling into a new life in Bucharest with her Romanian husband (Glusman), Julia (Monroe), a young American, begins to suspect she’s being followed by someone in the midst of a series of local serial murders. Is Julia next on the killer’s list, or is she just overwhelmed with trying to adjust to a new environment and culture? A surprisingly good little film, this is reminiscent of the paranoia thrillers of the ’60s and ’70s, and has several intense moments that would make Polanski and De Palma proud. Monroe (It Follows) gives a terrific performance, and her character is sympathetic, headstrong, and most importantly, a fighter. A slow burn that builds to a crackerjack climax. B+
