The Lodge (2019)

SEPTEMBER 28, 2019

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (BEYOND FEST)

Having missed the first few nights of Beyond Fest due to unexpected medical issues (bleeding ulcer, I'm OK now I think), I finally got to make my first trip there for The Lodge, which is an unusual way to kick things off. The fest routinely programs wild/outlandish fare (both new and old), and this film is a "slow burn" type that keeps its insanity confined to the mind of one of its characters - the sort of thing I'd expect to watch on a quiet night at home, not at the same festival that frequently employs the use of T-shirt cannons and eating contests. That said, it was an intriguing and mostly successful example of its kind, not to mention the best new Hammer film since Wake Wood, and will do well with folks who don't mind their horror to be a little on the moody and atmospheric side.

Riley Keough stars as Grace, a woman who is about to marry a man with two children from a previous marriage. The kids naturally don't like her all that much, so the dad (Richard Armitage) figures maybe spending the holidays at his cabin will help them bond a bit - especially during a three day period right before Christmas Day that he has to return to the city for some work matters. Naturally, things don't go too swimmingly - a snowstorm confines them to the lodge, which then loses power to boot. And worst of all - one morning they wake up to find all of their belongings missing, with Grace suspecting her will-be stepchildren of doing it on purpose to drive her crazy. But as it gets colder and their supplies run out, could the kids really be to blame when they're at risk as well? Is someone else in the house with them, or are supernatural forces the real culprit?

Naturally I won't spoil that for you, but I will say that up until the point we have our answer, the film works terrifically. Keough (no stranger to slow burn/isolated thriller fare, having appeared in the very undercooked It Comes At Night) has a tough role to play and she handles it well, as Grace isn't just the usual "stepmom" kind of character who oversteps her boundaries and needs to prove herself. No, she's actually the lone survivor of a Heaven's Gate-style cult led by her father (so essentially she's Jennifer Rubin from Bad Dreams!), and clearly hasn't fully adjusted to normal life yet - established by some medication she needs to take, which is of course among the things that go missing along with the rest of their stuff. So as her mind cracks even further, she switches from protagonist to antagonist, as we fear for the lives of the children - all the while remembering that they may be the true villains all along.

And it's easy enough to believe they may be, as this is from Veronika Franz and Severin Fiala. They are the team that gave us the evil child movie Goodnight Mommy, and the film shares a number of similarities - up to and including spending the entire movie wondering if we can trust its lead actress. Thankfully their approach has improved; I enjoyed Goodnight Mommy but my overall opinion was stymied by the way they handled their key twist, as I never could tell if it was even SUPPOSED to be one (in that it was so obvious to me by the film's twenty minute mark I wasn't sure if it was something they were even trying to hide). Here, it's clear that they don't want you to be that far ahead, allowing for a little more variety in the action and a little less time spent wondering how I as a viewer was supposed to be taking in this or that scene, so overall I found it to be a better film.

Unfortunately, once they do tell us exactly what happened, the movie kind of fizzles. As with Us, it almost might have been better to leave things unexplained, because by opening that Pandora's Box I found myself left with more questions (chiefly among them: what exactly was ______ hoping to accomplish?), and less engaged with the film's climax than I should have been. It's not that the answer is bad on its own, it's just that it's not particularly well developed, and even somewhat contradicts earlier information (can't really explain that one without spoiling, so I'll just say to consider an early scene involving a computer). There's also a curious lack of information about how Grace ended up with Armitage's character - the kids say she's a psychopath "from Dad's books" but his job is so vague I'm not even sure if they mean a book he wrote or a book he owned (and if he's an author, what kind of backwards ass movie writer is this where he has to LEAVE his isolated cabin to get some work done?).

But until then, they really had me hooked in - for proof, I stayed awake the entire time even though I was still very much low energy thanks to my hospital stay (and, as a result of the prognosis, I certainly wasn't partaking in anything sugary or with caffeine). The production design alone made the film worth watching - as with Hereditary, there's a bit of a dollhouse motif that spreads to the real sets, as everything seems just slightly off (in this case, hallways seem unnaturally narrow, while the bedrooms have awkward amounts of space between furniture), and Thimios Bakatakis' camera almost never stops gliding and slow zooming its way around the areas. And it pays tribute to its snowbound horror masters in both overt (they literally watch The Thing) and subtle (Grace's dog is named Grady, heh). Also, Keough sports some very excellent sweaters - as my rare chances to wear my sweaters are the thing I hate most about living in California, I find myself increasingly drawn to people wearing them in movies, the way wannabe gangsters idolize The Godfather and what not.

It's a shame Neon won't be releasing the film until February; its snowy look and Christmas setting would sell more tickets in November or December I'd think, but what do I know? It's the one thing I dislike about reviewing festival films - by the time it's out, I might forget a few things and not have the time for a second watch, so more people will be seeing it and I'll have trouble remembering what they're referring to, especially when by spoiler law I had to be vague with my review and won't be able to consult it for any specific reminders. The blunder in the last reel isn't crippling; it isn't the first and won't be the last movie that couldn't quite maintain its allure in the home stretch, especially among these slow burn types. Here's hoping the marketing doesn't spoil its surprises (the below trailer doesn't give too much away, though as always it's better to go in blind for these kind of films) and that it finds the folks who will enjoy it - and that Franz & Fiala's next film manages to make its ambiguous nature pay off in the end, instead of unnecessarily restraining it.

What say you?

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Possum (2018)

FEBRUARY 24, 2019

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I haven't memorized it or anything (in fact I only saw it once) but I absolutely loved Garth Marenghi's Darkplace when I watched its all-too-brief run (six episodes) a few years back, and was thus excited to see what creator Matthew Holness would come up with for his first feature length film, assuming it would have a similar horror/comedy blend. But I quickly realized that Possum was nothing like Darkplace; it'd be like if you watched Elephant Man or The Fly expecting the usual Mel Brooks hijinks, and if anything the film might play better to those who have no idea who Holness is at all. The film has not one note of identifiable humor, and Holness (who also starred in Darkplace, for those uninitiated) remains behind the camera; the only time you'll see him is in the behind the scenes footage on the DVD.

Instead, the film puts Sean Harris in nearly every frame (and often by himself) as Philip, an ex-puppeteer who may or may not be a murderer. The title refers not to the animal, but the name he's given a puppet of a spider that he seems unhealthily attached to, carrying it around with him at all times (though thankfully concealed in a bag) even though he seems to be afraid of it. The nature of this puppet and his connection to it is one of the film's many mysteries, most of which aren't fully spelled out for the audience before the credits roll, so if you're an "I need answers" type this is most certainly not the film for you. It can occasionally be hard to tell what's a dream/hallucination and what is really happening, and there are repeated images that suggest the narrative isn't chronological to boot. Add in the long stretches of silence and other "arty" touches and you have a movie that makes something like The Witch look as simple as a slasher flick.

But that's the narrative. On a "this movie is freaking me out" level, it's a winner - the movie isn't even a full 90 minutes long but it's got enough nightmare fuel to last a week (indeed, it gave me a legit nightmare; a low-key one to be fair, but still). It probably didn't help his (clearly not high) budget, but Holness smartly shot on film, which goes a long way into helping evoke the 70s thrillers he was emulating. On one of the interviews on the DVD he says it's a movie that exists for late night viewing, something he'd want people to stumble upon and be unsettled by - he certainly pulled that off, and I don't think it would really work if it was shot digitally (the recent Ghost Stories was also aiming for this specific feel, but missed in part to its unmistakably modern digital photography). Even the titles recall films of that era; if not for Sean Harris starring and the very, very rare non-period detail (like a television, the odd car, or a day-player's outfit) I could see someone being fooled into thinking it really was some lost indie from 1977.

Harris is terrific, by the way. He's probably most famous as the chilling villain from the last couple of Mission Impossible films, and it's a huge departure from those - he's kind of pathetic and awkward, a far cry from his calculating Solomon Lane. I almost didn't even recognize him at first, and given his reported "method" acting ways I don't envy what he probably put himself through to achieve his performance. It's not a flattering role in any respect, and again he's pretty much the only person in the movie (besides his uncle, who he lives with), so it couldn't have been a fun or easy shoot for him (or anyone around him, depending on how strictly he followed the "rules" of this approach) if he had to remain in character for so much time. Familiar character actor Alun Armstrong is also quite good as his uncle, who seems to be responsible for some of Philip's timidness (to what extent, of course, is one of the film's mysteries), and is pretty much the only other person in the movie who appears more than once. If Holness were to beef up his role a bit, it could even work as a stage production since the uncle never leaves the house (and Philip never seems to stray too far from it).

So as you might have figured out for yourself by now, the movie requires some patience, perhaps a bit TOO much at times, as it's often fairly repetitive. Holness based it on one of his short stories, and the "expand to feature length" seams show, particularly in the middle of the film which seems to be stuck in a cycle of scenes where Philip decides to rid himself of the puppet by ditching it somewhere, only for it to come back (or even retrieve it himself). Since I was already creeped out early, this padded middle section ended up deflating some of that unsettled feeling as opposed to ramping it up, leaving me hoping for a big shock to the system that would send me out feeling - at the very least - as disturbed as I was at the 20-25 minute mark. Your mileage can/will vary of course, since everyone scares differently, but I couldn't help but think maybe taking a page from Audition or something like that and leaving horror out of it for a bit would have helped maintain that unnerved feeling throughout.

Otherwise, as these things go I'd put it up there with Soft For Digging and older fare like Haunts and Magic in the "what is UP with this person?" low-key, methodically-paced horror, and as Holness intended it gives off plenty of that late night syndicated viewing vibe that unfortunately doesn't really exist anymore. Movies like Let's Scare Jessica to Death or Malatesta's Carnival of Blood similarly seemed designed for that very specific audience, but in those cases the films might have actually been found that way by a number of their fans. The best chance something like this has of being "stumbled upon" would probably be if it ended up on Shudder and someone caught it thanks to their (very cool) "Shudder TV" option, which leaves out the scrolling around for something to choose and just has things running nonstop as a regular TV network would. And those people will get the most out of the film, I think, as they won't have any idea or preconceived notion of its content - everyone else, you need to keep your expectations in check (and your phone out of reach for when you might be tempted to grab it) so that its restrained approach can be allowed to deliver.

What say you?

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FTP: Observance (2015)

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: BLU-RAY (OWN COLLECTION)

Digging through emails, it looks like poor Observance has been sitting in the dreaded pile since the summer of 2016, and I assure you it's not even close to the oldest title in there. But at least I have a good excuse for letting it pass me by - that's when I moved into my current home, and to this day I feel bad because the very first thing I watched in that home was the first episode of 11/22/63, which I specifically asked for to review (unlike this) and never finished it because it took all month to actually finish moving in. If memory serves I didn't even have the surround sound hooked up yet and just watched that one episode through (shudder) the TV speakers. Wonder how it ended?

Anyway, if you're the type of person who needs to understand what's going on in their horror movies, I'd steer clear of this one - it's got that "I'm gonna channel my inner David Lynch" feel to it and leaves the viewer with way more questions than answers. However, if you just want to feel uncomfortable/unnerved it's actually a pretty good entry in the Repulsion/Tenant sub-genre of "someone in an apartment goes nuts" movies. Actually, it reminded me even more of Occupant, a similarly uneven but mostly admirable indie version of this kind of movie, but I doubt namechecking that one will ring as many bells. I was stunned to learn that it only cost $11k; it looks just as good as any other indie (you know, the kinds with 6 or even 7 figure budgets) and has a pair of solid actors in the lead roles (plus bit parts for John Jarratt and Benedict Hardie, who played the main henchman guy in last summer's Upgrade). As "calling card" kind of movies go, I must say if I was a studio exec I'd be trying to land director Joseph Sims-Dennett as he clearly knows how to maximize his budget.

But I'd hope he'd work with a writing partner, or let someone else handle that part entirely. Even in the realm of "you're not supposed to understand everything" types the script seemed to be just sort of tossing things for the hell of it as opposed to not spelling everything out. The plot concerns a desperate man who agrees to a surveillance job of a woman who is about to marry into some well-to-do family, only for him to start hallucinating and suffering from body horror type ailments as the job drags on much longer than expected, but I was never quite able to discern the connection between these two things. Occasionally it starts to be seemingly building toward the idea that maybe HE is the one that's actually being observed, but it never pans out. And I'm at a total loss with the ending; it's certainly a surprise and rather grim, but also far too abrupt.

Still, when it works it works rather effectively, especially the body horror stuff. Our guy gets some kind of huge (bed?) sore on his back at one point, and its ooze/blood has stuck to his shirt, forcing him to pull it off over his head as quick as he can - it's like a "rip the band-aid off" kind of thing, but times a hundred. And he pukes up some mysterious black ooze - the same stuff that appears to be filling up more and more of a jar every time he sees it? Couldn't tell you what that was all about, but I do know it gave me the proper unsettling feeling. This was a festival movie, and it probably worked even better in that setting, as you'd be more "trapped" (like its character) than you are at home, free to pause and what not - I highly encourage an uninterrupted viewing for it to provide the most effect on you, if you plan to check it out.

What say you?

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Hereditary (2018)

MAY 31, 2018

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, SUPERNATURAL (?)
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (PRESS SCREENING)

Like its fellow A24 genre films (The Witch, It Comes At Night), some folks are debating whether or not Hereditary is "really" a horror movie, which is a ridiculous waste of time because yes, it is. I suspect these arguments always begin with some stuffy critic who liked the film and feels ashamed to be recommending something in the same genre that gave us Freddy vs. Jason or whatever, or (on the other end of the spectrum) some numbskull horror fan who can't bring himself to qualify a film as one unless it's loaded with gore. As a fan of the genre and all of its potential I find it insulting, but if you are sadly someone who thought The Witch wasn't horror (I myself can go either way with It Comes At Night) then you'll likely have some of the same issues here, and should probably stay home and watch something that fits within your depressingly narrow guidelines.

Of course, the best way to experience the film is to not know anything at all, not even what genre it might be under in the virtual video store someday. The film is, at its core, about a family unit being undone by a series of incidents, some of which are quite horrific in nature, and knowing about even one of those things coming will curtail its ability to fully unsettle you as it does for its characters. First time feature filmmaker Ari Aster manages to get you unnerved as soon as the film begins; nothing horrific happens for a good half hour, and I thankfully avoided its trailer and knew very little of its plot ("a woman and her family deals with the death of her mother" is all I could have told you about it), but that didn't matter. The combination of his slow moving camerawork, the exquisite production design, and the score all put me on edge - the shock moments were tension relievers, really.

In order to keep that same unawareness for you I won't say much about its specific plot (not that I usually offer much of a synopsis anyway, but you know what I mean). The film opens on the obituary listing for an elderly woman whose only immediate family member is her daughter, played by Toni Collette. Collette and her own family (Gabriel Byrne as her husband, and two teenagers) don't seem too broken up by the loss; the woman was in hospice for a while and we get the idea she wasn't exactly a cookie-baking, big-hug giving kind of granny, so it's a mix of "we knew it was coming" and "OK, see ya" kind of attitudes. So we watch them go about their day to day; the kids go to school, and the parents get back to work (Collette is an artist who makes miniature dioramas for a gallery; Byrne is a therapist of some sort) but there's a lingering feeling of dread over it, and you're just kind of waiting for something awful to happen.

And then it does, and it is indeed awful. It's one of those rare moments that's so horrific I kept assuming it was a dream, thinking no film would dare do it. It doesn't help the family unit any; Collette in particular seems to suffer a bit of a mental break as a result, diving deeper into her work, which itself takes on a grimmer tone. It's from that work that the film earns one of its biggest laughs (it's actually a fairly humorous movie at times; not a comedy, but think along the lines of how movies like Joshua used humor and you'll be on the right track), one of the best darkly comic sight gags I may have ever seen, capped off by an oblivious reaction from Collette that made me love her even more than I already did. She's one of those actresses that simply can't be "bad" or even miscast - she's always hitting it out of the park, in all genres (she's actually in another movie that comes out tomorrow called Hearts Beat Loud, and it couldn't be less like this one), and even by those standards she's terrific in this. A nomination or two would be a lock if not for the fact that it's a horror movie.

As for Byrne, he doesn't get as many highlight-y kind of moments, taking the quieter route of a man trying to keep the peace. There's a dinner scene where Collette and her son (Alex Wolff, who is really the star of the film's back half) have a blow out and he barely speaks, rather than join in and let that familiar righteous anger we've seen in other films (I mean this man has played the actual Devil) come shining through. He seems a bit older than the role might have called for in the script (in addition to being more than 20 years older than Collette, he's almost 70 in real life; the younger of their children is like 13), but it kind of helps the strange unease the movie offers throughout. In fact, none of them really look alike in any way, and I kept thinking perhaps we would find out someone was adopted, or Byrne was their stepfather or something, but nope. It's just Aster and his casting people choosing four great actors to play a family even if it might cause snickers from any DNA scientists that might have wandered into the theater.

They should be promptly told to shut the hell up, however, because the sound design on the film is as award-worthy as Collette (and, again, will likely have zero shot because the Academy just tends to nominate action movies) and is probably the best reason to see the film in a (good) theater, unless you have a real home theater (i.e. a soundproof room that won't be interrupted). The daughter, Charlie, has this vocal tic (kind of a cross between a tongue cluck and... whatever you call that thing where you put your finger on the inside of your cheek and pull it out real quick) that she uses on occasion, and it's just so perfectly "off" that I was both delighted by it and properly creeped out every time it was used. And a sudden outburst was mixed in a way that I legit thought it was coming from someone in the theater, allowing me to be as startled by it as the characters. There's also a scene where we hear a pounding, assuming it's fists, only to discover... well, it's not fists, but it IS an example of how effective a horror type moment can play with proper sound design.

So it's all well and good, in fact great, until the final half hour or so. Without spoiling any details, I will say that the more we learn about what's going on, the less invested I found myself. The unsettling dread was largely gone and replaced by people telling us what they found out from looking at old photos, which is what I expect in bad Ring ripoffs, not this kind of movie. I don't know if I'd be happier if they simply never told us why certain things were happening (or at least left it up to interpretation), but ultimately it was at odds with what was working best about the film. Not enough to cripple the movie or anything, but like I've said before, it's better to have a strong finish to a so-so opening than the other way around. And that's especially the case for a longer movie like this (it's over two hours!), where you gave it so much of your time only for it to go off the rails. Maybe down the road I will talk more about my issues with it when everyone's had a chance to see it, but for now I'll just say that I was not expecting to be reminded of a certain classic horror film in its closing moments, and would like to watch them back to back someday to see if I can figure out why it worked for one and not the other (if you see the film and aren't sure which one I mean, hit me up on Twitter or something and I'll private message you).

One thing is for sure: this movie is going to get a low Cinemascore this weekend. I'm actually kind of stunned A24 is putting it out on over 2,000 screens, figuring they would go the platform route and let word of mouth from the normals build up a bit, as opposed to selling it entirely on festival buzz. And I don't mean that as a slight; movies with low cinemascores aren't "the worst movies ever made" or whatever, they're just the most polarizing, and indeed I tend to like a lot of them (some of the F's include Soderbergh's Solaris, Killing Them Softly, and mother!). After I saw the movie I finally watched the trailer, and was dismayed to see that it not only includes two major spoilers (one of which was actually made up for the spot, via recutting some dialogue in a particular scene to tell us something we don't know until much later in the actual film) and also comes off as a sort of Insidious-y kind of haunted house movie, which it isn't at all. To be fair, it's a hard movie to promote in the usual way, as it dips its toes into several horror sub-genres and also isn't exactly packed with trailer-ready images, but that makes me wonder again why they're attempting to woo multiplex audiences. But since I didn't think the movie was perfect (for you Letterboxd devotees, I gave it 3.5), I can enjoy the bewildered takes I'm sure I'll see, without getting too worked up about it like I would if the movie was a personal favorite.

What say you?

P.S. If anyone involved with the Blu-ray is reading this, I IMPLORE you to have a piece on the production design! Both for the miniatures and the house itself, which occasionally felt off-scale like a dollhouse might.

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Unsane (2018)

MARCH 23, 2018

GENRE: PSYCHOLOGICAL, THRILLER
SOURCE: THEATRICAL (REGULAR SCREENING)

When I was 12 I used to grab my dad's video camera and try to make little movies; I distinctly remember tying things to string (not even fishing wire!) and trying to pull off "invisible" tricks after seeing Memoirs of an Invisible Man. Then I'd watch the video and besides being dismayed at how bad my FX shots were (the telephone spinning haphazardly on my string definitely betrayed the idea it was being held by an invisible person), I'd be curious why my images never looked as great as they did in the movies I watched. "They must have a special camera!" I figured, and sooner or later I'd discover that was indeed the case, and those "special" cameras shot film, not VHS tapes. I couldn't help but think about that a few times while watching Unsane, because not only did it not require my full attention during a few too many stretches, but I also kept wondering why anyone, let alone Steven Soderbergh, would want their feature film to look like something a kid could do.

And I'm not exaggerating; much has been made about the film being shot on an iPhone, i.e. the same device a number of you have in your pocket or perhaps are even reading this review on in between Instagram perusals. It's not the first film to be shot this way, but it's certainly the most high profile, made even more interesting when you consider that Soderbergh said he was retiring a few years ago and stuck to that promise for a few years before coming back with Logan Lucky last year. He's got another movie in the can already and another has been announced, which is pretty good for a retirement that was announced five years ago. There are a lot of directors who have made no such announcement and haven't made a single movie since then, but he's done three and has a fourth in the works. Can Martin Brest or John Carpenter "retire" like this? That'd be nice.

Back on point - if he's gonna un-retire, the project has gotta be something special, right? That's where I get tripped up, as this is not only nothing memorable beyond a filmmaking method that does it no real favors (plus if we wanted an lo-fi looking horror movie set in an institution, we have Session 9, which is infinitely better), but it's not even new territory for him. His one-time swan song Side Effects tread a lot of the same ground (a woman in jeopardy, paranoia, evil medical practices, "men suck") and was a much better film overall, so beyond the idea of going into more traditional horror territory I'm not sure what exactly excited him about this script. It's not a bad movie really, it's just one of those ones that never really kicks into a higher gear than its basic premise would suggest, doling out information in a clunky manner that makes it difficult to latch onto anything. Claire Foy plays a lonely workaholic who had a previous encounter with a stalker that's left her frazzled, and she accidentally commits herself to a one day (and then one-week) mandatory evaluation in a psychiatric ward, only to start seeing her stalker among the staff. Is she crazy, or did this guy manage to follow her so well that he was able to get a job at the place one day later?

I'll get into that later since it's spoiler territory, but I don't think I'm breaking the rules to say you find out at about the halfway mark, at which point the movie unfolds more or less like you'd expect having probably seen this kind of scenario play out in both directions over the years. The answer is never as important as the need to make sure what happens next is just as compelling, and unfortunately in this case the script is not up to the task - one you got the answer you might as well go home early. And it's a shame, because there is a late-game "twist" of sorts that is fascinating and kind of original, but it's introduced too late to have enough of an impact on the movie as a whole. Maybe if the narrative switched entirely at this point and focused on this new development, leaving the stalker stuff behind as a sort of slow-burn Macguffin, it would be enough to shift the movie into "must-see" territory, but this plot point is frustratingly left under-explored while also reducing the tension of Foy's dilemma.

Foy, by the way, is the reason the movie is still worth seeing. She made a good first impression on me with Season of the Witch, way back in 2011, but apart from a bit role in Vampire Academy I haven't seen her in anything since, making this the first time I've seen her carry a film. Thankfully she does a fine job; her character isn't the most likable person in the world, but I love how she dealt with the random male losers in her life (the scene with her boss is A+ and timely af) and she handles the paranoia stuff quite well. There's a scene where she dresses down a would-be suitor by theorizing about the women that have turned him down (paraphrasing: "Did she tell you she just liked you as a friend, or did she actually get sick? Or did she just LAUGH?") and it's a wonderful bit of business, and also one of the few times the iPhone-ography pays off, allowing Soderbergh (or whoever the phone owner was; I assume no one else was allowed to hold it in case a private text came through during a take) to swirl around Foy and the other actor in a tiny room as she kept hammering away at him, reducing him to (deserved) tears. Honestly if the movie was nothing more than a series of scenes where she takes down a bunch of MRA dipshits and assorted other stereotypes, I probably would have liked it a lot more.

OK now I gotta get into spoilers, so you should stop here until you've seen the film. Final warning!

But Foy and her razor tongue isn't enough to make up for the fact that the second half of this movie is like a comedy that had all of the jokes trimmed. She isn't crazy - her stalker (played by Josh Leonard, by the way) really did follow her to the institute and get a job as an orderly. We find out later that he killed the real orderly and assumed his identity, but no further explanation, leaving us with two options: his coworkers didn't notice he wasn't the same guy, or that he was just happening to start there on the day after she arrived (so no one would KNOW what he looked like), making it incredibly lucky timing on his part. Especially when you consider the film's other twist, which is that he isn't the only shady/murderous one there, as the hospital is basically a giant scam - they trick people into signing themselves up for treatment (in Foy's case they ask her to sign a few "routine" forms that turn out to be admission papers, because she trusted them enough not to read them first) so they can get the insurance companies to pay them for care the people aren't actually receiving, and will murder anyone who finds out about it. A more interesting movie would have Leonard's character react to this, maybe even use it as an excuse to be a hero for the woman he thinks he loves by helping her escape, but the two storylines never intersect. He even kills another patient who was catching on to the hospital's practice, but (another coincidence) only because the guy was getting close to Claire so he wanted him out of the way. I don't need every question answered in a movie, but when it's the only kind of interesting thing in it, it's impossible not to be annoyed that it get such short thrift in favor of a generic chase through the woods.

And all of that ludicrous plotting that would be fine in a schlockier movie, but that's not what Soderbergh really does and the movie is too bland to look at to really make that sort of thing pop. You need a Brian De Palma or Dario Argento kind of flair to get anyone to buy this (and I can't help but think those filmmakers in particular were on the brain, as Soderbergh cast De Palma regular Amy Irving in a bit part, and "Unsane" is an alternate title for Tenebre), and really dive into the over the top elements and violence, so that the audience is kind of drunk on the sheer bombast of it all. This movie skips over most of its kills (one confusingly so - I have no idea who murdered the dark haired orderly) and due to the obvious limitations of its format can't really go big with its setpieces - even insert shots feel a bit awkward, so the wackier elements of the script fall flat. For every moment where the iPhone made an excellent choice (POV shots of Leonard leering or simply staring at Foy, mostly) there are a few that make me wish he abandoned the experiment after a day of shooting and got real cameras to make the rest. There's a scene where Foy is trapped in a trunk, and it occurred to me that twenty years ago he was shooting - if there is a ranking of such things - the best trunk scene in movie history, and doing it just fine with a big clunky ol' 35mm camera. As with 3D, CGI, etc. there's nothing wrong with the idea of using "lesser" cameras for certain things - but it's still a tool that only serves certain purposes. Just as you'd only use a hammer for nails and not for screws and bolts, the camera you're using should be the best one for that particular job, and while it's fine for the quieter scenes, overall I think the script deserved the full toolbox, so to speak.

Soderbergh makes some other puzzling choices, such as inserting a distracting cameo from one of his frequent collaborators at a very odd time, and cutting away from Claire's perspective at a point where we're still unsure if she's just going crazy or not (and thus answering the question even earlier). Even the reveal that she HAD a stalker is presented in a very awkward way, as if it was previously established in a scene (or even a line) that got cut - it actually makes more sense in the trailer than it does in the film. This is a guy who has made nearly thirty movies that have grossed over a billion dollars in the US alone - why does it often feel like a first feature from some 25 year old kid who managed to get the film released to Redbox by casting Lance Henriksen or someone like that for a day's work? Apart from the acting (not just Foy; it's always good to see Leonard, and Jay Pharoah is also solid as one of Foy's fellow patients) everything here runs dangerously close to amateur hour, and I'd have trouble with some of it even if it WAS from the work of first-timers, while hoping they could learn from their mistakes next time. But this guy's got an Oscar, so I can't help but expect more from him than a movie that has technical AND narrative blunders. I can deal with a few terrible script choices a lot easier if I know I couldn't round up a few of my actor friends, charge my phone, and produce superior results.

What say you?

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