Theatrical Review: The Shallows (2016)

"The sleeper hit of the Summer is here."

(aka Girl vs. Shark.)
Release Date: June 24th.
Country: USA.
Rating: PG-13.
Written by: Anthony Jaswinski.
Directed by: Jaume Collet-Serra.
Starring: Blake Lively, Oscar Jaenada, a shark, and Steven Seagull.

The Shallows has already made $22 million against a budget of $17, and that's only after 5 days of release. This sucker could creep to the $50 million mark domestically, and with it hitting the Foreign Box Office soon, it could end up being a huge hit. It's nice to see a smaller Genre movie like this doing well at the Box Office when it's surrounded by way bigger tentpole flicks that are supposed to dominate ticket sales.

After the death of her mother, Nancy drops out of medical school and heads for a secluded beach in Mexico for some catharsis; you see, this is the very beach where her mother came when she was pregnant with her years ago, so it's special. It's also a perfect spot for surfing, so, bonus.

WAX ON, BABY.

After catching some waves with a couple of friendly locals, Nancy is pulled under the water by a massive great white shark, leaving her leg badly injured and bleeding. Spotting a nearby rock, she swims for her life, and makes it to safety before the shark gets a chance to  finish the job. Of course she's hurt, bleeding, and 200 yards away from shore with a hungry shark circling her, but hey, she's alive.

THAT'S A BIG SHARK.

From here on out, Nancy does her best to survive the shark, blood loss, a school of jellyfish, sepsis, the onset of gangrene, and a shifty looking seagull named Steven Seagull... who just may want to peck her to death! Just kidding, he's her pal.

Intense survival ensues.

SHE'S LIKE A TOUGH LITTLE MERMAID.

The Shallows is an intense killer shark movie that makes the most of its lean 87-minute runtime. We get a few character-driven moments here and there, but for the most part, this movie is nothing but Girl vs. Shark, and that's how it should be. It's also a gorgeous movie that boasts some stunning shots of a perfect location. The jellyfish scene was breathtaking.

Did I mention that it's also a a pulse-pounding thrill-ride that involves a terrifying shark who is trying to eat a sweet, vulnerable, sexy girl? Because it is.

JUST LOOK AT THAT GORGEOUS BEACH!

Making a movie that involves one person, in one place for 80% of its running time is never an easy thing to do. Buried (2010) did it well. So did 127 Hours (2010.) The Shallows, while featuring a few scenes with other minor characters, is essentially Blake Lively's show, and she carries it off really well.

I've never really considered Blake Lively a great actress. Maybe it's because I haven't seen most of her movies, but she just never struck me as the "Oh, she's in it? Then it must be good!" type of actress. This movie has made me turn the corner on her though. Think about it for a second. How hard is it for any actor or actress to sit in one place for the majority of an 80-minute movie, and make it interesting? The girl is stuck on a rock in the middle of the ocean, and it kept us glued to our seat. Of course, the shark had a lot to do with that, and her seagull sidekick added some entertaining emotional depth, but Blake worked it out on her own for the most part, and we never once thought that she couldn't handle it. 

SHE KICKED SOME SHARK ASS.

Blake Lively's character gets a really nasty shark bite on the leg, which we get to watch her try and sew up, and a few dudes get eaten by a shark. There's also a rotting whale carcass. There's definitely some blood and viscera throughout this one.

THAT LEFT LEG DOES NOT LOOK HEALTHY.

It's PG-13, so no nudity. Blake Lively does look fantastic in a bikini though.

THIS IS ABOUT AS NAKED AS THINGS GET.

• The part towards the end where Blake Lively hits her nose on the buoy and starts bleeding was real. We give her credit for finishing her scene after smashing the shit out of her poor face like that. 
• Blake Lively nicknamed her bird co-star Steven Seagull, which we thought was kind of fun.

SO CLOSE, AND YET SO FAR...

The Shallows is one of the best killer shark movies we've ever seen. That may not sound like high praise, because most killer shark movies aren't very good to begin with, but this movie can be safely mentioned in the same breath as Jaws and Open Water when the best of them is discussed, and that's saying something.

If you're looking for an exciting flick to see at the theater, The Shallows is a way safer bet than Independence Day 2. Give it a go.

B+

The Shallows is in theaters now.

We love Blake Lovely Lively.

Theatrical Review: The Witch (2016)

"Why yes, we would like to live deliciously."

(aka The Settlers.)
Release Date: February 19th.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Robert Eggers. 
Directed by: Robert Eggers.
Starring: Anya Taylor-Joy, Ralph Ineson, Kate Dickie, and Black Philip.

Have you ever seen that DirecTV commercial with the Puritan settlers? The one where they settle for cable, offer their neighbors salted meats and homemade hats, and where taking a lick off of the family lolly every Harvest Moon seems like a genuine treat to them?

Well, The Witch is a lot like that, except in the movie, the Puritan settlers aren't quite so jovial; there's a witch in the nearby woods who wants to eat them; there's a lot more death; and there's this creepy goat named Black Phillip who lurks around and looks at everyone like he wants to kill them... and maybe eat them too. Goats eat anything, you know.

There's no family lolly though.

I went into The Witch knowing as little about it as possible; I'd seen one trailer and a few pictures, but I did my best to avoid reading any plot details or spoilers, especially when it came to the advance reviews from last year's Fantastic Fest. The buzz surrounding the movie was extremely positive, and that's all I needed to know to get me excited to see it.

With this in mind, I've left the plot details below a bit vague; there's a lot that happened in the movie that I'd love to talk about, but The Witch is exactly the kind of quiet, plot-driven movie that deserves to be seen unspoiled.

After a Puritan family is banished from their community because the father is stubborn and prideful, they're forced to move out into the remote countryside. They build their home near a creepy-ass forest that's rumored to be the home of a witch, but their belief in God is unshakable, so they're not afraid of any damned witch!

ARE THEY PRAYING TO THE FOREST?

After a few months of country living, we find eldest daughter Thomasin out by the edge of the forest, playing peek-a-boo with her infant brother, Sam. In the middle of the game, the baby disappears, and we see a black-cloaked figure of a woman taking him deep into the woods, and yes, we do find out why. The family is devastated at the loss of the baby, and even though they decided that it must have been a wolf that carried him off (?!?), mom casts a suspicious eye at Thomasin, because she just knows that it's her fault. We know it's a witch though.

PURITAN PORN?

Soon after the disappearance, their crops begin to die, the animals on the farm begin acting oddly, and the two youngest children, Jonas and Mercy, begin acting in the creepiest of fashions; they claim that the family goat, Black Phillip, talks to them; they claim to know that the witch of the woods has taken baby Sam; and they claim that Thomasin is in league with Satan. All of this sets everyone on edge, causing them to fight amongst themselves. Then, eldest son Caleb disappears.

And that's all you get.

YE OLDE FINAL GIRL.

The Witch is a genuinely scary movie, and a disturbing one as well. Everyone out there won't agree with the "scary" part, and it didn't have us hiding under our seat or anything, but this is one of those movies where the setting, the bleak atmosphere, and the goings-on pulled us into the movie, and allowed us to feel the unease and fear that its characters did.

Even though The Witch is a genuine Horror movie with evil creatures and beasts and all, there's a genuine vein of psychological Horror that runs through it which provides just as much terror as any of the Satanic stuff does. Evil witches aside, this movie is as much about paranoia destroying a family as it is anything.

This is also a gorgeous film which boasts some stunning cinematography, and a fantastic score that almost feels like its own character for all of the creepiness that it brings to the story. The visuals and music absolutely set the mood in this one.

THIS MOVIE EVEN FREAKED THE RABBIT OUT.

Writer/director Robert Eggers spent a lot of time researching 17th Century New England in order to make the movie feel as authentic as possible, and it shows. Witches, folklore, Puritanical beliefs and behaviors, vocabulary and grammar; it's all as authentic as it can be, and his research creates a dark, gloomy world that feels real, and more importantly, dangerous. This is one of those well-crafted movies that feels as if it were a factual account of real events. It's all fiction, of course, but I'll tell you that it sucked us right in and made us believe in its world, its characters, and the danger that they were all facing, in a way that few films do.

The cast is fantastic in this one too. Even though it was hard to make out some of the words that came out of the character's mouths at times, Ralph Ineson and Kate Dickie (both Game of Thrones alumni) were compelling as parents who dealt with the tragedies that befell them in very different ways. Newcomer Anya Taylor-Joy knocked it out of the park as the tortured daughter who is hopelessly caught between the religious beliefs of her parents, and the evil that is growing all around them. We're probably going to be seeing a lot more from her.

"I'M NOT A WITCH!"

With the Olde Worlde English that the characters spoke in the movie, it was really hard to tell what the hell they were saying sometimes. Maybe even 40% of the time.

WHAT DID HE EVEN SAY?

This movie needed more Black Phillip.

THAT'S ONE MISCHIEVOUS GOAT.

A witch makes some skin cream out of people, a crow eats away at someone, a kid throws up some nasty stuff, and a few people are stabbed to death with various implements. All of it is shown in a pretty graphic, matter-of-fact kind of way, with no cutting away.

SHE'S SEEN SOME SHIT

Anya Taylor-Joy gets naked, but most of it is obscured by shadows.

WELL, SOMEONE'S GROWING UP AWFUL FAST.

There's always a witch in the woods, so you should really live in the city at all costs. Also, we would really like to live deliciously.

YEAH, PRAYING ISN'T GOING TO SAVE YOU.

Yeah, we're giving The Witch an A+. I don't really hand that grade out very often, because to me, it speaks of a certain level of perfection that most films, even the best of them, seldom attain. This witchy, Satanic masterpiece really deserves the praise though. This is not a perfect film; everyone is going to find different things to love and hate about it. For us though, The Witch is a gorgeous, moody, horrifying film that took plenty of familiar tropes and made them its own, and in doing so, gave us an experience that felt very different and fresh from the norm. This is exactly the kind of Horror movie that we love.

The Witch is the perfect kind of movie to watch on a quiet, dark night, and you definitely should when it hits VOD two weeks from now.

A+

The Witch is in theaters now, and will be hitting VOD in a few short weeks on May 3rd.

The bewitching Anya Taylor-Joy.

VOD Review: The Pack (2015)

Movies that feature Man vs. Nature in a battle to the death are nothing new. Killer Animal flicks were a big thing back in the 70's and early 80's, and it's a sub-genre that's still going relatively strong today with excellent efforts like The Breed, Burning Bright, The Grey, Red Machine, Prey, and Rogue.

The Pack is a flick that could almost be added to that "Best of" Killer Animals list, if it weren't for some of its more contrived and nonsensical plot elements, many of which left something to be desired.

Still, this is a decent movie that managed to keep us mostly engaged with its intensity and suspenseful atmosphere.

Something is killing the livestock on an isolated Australian farm; and by killing, we mean ripping apart, eviscerating, and tearing it to shreds. It's all so senseless. Tough farmer Adam and his family are struggling with money as it is, and now some damned animal is killing off his livestock? Well he's not going to stand for that! After all, he's got a family to feed. 

TOUGH GUYS GIVE THE BEST HUGS.

Even after finding his livestock dead, fending of creditors who want to foreclose on his farm, and dealing with a bratty daughter that wants to move to the big city because Facebook works better there, Adam refuses to give up on the farm, mainly because of blind pride. He and his family settle in for a nice dinner, where he tells them that they are not going anywhere, and that they'll make ends meet somehow...

Then, the dogs come.

"WOOF." IN AUSTRALIAN DOG SPEAK, THAT TRANSLATES TO "YOU'RE DEAD, MATE."

That's right, it's a pack of big, black, mean feral dogs that have been killing livestock and people alike, and now they are descending on the lonely little farm to do the same to Adam and his family. Are they hungry? No, I think they just like to kill. Either way though, they are pretty big and scary, so the chances for the family surviving don't look to good.

Creepy canine antics ensue. 

SHE'S MENTALLY TELLING SOMEONE TO RUN, INSTEAD OF OPENING THE WINDOW AND ACTUALLY TELLING THEM.

The plot of this one isn't anything that you haven't seen before. The whole "family trapped and hunted by a bloodthirsty maniac" thing has been done countless times before, only this time, it happens to be in a Killer Animal flick. The Pack is pretty simple and straight-forward in its mechanics; the cast is small; and there are no big surprises in store for you, as a viewer, with this one.

The way that The Pack handles those all-too-familiar plot aspects though, is fantastic. It builds slow, ratchets up the tension and suspense in a natural way, and delivers some pretty exciting (and bloody) action scenes. Things are pretty intense any time the dogs are on-screen, especially when they attack.

And we really liked the way that it ended. We're suckers for cool scenes.

WE LIKED THE CAST TOO.

On the negative side of the fence, some of the things that happened in this movie were frustrating as hell. For instance, why didn't they open the window and yell for the Cop to get back in the car instead of standing there watching him look around before the pack of dogs fell upon him, and tore him to shreds? And the convenient plot device which had the Dad crashing into the Cop car, thus leaving (at least potentially) them no working vehicles with which to escape? And how did the Dad survive when the dog attacked him in the truck? Like the feral dog would attack and then just run off, leaving him sitting in in the truck, all bloody and vulnerable? And can't they smell the humans? There was more than one time where someone was hiding (or creeping around), only to have a dog walk by their place of concealment, kind of like a killer would in a Slasher flick. Dear script writer: dogs have keen senses of smell! With the Mom being a vet, you'd think that she'd know that... before she put her kids in a flimsy closet and telling them to be quiet. Like that would work.

The damn poster even says "We can't hide from them." Which is apparently a lie!

This movie was decent enough to where it didn't need to resort to such cheap and easy plot devices to movie it forward.

THIS WAS PRETTY MUCH OUR REACTION.

If you can put aside its more asinine plot elements & devices, then you might just find The Pack to be an intense Thriller that plays like Cujo; only with more dogs, more people, and more Australian accents. But it's not quite as good. This is a straight-up survival movie, with plenty of stalk-and-slash elements thrown in for good measure, and the parts of this movie that did work, worked really well.

We liked it for what it was, and when it finally sees release outside of Australia, it's well-worth a rental if you like Killer Animal flicks.

C+

The Pack is available now on Blu-ray & VOD.

Anna Lise Phillips is noice.