VOD Review: Split (2017)

"For us, the end justified the means."

What I'm trying to say is that Split was a decent enough psychological thriller, even though it was a bit long and didn't offer much in the way of incident until the end... but that ending... that ending...

I can't, and won't, talk about that ending here, because I know that there's still plenty of peeps out there who haven't seen this movie yet, but I will say that the way the story ended, made us a bit giddy with anticipation as to what comes next with this story... and what comes next is going to be awesome.

M. Night Shyamalanananan may just be returning to form after such a long string of disappointing efforts.

On their way to a birthday party, three teenage girls are kidnapped by a guy who looks a lot like a young Professor X. They're locked in a dank room (presumably in a sex dungeon of some sort), where it turns out the kidnapper is actually Dennis, a stern germophobe... but then he's Patricia, a kind lady who seems up to no good... but then he's Hedwig, a 9-year-old boy... Whoever he really is, it's clear that he's got some issues.

THE FACT THAT HE'S TELLING THEM TO CLEAN THE BATHROOM TERRIFIES HER MORE THAN ANYTHING.

Why this guy with Split personalities has kidnapped the girls is a mystery, but when they get wind that another of his personalities, The Beast, will be arriving shortly to teach them a lesson, they start to panic; especially Casey, who is the level-headed one of the group. She's also had a pretty rough life, so she's not about to put up with the rantings of a madman, and so she seeks to manipulate his personalities in an effort to escape.

And that's all we're saying about that.

YEAH, HE LOOKS LIKE A BALL OF JOY, DOESN'T HE?

Split is a well-made, interesting thriller that has a great cast and a very disturbing premise... that it doesn't really do much with. James McAvoy owns the screen with his performance, and Anya-Taylor Joy lends a ton of credibility to the final girl trope in this one, but Shamalayananan doesn't ever really deliver on the great set-up that he's constructed.

It's good, but it's basically an above-average PG-13 Horror movie, and you know that means little in the way of boundary pushing.

James McAvoy has always been a hell of an actor, and I don't men his work in the X-men movies; if you want to see him set the screen on fire, go watch Trance or Filth, both are great flicks. His work here, as the... thing... with multiple personalities is something extra special to behold. Most of the movie is him jumping from personality to personality, and making us uneasy as hell, and he pulls it off brilliantly.

Anya-Taylor Joy is an actress coming into her own as well. Not only is she adorable, but she's one of the best young actresses of her generation, and she plays the part of clever victim here flawlessly. The backstory that gives her character its disturbing depth was maybe the creepiest part of the movie, and she sold it perfectly.

And then there's the twist at the end... the thing that made us immediately think back over the whole movie and see it in a different light. It didn't make it any more thrilling, but it did make it, and what comes next, a hell of a lot more intriguing and kick-ass. I imagine that with the way things go with the Internet, that you may have already heard what it was, but if for some reason you haven't, then read nothing about the move and give it a watch... and you might be as geekily surprised as we were.

WHEN IT COMES TO MANIPULATION, CREEPY DUDES HAVE NOTHING ON TEENAGE GIRLS.

Things get a bit bloody towards the end, but it's more disturbing than it is graphic.

"HA! NO GORE FOR YOU!"

It's PG-13, so no nudity, but there are plenty of shots of girls in their undies.

RELAX, GIRLS, YOU CAN STAY DRESSED.

The very end, where we find out that... well, you'll know when you see it.

SHE DIDN'T SEE IT COMING EITHER.

Split was decent enough, if a bit pedestrian given its subject matter, but the performance of James McAvoy and the huge twist/reveal at the end kicked this one up a solid letter grade for us.

For those two reasons alone, Split is worth checking out if you passed on it in the theater like we did.

B+

Split is available now on Blu-ray, DVD, and VOD.

The captivating women of Split: Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson, and Jessica Sula.

VOD Review: The Blackcoat's Daughter (2017)

"Maybe the best Genre movie that we've seen all year."

(aka February.)
Release Date: TBA.
Country: USA.
Rating: R.
Written by: Oz Perkins.
Directed by: Oz Perkins.
Starring: Kiernan Shipka, Emma Roberts, Lucy Boynton, James Remar, and Lauren Holly.

Every year, there's one or two Horror movies that everyone hails as being "transcendent" or "genre changing," or something to that effect. Whatever the tag-line that gets attached to them, movies like It Follows, The Babadook, Cabin in the Woods, You're Next, and We Are Still Here end up being critical darlings, and find themselves on everyone's Must See list.

So far this year, the critical darlings seem to be The Witch, Green Room, and The Invitation. All three are great flicks in their own right, and they each deliver their own brand of chills, but I'm going to throw The Blackcoat's Daughter into that mix and say that it's every bit as good as those other movies. In fact, it very well could be better.

*We originally posted this review of The Blackcoat's Daughter (February) back in the Summer of 2016, and since then, it's been delayed a few times. Now that it's finally available for the world at larget to expereince for themselves, here it is again.

It's hard to talk about The Blackcoat's Daughter (formerly titled February), without ruining it for the uninitiated, so we're going to have to be as vague as possible here.

This is a movie about three girls, two of whom are stranded at their prep school over winter break, and one who is desperately trying to get to the school herself. One of the stranded girls, Kat, fears her parents dead, and withdraws inward to cope; while the other, Rose, is terrified that she might be pregnant, and is even more terrified of how creepy Kat is. As for the girl who is making her way toward Bramford Prep, Joan, well she's obviously been through something traumatic, and yet she stays focused on her goal.

It's also about Satan, who appears as a shadowy, bunny-like figure, intent on possessing one (or more) of the girl's souls.

I know that basically tells you nothing, but that's good. You need to see this one as uninformed as possible. In fact, don't even watch the trailer if you can help it. 

WHO WAS PHONE?

The Blackcoat's Daughter is a slow-burn Supernatural Thriller that took us to places that we didn't expect. I know that sounds generic as hell, and the term slow-burn is used far too often these days to describe slow and boring movies, but this one really had it's own quiet, eerie thing going on, and it left one hell of an impression on us.

The Blackcoat's Daughter is as much about loss as it is anything else, and the way that it handles the subject is superb. The movie twists and turns around its three main characters (who are all related in some obscure way) in quiet fashion, and brings them all together in the end in pretty shocking, and dare we say fresh, way. I'd really love to talk about that ending, and what it meant for the movie as a whole, but it would kill the entire thing, and it would be a shame for you to not experience that build-up and resolution for yourselves.

I guess it's safe to say that loss is the key word here; some of it creepy, all of it tragic.

"NO I HAVEN'T CHECKED THE CHILDREN. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN?"

It was interesting how they handled Satan in this movie too (it could have been a plain old Demon, but we got the strong sense that it was Old Scratch himself.) His presence and appearance was all very shadowy and ambiguous, as if he were more of a feeling or ideal than an actual physical being. Oh, he was there at times, but it's as if his presence was a shadow that was always draped across everything and everyone, whether you could see him or not.

This is director Oz Perkins' debut feature behind the camera, and it's about as impressive as a first movie can be. Horror is obviously in his blood (he's the son of Norman Bates himself, Anthony Perkins), and If this is the type of thing that we can expect from him as his career moves forward, which it most certainly will, then we're in for some good times.

I'm not sure who truly stole the show in this one; Kiernan Shipka or Emma Roberts. Both ladies played their tortured parts equally well, and their performances took an already great movie to the next level. Lucy Boynton was on top of her game too, even if her character wasn't quite as prevalent. Even Lauren Holly and James Remar seemed to dig deep for this one, although with James Remar being one of the best character actors ever, that's really no surprise.

THIS IS NO TIME TO BE PLAYING BLOODY MARY!

So was the school used for Satanic Rituals, or was that just a rumor started by the kids? Were the nuns Satan's Whores? Was it all in someone's head? Who was phone?!?

SHE'S COME A LONG WAY SINCE MAD MEN.

What the hell is a Blackcoat, and who in the hell was his daughter?

WAS IT HER?

It might not show up until the end, but when it gets there, the gore is solid.

IT'S ONLY A HAND WOUND. RUN!

No nudity in this one, but Emma Roberts does appear in a towel, if that's your kick.

CREEPY, NOT SEXY.

A teenager in love is a fierce creature. So is Satan.

OH, SHE KNOWS. SHE KNOWS.

The Blackcoat's Daughter isn't a perfect movie, and it's probably not going to garner as big of an audience as The Witch did earlier this year, but it's an excellent film and one of the best possession flicks that we've ever seen. Very few movies these days stay with us as long (and as powerfully) as did this one, and we can't wait to watch it again to further dissect it. 

This was a near-perfect movie-watching experience for us, and you should absoloutly check it out now that it's finally seen a proper release.

A

The Blackcoat's Daughter is available now on VOD.

Emma Roberts is fast becoming one of our favorite Scream Queens, pun intended.

Theatrical Review: Nocturnal Animals (2016)

"Highbrow Neo-Noir with an A-list cast."

Amidst each year's more typical genre offerings, there are always a few higher-minded Thrillers that come along and, well, thrill us. Most of these Thrillers tend to be foreign films -S.Korea and France do them well, and there's nothing quite like a good Scandi Thriller- but every now and then we get one out of Hollywood that just ends up being gold.

Nocturnal Animals is one such flick.

There are going to be SPOILERS below, because it's hard to discuss this movie without delving into that territory, so maybe skip "The Bad" section so as not to ruin the movie for yourselves.

Susan is a sexy art gallery owner who is trapped in a marriage with a cheating bastard, so when her ex-husband sends her the manuscript for his new book, she figures "hey, my marriage sucks, so I might as well curl up on the couch and get to reading." After all, he's in town promoting the book, and he's asked her to dinner, so the least she can do is read his book before she meets him, because as miserable as her life is, why not cling to the memory of the man that she left for greener pastures? The girl has issues.

READING. YOU'RE DOING IT WRONG.

The book itself is about a man, wife, and daughter who are traveling down a desolate West Texas highway in the dead of night, when three local creeps run them off the road, assault the women, and hunt the man down in an attempt to kill him. So it's a love story, essentially.

"I AIN'T DONE RAPED NOBODY WHO AIN'T KIN."

When Susan realizes that the story is about she and her ex-husband, and the events that lead to the demise of their relationship, in unexpected ways, it starts to mess with her head. And ours. So, she puts on a red dress and gets ready for the best dinner date ever.

Some genuinely satisfying "take that!" revenge ensues.

THAT'S WHAT YOU GET!

Nocturnal Animals is an excellent Neo-Noir Thriller, of the psychological variety. It boasts a tight script that is acted out by an insanely talented cast, all of which is brought together perfectly by the direction of Tom Ford. Well, almost perfectly. It was really close.

This is a gritty movie, and a psychologically demanding one, but it's really the emotional weight of the story, and the baggage carried by the characters that make it so harrowing, albeit on a completely different level than we had imagined before seeing it.

It's Neo-Noir done at the highest level, and it's exactly the kind of movie that we crave.

The more I think about it, the more I really loved the ending of this movie. Without giving anything away (we've saved the spoilers for the section below), Amy Adams' journey throughout Nocturnal Animals, and especially the place she ends up in the last scene, is so damn fitting that it hurts.

This was definitely Amy Adams' movie, and she does her usual stellar work here; and Jake Gyllenhaal and Michael Shannon pull their weight equally well (especially Shannon, who killed his role in a big way) but for us it was Aaron Taylor-Johnson who stole the show with his intense and creepy turn in this one. In a movie that boasts such a stellar cast doing really solid work, that's saying something.

YOU JUST CAN'T BEAT THIS MAN FOR INTENSITY.

***BEWARE SPOILERS!***

As much as we loved the movie as a group, I also found this movie to be challenging, because it's a bit too high-minded for its own good. Most Thrillers have to come with a shocking twist or two, that's just how it goes, but I am not a big fan of movies that offer twists which negate what I've just experienced. The twists at the end of Nocturnal Animals are well done and intriguing, and they serve the narrative well, but they also negate everything that happened throughout the movie... because those things never happened. It's all an allegory in book form, written by one character to another, to convey his feelings about being dumped, and to get some sort of psychological revenge against the woman who broke his heart.

Again, it works well, and makes for an excellent, emotional narrative, but man does it ever suck when all kinds of cool and intense things happen in a movie, only to find out that none of it ever really happened.

***END OF SPOILERS***

KEEP DRINKING, IT WON'T HELP.

Dropping a deuce while naked on a toilet on your front porch? And we have to see the dirty toilet paper too? What I the hell is going on in West Texas?!?

SORRY AARON, BUT THAT'S INDOOR BUSINESS, MAN.

This is not a gory movie at all, but it does have plenty of violence throughout.

HE CAME TO BRING THE PAIN.

Aaron Taylor-Johnson takes a naked number 2 on his front porch...

...WHILE AMY ADAMS REMAINS FULLY CLOTHED. WHERE IS THE JUSTICE!

Relationships are terrifying. Also, you should never throw over true love in order to marry someone who has a better pedigree, because you'll only end up feeling cheated and miserable in the end.

POOR JAKE...

A great movie, even if we didn't exactly love the twist that drove the whole thing forward, Nocturnal Animals is one that will surely please fans of Psychological Thrillers with a romantic bent. It may not end up being what you expect by the end, but it's a journey that's well-worth taking anyhow. The more I think about it, the more it haunts me... and I know that sounds like hyperbole, but it's the truth.

Go see it.

A-

Nocturnal Animals is in theaters now.

Oh, Amy Adams, the things you do to us...