Shivers & Rabid

David Cronenberg is a filmmaker who I have read more about than I have watched the work of (that sentence works).

My local arthouse recently played a double bill of Cronenberg's first two films, and it made for a great juxtaposition and look at a filmmaker forming his core ideas and figuring out a distinct cinematic vocabulary.

Shivers 

In the exclusive apartment complex Starliner Towers, something is growing: a new parasite has been set loose inside the building and is rapidly moving through the population. Can anyone stop it? 

I watched this movie years ago. I have only seen a few Cronenberg movies, but my local arthouse was hosting a double bill for Halloween, and I thought it might improve my impression of the film to see it on the big screen.

Cronenberg's first movie, Shivers is technically rough and features some wooden performances. However, despite these things the film still works, and the central idea remains incredibly compelling.

There is an air of an industrial film, or docudrama about the film's style. The blocking is awkward, and sometimes feels like a filmed play, while the editing style reminded me a bit of Russ Meyer, particularly when the film would intercut a conversation with images of what the characters were talking about.  

Some suspect decisions (the doctor’s backstory as a pedophile is casually dropped and everyone is nonplussed) come across as sloppy scripting, while the characterisation is pretty minimal. All of the characters are types. 

The lead performer, Paul Hampton, is completely miscast as the doctor who is the ostensible protagonist of the film. The character is meant to be ineffective, but the performer is so lethargic and out of sync with the actors around him that he works agains the effectiveness of the film.

Some of the supporting players are good - Joe Silver is legitimately charismatic and believable - but otherwise the acting is secondary. I did like seeing horror luminaries Barbara Steele (Black Sunday) and Lynn Lowry (The Crazies) show up, but their roles are pretty small.

While the movie is flawed, the thrust of the story -  watching the parasite progress through the complex - provides more meat for comment. The parasite was designed as a replacement for organ transplants, as a way to replicate and replace the function of bad organs.

It is the first example of Cronenberg's fascination with new forms of life, and the way in which transformation of the body can create a new sense of reality.

As the parasite overtakes the various occupants of the apartment complex, they are more concerned with spreading the parasite than killing people. By the end of the film, Cronenberg's distanced, awkward camera set ups make the film feel like a docudrama about the parasite - it does add to the disconcerting feel of the film.

The blandness of the photography lends a starkness to some of the imagery that gives it more punch.

As with a lot of debut features, there is an energy to Shivers that makes it more fun to watch. You can feel the filmmakers' passion - even if the film's tone is unrelentingly dispassionate. 

Rabid

Following a horrific accident, Rose (Marilyn Chambers) is taken to Keloid clinic, where they use the latest in plastic surgery techniques to heal her. 

As she recovers, Rose gains a craving for human blood, which she absorbs via a new blade-like appendage under her armpit.

What she does not realise is that she is also the carrier of a plague, which she passes on to her victims.

As she makes her way back home to Montreal, the authorities are struggling to prevent the infection, which is turning ordinary people into blood-thirsty ghouls.

Continuing Shivers' idea of a bodily modification evolving toward a new kind of existence, Rabid is a more distilled and developed version of the thesis underpinning Cronenberg's early horror films.

From the beginning, Rabid is technically a leap forward. Cronenberg makes use of a moving camera; the lighting shows more understanding of atmosphere; and the acting is more consistent. 

My one issue with Rabid is with the character development - while they are better than Shivers, the characters are largely ideas. 

The big selling point of both movies is the strength of Cronenberg's ideas, but at this point I enjoyed those ideas despite the thin characterisation.

It might be the case that Marilyn Chambers did not have enough to do - I never had a clear idea of who she was, and I never cared about any of her relationships. All this stuff feels besides the point.

As with Shivers, Rabid's central concept is fascinating but I still did not like the characters. There is a third act attempt at a tragic love story (a concept that Cronenberg would return to in The Fly), but it came too late to work for me. 

Overall thoughts?

While I do not think either film are that impressive on their own, together they feel of a piece. I caught more of Cronenberg's sense of humour, and it was interesting to see how he developed his characterisation and sense of world-building. The world in Rabid feels lived in and expansive, and while the characterisation is not great, the acting is solid and means there is greater sense of stakes as the plague takes hold.

I am keen to re-watch The Brood, and see how Cronenberg's ideas evolve, particularly in terms of the characterisation of the central couples in that movie. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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Berlin Syndrome (Cate Shortland, 2018)

Frayed by an unspoken past, Clare (Teresa Palmer) is in Berlin as part of a delayed OE. Taken in by a charming English teacher Andi (Max Riemelt), she thinks she is in enjoying a passionate fling.

But the apartment door is locked and her SIM card is missing...

I am always a fan of movies set in enclosed spaces: Die Hard, Rear Window, Knife in the Water, Clerks, Roadgames... I could rattle off so many movies from multiple genres 

Taut, intimate and quietly unsettling, Berlin Syndrome is a terrific thriller from director Cate Shortland.

Since this movie involves the kidnapping of a woman (who happens to be a Hollywood starlet), I was always conscious of another version of this movie which could have been sensationalised and predictable. Shortland's approach to the film is more understated and economical, with a focus on observing these characters as their enforced intimacy develops.

Rather than lay out the villains intentions, as the story progresses the script slowly drops out information about her captor as he goes about his life (work and spending time with his father). He is a monster seeking to be human. Andi is no mastermind, but a man child who wants to possess Clare completely, including documenting her captivity with Polaroids, and keeping a trove of the photos in a locked room that he bans her from entering.

To call back the last thriller I reviewed, The Stepfather, Berlin Syndrome builds suspense out of its character dynamics, with split focus on both characters’ perspectives. There are no real 'set pieces' to speak of.

Unlike The Stepfather, Berlin Syndrome avoids tying itself to an obvious plot trajectory, and allows its characters to grow and breath. It results in a more believable, fleshed-out and unpredictable film that never feels like it is exploiting its premise.

I cannot say I will be putting it on any time soon, but Berlin Syndrome is a fine character piece with great performances.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Checked out the lates episodes of the James Bond Cocktail Hour?

The latest season of the James Bond Cocktail Hour is out now. 

The episodes are as follows:

No Time To Die Trailer 2 review

Nobody Lives For Ever (by John Gardner)

How to introduce James Bond

Casino Royale '06 Part One & Two

McClory v Fleming

Thunderball (novel)

You can listen to these and future episodes wherever you listen to podcasts!

Akira (Katsuhiro Otomo, 1988)

It's 2019. 30 years after WW3, Neo-Tokyo is gripped with strife.

Amidst the chaos, a young man named Tetsuo has been kidnapped by the state. His friend Kaneda is determined to find him before it is too late...

In time for its 4K release, Akira is back on the big screen.

I have always enjoyed Akira but seeing it on the big screen really draws attention to how much detail has been put into the world-building.

The violence is extreme but the way it is deployed is interesting - sometimes it is comic; sometimes it is tragic; sometimes it  feels completely senseless.

I will not pretend to know the full context behind it but the underlying fear of the apocalypse; political collapse; generational divides - these are themes are pretty universal, and still resonate.

There are some unintended predictions to Neo Tokyo which added an edge to the satire - the film is set in 2019 and the climax takes place at the construction site for the 2020 Olympics. As with real life, that event will have to be postponed. 

The movie has a great sense of humour, from the Verhoeven-esque portrayal of the ultra-violent police, and Kaneda's role as hapless bystander as follows Kei into the bowels of the city. 

Kaneda is a complicated character. He is a brash, violent, sexist and not that smart. He is also a loyal friend, and seems to genuinely care for people - particularly as the world seems to be collapsing. Narratively, however, he has little real impact on the movie, other than providing a regular joe's perspective to the machinations of the rebels who trying to bring down the system.  He comes across as a sidekick ala Jack Burton in Big Trouble in Little China.

On to the action set pieces - they are still breath-taking and remain disturbingly visceral - there are so many moments where the film emphasises the frailty of the human body, such as the moment in the first motorcycle chase when a rider falls off his bike, goes under the tires of another bike and his arm flops around like a rag doll. Or the scene when Kei kills a man and the camera lingers on the man's body as he gasps for breath before cutting to her horrified reaction.

In this film, death is terrifying, and even as the city falls apart, it is the visceral moments that prevent it from coming across as empty spectacle. 

Not everything works - while I enjoy the he scope of it, the story darts from plot thread to plot thread. 

The portrayal of Kaori is terrible - I do not understand why she is in the movie. She exists purely to show how terrible the world is. She lacks agency and exists purely for torture and killing. It is a disturbing black hole in the movie. Kei has more agency, but by the third act she exists almost entirely as an avatar for the children to fight Tetsuo.

The three kids are still very flat - the vocal performances of the Japanese and English dubs are sadly very similar in that regard. 

Even with those issues, the movie still works - I am always drawn to the sense of a world simultaneously expanding and collapsing, growing and dying, evolving and regressing - it’s a full meal of a movie. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Edge of Seventeen (Kelly Fremon Craig, 2016)

When her best friend starts going out with her brother, 17 year old Nadine's life seems to be spiralling out of control. 

  

This is one of those movies that I heard great things about, and... completely forgot to check it out.

This falls into the same category as The Gift: The Edge of Seventeen is terrific. 

Here is a movie about growing up that actually feels like a movie about growing up. A big part of growing up is failure, and this movie is wise enough to deal with it.

Nadine is not a stereotype of teenage-hood.  

Nadine is dealing with a lot: her father's death, her relationship with her mother; her disdain for her brother's position with her mother.

She is not presented as especially worldly or witty. She can be ignorant of other people's lives, and ends up destroying a few relationships by either miscommunication or attacking someone for a perceived slight. I have watched the film a couple of times for this review, and it became clearer on subsequent viewings how self-absorbed Nadine is.

And this is not a bad thing. The Edge of Seventeen is wise enough to present a character with believable flaws and motivations. Nadine is not able to recognise her own limitations, and it takes a long time for her to engage in genuine self-reflection.

What is great about the script is that all of the people around her are essentially in the same position. They do not know how how to talk to Nadine, and it takes an escalation of conflict for everyone to finally reckon with one another.

A big reason for the film's success is Hailee Steinfeld. Nadine is weird, awkward and think she is smarter than she is - and Steinfeld does not shy away from highlighting these qualities. She gives Nadine a quick- fire confidence that emphasises the character tor's immaturity without making her come off as a caricature.

On my initial viewing, there are a few moments where Nadine's dialogue felt too written, but as the movie progressed those moments felt more like a teen trying to present herself as smarter and more worldly. Nadine is wearing a front to hide her deepest feelings. 

Steinfeld leans into Nadine's over-confidence, making her feel more out of sync with the people around her. Nadine wants to be an outsider, and Steinfeld's shameless performance highlights just how awkward she is.

I feel like I am coming off a bit harsh, but I want to emphasise how refreshing it is to watch a movie where genuinely flawed people are treated with empathy and understanding. Nadine makes mistakes, but the movie never punishes her or makes fun of her. 

The movie deserves kudos for fleshing out all of its characters. Though she treats them as antagonists, Nadine's mother Mona (Kyra Sedgwick) and jock brother Darian (Blake Jenner) have as much control over their lives as Nadine does: both are still struggling with the loss of their husband/father, and all three people are beset by an inability to see each other's point of view. Nadine's best friend Krista (Haley Lu Richardson) is hurt by the breakdown of her friendship, and does not turn into an antagonistic force. 

Teacher Mr Bruner (Woody Harrelson),  Nadine's unwilling mentor, is believably harried as Nadine sucks up every moment he has free. He is no saintly mentor, but a veteran educator who is somewhat past it, but is still able to find a way to look out for his student.

Every character has their own motivations, their own fears and weaknesses. They never feel contrived to boost Nadine's place as the protagonist, or to force the plot in a specific direction. They all live and breath within the diegesis - the irony of the movie is that Nadine, the film's protagonist, thinks the entire world revolves around her and her problems, when the case is very much the opposite.

Even the portrayal of Nadine's stop-start friendship with Erwin (Hayden Chun Hay Szeto), a boy who has a crush on her, is treated with nuance and a lack of schmaltz or cliches. It is obvious from the beginning that this relationship will end in romance, but it never feels contrived. There seems to be a level of self-awareness to Nadine's interactions with Erwin, especially in the way she contextualises him: the assumptions she makes about his background and the way she describes him, in terms which reduce him to the stereotype of a desexualised, disempowered old man. It is a brutal categorisation, and the script does not let Nadine off the hook for it. Erwin maybe awkward, but he calls her out repeatedly for being an ass. It is great character-building, and Szeto and Steinfeld have great chemistry. 

Just thinking about this movie makes me want to watch it again.

A well-observed and keenly intelligent portrait of a young woman learning how to grow up, The Edge of Seventeen succeeds at something so many movies fail to: it genuinely loves and understands its characters.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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The Stepfather (Joseph Ruben, 1987)

 Jerry Blake (Terry O'Quinn) just wants a nice, quiet all-American family. And he is willing to kill for it.

Joseph Ruben occupies a weird niche in my brain. I would not rank him as the second coming of Hitchcock, but there is a chilly banality to his films that has stuck with me since childhood. It might have something to do with the subject matter: Sleeping with the Enemy deals with spousal abuse; The Good Son with an evil child. 

They also take place in suburbia, in generally cold climates - as someone who grew up in cold suburbs, his films always struck a cord.

The Stepfather is the progenitor of these later films - like them, it is based around undermining a familiar image of the WASP American family, only in this case that theme is expressed more overtly through the title character.

Jerry Blake is a perverse caricature of 80s Americana. Obsessed with images of TV domestic bliss from the fifties, he is determined to replicate an extreme version of the nuclear family. 

Jerry's introduction ranks as one of the best horror sequences I have seen, and kind of overshadows the rest of the movie:

In a bathroom, a blood-splattered Jerry cleans himself up and transforms himself into his new persona. Picking up his bags, he leaves the bathroom and descends the stairs toward the front entrance. The sound of a phone off the hook gradually builds as Jerry passes bloody walls and the bodies of his previous family crumpled in the living room. 

Leaving the house, he walks cheerily down the street while whistling.

It is a terrifying sequence and has such an impact that it took a few viewings for me to notice how long it was until the next scene of violence.

This is a perfect set up for suspense, as we follow Jerry's new stepdaughter Stephanie (Jill Schoelen), as she wrestles with Jerry's intense attempts to build a relationship with her. It is a testament to the movie that its most suspenseful moments come down to human interactions, rather than bloodletting. A lot of the suspense is based on whether Jerry can keep up appearances. Presentation is the character's central motivation, and when anything disrupts that - like his stepdaughter getting expelled, or kissing a boy - you know it is only a matter of time before Jerry will want a clean slate.

If it were not for Terry O'Quinn's performance, this movie might have come off as silly. There are multiple elements which work against it - the score is very synth-heavy, and feels more appropriate to a slasher movie; the supporting actors are mostly wooden; and the movie's plot feels too cookie-cutter, barring the characters from fully developing, or acting in ways contrary to their personalities.The third act is also a misfire - it feels more like the final chase from a slasher movie, including the cliche of having Stephanie in the shower. 

When the movie is just focused on O'Quinn, The Stepfather comes to life as a bizarre satire of Reagan-era America. 

O'Quinn has the bearing of a TV dad from a sitcom, but with those big, piercing eyes and easy smile, he puts you on edge. There are so many scenes which just come down to his performance - not just as the character, but as the benevolent patriarch Jerry is trying to be.

While the movie's plot veers toward the climax on fast tracks, the real story is tracking this evil man's thought process, as he gradually loses interest in his current family. In one of the film's most disquieting sequences, Jerry glumly walks through his neighbourhood after another argument with his family. Jerry watches a man return home and embrace his wife and child. Jerry becomes transfixed with the image of the happy family, and smiles. Never has a look of hope carried such threat.

There is a timeless quality to Jerry's twisted belief system that keeps me coming back to The Stepfather. Since it is set in the eighties, it is easy to point at the specific reference points for the film's critique of the decade's focus on family values. Jerry's nostalgia for a time that never existed feels very contemporary - he is basically enacting his own version of making America Great Again, trying to embody a version of white masculinity that only existed on his TV screen. 

The character's obsession with manners and appearance can be seen as an indictment in itself - while it stretches credibility to an extent, the fact that Jerry has been able to do this for a while, and ingratiate himself so completely speaks to how much this society emphasises superficial attributes like politeness and a tidy appearance. It might be the scariest part of the movie.

Definitely worth checking out.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Bumblebee (Travis Knight, 2018)

Pandemic + Netflix = catching up on recent releases.

I remember liking the first Transformers - I liked the rapport between Sam and Bumblebee, and I thought Megan Fox was sexy. 

Sure, the humour was bad and it featured all the familiar Bayisms (explosions, worship of the military, blatant objectification of every woman) but the first half of the movie, when it is just about an awkward teen finding a new super-powered friend, is kind of charming

I watched the second movie and promptly lost all interest in catching future instalments - the charm of the first movie (the first half at least) was gone. This bad experience meant I avoided Bumblebee in theatres for obvious reasons. 

Thanks to it being 2020, I finally checked it out on Netflix.

The movie is basically a reboot of the 2007 film, except the filmmakers actually commit to presenting a coming-of-age story, through the relationship between Bumblebee and an awkward teen, minus the bad jokes and the lusty camera hoovering after Megan Fox.

The movie kind of reminded me of Bad Boys 3, in that it is taking subject matter associated with Michael Bay, and presenting it with the tenets and focus of a dramatic narrative.

Said awkward teen is played by Hailee Steinfeld, who made a really strong impression in the Coen Brothers' True Grit a decade ago.

She plays Charlie, who is struggling with the death of her father. Bumblebee was injured in his arrival to earth, and cannot remember who he is. Together they form an odd couple as she seeks to help him remember who he is, and he in turn tries to help his new friend.

Steinfeld is the movie’s MVP. She is really great in this movie. It is refreshing to see a complicated female lead in this kind of movie, particularly in this franchise. It made me more interested in checking out Steinfeld’s Edge of Seventeen, which watched a few days later. 

Most of the movie is based around her interactions with Bumblee, who speaks exclusively through radio soundbites. It was a nice bit in the 2007 film, but here it used with more purpose.

While the film includes plenty of set pieces, the relationship between Charlie and Bumblebee is the real meat of the movie. This does mean that the villains feel somewhat sidelined, however Angela Bassett brings welcome note of malice to the main antagonist that elevated her far beyond past villains of the franchise.

I cannot say Bumblebee is a great movie - it feels a little too indebted to its 80s inspirations, but it is far more mature and involving than any of the Bay-helmed movies. 

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

The Gift (Joel Edgerton, 2015)

 Married couple Simon (Jason Bateman) and Robyn (Rebecca Hall) have moved to LA with plans to make a family. After a short time home, they bump into a figure from Simon's past, Gordo (Joel Edgerton).

Despite his initial friendliness, the couple soon realise that nothing is as it seems...

I cannot wait until somebody writes an exhaustive history and analysis of the films produced by Blumhouse. They have produced a lot of movies, and I really appreciate the diversity of their output - from franchises like Paranormal Activity and The Purge, to more singular films like Get Out and The Gift. The entrenched economy of their budgets and the free-reign given to filmmakers has been a boon for genre cinema, and post-pandemic, might be the model for a re-structuring of the industry.

The Gift is one of the best horror movies I have seen recently, and it felt fitting to post this review in October. 

So many movies try to horrify by being visually transgressive. The Gift keeps all of its horrors offscreen, but uses that offscreen space to force the viewers to question what those horrors could be.

It is almost like the Schrodinger's Cat of horror, where assumptions are undermined at every turn. Rather than reveal information, the film holds back from anything definitive, forcing the protagonists and the viewers to constantly wrestle with what the truth really is.

One of the most unsettling moments of the movie is when Robyn asks her dog 'Where did you go'. The camera tracks slowly in on the animal's passive face. It is not that impressive to describe, but the whole movie is built on moments like this, where the filmmakers let the camera sit and force the viewer to wrestle with new context (which might be a lie).

This movie plays into a quality that I have noticed with Jason Bateman. It is something I picked up in Arrested Development, which is his ability to push the sincerity when in a lie. There is something so disquieting about how easily he can do that made for some great laughs in that show. Here, it is pushed to 11 and it is unsettling. Even before we learn too much about him, there is this forcefulness to his charm and intensity to his gaze that put me on edge. It took me until after the movie to realise that he was reminding me of someone I know who always publicly presented in the same way. 

Bateman is breath-taking in the movie. 

Rebecca Hall is like a great utility player. She delivers great performances, but she shows up in so many movies where I almost forget about her. She is so adaptable that I buy her in so many roles. Watching this movie made me want to go back re-watch some of her other movies. She brings a frailty and warmth that makes Robyn's easy trust believable. 

As the gift-giver, Joel Edgerton is like the movie - he comes across like a blank slate. He is awkward and I did feel a certain empathy for him, even before we learn what happened to him, but there is a opacity to his face which adds to the movie's mysteries. 

I have been meaning to watch The Gift for years, and I should have watched it sooner. This movie is great.

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

You can subscribe on iTunes, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Eye of the Needle (Richard Marquand, 1981)

 In the final days before D Day, a German agent codenamed 'the Needle' (Donald Sutherland) discovers that the Allies are intending to invade on the Normandy coast. Having taken photos of the faked encampments that the Germans believe indicate a landing at Calais, he heads north to meet with a U-boat that will deliver his information to Adolf Hitler himself.

When a storm foils his attempt to escape, the Needle finds himself stranded on Storm Island, off the Scottish coast. 

While he recovers, the Needle finds himself drawn to Lucy (Kate Nelligan), the wife of the local sheep farmer. Isolated from her resentful husband, she joins him in a passionate affair.

Will love foil the Needle's plans?

"The war has come down to the two of us"

The first impression I get from Eye of the Needle is 'what if'. Not because of the film's plot, but because this film reaffirmed a vague feeling I had about the film's director, Richard Marquand.

If the name sounds familiar, it is because the Welsh filmmaker was responsible for directing Return of the Jedi (his next film). While that film is his most well-known credit, the film of his that I gravitate towards is his 1985 thriller Jagged Edge.

Marquand sadly passed away in 1987 so it is impossible to know how his career would have progressed.

After watching Eye of the Needle, I could not help but note the similarities with Jagged Edge, and the strength of both films in their character-driven suspense.

Both films are about women who become involved with men who are involved in dark deeds. Whereas Jagged Edge centres its protagonist, Eye of the Needle maintains the novel's dual point of views.

I read the book about 20 years ago, so my memory of it may not be strong, but from what I can remember the film follows the narrative of the book fairly closely. 

What I found intriguing about the film is the characterisation of the Needle, and his relationship with Lucy.

In his relationship with Lucy, there are vague references to his background - a sense of parental control and lack of affection, a sense of betrayal which has kept him isolated. Sutherland displays a ruefulness and a self-awareness about who he is - there is an implication that the Needle is aware of what he has become, but he cannot change. 

I would not call the movie deep, but the ambiguities of the Needle's motives in his relationship with Lucy make the movie more re-watchable than the premise may suggest.

There is a version of this movie where the importance of the ticking clock is emphasised. And I would say that holds for the first half of the movie, which plays like a low-key version of a 'man-on-the-run' thriller. There are a few instances of violence and scenes of the Needle avoiding capture, but while they are well-staged, the movie feels too familiar. 

Once the Needle is stuck on the island, the movie becomes a duet between the lonely agent and the lonely woman. 

For this review, I watched the movie twice. On first viewing, I found the structure a little odd, and thought Sutherland received more screen time. I was a little underwhelmed, but something about the movie made me go back and watch it again.

First impressions are not always the best, and I have had enough experience with other media to recognise that repeat viewings can lead to completely different reactions. 

Second time around with the Needle, I really engaged with the emotion of it. I think the script performs a really elegant balancing act between the two lead characters, who have nothing to do with each other until midway through the movie.

Now I have not gone back to the book, but from what I recall, Ken Follett gets more inside the heads of Lucy and the Needle. This works for the book, but as a visual story I think his opacity is more engaging. The espionage aspect is fairly straightforward - it is basically a guy delivering a MacGuffin under a tight deadline - and the focus on the relationship between Lucy and the Needle differentiates this movie from other WW2 thrillers.

 The actors are really great in this. There is no big moments or scenery-chewing. I really like how understated the playing is. I think my personal taste when it comes to melodrama is understatement, and Eye of the Needle feels like a pitch-perfect example of that approach. 

Kate Nelligan is really great as Lucy. She is constantly refereeing her relationship with her husband. She is really engaging and empathetic and never comes across as an archetypal damsel in distress or a final girl. There is an exposed quality, a vulnerability to her that makes the film's final scenes more impactful.

Donald Sutherland is also good as the Needle - there is a sense of cynicism to his performance that is interesting. He comes across as someone who is driven to succeed at his goals. From what we learn of his backstory, I took that drive to be something he had been trained in from birth, a trait he resents yet cannot ignore - even if it means destroying his one chance at happiness.

As far as the other production elements, Alan Hume's photography is rather beautiful, in a bleak way. He had a long collaboration with Marquand (and also photographed three James Bond movies). Maybe it is because I am familiar with his work in Bondage, I was surprised at how impressive the photography. It is very autumnal and drained of life. You really get a sense of a location under siege. I also love the sequence where the Needle stabs a soldier in a darkened train carriage. There are some really great visual moments.

The one element I am a little divided on is the score. I love Miklos Rozsa's scores, but I found his work here to be a touch too melodramatic and almost old-fashioned. There are some emotional beats where when the strings came in that it felt like a movie from the Forties, rather than a movie set in the Forties. I thought the romantic focus of the score was good, but the orchestration felt out of time. 

Overall, Eye of the Needle is a really solid thriller. It makes a good double bill with Richard Marquand's other thriller Jagged Edge, and I think the Needle's unspoken motivations give the movie a re-watchability that it would otherwise lack.  

If you are new to this blog, I also co-host a podcast on James Bond, The James Bond Cocktail Hour. 

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Attack! of! the! Exclamation!: Them! & Tarantula!

Since it is October, time for some themed posts!

Last weekend, my local arthouse held a double bill screening of a pair of classics from the fifties era of monster movies.

Them! (Gordon Douglas, 1954):

Police are puzzled by a series of mysterious deaths in the desert.

They quickly learn that a hive of mutant ants, irradiated by the original atom bomb tests, have grown to massive size.

What is worse is that two queens are secluded somewhere, growing fresh workers to support their hives.

Can they be stopped?

The first of the American run of monster movies in the fifties, Them! was released in the same year as the original Godzilla and shares that film's catalyst of nuclear weapons. 

Directed by jack-of-all-genres Gordon Douglas, starring James Whitmore, Edmund Gwenn (who played Santa Claus in the original Miracle on 34th Street), Joan Weldon, and James Arness (the original Thing, 1951) and written by George Worthing Yates, Ted Sherdeman and Russell Hughes, Them! is a terrific thriller that endures despite some of the technical limitations of the 'them' of the title.

Since it is coming at the head of a genre, Them! is fascinating as the filmmakers find their way into narrative and character conventions that are now seen as cliche. 

For a majority of the runtime, the movie is fashioned like a mystery - the filmmakers hold off showing the title creatures until the last possible moment, and the movie is better for it.

This movie has a great first act. Police find a catatonic girl wandering in the desert, and a camper peeled open like a can of sardines. As they load the little girl into an ambulance, eerie cries echo across the desert. The little girl snaps to attention. She knows the source, but is unable to describe it.

The sound design of the ants' cries is deeply unsettling, and works well to build the omnipresence of the threat as the camera pans across empty desert vistas, the source of the cries hidden from view.

The movie spends a lot of time with our heroes as they try to figure out what is going on, and once the menace is revealed, the filmmakers only show the ants (represented by crude animatronics) sparingly.

While the special effects are rough, the rest of the movie more than makes up for it. The cast are all solid, Douglas's direction milks the atmosphere, and the script unfolds at a clip. There is even a scene which is just an educational movie on ants which is great.

A terrific start to the genre, it is easy to see why Them! was followed by so many imitators, which brings us to...

 Tarantula! (Jack Arnold, 1955)

When an experiment to artificially grow food goes tragically wrong, a super-sized tarantula is released from a desert lab and proceeds to terrorise the local community.

It falls to local doctor Matt Hastings (John Agar) and scientist Stephanie 'Steve' Clayton (Mara Corday) to stop the menace before it is too late.

If Them! is the inauguration of a genre, Tarantula! is an example of the genre in medis res. Directed by Jack Arnold (Creature from the Black Lagoon) and produced by William Alland, Tarantula was part of Universal’s push into horror and science fiction in the fifties. 

Released a year after Them!, in some ways Tarantula! feels like a distilled version of the earlier movie. 

Once again we open in the desert. A figure stumbles into view - a disfigured man. He collapses in the sand.

There is more overt sci-fi and horror elements in Tarantula! which make it more fantastical than Them! 

There are elements of body horror in the portrayal of the scientists responsible for the titular monster, although they are relatively benign, not Frankenstein-style egomaniacs.

For me, the biggest difference with Them! is the casting. Them! was populated by character actors, there is a broader, more b-movie quality to the performances in Tarantula! nothing agains the actors - the characters feel more like archetypes.

That being said, that shift fits the more comic book style of this movie. The acting is pretty solid all round - Leo G. Carroll is good as the distant scientist struggling with what he has wrought, and Mara Corday brings plenty of spark to the female lead.

I cannot say the same for the lead. There is something off about John Agar - there’s a slyness in his brow and a tension round the jaw that put me on edge. He is a familiar face in Arnold’s movies so he will probably fit in if I watch more of Arnold’s work. Here, he just came off as a cocky asshole - but that is probably because the role is a prime example of the macho American male who knows when to take charge. 

He may be a doctor, but he is a rough and tumble man of the earth (or desert). It feels like a dry run for 'science v machismo' conflicts of later Hollywood fare. In the end, he is responsible for the very unscientific manner of the tarantula's demise. 

Onto the star of the show.

In contrast to Them! the title role of Tarantula! was played by a real-life tarantula (who would go on to menace Grant Williams in Arnold's The Incredible Shrinking Man).

The compositing of the spider into the live-action footage is great - the effects team even managed to include its shadow - and the movie gets a lot of tension from wide shots showing our eight-legged hero advancing over the horizon toward the hapless humans.

One downside to the great effects is that the movie lacks the mounting dread and sense of discovery that made Them! so watchable. The movie is really enjoyable but it does feel more generic in its narrative development. We see our boy fairly regularly throughout the picture, which dissipates some of the tension.

That being said, the presence of a real-life spider gives a sense of verisimilitude to the set pieces - there is something disquieting about watching a giant spider stealthily scuttle down a hillside toward panicking horses. 

A running theme of both movies is the sense of American exceptionalism underpinning the heroes' struggle. No matter how dire the threat, it can be solved by tough-minded professionals with plenty of fire power. By the end of Tarantula!, I was so depressed by how clean-cut and all-American the protagonists were that I was hoping the tarantula would win.

The use of military power feels like such a product of the Fifties. Compare the lack of cynicism here with the monster and disaster movies of the seventies, after the double barrels of Vietnam and Watergate.

That baggage aside, Them! and Tarantula! are still terrific. The production design is terrific, and while both movies suffer a bit from being aggressively earnest, that same desire to take their subject matter seriously works. They also do not lose themselves on over-use of their effects - both films are great examples of how the limitations of technology can lead to an emphasis on other aspects of the production. Jaws worked because the shark did not, and the same sense of ingenuity courses through both of these films.

Both highly recommended.

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