Lights Out: Film Review

Lights Out: Film Review

Cast: Teresa Palmer, Maria Bello, Gabriel Bateman, Billy Burke
Director: David Sandberg

Creating an atmospheric horror that's more a parable about the creeping darkness of depression is the MO of David Sandberg's expansion of his Lights Out short film.

In the James Wan produced flick, the monster haunting a family is Diana, a creature who disappears when the lights go on, but when the lights go out, it's full tilt terror. But at its heart, it's an effectively taut parable about depression that keeps an eye on jump scares as well.

Essentially, Teresa Palmer's Rebecca, a rocker who left home after her father walked out becomes concerned when her younger brother Martin (Bateman) starts displaying symptoms of sleeplessness and claiming that an entity is haunting his mother Sophie (Maria Bello). The reason she's so worried? Because these were exactly the fears she faced when younger....

So, taking Martin under her wing, Rebecca starts to face up to old fears once again....

Relatively taut (though occasionally bogged down with parts of backstory) first time director Sandberg's Lights Out is quite effective at dealing out chills and the obligatory jump scares. The strength in Lights Out comes from the casually dropping in elements of back story to illuminate the characters and expand on the familial straining of the ties and relationships.

But the whole piece works more effectively as a film about depression, as well as an occasionally dig your nails into the cinema chair fright fest. (That said, its ending and ultimate denouement is perhaps controversial in some aspects).

Palmer turns in a performance that's eminently watchable as the rocker daughter who thought life had moved on, but whose return home sees her having to face her fears, both literally and figuratively. As the kid in terror, Bateman fares well in parts, while in others, he succumbs to the trappings of the genre and becomes a screaming sibling; admittedly though, his selling of the creeping fear and dread early on is more than impressive as the house comes under greater siege from the unseen horror. (Equally stirring and note worthy is the soundscape of the film which works effectively to build an atmosphere of eerie unease.)

However, it's Bello's turn as Sophie, the mother under pressure from demons both within and without that really stands out as this allegory for the creeping black dog is brought to life. Tapping into her own real life fight against bipolar disorder clearly helps her, and the subtleties brought to the fore by Bello's simple facials and odd looks of terror work wonders to underscore the inherent fear within.

Ultimately, Lights Out is an effective and short chiller that does occasionally lapse into dumb horror movie territory, but seen as a wider cautionary tale about depression, it presents a more thoughtful allegorical piece to keep the horror genre fresh.

No Man's Sky Pillar Roundup Trailer

No Man's Sky Pillar Roundup Trailer 

With less than one week until No Man’s Sky is here, the 'Explore, Fight, Trade & Survive' Pillar Roundup Trailer has been released.

 The Roundup Trailer brings all four key pillars of No Man’s Sky together.

Journey from the farthest depths of space to answer the call of an irresistible mystery at the centre of the galaxy.

Explore, fight, trade and survive.

 Your Universe Awaits in No Man’s Sky - 10th August on PS4.

Prey – Official Gameplay Trailer

Prey – Official Gameplay Trailer

Prey is a first-person sci-fi action game from Arkane Studios, the award-winning creators of the 2012 ‘Game of the Year’, Dishonored. Known for their creative gameplay, distinctive worlds and immersive stories, Arkane reimagines this franchise from the ground up, with an added psychological twist. 

In Prey, you are the first human enhanced with alien powers aboard a desolate space station under assault. Improvise and innovate in order to survive as you search for answers. Prey is a bold new story set in a dangerous universe.

Prey will release on PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC in 2017.

Quake Champions – Debut Gameplay Trailer

Quake Champions – Debut Gameplay Trailer

A new trailer's just dropped for Quake Champions out of Quake Con 2016

Wrapping up the NZIFF with director Bill Gosden

Wrapping up the NZIFF with director Bill Gosden

With the Akl leg of the NZIFF's extra shows wrapping up this weekend and Wellington heading into extra time, it was a good chance to catch up with festival director Bill Gosden to get his thoughts on the 2016 New Zealand International Film Festival.

How have the Auckland and Wellington legs of NZIFF been?
Exhausting for us, but mostly gratifying. The last day of packed houses at the Civic and SKYCITY may have been our biggest ever. In Wellington we have just hit our budgeted attendance with five days still to go.

Poi E certainly set the bar high for feel good openings – Auckland, Wellington and now Christchurch – have you enjoyed the audience buzz for that film?
If that was a buzz, how does unadulterated joy feel?

The guests this year have been of a particularly high standard – what’s been your favourite Q&A?
Hard to choose, but delighted by the work Script to Screen did for us with the Auckland Q+As for Terence Davies and the creative team on The Rehearsal.

The news of the Aussie certification issue for Embrace must have caused a bit of gnashing of teeth- but you must be glad we put one over the Aussies?
It is good to know that our own Classification Office has the leeway to make a sane call on a film like this, but I am not certain that the imaging generated by the Australian restriction was helpful in setting up this film for the mother/daughter audience we hoped would find it. That said, the Q+As with Taryn Brumfitt were packed and extraordinarily emotional.

How’s the expansion into the outer regions of Auckland gone and will you repeat it?
Westgate was an instant success. Manukau may take a little longer.

Which films have been successful in the early stages of NZIFF – and did these choices surprise you?
The three that we’d underestimated – as the number of added screenings can testify – were Under the Sun, The Salesman and Swiss Army Man. It was especially pleasing to see the big numbers for Toni Erdmann.

Conversely, which do you wish more people had been at?
Most conspicuously: Paris 5:59, Sieranevada and Aquarius.

Which films have you headed in to that you didn’t catch before and what did you make of them?
Paterson, so placid on the surface, but so rich in feeling and observation. I;m banking on catching a great many more this weekend in Wellington.

Which films do you think will travel well outside of the main centres?
It’s already clear: Le Ride, I, Daniel Blake

Are there any differences in audiences around the country that you can tell – or are there trends which follow us around?
We expect Sharon Jones to find more fans in Gore than Hannah Arendt.

Just finally, what’s next for you – a bit of downtime before heading straight off to Toronto perhaps?
This year I’m making a break for Venice instead of Toronto, so there won’t be any downtime until after that.

Rams: Film Review

Rams: Film Review

Cast: Sigurour Sigurjonsson, Theodo Juliusson, Charlotte Boving
Director: Grimur Hakonarson

Bucolic and fraternal, Scandi-drama Rams is a look at the devastation a blight can cause both in a relationship and also in a farming community.

Brothers Kiddi and Gummi (bearded grizzled types Sigurjonsson and Juliusson) live side by side and have done for years. But they don't talk, victims of a fall-out never explored but oft mentioned. Tensions are further exacerbated when Kiddi's rams beat Gummi's in a competition, sealing the deal and the drift between the pair.

However, when Gummi finds signs of fatal degenerative disease scrapie in Kiddi's flock, things boil over as the flocks in the valley have to be slaughtered to protect the spread. But Kiddi believes it's Gummi's jealousy that has hit the limit over their flock's lineage, even though vets back Gummi up.

So, with the valley's livelihood and the community ripped asunder by the cull, the battle lines are drawn.

Quietly unassuming and sensibly executed, Rams' power lies in the ramifications of actions, as well as the exploration of the bleakly wry humour of two scrapping for generations. Hakonarson uses the landscapes and bleak conditions to maximum effect - soon after the cull, winter arrives, a literal freezing of relationships between the brothers extrapolated on a larger canvas.

Where it's perhaps less successful is in the wider community. The consequences of a disease like scrapie (much like its UK equivalent BSE or Foot and Mouth disease) are that people buckle under the pressure and bow to darker moments, but Hakonarson is not interested in anyone outside of the central duo, whom he focusses on yet never fully explores their reasons for the rift. It's a frustration among the sedentary pace, and while it's understandable that there's no place for plot-convenient exposition, it's a factor that proves you to feel emotionally aloof and ultimately irritated by the conclusion, the emotional weight of which is somewhat lost.

There is a mournful sadness in Rams that could be mistaken by some for darker comedy, but it's the isolation within that proves to be Rams' strength and the ambiguity of other parts of it that proves to be its weakness.

Suicide Squad: Film Review

Suicide Squad: Film Review

Cast: Jared Leto, Margot Robbie, Will Smith, Joel Kinnaman, Viola Davis, Jai Courtney, Ben Affleck, Cara Delevingne, Joel Kinnaman
Director: David Ayer

Bad guys have all the fun, right?

Well, for at least the first third of Suicide Squad, the DC's anti-heroes Dirty Dozen-esque smackdown based on the 1959 comics series, that's probably true.

The opening of this teaming up of the bad guys after they're enlisted by a government agency to take down a baddie who's terrorising the world (in usual portal opening fashion downtown in some New York style place) is a blast. With its pop art aesthetics and its (over-use) of big music hits all over the place, it's a real attempt at a thumbing of the nose at those who say DC can't match Marvel for cinematic chutzpah as it trots out a montage of tranced up fever dream proportions. (Though Guardians of the Galaxy has no need to worry).

But, then the creative wheels dramatically fall off as it hurtles into rote formulaic shooter CGI destruction comic book territory with nary enough character to propel it through or a villain that's more super-sized than this clutch of imprisoned bad guys.

And on top of that, logic and character fall right through the floor as the film fails to follow any of its own rules.

Don't even let's get started on either the Joker's extended cameo and the way the camera fetishizes and leers over Margot Robbie's Harley Quinn. (That Quinn thing may be in keeping with the comic books, but it just feels creepy as it transpires on screen).

To be fair though, what Suicide Squad gets right, it gets completely right.

The twisted abusive relationship love story between Robbie's Harley and Leto's deliciously deranged Joker is reverent to a tee from the source material, even if a few too many flashbacks hit the pace of that portion.

Overt problematic leering sexism from the camera aside, Robbie absolutely owns the part of a manic Harley Quinn, and nails the nuttiness of the coquettish doctor who suffered from Stockholm Syndrome to a tee; hers is one of the few on screen who get the characteristics right on and gets enough from the script to breathe life into the film.

And Will Smith's on target as the sharpshooter Deadshot, with a combination of dialled down quips and seriousness, which, to be honest, Ayer's film would have been better following. Hints of a love triangle with Quinn flounder however, and could have been an intriguing development.

However, it's the way Suicide Squad squanders its promise and becomes a formulaic exposition heavy CGI blockbuster that's the biggest disappointment - and a lack of characterisation doesn't help matters too.

When it comes to the rest of the squad, they barely figure in the character stakes; a jumbled muddled mess of a supporting troupe that get nary a moment to shine through or time to shine. From Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje's underused Killer Croc to Karen Fukuhara's Katana who's simply there to pose post Samurai sword slice, the squad's sidelined or disposable. Even Leto's psychotic take on Joker is reduced to a mere extended cameo.

It means the stakes are less than high at all as this mash up of The Raid and any of the Avengers films plays out, with the Squad taking on CGI rejects from The Mummy films in a disappointingly familiar conclusion.

The supernatural Enchantress aka Cara Delevingne doesn't hold enough threat to give the film the edge it needs or the emotional investment it's crying out for - and certainly her reasons for doing what she's doing are unnecessarily muddied and a bit average beyond belief.

Overblown, overwrought and overwhelmed by such a formulaic path after such an electric start, Suicide Squad is a muddle of a film - if they'd simply put more effort into the Squad or trimmed down parts of it to nail a tighter focus, this Suicide Squad could have soared.

Instead, this mess flounders, begging you to put it out of its misery in an audience assisted suicide.