Shepherd (2021)

directed by Russell Owen

UK (Scotland)

103 minutes

2.5 stars out of 5

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Some bad press for this one on the ol' Letterboxd, but I'll watch anything for Kate Dickie at this point, and besides, the premise sounded like one of those things that couldn't possibly be bad. A grieving widower decides to leave everything behind and become a sheep-herder on a remote Scottish island where he is the only inhabitant (besides the sheep)? Who among us has not thought at least once about doing that at some point in the last two years? I didn't keep my expectations too high, anyway, and from the combination of poor reviews and anticipating a mediocre film, I basically got what I expected.

I'm sure that there was a trajectory the filmmakers planned for it to go on, but the meandering, non-linear path this film follows doesn't feel cohesive enough to be engaging. Now, this is a movie all about a guy who slowly starts losing his mind (or does he?), so cohesiveness is not the main point here, but even in films that rely heavily on dream sequences or the instability of their main character, there's got to be some kind of force pulling everything together, and Shepherd doesn't have that. It just has random frightening events happening with increasing rapidity to a guy who is entirely powerless to save himself or do anything at all to improve his situation.

However, my favorite thing about this is that those frightening events are executed very well. There's clearly an eye for the eerie and disturbing here, because while Shepherd as a whole didn't quite work for me, it contains a lot of singular images that are, by themselves, really creepy. A baby's hand reaching out of the top drawer of a nightstand, a field of crucified sheep. The looming and mysterious lighthouse. When the protagonist encounters a derelict, beached ship and begins to explore it, it might be the high point of the entire film, but it only takes up a couple of minutes and we don't even know if it was real or what it meant. The overall atmosphere is also as oppressive as you'd expect any movie set on a barren Scottish island to be, so even though the things it contained felt lacking, the film as a vessel is visually striking, with good sound work and cinematography.

I guess my complaint boiled down to its essence is that none of this means anything. Sure, it's meaningful in relation to the ungodly boring "guilt over dead spouse" backstory the main character has, and the visions he sees, to an extent, echo his own guilt. Things like his mother appearing to nag him even in his imagination and the form the wraith haunting the island takes on do relate directly to his memories, but it's too cobbled-together. There's no real order to anything and, most crucially, no context. This movie is all "me me me", or I guess "him him him"; the only important thing is the main character. He's the lens through which we view this island that I would have absolutely loved to "explore" outside of his limited perspective. There's moments where it looks like we're about to get some delicious and necessary context, where a better look at the history of the island and whatever else inhabits it (besides the sheep) seem within reach, but then it all falls to the wayside and the movie just kind of goes "Oh you know :)"

Maybe it's just me personally, but even though I could intimate some of what was happening, I would have enjoyed this far more if any of the points where it looked like there was about to be some background were expanded upon. We could have seen more of the previous shepherd's journal, for instance, instead of just seeing the protag riffle through it and land on a couple scratchy drawings of a crow and the phrase "She's a witch!" I'm so desperate to know more about that whole deal. The concept of something old and horrible haunting an island that requires a living person to... engage with? Feed off of? We don't know! We never find out. But after 103 minutes of this we do get close to feeling like we have an idea that there's some monstrous force on the island, and it's a disappointment that that was glossed over in favor of this dude and his traumatic backstory. It's a crime that this has Kate Dickie in such an ultimately crucial role and then doesn't give her enough screen time for that role to feel as important as I think it was.

I didn't dislike this entirely, but so much of it was squandered potential. I think there was an unnecessarily heavy focus on the main character when the environment around him was much more interesting than how he reacted to it. They're two totally different things, so I shouldn't really compare them, but I was thinking of the film Caveat when I was watching this and how Caveat does a similar premise (taking a weird job in an isolated, decrepit location and having bizarre things happen to you) but focuses much more on the external world rather than the protagonist's internal torment, and is much better for it. As I always say, though, this movie exists; it's the way that it is because people wanted it to be that way, and I respect that. I couldn't do any better. I can just point out things I wasn't a fan of.

Last Night in Soho (2021)

directed by Edgar Wright

UK

117 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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This is a movie that made a very strong first impression on me, and to some extent that's still the impression that I'm left with, but it's also a movie where the longer I think about it, the more flaws I see. I think I liked it as a whole more than I did when I zoomed in and started to examine it, and in the grand scheme of things I did think it was good, which is why I'm going to talk about the things I liked first. I'm going to assume we all know what the film is generally about, and I'll probably get into some minor spoilers, so be forewarned.

The first thing that comes to mind when I think of why I liked this movie is that everything about the way it unfolds is so fluid. It deals with intersecting timelines and various impossible things in such a way that the veracity of what happens doesn't feel like it matters, because whether or not everything is actually happening isn't as important as the fact that the main character is experiencing it. I can't even confidently say that this is a story about time travel, because even though the main character has the inexplicable ability to see and experience events that happened several decades before her birth, it doesn't feel like there's any specific name that can be applied to that ability. I admire very much how Last Night in Soho doesn't feel a need to put a label on things and instead creates a narrative space where everything flows perfectly, no questions asked. This is a world in which the impossible doesn't feel impossible, and yet it's not an unfamiliar world or a world that requires us to suspend our disbelief, because the story is presented in such a way that all of its unreal parts fit together with the real.

That initial scene where Eloise falls asleep and enters her vision of Sandy's life in the 1960s is done so well that it almost feels like one of those long single-take scenes that leave you wondering how in the world it was done. The literal and metaphorical dance between Thomasin McKenzie and Anya Taylor-Joy throughout the crowded environment of that shady nightclub felt so immaculate that they really did seem like facets of one character. Throughout the film, the distance between the two women fluctuates, sometimes feeling like they're a reflection of one another and sometimes like McKenzie is trapped on a roller coaster ride she no longer wants to be on. Again, at no point does any of this resemble anything I've seen before in a "time-travel" film - despite any other problems I may have had with it, this is the kind of truly inventive and fresh thing that can get me to sit down and shut up and enjoy it for two hours, and turn my brain back on afterwards.

A lot of the problems I did have with this are personal preference things, largely because I am not terribly fond of the whole '60s-throwback aesthetic that Edgar Wright seems to be fond of. While his previous films (which I have not seen, so forgive me if this is all totally wrong) aren't as explicit about it, Last Night in Soho goes whole-hog with the idolization of London at that specific time period, and this brings me to my first point against the film: That, despite the plot ostensibly being that a fairly naïve, near-sighted girl gets confronted with the "real world", the whole movie basically refuses to engage critically with the exact kind of re-appraisal of London in the '60s that it pretends to (or at least feels like it should) be about.

I don't think this movie was trying to present us a detailed listicle about all the ways London sucked back then, nor should it have, because that would have been distracting and preachy, but the main character doesn't seem like she learns anything in the end. On the one hand I did like that, because it shows her managing her unrealistic expectations while still achieving her dreams, but on the other hand... I don't know how to say this without sounding harsh, but when you think about it, Eloise doesn't personally get into any trouble that specifically pertains to London being a dangerous place. Everyone even slightly older than her seems intent on reminding her that the city is big and scary around every turn, but aside from that creepy, aggressive cabbie at the beginning and the culture shock of living in college dorms, she doesn't even remotely find herself in the kind of trouble that Sandy did in the '60s. She just kind of encounters another person's trouble as an outsider, even if she does end up personally involved. This can make her utter devotion to protecting Sandy almost feel patronizing: Here is this girl who has never been through anything trying to become the savior of another girl who is actively being abused. I absolutely don't intend to imply that you have to have been through someone's specific struggle in order to want to help them, but when you look at Last Night in Soho from a certain angle, the contrast between Eloise's relative privilege and quiet upbringing and Sandy getting deeper and deeper into the pit of desperation and abuse is quite striking, and not in a good way.

I also just feel like this movie is really reductive. I was disappointed by the end. I'm not sure what the point was in making Sandy turn out to be a serial murderer if the film was then going to turn around and still retain the "but they deserved it" message that it initially seemed like it was pushing. I guess this was another turning point in Eloise's realization that the wider world was more complicated and risky than she'd expected? Finding out that her idol and inspiration had her own dark secret? But just like with everything else, this didn't feel like it made any huge difference in the outcome.

Aesthetically this is a great film, it's very entertaining visually and Anya Taylor-Joy carries most of it. This definitely would have been worse in the hands of a different director or writer, but I just felt confused at best and disappointed at worst by a lot of the decisions made in where the narrative went. I think its worst flaw is that a complex and layered story could wind up in such a flat, one-dimensional ending.

Ghost Town (1988)

directed by Richard Governor

USA

85 minutes

3.5 stars out of 5

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I found this in an online discussion about the best movies involving haunted/abandoned towns, and the person who mentioned this title was so emphatic about recommending it that I looked it up and decided to watch it. If nothing else, I knew anything with Charles Band attached to it would usually be good for a laugh. But there's something weirdly compelling about this movie that's hard to put my finger on. It might be one of those things you just have to be in the right mood for.

If you look online, you'll find a lot of cheesy posters for this movie featuring skeletons in chaps and other things like that, and you might assume you know what to expect if you go off of those posters, but I guarantee it's different than you're thinking. There's a vibe to this, I don't know how to explain it. The concept is so strong that it outshines the trappings of a relatively cheap late-80s horror film made by a studio that was winding down after consistently churning out so many horror films, you'd be hard-pressed not to have seen at least one or two. It begins when a woman driving down a desert road alone is accosted by a cloud of dust and the disembodied sounds of stampeding horses, then dragged off by invisible hands and her car left burnt out in the middle of the road. Our heroic deputy is called upon to investigate, but pretty soon he ends up having his car catch fire and he unwittingly follows the missing woman into a bizarre pocket of reality where the residents of a town have been trapped by an evil entity for the past hundred years. Why exactly everyone's car catching fire signaled their entry into this pocket reality was never really explained, but in my opinion it adds to the general weirdness and didn't bother me much.

A single ghostly cowboy or spirit sharpshooter does not itself an interesting horror movie make, but the concept of an entire town trapped in time, cursed to exist just under the skin of reality, always there but never fully visible unless you end up in the wrong place at the wrong time - that's what fascinated me about Ghost Town. The landscape under the landscape, the world beyond sight. The deputy doesn't enter the haunted town all at once; as soon as he's forced to abandon his car, he gradually begins a journey through a scorched and desolate landscape that becomes more and more occupied by the echoes of something not quite dead but not quite living. The people and materials around him solidify as he tries in vain to walk his way out, until - after being accosted by the desperate, pitiful living corpse of the town's sheriff, begging him to end the evil once and for all - he's stuck fast with no way to go home. The townsfolk are now as solid around him as any living person would be, but in short order he finds out that they're nothing more than revenants.

There isn't anything special about the aesthetic here: it's no more than a bunch of white people in cheap generic faux-Western costumes putting on bad accents and pretending not to know what a zipper is. But like I said, it's the story that keeps this movie interesting, not the way it's told. There's just this kind of Westworld-esque uncanniness to it that spoke volumes even when the visuals didn't put in much work.

It's also got a villain who's genuinely terrifying despite being just sort of a cliche evil guy. Like most everything here, the exact mechanics of why the town is stuck in time are never explained, only that it's the fault of this drifter named Devlin who cursed the whole town to remain trapped in a liminal state between life and death for as long as he himself lived - and unfortunately, he seems to be immortal and really, really pissed off. He also has the power to somehow "banish" townspeople who resist his iron fist, turning them into disembodied voices who the rest of the residents listen to in fear, knowing that could be them if they don't obey. In general, Devlin comes off like a deeply disturbing, reality-warping abomination in a loose-fitting human costume - something that might have had the outward appearance of a generic outlaw at some point, but over the years has become so angry and hateful that he's something else now. At one point he claims to have haunted the town for "one thousand years", which could be nothing more than villainous hyperbole, but when he's finally done in and his body splits apart to reveal that he was full of dirt, dust, and writhing black worms, I tended to think he was truly something separate from the miserable half-ghosts the innocent townsfolk had become.

I would almost say that this concept deserves a better vehicle than this movie, but I feel like the fact that Ghost Town is slightly goofy and your experience of it may vary is part and parcel of the film as, like, itself. Maybe it's better because you have to look past the surface level, look past the bad dialogue and corny acting and poor set dressing, to excavate the thought-provoking kernel of story at the center. Or maybe I'm just making too much of a bad film. I'm finding the number of films that I think are objectively bad to be vanishingly small these days, though - all art being up for interpretation means that there really can't be a single, consensus "bad" or "good". It's all what you make of it, and something popularly regarded as "bad" can resonate with you if it strikes the right chord. If nothing else, appreciate Ghost Town for the gorgeous practical effects. Happy Valentine's Day, I'm in love with horror movies.

Immanence (2022)

directed by Kerry Bellessa

USA

93 minutes

1.5 stars out of 5

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I try to keep apprised of new horror and sci-fi movies coming out, but I do it for entirely personal reasons, picking and choosing which ones sound good to me and disregarding others no matter how popular or well-liked they may be. Immanence caught my eye because I love any horror movie involving radio transmissions, and when you add mystery objects from space and the ocean to that mix, it should create something excellent. But... well, I've gotten excited about exactly 3 new horror movies this year, and we're three for three on disappointments thus far.

Immanence turned out to be a religious horror movie that felt like it was made from a Christian perspective. I'm not religious, but suspending my disbelief has never been an issue, so I don't have a problem watching something from a viewpoint I personally don't subscribe to. However, the reason why heavily Christian religious horror feels like it doesn't work for me is because by definition there is always an "out" (which is God). Part of what makes (not all, but the majority of) horror so effective is that we need to feel helpless, like there's nothing and no one that can save us. Even if it's not true, the viewer or reader or participant needs to feel like it is, for a time. Texas Chain Saw Massacre proved the viability of the cathartic, triumphant ending, but I doubt any slasher film would feel as potent if the final girl were running through a house with well-lit exit signs or packing a gun with which she could easily just shoot her pursuer. It has to feel like there's a chance the characters may be in real, serious danger that they can't get out of, and horror from a Christian point of view renders that impossible, because no matter what happens, God is always present offscreen and ready to assist the characters once things get too dire. It robs the characters of agency, too: It doesn't matter how clever you are if only God can save you.

Maybe that's satisfying for some people. Maybe if you're religious, it brings you joy to see people's faith rewarded - I'm not judging that, everybody gets something different out of every movie. But I feel like even if a religious horror movie gets really down deep into demonology and gives us truly scary villains, all they ever are is a foil to the glory of God. No evil in a religious horror movie can ever be actually compelling beyond the surface level because every single character is armed with prayer and faith that defeats the horror every time without fail.

Bringing it back around to Immanence specifically, I wasn't aware that it would be this heavily religious from the start. In my defense, the synopsis says nothing whatsoever about God or demons - "survive the ultimate evil" may be a dogwhistle for more religious people than I, but to me, before watching this, it just sounded like generic horror hyperbole. The two possibilities initially presented in the film for the events that unfold are that it's either aliens or Satan, which, like, again, I'm really not here to judge, but the concept of Satan personally slingshotting a meteor around the sun and crashing it specifically into one area off the coast of Florida just for fun is a little wild, in my mind. So I was going off the assumption that Immanence would be a UFO-horror type deal, until it started leaning really heavily into the single Christian character's point of view.

There's a weird banter between all the characters in this thing that I couldn't stop thinking felt more at home in a '90s action movie than whatever Immanence is, and I'm not sure how to describe what made me feel that way. There's very little personal background on any of the characters save the two who clash the most often (the non-religious girl who advances the UFO theory most ardently, and the guy who is so Jesusy he renamed himself Jonah after he died for three minutes and declared himself saved) but for a while it's all of them together on a rented party boat, ostensibly doing science. It feels like the kind of walk-and-talk rapid-fire bunk science presented in stuff like The X-Files when they have to at least marginally explain the presence of aliens.

But none of it is real. The Christian perspective soon overrides any other theories until it becomes apparent where this movie is coming from. And it bothered me that only a handful of things even really happened. First there's the unidentified object, then they go out on the boat and pull up (I'm not joking, and yes this is as unintentionally funny as it sounds) a live pig in the trap they're using to catch fish to eat, then they see a mirage of their own boat that they board and explore and they start hearing what appear to be radio signals from a future where most of them are doomed. Ultimately this all leads to the physical manifestation of a guy we're supposed to believe is Satan, who is maybe the least intimidating devil ever put onto film, with his receding hairline and single red contact lens. I actually skipped half of his monologue because after a point it genuinely felt like he was just ad-libbing random stuff, it was unbearable. But all of these things are so few and far between, so spread out during this movie's achingly long 93-minute running time, that they make up about 10% of the film, and the other 90% is bickering and one-sided theological debates where everybody sounds like they think the other side is just the stupidest thing ever. This movie is boring, on top of everything else. I wish I'd looked up the director before watching it instead of during because I would have seen that they (and the same writer) made the very widely derided Amber Alert and possibly saved myself the trouble of sitting through Immanence.