Tag: movies

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A Cure for Wellness

While many works of fiction strive for the label of Lovecraftian, very few live up to the title. Trust me, I’ve seen more than my fair share. I love cosmic horror and the term Lovecraftian is irresistible to me and I am almost always disappointed. Then I saw the movie, A Cure for Wellness. It has that eerie, alien feel that proves so elusive to so many other contenders. It doesn’t quite embody cosmic horror, there’s no sense of a terror so large that it encompasses the planet or some god-like entity from outer space, but certainly a feeling that something is just…off. The sense that reality is not as solid as we thought and that there are corners of the world where man is not the only form of sentient life.

The movie follows Lockhart (Dane DeHaan of The Amazing Spiderman 2 and Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets), an employee who is tasked with retrieving the absent CEO of a large company. The CEO went off to an exclusive spa in the Swiss Alps and has not been seen or heard from since, except for a cryptic letter, in which he sounds bat-shit insane. Just as Lockhart is arriving at the spa, he is involved in a major car accident and regains consciousness, in the spa, to find his leg in a cast. That’s when he meets Dr. Heinreich Volmer (Jason Isaacs from Star Trek Discovery and the Harry Potter films), the enigmatic proprietor of the spa and, shortly after, Hannah (Mia Goth of Nymphomaniac and Suspiria), a patient at the spa. I would describe her as a manic pixie girl, if she weren’t so damn creepy, almost inhuman. And while Dr. Volmer is quite personable, he will still give viewers the willies, though they won’t quite know why. Or maybe that’s just Isaacs. Through out the film, Lockhart never quite seems to find the CEO, and then, when he tries to leave, he finds that impossible, as well. In his explorations, Lockhart sees plenty of weirdness, but nothing compared to when he starts to get treatments himself. Let’s just say that there’s a lot of worms involved. I can’t say much more without giving anything away, but, while the movie does start a little slow, it gets to edge of your seat territory soon enough.

I am not very familiar with the works of DeHaan or Goth, but I have loved Jason Isaac’s work for years. I loved him in Case Histories, was very happy to see him in Star Trek: Discovery and was so, so disappointed when Awake was canceled. Regardless of his role, I’ve always felt that he’s given his all to to the part. There’s a certain weightiness to his acting, a gravitas that makes me think he performed nothing but Shakespeare, before making the leap to film, but what the hell do I know. I would love to tell you to go see the series Awake, since some have described Isaac’s acting in it Emmy worthy, but I can’t, in good conscience, recommend a one-season show to anyone. In it, Isaac’s plays a police detective, who is in a serious car crash with his family, in which, he loses his wife or his son. That “or” isn’t a typo. For the extent of the show, Isaac’s character lives in two realities; one in which his wife survived, but when he goes to sleep, his reality changes into one in which his son survived. These fluctuating realities, and the confusion behind which one is “real” is a central theme of the show. Writers for Awake had to keep track of two separate realities and timelines to avoid continuity errors. It was a phenomenal show and I have no idea why on Earth it was canceled. As to the other two actors, all I can say is that I’m glad I saw DeHaan in A Cure for Wellness first, because Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets totally sucked balls.

I wish I could talk about how this movie is genre bending, because the mystery behind the spa is key to the plot and there is a bit of romance between Lockhart and Hannah, but the oppressive unease that it fills one with places it squarely in the realm of horror. The way many of the characters act, one could be convinced that they aren’t really human at all and could take off their skins at any moment, revealing their true, horrifying nature. The conspiracy to manipulate and control Lockhart had me paranoid the entire time, like I was trapped, with the walls closing in. We never quite feel that his life at risk, there is no ax wielding manic hunting him down to dismember him or inhuman monster hungry for his flesh, but he is slowly tortured, in a variety of ways, and through watching this, we experience this torture as well. In fact, if I were to level one bit of criticism at this movie, it’s that it’s so damn long. While I was entertained by the non-stop anxiety the film induces, at almost two and a half hours, the run time may be more than most audiences can bear.

For all the negative emotions that I rattled off, this is a gorgeous film. Beautifully filmed, this may be one of the prettiest horror films I’ve seen. Filmed in the Swiss Alps, at a sanitarium that hosted Adolf Hitler and where political prisoners were lobotomized, the movies walks a line between horrific and ethereal. Like a fever dream that one wakes from, covered in sweat, plagued by vague fears that fade from the mind as consciousness takes hold, but remain in the pit of one’s gut, this film is psychological torture porn. I’ll be the first to admit that A Cure for Wellness may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it strikes a chord in me that few other movies do. Perhaps that’s why no one ever wants to go to the theater with me?

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Contracted – The Most Disgusting Zombie Movie of All Time

If you know me, or if you’ve read enough of this blog, you know that it takes a bit to disturb me. As a former anatomy instructor, I’m no stranger to, not only dead bodies, but actively dismembering them. Sure, we call it dissection, but tomato/tomato. During my short term as a doctor, I’ve sewn up mangled hands and facial lacerations, driven a needle into a man’s stomach to draw fluid off (paracentesis), and, well, you get the idea. It should surprise no one that I am into the more extreme forms of horror. With that in mind, I want you to know that I am deadly serious when I say that Contracted, and its sequel, the inventively named, Contracted: Phase 2, are two of the most disturbing movies I have ever seen. These films fall squarely into the subgenre of body horror. What makes them more horrifying than most is their focus on sex.

Before I say more, let me tell you what these films are about. The first movie, Contracted, follows a young woman named Samantha (Najarra Townsend of Breakfast Buddies and Medinah) who is basically date raped at a party. Over the following days, she begins to feel sicker and sicker and fears that she has an STD. The rest of the movie is a slow burn, as we watch Samantha deteriorate, her symptoms becoming more and more disgusting. How disgusting, you ask? Well, there’s an awful lot of vaginal bleeding, hair and teeth falling out, vomiting, maggots under the skin; I could go on, but I’ll spare you the details. Equally disturbing is the gradual mental decline as the infection takes over. Her impulse control goes out the window and she begins to have violent outbursts. By the end of the film, she has become a full fledged zombie. Knowing this in no way takes anything away from the film; there is never any glimmer of hope for poor Samantha, as we watch her life crumble.

I can’t stress this enough, but absolutely do NOT watch this with someone you are romantically/sexually interested in. This is the opposite of a date movie and will completely destroy any sort of interest in sex, or even human contact. At least, it did for me. The is also the opposite of a feel good movie. I mean, it’s no Come and See, but the grim, bleakness embodied by this film will have you looking at the world through filth-colored glasses for a few days.

The sequel, Contracted: Phase 2, is not as good as the first movie. I would recommend skipping this one altogether, as it doesn’t improve the story any, exploring ideas within the first movie that didn’t really need exploring. Here we follow Riley (Matt Mercer of Auteur and Beyond the Gates), a friend of Samantha’s from the first movie, the two of them getting hot and heavy in one of the most skin crawling scenes I’ve ever seen. Starting to feel sick himself, and hearing of Samantha’s fate, Riley is appropriately worried and sees a doctor, who is frickin’ worthless. Allow me to digress a little here, since I’m a doctor and it always bothers me to see medical inaccuracies, but both of these characters received the most inept treatment possible. Fever, bleeding out of places that should not be bleeding, vomiting; if these people came into my office, I would be like WTF? The doctor doesn’t do a pelvic exam on Samantha, no blood cultures taken, and, in the second movie, where we learn that the government has knowledge of this virus, there’s no CDC alerts. I’m not saying that medical science is the end all, be all, but I wish they had a medical consultant for these movies, because the care they received did not at all ring true.

Anyway, enough of my rant. The second movie basically follows the exact same arc as the first, as we watch Riley slowly decline, oozing pus and peeing enough blood to stock a blood bank. Seriously, this movie took the disgusting theme and ran with it. No lie, the scene where he nose bleeds into the dip at a party, which is subsequently eaten by one of the guests, made me gag a little. Into this mix is thrown the additional plot behind the man spreading this virus, as a terrorist device, being hunted down by a police detective and, ultimately, the U.S. Government. This had the potential for adding depth in the narrative, but instead comes off as half baked and haphazardly tacked on. Where as Samantha was a tragic figure, I just wanted Riley to die already. There have been rumors about another movie, Contracted: Phase 3, but I have yet to find any solid information on this.

I like body horror, both because of the medical nature of most such films and because there is little I can think of that matches the terror of feeling one’s self rot away from the inside. The Fly, Cabin Fever, Splinter; I love these kinds of movies. I would contend that Contracted is a worthy entry into this genre, and that Contracted: Phase 2 is a sorry imitator. The first movie is like a case study in misery, Samantha’s life, health and, finally, sanity all slowly decaying with a morbid inevitability. If the second movie had just been a repeat of the first, only following Riley instead of Samantha, it would have been better. The terrorist side plot feels clunky and poorly executed and takes away from the film. But maybe that’s just me. Watch them for yourself and make up your own mind. But remember, and this is very important, DON’T see them with someone you love.

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The Endless

To a movie lover, like myself, it’s always a joy to discover something new, something fresh and unexpected, and that is what I recently found in The Endless. The movie involves two brothers, Justin and Aaron, who had escaped from a “UFO Death Cult” when they were young and are now eking out a meager existence. Justin accepts this, as he feels that they escaped an inevitable mass suicide, but Aaron just remembers being loved and cared for, not to mention being well fed, and hates the life they are currently living. So when they receive a video cassette tape from said “cult”, involving a mysterious message, Aaron convinces Justin to return for a short visit. They are warmly welcomed back and everything seems just as they has left it, but, little by little, odd things keep happening until the truth of their community is revealed.

The movie is good, the mystery captivating and pulling the viewer deeper and deeper, but I am more amazed at the film makers, Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead, and what they were able to create on a (relative to Hollywood) shoestring budget. I haven’t been able to track down the actual budget for this film, but, for reference, their first film, Resolution, was made for $20,000. I’m willing to bet that most blockbuster movies spend more than that on food for the crew. How do they do it? By wearing a whole shit ton of hats. In addition to the both of them co-directing, editing and handling the special effects, Moorhead does the camerawork and Benson writes the script. In the movie The Endless, they both co-star in the movie, as well. They get amazing mileage out of the simplest of special effect and editing tricks.

Many movies have been called genre-less, but The Endless spans so many styles that the term is especially apt. I’ve already called it a mystery and that is truly what is at the heart of the film. It’s also a horror, the brothers often stalked by otherworldly creatures that drive other characters to madness and suicide. The creatures’ effect on time push the film into the realm of sci-fi and the interactions of the two brothers, between themselves and as prodigal sons to the “cult”, makes for excellent drama. After seeing The Endless, I was inspired to track down their other works, but, so far, the only other movie of theirs I’ve seen is Spring.

Their first movie, Resolutions, 2012, is about a man trying to get his methed out tweaker friend clean. Tracking him down to a backwoods cabin he’s in, the man handcuffs him to a pipe, forcing him to kick cold turkey. Then, weird things start to happen. Benson and Moorhead followed this up with the short film, Bonestorm, 2014, featured in the movie, V/H/S: Viral. They put Spring out in the same year, the most romantic monster movie I’ve ever seen. The Endless came out in 2017 and I just discovered, while researching for this blog post, that they’ve got a new movie coming out called Synchronic. The movie is about two New Orleans paramedics who arrive at an overdose victim and stumble upon the drug, Synchonic, that allows its user to be able to see all time at once. I cannot frickin’ wait to see this!

Some articles have also listed After Midnight to their credit, but they didn’t have the near total involvement that they did in those other films. While The Endless isn’t the only great film that was produced on pocket change, think Primer and The Man from Earth, but there’s so regrettably few of them that it definitely stands out. It’s probably what made the biggest impression on me. In the current atmosphere of blockbuster movies that have more money than some small countries and are absolute crap, seeing a movie made by someone who is really passionate about their craft is a reminder of what good filmmaking can do. After all, attention to details is what makes any art, be it culinary, graphic or orchestral, is what makes a piece great. With the duo of Benson and Moorhead, their love of the craft shines through and makes their movies something that sticks with you, long after the credits have rolled.