We’ve met lovers like Jules and Mickey before in movies like Badlands, Natural Born Killers and, of course, Bonnie and Clyde. They are partners in crime, metaphorically and literally, kicking off Villains with a smash-and-grab robbery that’s given a bit of flare by the animal masks they choose to wear. As they dash off in their getaway car, Jules (Maika Monroe) excitement translates into titillation, and she’s all over an elated Mickey (Bill Skarsgård) as he drives. But their plan to hightail to a beach and easy living hits a snag when they run out of gas. [Read more…]
Isabelle Huppert Is Divinely Deranged In Neil Jordan’s Psycho-Biddy Thriller, Greta
What Ever Happened To Baby Jane? Whoever Slew Auntie Roo? Mommie Dearest and Sunset Boulevard. There’s a glorious freedom to the psycho-biddy genre. Playing deranged dames whose sanity has been shattered by loneliness, iconic actresses like Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, and Gloria Swanson are given cart blanche to go wild in tales of female rage that are scandalous, grotesque, and often unapologetically campy. Writer/director Neil Jordan (Interview With A Vampire, The Crying Game) extends this grand opportunity to Isabelle Huppert with Greta. The French luminary makes a feast of its tale of female fury, chewing the scenery with a gruesome relish, then licking her chops, leaving us craving more. [Read more…]
It Follows
The nameless, shape-shifting horror that stalks the blond, 19-year-old Jay (Maika Monroe) in David Robert Mitchell’s cool, controlled horror film, It Follows (2014), might be described as the very incarnation of paranoia. The menace, which only she can see, takes any number of forms, from a naked man standing on the roof of a house to an unsmiling old lady heading purposefully in her direction. When it appears, it is usually first glimpsed from a distance, walking slowly toward her like an expressionless zombie. Although Jay repeatedly flees, she can never shake the sense that it is out there somewhere and knows her precise location. [Read more…]