It either involves a scorned woman reeling from a breakup who has to accept that her ex has moved on with another, or a predatory female setting her sights on a man who is already spoken for and doing her damnedest to steal him away.
From Obsessed, The Hand that Rocks the Cradle, Mother’s Boys, Single White Female and more, Hollywood has rarely wavered in painting female characters as either bitches or victims.
By that standard, Unforgettable shouldn’t live up to its title.
In fact, Unforgettable should have been just another discount-bin-bound, big-budget Lifetime Channel reject about two women who simply hate each other for no good reason other than a man and they spend 90 minutes at each other’s throat before finally squaring off in a ridiculous catfight designed to titillate male viewers who think it would be cool to be the epicenter of so much misguided attention.
Well, boy howdy, thankfully the director, writer and cast missed that memo.
In fact, we’ll go so far as to proclaim Unforgettable the best example of the Woman Scorned subgenre to hit the big screen since Fatal Attraction.
Seriously.
Here’s why it’s so different.
First, and likely the film’s secret weapon, is that it was helmed and written by women, which explains why it never panders to the typical male fantasy.
Instead, longtime producer and first-time feature director Denise Di Novi and screenwriter Christina Hodson take what I can only assume are real-world examples of issues that many women have faced and twist them in unexpected and terrifying ways.
Second, the cast just nails it.
Rosario Dawson is perfect as Julia, an online magazine editor who moves to the Pacific Northwest to be with her fiancé David (Geoff Stults). Julia has a dark secret that she has yet to share with David, and for once it doesn’t feel contrived. The more we get to know Julia, the more we understand why she would tightly close that dark chapter.
But the revelation here is Katherine Heigl, who plays David’s ex and mother to his daughter.
After years of being maligned for off-screen issues, Heigl seizes this opportunity and just crushes it.
She maintains a level of icy poise and simmering malice throughout that is simply startling. Every facial tick, every pursed lip, every time she clutches her throat when slipping deeper into darkness feels entirely on point and relatable.
Di Novi and Hodson wisely provide ample time for viewers to truly get to know Julia and Tessa so that they become more than just cardboard stand-ins for real people. Whereas other films in this subgenre just dive right into the crazy, Unforgettable slowly builds anticipation for the crazy so that when it erupts, it feels earned and genuine.
Sure, Tessa is a bitch and an over-protective Mommie Dearest mother, but as you learn through a series of blistering and biting interactions with her own mom, Helen (Cheryl Ladd, delivering a triumphant return), her behavior is ingrained and unavoidable.
Heigl and Ladd’s mother-daughter exchanges are so deliciously venomous that you start to feel sympathy for Tessa for having been raised by a woman who doles out passive-aggressive bon mots like she’s driving a rusty shiv into her daughter, over and over.
Di Novi and Hodson also come up with the perfect 21st century equivalent of an unlocked desk drawer waiting to be secretly explored. Julia leaves her phone unattended for a minute at a party, and that opportunity sets Tessa off on a voyage of identity theft and sadistic exploitation that causes serious chills.
And what an evil plan it is that unspools. For anyone who has ever watched Catfish and wondered what’s the worst that might happen, Unforgettable serves as a cautionary PSA for never trusting technology again.
If you’ve ever believed BVB before, then you know we don’t just heap praise unless it’s deserved. Unforgettable deserves to be seen and championed as a cult classic in a subgenre known more for films that are best immediately forgotten.
Unforgettable
Genre: Thriler
Directed by: Denise Di Novi
Run time: 100 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray
The Stuff You Care About: Hot chicks – Oh yes!
Nudity — Brief, but there is one of the most ridiculously erotic sex scenes put to film in quite some time.
Gore — Minimal.
Drug use — No.
Bad Guys/Killers — Heigl for the win!
Buy/Rent — Buy it.
Released – July 2017
Warlock — much like Wishmaster, Leprechaun and The Prophecy — served a specific purpose in the canon of horror, if only to milk money off a series of diminishing sequels that all followed a specific pattern.
A great evil is unleashed. An innocent is in peril. A young man or woman must step up to prevent annihilation.
The distinction between Warlock and its like-minded ilk is its bat-shit bonkers sequel, The Armageddon, which showcased the best possible returns from gory practical effects and early CGI technology.
Not since Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf has a sequel taken an existing property and gone in such a distinctly different, rules-be-damned direction as to fear the train might at any second fly off the rails.
Whereas the first film did a fine job of introducing Julian Sands as an immortal acolyte hellbent on world destruction, The Armageddon expands upon that mythology and then heaps on, adding a backstory that dates to the Druids, introduces a collection of ancient rune stones that can summon the devil’s spawn and thrusts not one, but two youthful protagonists in the path of the Warlock to thwart his nefarious plan.
The sequel benefits immensely from the steady genre direction of Anthony Hickox, whose incredible output in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s included such genre favorites as Waxwork, Waxwork II: Lost in Time, Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth and the underappreciated early HBO original film, Full Eclipse.
Hickox knows how to tweak a sequel, and he comes charging out of the gate in The Armageddon with an early scene showcasing the rebirth of the Warlock that includes one of the most glorious full-body, practical effects transformations since An American Werewolf in London.
But he doesn’t stop there – this is a film filled with unexpected gory delights, whether it’s Sands ripping the scalp off a party girl or leaving an elevator dripping with the shorn appendages and splattered guts of a Druid assassin.
The Armageddon is nearly unclassifiable, morphing from a straight supernatural thriller to a coming-of-age origin story to a western showdown in a dusty, abandoned town.
Somehow, it works, and for those who have never experienced its majesty, or taken a chance on the nostalgic Vestron Video slate of Blu-Ray releases, the Warlock Collection is one you need to own and share with like-minded friends.
Warlock Collection
Genre: Horror
Directed by: Steve Miner, Anthony Hickox and Eric Freiser.
Run time: 291 minutes
Rating: R
Format: Blu-Ray
The Stuff You Care About:
Hot chicks — Oh yes.
Nudity — Lots.
Gore — Tons.
Drug use — No.
Bad Guys/Killers — Pretty boy Julian Sands, who gets replaced by Bruce Payne in Part III.
Buy/Rent — Buy it.
Released — July 25, 2017
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This article appears in Aug 10-17, 2017.