Promising Young Woman
4.5 star(s), 113 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
They should make “Promising Young Woman” mandatory viewing for all men of a certain age, before they’re old enough to know better but still not care, and while they’re still young enough to carry the razor-sharp film’s message to heart.
And what a message it is that writer/director Emerald Fennell has unleashed in her first feature-length movie, which should be a dark-horse candidate to steal the Oscar for Best Picture, if not statues for Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and Best Actress for Carey Mulligan’s fearless and full-throttled performance.
“Promising Young Woman” is unlike any rape-revenge thriller you’ve ever seen, in large part, due to the fact that unlike most salacious genre movies that over-exaggerate certain circumstances or portray their lead heroine as some unstoppable avenging angel. That’s not the case here. In “Promising Young Woman,” the heroine could easily be your sister, your ex-girlfriend or your co-worker. She’s human, she’s flawed, and she’s not unstoppable, at least not in physical form.
Mulligan plays Cassandra, or Cassie, who still lives with her parents despite nearing 30, and who has never been able to shake the rage and grief associated with the death of her best friend, who was gang-raped while they both attended medical school and who later died after the university botched its investigation into the crime because it didn’t want to ruin the lives and careers of the young men accused.
Fennell’s script aims straight for where it hurts and keeps clobbering to the point that most if not all males watching will feel the blunt force.
Seriously, I don’t know how any man could walk away from “Promising Young Woman” and be able to say that he had never, not once acted in a predatory fashion because Fennell, with Mulligan as her muse, refuses to hold back in shining a big, bright, unrelenting spotlight on male behavior that most probably accept as OK and not that bad.
In an effort to blunt her pain, Cassie lives life in a way that makes sense, or should, to anyone who has ever been victimized or experienced the indifference that much of society gives to women who speak out against the powerful and predominantly male.
She returns again and again to a local nightclub where she pretends to be blackout drunk, placing herself willingly in danger in order to test any man who steps up in an effort to be a white knight and make sure she gets someplace safe. That someplace more often than not ends up being the guy’s apartment, and over and over Fennell precisely and uncomfortably picks apart every possible ruse and guise that such men use to lull vulnerable women into a compromising position.
Fennell is ambiguous to a fault about exactly what measure of revenge Cassie elicits, but smart viewers will notice that Cassie is meticulous in recording the names of her paramours in a secret diary with some names written in black ink and others in red ink. I’m betting the ones in red didn’t survive their encounter.
Cassie’s existence is thrown into tumult when an old medical school classmate re-enters her life, causing her two worlds to slowly collide.
But it’s another event, the upcoming bachelor party of the chief assailant of her friend, that sets “Promising Young Woman” down a deliciously dark spiral for its third act. To say any more would be a great disservice, both to you as a viewer and to Fennell and Mulligan for stealing their thunder and undermining the dick-punch climax that literally left me slack jawed.
Songbird
3 star(s), 84 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
“Songbird,” which premiered in December 2020, was noteworthy at the time for being one of the first mainstream movies to directly tackle the COVID-19 pandemic. Set in the not-so-distant future, Adam Mason’s film imagines a world now-ravaged by COVID-23 with millions dead, martial law in effect and the majority of survivors trapped inside their homes, forced to take daily temperature checks that could result in immediate banishment to a Q-Zone internment camp.
Of all the pandemic-themed movies I’ve watched since Covid became a fixture in our collective lexicon, “Songbird” is by far the best, in large part due to a game and recognizable cast that includes K.J. Apa (“Riverdale”), Demi Moore, Bradley Whitford and Peter Stormare doing his usual unhinged shtick to maximum effect.
Nico (Apa) is a “munie,” meaning he’s one of a handful of people completely immune to COVID and therefore allowed to roam free while the rest of society exists in lockdown. When the grandmother of his girlfriend Sara (Sofia Carson), whom he’s never seen in person due to the virus, becomes ill, Nico is thrust into a race against the clock to secure a black-market immunity badge for Sara so they can flee Los Angeles together and seek refuge in a more peaceful place.
“Songbird” isn’t perfect. There are a few too many subplots that all conveniently dovetail. But it is entertaining, and best of all, watching it didn’t cause anxiety whereas some other pandemic-themed movies have served as a trigger.
Crucified
2.5 star(s), 71 minutes, streaming
Last week, I told you about a new Italian import called “Curse of the Blind Dead” that tried mightily to match the spirit of the Italian horror heyday from the 1980s. Well, here we go again, only this time the new movie, “Crucified,” actually does meet and match the wild, unpredictable spirit of Italy’s golden age of bonkers horror.
Essentially an apocalyptic pandemic thriller, “Crucified” focuses on a secret militia that hunts down infected persons in the burned-out remnants of society and crucifies them for no apparent reason, at least none that is shared early on. There’s a lowly priest racing against the clock to unlock a riddle about the origin of the mysterious disease that’s sacked humanity, as well as the occasional assistant who finds herself imperiled once alone.
But the reason “Crucified” deserves mention, and warrants the cost of a digital rental, is contained in the what-the-actual-fuck reveal in its third act. I’m not going to spoil anything, but let’s just say Bram Stoker would be proud, or at the least, slightly humbled, to see how his seminal work continues to influence pop culture nearly 125 years after being published.
ReVisitant
2.5 star(s), 105 minutes, Streaming
It’s always interesting to come across an independent director making a sequel to an independent horror film that most people probably never heard of. Not for nothing, this is how artists get better at their craft because revisiting characters and situations from an earlier work allows for improvement and the opportunity to take risks that wouldn’t be possible with a larger budget production.
Jon Binkowski’s “ReVisitant” is such a film. It’s a sequel to his 2014 sophomore feature, “The Visitant” (which I have not seen and did not know existed) and carries over at least two characters from his earlier effort. If I had to guess, I would definitely say that “ReVisitant” marks Binkowski’s big swing for the fences as the film seems to be channeling “Poltergeist” and strikes a tone that falls somewhere between “The Entity” and “Fallen,” in so much as it involves a paranormal entity that can transfer between hosts through a simple touch.
The gist of the plot is pretty straight-forward: A single mother raising two daughters happens to live next door to a house possessed by a malevolent spirit. For at least a year, that spirit has been trapped inside a local medium who was best friends with the former owner of the haunted house who was killed by the ghost. But when the mother’s youngest daughter sneaks into the house, the mom inadvertently touches the medium, allowing the entity to switch vessels.
It’s very clear that Binkowski’s heart and his artistic ambition are fixed firmly in the right place. He gives “ReVisitant” his all, and manages to craft believable characters that you can relate to. He experiments with different ghost-y tropes, the bulk of which you’ve seen before, but that’s okay.
His occasional missteps—an unnecessary subplot about the mother’s abusive ex-boyfriend could have been edited out entirely—don’t sink the ship, so to speak, and I would argue are necessary to allow Binkowski to gauge what works and what doesn’t so he won’t make the same miscalculation with his next movie.
Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers
2.5 star(s), 85 minutes, streaming
It’s tempting to dismiss “Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers” as little more than a flight of fancy, an extended gag stretched to feature-film-length, but I think that would be a disservice.
Yes, there are parts of Ryan Barton-Grimley’s ode to the 1980s and low-budget horror-comedies from that decade that call to mind other, often better films. The vampires, for one, come off more like Paul Reubens’ campy character from the original “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” than a menacing threat. And the titular protagonists, Hawk (Barton-Grimley) and Rev (Ari Schneider), are basically a more dimwitted version of the Frog Brothers from “The Lost Boys.”
Barton-Grimley takes on a lot of hats with “Hawk & Rev.” In addition to starring, he also wrote, directed, co-produced and co-edited, which could be used as evidence that he stretched himself too thin, if not for the fact that enough jokes and visual gags land with the intended result. If only the overall film was able to maintain some consistency, then “Hawk & Rev: Vampire Slayers” would likely be destined for cult status. As it is, though, it’s still worth a watch, especially for fans of goofy humor and low-budget effects.
Cosmic Sin
2 star(s), 88 minutes, streaming
Unlike Nicolas Cage, who just keeps leaning more and more into his love of ridiculous yet entertaining genre cinema, we’ve apparently reached the phase of Bruce Willis’ career where the action icon clocks into new projects with little enthusiasm and even less on-screen energy.
In “Cosmic Sin,” Willis plays James Ford, a military commander who gained infamy for vaporizing an alien race during the early period of Earth’s efforts to colonize space. Cosmic sin is the moniker assigned to genocide. So, when a new alien race is discovered on a distant planet about to be terraformed, Ford once again gets called back into action to help solve an unexpected issue before it becomes a problem.
Honestly, I was jazzed to watch “Cosmic Sin” just to see Willis teamed with Frank Grillo, whose career has basically followed the same trajectory as the former John McClane, albeit without the same global blockbuster success. But Willis just looks tired, and somewhat bemused, to be back playing basically the same character that he’s played countless times before.
Also available
Know Fear This new demonic possession thriller is now streaming. It adds an interesting twist to the usual pea-soup theatrics, which is that the ragtag group trying to exorcise the demon must each communicate with it, either by speaking to it, seeing it or hearing it.
Pixie This comedic gangster thriller, which features Alec Baldwin as a murdering priest, is now streaming.
Wonder Showzen: The Complete Series This odd cult-classic series from the early aughts is now available on DVD in a boxed collection.
On-Gaku: Our Sound Anime rock fable about three friends who form a band is now streaming and on Blu-Ray.
The Dead of Night Lance Henriksen co-stars in this unique twist on a home invasion/survival thriller set on a southwestern ranch that’s now streaming.
Todd Prepare to be uncomfortable watching this serial killer thriller about a lonely outcast who finally works up the nerve to act out on the violent fantasies in his head.
Gung Ho It’s crazy to think that this early Ron Howard/Michael Keaton comedy collaboration is now 35 years old and streaming.
SAS: Red Notice Ruby Rose and Andy Serkis topline this action thriller about a criminal operation to hijack a train in the United Kingdom.
The Parish Expect ghosts, creepy nuns and children in peril if you stream this new horror thriller.
John W. Allman has spent more than 25 years as a professional journalist and writer, but he’s loved movies his entire life. Good movies, awful movies, movies that are so gloriously bad you can’t help but champion them. Since 2009, he has cultivated a review column and now a website dedicated to the genre films that often get overlooked and interviews with cult cinema favorites like George A. Romero, Bruce Campbell and Dee Wallace. Contact him at Blood Violence and Babes.com, on Facebook @BloodViolenceBabes or on Twitter @BVB_reviews.
This article appears in Mar 25-31, 2021.