The Toll
4 star(s), 80 minutes, streaming
There have been a handful of new horror films in the past few years focused on the advent of ride-sharing, and the inherent dangers that could exist with willingly getting into a stranger’s vehicle.
“The Toll,” writer-director Michael Nader’s fantastic debut, starts off exactly like all of those earlier efforts. Cami (Jordan Hayes) wants nothing more than a chance to close her eyes after a long flight. Her ride-share driver Spencer (Max Topplin) is uber-creepy and wants nothing more than chit-chat incessantly.
And, then, thankfully, blessedly, mercifully, “The Toll” takes a hard swerve into the unknown when Spencer’s GPS directs him to a detour and suddenly there’s a spectral figure standing in the middle of the road. His vehicle instantly stops working, just after Spencer uber-creepily waxes philosophic about killing someone, and Cami decides to hoof it on foot to find help.
Before long, both she and Spencer discover that the isolated forest road they’re on doesn’t conform to the normal boundaries of time and space. They’re stuck in a loop. If one walks off screen to the left, they immediately re-emerge from the right.
What’s worse, they discover unnerving messages on road signs that previously weren’t planted along their route. Keep going, I fucking dare you, one such message implores. And that’s before Spencer discovers another message scrawled in the dirt on his back window: Please pay The Toll Man.
“The Toll” is an excellent mashup, a wonderfully inventive take on both urban legends and serial killer thrillers, that just keeps burrowing deeper under your skin. Nader’s script keeps one-upping itself, allowing for a dizzying array of sequences that test Cami’s sanity, reveal Spencer’s true character and keep viewers riveted until the harrowing climax and final, haunting frame.
Happily
4 star(s), 96 minutes, streaming
True confession time. Joel McHale, as an actor and as a celebrity, bothers me. I don’t know why, but every time I see him in a role or watch a guest appearance on a show like "RuPaul’s Drag Race," I can’t help but feel skeeved out by certain statements and mannerisms.
Thankfully, then, I can report that not only is “Happily” a great showcase for McHale’s unique personality, but it’s a solid and highly original examination of marriage and friendship wrapped inside a bizarre "Twilight Zone"-esque story.
“Happily” is also the feature-length debut of writer-director BenDavid Grabinski, and it makes sense why Jack Black is being heavily promoted as one of the film’s producers.
As someone who has been madly in love with the same woman for 19-plus years, I have experienced first-hand the skepticism and criticism that being in a good relationship can cause other couples. “Happily” plays with that idea, building in a science-fiction conceit that envisions a supreme power trying to maintain balance by keeping all couples browbeaten into suburban servitude with diminished expectations.
If you’re a fan of quirky comedies that pick at the scabs of our mundane existence, I think you’ll be extremely satisfied watching “Happily.”
Slaxx
3 star(s), 77 minutes, Shudder
High-concept, socially-relevant horror isn’t as much of a thing as it should be, especially in today’s uncertain times with global warming, viral pandemics, social unrest and more threatening our existence on a daily basis.
“Slaxx,” which hails from Canada, makes a bid to fill that void by infusing its surreal story about a pair of literally killer jeans with a socially-aware statement on migrant workers in other countries that survive under horrible conditions picking the cotton and other materials that help produce the fashion apparel that fuels our global consumerism.
Yes, this is a movie about a possessed pair of pants that slaughters the minimum-wage workers at a high-end retail chain, and it’s a bloody, gory riot.
Rent-a-Pal
3 star(s), 108 minutes, streaming, blu-ray and DVD
“Rent-a-Pal,” the confident debut by writer-director Jon Stevenson, may not be the most original horror movie you’ve seen this year, but it’s solidly entertaining and packed with nostalgia for a simpler time, in this case 1990, when singles still relied on pre-Match.com dating companies that swapped VHS testimonials from clients seeking forever love.
David (Brian Landis Folkins) is 40 years old and a full-time caregiver to his mother, who has late-stage dementia. He doesn’t work because he can’t leave her alone. He has zero friends. His only escape is pouring over the occasional dating match profile cassettes that he receives from a paid service.
Then one day, he picks up a discount bin VHS called “Rent-a-Pal,” which features Andy (Wil Wheaton), another near-middle-age schlub who really, really wants to be someone’s best friend.
Stevenson’s script hits all the expected beats, from David’s early interactions with Andy, who at that point is seemingly a scripted character speaking through a television screen, to his inevitable match with Lisa (Amy Rutledge), a young woman who also is a caregiver and is looking for someone exactly like David, to the expected emotional meltdown that comes when Andy becomes more than just Wheaton’s effervescent talking head and suddenly takes control of David’s darker impulses.
What elevates “Rent-a-Pal” is Folkins and Wheaton's performances, as they both transcend their two-dimensional characters on paper to create something deeper, a more unsettling bond than you’re expecting.
The Day of the Beast
3 star(s), 113 minutes, streaming, 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-Ray and DVD
Spanish cult director Álex de la Iglesia’s sophomore feature, “The Day of the Beast,” originally released in 1998, gets the deluxe high-definition treatment from Severin Films.
As horror-comedies go, “The Day of the Beast” is good, and funny, but not on the same level as say, “Shaun of the Dead.” Still, it’s definitely worth your time if you’ve never seen in large part due to the film’s inspired hijinks and committed performance by the late Álex Angulo as Father Cura, a priest who unlocks the date of the apocalypse but learns he must commit as many sins as possible in order to be accepted by the Devil so that he can get close enough to kill Old Scratch before the Antichrist is born.
Event Horizon: Collector’s Edition
3 star(s), 96 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
For many years, I considered Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Event Horizon” to be a rightful classic that belonged in the same breath as other iconic space-horror films like “Alien.”
While I still believe this is Anderson’s best work, period, re-watching “Event Horizon” through Shout! Factory’s lovingly packaged collector’s edition, I now realize that the film is better in small chunks than as an overall experience. That said, I will always have a soft spot for it, especially given how visibly it wears its influences (“Hellraiser,” in particular) with zero regrets.
And Sam Neill, coming in hot three years after 1994’s John Carpenter’s “In the Mouth of Madness,” is still an acting marvel when tasked with portraying the evil side of mental illness on camera. His character, Dr. William Weir, remains a delight.
Monster Hunter
2.5 star(s), 103 minutes, streaming, 4K Ultra-HD, Blu-Ray and DVD
Speaking of Paul W.S. Anderson, his latest film, a live-action take on Capcom’s successful videogame franchise, “Monster Hunter,” shows how far and how little he has progressed as a filmmaker in the 23 years since he made “Event Horizon.”
Re-teaming with his wife, Milla Jovovich, whom he helped launch into genre film immortality with 2002’s “Resident Evil,” another video game adaptation, Anderson does a fine job providing a slew of CGI-heavy battles with other-worldly behemoths, but the lack of depth and characterization for his human players remains Anderson’s Achilles’ heel.
“Monster Hunter” is just okay when it should have been, if not great, at least a guilty pleasure for cinephiles.
The Widow
2 star(s), 113 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
You would be hard-pressed to find another film critic who was as blown away by 2018’s out-of-left-field Russian import, “Mermaid: The Lake of the Dead.”
So it makes sense that a new horror film co-written by the two writers of “Mermaid: The Lake of the Dead” would immediately catch my attention.
Sadly, “The Widow,” also filmed in Russia, which plays off an urban legend outside of St. Petersburg, in a dense expanse of forest where hundreds of people have gone missing, lacks all of the clever twists and unexpected swerves that propelled “Mermaid” to cult status.
“The Widow” also features one of the worst English-dub audio tracks that you’ve likely ever heard, which undermines any ability to invest in the team of rescue responders trying to locate a lost child in the forest.
Truth be told, the last 20 minutes or so of “The Widow” are better than the first 90 minutes, but fans shouldn’t have to suffer that long just to see something interesting and/or shocking happen on screen.
Witness Infection
2 star(s), 81 minutes, streaming
Mobsters, tainted sausage and zombies make for an odd and awkward trio in Andy Palmer’s high-concept horror-comedy, which imagines what might happen if two rival families were accidentally relocated to the same idyllic community to keep them safe.
“Witness Infection” throws in an arranged marriage, a host of tired mob movie tropes and some decent special effects, but this is more in line with “The Dead Don’t Die” than any of the inspired takes on zombie cinema that have surfaced in recent years.
Cosmoball
2 star(s), 118 minutes, streaming, Blu-Ray and DVD
Yet another Russian import, only this one is a would-be science-fiction epic about life in the year 2071 after aliens have destroyed Earth’s moon and created havoc with extreme climate issues across the globe.
To distract from the daily doom and gloom, the remaining population is hooked on Cosmoball, which combines athleticism and gladiatorial combat (think “Rollerball” with alien competitors).
If anything, “Cosmosball” is notable for being the best crack at replicating a Luc Besson sci-fi opus like “The Fifth Element” since Besson tried to match and exceed his own masterpiece with 2017’s gorgeous yet vapid “Valerian and the City of a Thousand Planets.”
Also Available as of March 30
News of the World Tom Hanks on a horse, y’all, telling the news.
Gattaca: 4K Ultra-HD Steelbook Andrew Niccol’s first film, and his best.
Breaking News in Yuba County This screwball crime comedy sports a ridiculously solid cast, including Allison Janney, Mila Kunis, Awkwafina, Matthew Modine and Juliette Lewis.
Wonder Woman 1984 It’s still sad to me that Gal Gadot’s second solo turn as Diana of Themyscira wasn’t better, but the early ‘80s setting still rocks.
Nosferatu in Venice Italian horror oddity starring Klaus Kinski as the infamous vampire.
Pedita Durango Another early work by Álex de la Iglesia, this one starring Rosie Perez and Javier Bardem, gets the 4K Ultra-HD treatment from Severin Films.
The Ten Commandments: 65th Anniversary Edition What’s better than living in the end of days, watching Charlton Heston in the first disaster flick from 1956 in stunning 4K Ultra-HD.
Paramount Presents: The Greatest Show on Earth You can’t get much better than Cecil B. DeMille, Charlton Heston and James Stewart.
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.
