STREET TRASH (2024) ***

Street Trash wasn’t exactly the greatest cult movie to come out of the ‘80s, but the scenes of homeless people melting certainly made it one of the most memorable.  Since it was always one of those “close but no cigar” kinds of flicks, the prospect of it being remade and/or sequelized doesn’t seem all that sacrilegious.  The fact that the remake was written and directed by Ryan Kruger, the man behind the equally spotty, but highly entertaining Fried Barry, made it feel like a match made in Heaven. 

Kruger transplants the action from Skid Row Los Angeles to South Africa in the not-too distant future.  In an effort to clean up the city, the totalitarian government is cracking down on the ever-growing homeless population.  They have turned the Tenafly Viper compound into aerosol form and plan to use drones to unleash it on the bums and melt them down into pools of multicolored goo.  It’s then up to the homeless people to band together and rise up against their oppressors. 

Even though the setting has been changed, and the themes have been updated for the modern era, this is more of a sequel than remake.  Whatever you want to call it, it still delivers on what you want to see from a Street Trash movie, namely lots of scenes of homeless guys melting.  I mean a guy melts into a puddle of purple goo before the opening titles (which proudly proclaims to be “A Ryan Krueger Thing”).  Along the way, dicks are chopped off, ears fall off, faces melt off, and people explode.  You know… good shit. 

I will say that it sometimes feels like Kruger is trying a bit too hard.  It’s also less successful in the third act once it becomes a quasi-action movie.  The humor can be uneven too.  While some of the comedy bits fall flat, when Kruger finds the sweet spot between extreme gore and surreal silliness, it works.  Plus, it was also good seeing Fried Barry himself, Gary Green as a homeless man who has an imaginary friend that looks like a Smurf version of the guy from Everclear. 

TOMIE (1998) ** ½

I watched some of the later sequels in the Tomie series a while back and found them to be wild and entertaining for the most part.  When I discovered the original flick, based on the Junji Ito novel, was streaming on Shudder, I knew I had to check it out.  While It’s not nearly as crazy or memorable as some of the sequels, I have to say it definitely has its moments. 

A crazy one-eyed student keeps the mewling puking head of a girl named Tomie (Miho Kanno) in a box.  She gets better (that’s a simple way of stating she her body grows back) and goes out for revenge on the one who decapitated her.  Meanwhile a young woman named Tsukiko (Mami Nakamura) is undergoing hypnotherapy to recover repressed memories of an accident that took the life of her parents.  Little does she realize she’s the next one on Tomie’s hit list. 

Tomie grabs your attention right from the get-go with a fun opening where the dude is carrying Tomie’s head around in a bag.  Later, he upgrades to a box, and the scene where he feeds her is reminiscent of Basket Case.  Once she grows her body back, the film turns into more of a slow burn.  The stuff with the chain-smoking detective is hit and miss too. 

I did like the way the director Ataru Oikawa showed the carnage from a crime scene in such an offhand manner.  I’m specifically thinking of the way the camera casually panned to show coroners moving a guy with an umbrella shoved down his throat in the background while the detective walks around.  I also dug the way he avoided showing Tomie’s face for much of the movie.  

While Oikawa delivers a few offhand moments of occasional creepiness, he doesn’t quite know when to kick things up a notch.  The finale isn’t bad by any means, but it certainly suffers in comparison to the film’s opening moments. Still when it works it’s a reasonably effective flick.  Ultimately, the highlights are just too few and far between for me to give it a hearty recommendation.   

Oikawa later went on to direct Tomie:  Beginning and Tomie:  Revenge. 

WERWOLVES (2024) ** ½

Werewolves is kind of like The Purge but with werewolves.  A year ago, a supermoon turned thousands of people into werewolves, causing untold destruction.  Tonight, the supermoon is back, and people have to fortify their homes and stay out of the moonlight to prevent becoming a lycanthrope.  Meanwhile, scientists led by Lou Diamond Phillips and Frank Grillo (a veteran of the Purge franchise) work round the clock in an underground bunker looking for a cure.  Naturally, something goes wrong, and their werewolf test subjects break loose. After the place is soon overrun by ferocious fur balls, Grillo has to make his way back home to protect his family. 

Werewolves is gloriously dumb, but the cast wisely plays things with a straight face, which is the secret to make it work.  It almost feels like a SyFy Channel Original from the ‘00s with a slightly higher budget, and I mean that as a compliment.  The CGI transformation effects are OK, but the practical werewolves are well done.  The gore is solid too as there are ripped out backs, clawed off faces, and a memorable bit where a werewolf pulls off another werewolf’s head with its spinal cord flapping in the breeze a la Predator. 

Most of the fun comes from watching Lou Diamond Phillips trying to keep a straight face while spouting massive amounts of exposition early on, including explaining to the audience about the benefits of “moonscreen”.  (It’s like sunscreen, except instead of protecting you from getting a sunburn, it prevents you from becoming a werewolf.)  Director Steven C. (Silent Night) Miller also shows a knack for some punchy action scenes, despite the film’s smallish budget. 

Sadly, the fun begins to dwindle around the time the third act rolls around.  The finale isn’t a complete washout or anything.  It just pales to the stuff we saw earlier in the film.  (The abrupt ending doesn’t help much either.)  Still, if you’re looking for a moderately entertaining horror romp, you can certainly do a lot worse. 

THE WATCHERS (2024) **

Dakota Fanning stars as an American girl working in a pet shop in Ireland whose car breaks down in the woods while delivering a bird.  She winds up bumping into a few other lost travelers who we learn are being watched by… uh… “The Watchers”.  These Watchers are unseen entities who live in the woods and keep people hostage in “The Coop”, which looks like a high school theater stage.  During the day, Dakota and the others are free to roam around the woods, but at night, they have to be centerstage for the Watchers’ entertainment.  Eventually, Dakota and company stage a daring escape. 

The Watchers was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan’s daughter, Ishana, who isn’t very subtle.  She gives us a lot of symbolic closeups of lizards in glass aquariums and birds in cages early on to foreshadow our heroine’s plight.  Also, the only DVD that’s in “The Coop” is a Big Brother-style reality TV show, which further hammers home the film’s themes. 

Like her old man, Shyamalan has a knack for creating an intriguing set-up.  Sadly, like her dear old dad, she doesn’t have much follow-through.  Even though the set-up is kind of original, it quickly descends into a bunch of tired cliches, including the tried-and-true scene where someone comes knocking at the door and begs the characters to let them in, causing someone to shout, “It could be one of them!  Ask it something only your husband would know!”

It doesn’t help that the Watchers themselves are kinda weak looking (they resemble the offspring of Groot and Slender Man) or that much of the lore comes courtesy of huge exposition dumps.  It might’ve worked better had Shyamalan parceled out the backstory slowly or better yet, left things up for the audience to decide.  Like her old man, she also fumbles the ball when trying to deliver a big “twist” at the end.  I will say she does orchestrate a solid jump scare about halfway through, so I will give her that. 

Fanning keeps the movie from completely falling apart around her.  She definitely has leading lady chops.  It’s just a shame the script lets her down.  Olwen Fouere, who played the Sally Hardesty in the new Texas Chainsaw Massacre movie, is pretty good too as the old lady who runs the Coop and knows all about the Watchers.  

While it’s marginally better than much of the senior Shyamalan’s films, ultimately, these Watchers are only worth watching once. 

SYMPATHY FOR THE DEVIL (2023) ** ½

Joel Kinnaman is on his way to the hospital to be with his wife who is in labor.  While in the parking garage, he is carjacked by a psycho played by Nicolas Cage who forces him at gunpoint to drive around Las Vegas.  On the road, the pair engage in cat and mouse mind games as Joel tries to keep his cool and outwit his wily captor so he can see his wife and baby. 

Sympathy for the Devil is essentially a two-character movie, but it helps that its two leads are well cast.  Kinnaman does a fine job as the squirrelly, mild-mannered family man who is under the thumb of an unpredictable nut job.  As unpredictable nut jobs go, you can’t do much better than Nicolas Cage.  Sporting a bad red dye job and a crimson velvet jacket to match, he’s a tad restrained.  Since this is Nicolas Cage we’re talking about here, “a tad restrained” means he speaks in an overblown Boston accent, randomly imitates Edward G. Robinson, has a weird soliloquy where he attributes his lifelong sinus problems to a literal childhood boogeyman he calls “The Mucus Man”, and sings and dances to “I Love the Night Life” in a diner. 

While there are sparks here and there between Cage and Kinnaman, there aren’t exactly any fireworks on display.  The are moments where the movie threatens to catch fire (the aforementioned impromptu disco dance scene), but for the most part, the drama is surprisingly inert.  There’s obviously a big secret Cage is holding back and it’s plain to see that Kinnaman isn’t exactly the family man he claims to be.  Unfortunately, the film drags its feet when it comes to doling out its characters motivations.  Because of that, it just boils down to a bunch of scenes of Cage verbally abusing Kinnaman. 

And for a while, it works.  After two solid acts, the final half-hour is a bit of a washout.  It doesn’t help that the big secret is predictable and the reveal lacks punch.  For a movie that’s essentially two guys in a car for most of the running time, the ride is smooth enough, even if the destination leaves something to be desired. 

NIGHTBITCH (2024) *** ½

Amy Adams is stuck in a rut.  She put her career as an artist on hold to raise her kid while her husband (Scoot McNairy) is out on the road working.  Increasingly frustrated by her predicament, the frazzled housewife begins noticing some odd changes.  She’s getting hair in weird places, her sense of smell is becoming acute, and her teeth are now razor sharp.  Dogs also start following her around and she gets weird looks from customers when she frantically stuffs her face with meatloaf in the middle of Trader Joe’s.  Is she becoming a dog, or is it all in her head?

This is one of those moves where some of the imagery is a little too on the nose.  (Housewives, like dogs, are both domesticated, don’t you know.)  However, since the performances are great and the social commentary is sharp, it’s really a moot point. 

The body horror stuff works quite well too.  The scene where Adams finds a bunch of dog hair in a giant zit would look right at home on an episode of Dr. Pimple Popper.  Then of course, there’s the scene where she takes off her blouse and finds… well… I won’t spoil that one for you. 

Adams is excellent, especially in the scenes where she lashes out and unloads all her deep, depressing thoughts at random people (which turns out to be all in her head.)  The scenes of her home alone with her son hit the right notes of pointed realism and hilarious farce.  I’m sure anyone who ever had to raise their child alone for long stretches at a time will be able to empathize with Adams in this, and even root for her when she snaps and snarls at people.  McNairy is equally good in a trickier role.  He’s not exactly a bad person or an uncaring husband.  He’s just oblivious to his wife’s needs and is slightly confused by the “new” her.  I also enjoyed seeing Suspiria’s Jessica Harper as a librarian who recognizes what Adams is going through and tries to lend a helping hand. 

Not all of Nightbitch works.  The flashbacks of Adams’ mother just kind of feel like filler, and they aren’t really fleshed out all that well.  It probably makes all its points early on and plays its cards too soon.  That should in no way deter you from checking it out though, especially if you’re a fan of Adams. 

SUPER MARIO BROS.: GREAT MISSION TO RESCUE PRINCESS PEACH (1986) ** ½

Before Hollywood brought the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie to the big screen, Japan made an hour-long animated feature starring the beloved video game characters.  While Mario is playing a video game, Princess Peach leaps out of the screen and tells him she’s being kidnapped by King Koopa who whisks her back into the television set.  Mario immediately tells his brother Luigi, who thinks he dreamt the whole thing.  Later, the brothers follow a dog down a sewer pipe to the Mushroom Kingdom where the King sends the duo on a quest to find the Princess.  Along the way, they must collect three power-ups (a mushroom, a flower, and a star) in order to defeat the evil Koopa. 

Some of the origin stuff is kind of weird and not in line with the games.  I mean the brothers’ profession is changed from plumbers to grocers.  Why?  Did the animators feel it was unsanitary to base a kids’ movie around two plumbers?  Also, Luigi (who is depicted as being skinnier and taller than Mario for the first time) is kind of an asshole who only goes along on the adventure so he can collect coins and freakout when he eats bad mushrooms.  Speaking of mushrooms, Toad is a woman in this, which is a little odd, but at least her design is more faithful to the game than Mojo Nixon’s character in the live-action movie. 

Despite all that, it’s a fairly decent adaptation.  I especially liked how they used the same sound effects from the game along with a few musical cues.  The way the adventure was broken up into different levels was cool too, although I could’ve done without some of the soft rock musical interludes.  It’s also interesting to note how some of the touches in this movie would go on to be incorporated into later games (like Mario being able to hop into the cloud and drive it around). 

As for the animation itself, it’s fine.  I’ve always been a fan of the Super Mario Bros Super Show, so for me, it pales in comparison to that incarnation.  However, Super Mario Bros.:  Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach remains an interesting, if not entirely successful first attempt to render Mario and company into another medium.