It’s summer, so shark movies abound, notably Meg 2: The Trench (Ben Wheatley, 2023) and The Black Demon (Adrian Grünberg, 2023). Both films feature not just a shark but a megalodon, suggesting the need to up the ante when it comes to shark fare – the ante, in this case, being the shark’s size. Neither film is faring terribly well at the hands of critics, although The Black Demon seems to be marginally more highly-praised. It’s not, in truth, a very good film. It is, however, an interesting one.
Now that spring’s in the air, the thoughts of horror fans turn to summer. Jaws might put us in the mood for the beach, but perhaps the most disturbing part of the movie is that women serve primarily as victims. Shark bait. Men solve the problem and men wrote, directed, and produced the movie. Why can’t women get a break with water monsters?
Guillermo del Toro’s The Shape of Water (2017) challenged many conventions, making a woman the hero (and “Christ figure” as the resurrected redemptrix), but to get a sense of why it took so long for this to happen we have to cast our eyes back to what is generally considered the nadir of American horror—the black-and-white 1950s. This was the era of irradiated monsters that were often clearly men in rubber suits, wreaking havoc on civilization, or at least beachfront property. There are a couple of unsung women behind the scenes in at least two of these films, beginning with one of the classics from that era, The Creature from the Black Lagoon (Jack Arnold, 1954).
Film is a medium for conveying a director’s message. In the last five years, Jordan Peele has directed three horror films – Get Out (2017), Us (2019), and Nope (2022) – that are each infused with a message (indeed, many messages). Get Out was a commentary on casual racism in the contemporary US; the film Us focused on social class and the “underground’ existence of the oppressed, but what does Jordan Peele say in Nope? Nope is many things – and one of them is a comment on modern surveillance culture in America.
Nope takes place between 1998 and the early 2000s on a horse ranch just north of Los Angeles, California. There are four main characters in the film, Emerald Haywood (Keke Palmer), OJ Haywood (Daniel Kaluuya), Ricky “Jupe” Park (Steven Yeun), and a giant UFO. The plot centers on the characters’ efforts to get footage of the UFO to prove its existence to an inevitably skeptical public. It is this intended exploitation of the UFO, central to the film, that symbolizes surveillance culture in the United States.
Casual cruelty and playful perversion make up the slow-burning scares of writer-director Eskil Vogt’s sophomore feature, The Innocents (De uskyldige), whose child characters convey a creepy conception of ethical sentiment. Privileged protagonist Ida (excellent as her young co-stars: Rakel Lenora Fløttum) vents her frustration about her parents’ move to a bare concrete complex by torturing her autistic sister Anna (Alva Brynsmo Ramstad) and engaging in animal abuse. Rapidly escalating, the agony the little girl and her new friend Ben (Sam Ashraf) inflict first upon insects and invertebrates, then a trustful cat, unmasks the inhumane impulses central to the menacing morality lesson offered up by this film.
The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord (2021), written by Jared Jay Mason and directed by Mason and Clark Runciman, is a film that raises more questions than it answers. An independent movie distributed by Random Media, it features two actors, Jordan Ashley Grier (Gabby) and Swayde McCoy (Michael). It received seven award nominations. This review will contain spoilers, so be warned.
About the spoilers: there’s no way to review this film without them.
The Great and Terrible Day of the Lord takes place over a weekend—intended to be romantic—with Michael and Gabby. They aren’t engaged, but in love. They drive to a remote cabin (and this isn’t going where you probably think it is) owned by his family. Arriving before dark on Friday we quickly learn that Michael is intense, loving, and sensitive. Gabby’s holding back a little because she’s not ready to trust him with her secrets. They have a drink and smoke some pot to unwind. As they’re dancing through the stylish cabin, Michael suddenly reveals to Gabby that he’s God. More than that, he’s come to her without Michael’s knowledge to tell her she’ll die before the weekend’s over. And she’s going to Hell.
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