More
Jonathan Rhys Meyers Horror
by
Kristin Battestella
Let's
have a birthday supper with two more genre bending pictures featuring
Jonathan Rhys Meyers! Unfortunately, the horrors here do a disservice
to the stars – to say the least.
A
Mixed Bag
6
Souls –
This international production originally titled Shelter
starring
doctor Julianne Moore (The End of the Affair)
and patient Jonathan Rhys Meyers (The Tudors) was
originally released in 2010 before this 2013 US re-branding, which
already doesn't bode well. After a tense hearing explaining multiple
personality disorder as a fake fad defense, our psychologist Cara is
on a new case at the behest of her colleague father. The wheelchair
bound Johnny with a southern accent answers her questions before
scratching, growling, color blind changes, and no wheelchair required
inexplicable. Tearful recountings, creepy sores, and vomitings
increase, but the x-rays look like two different people and the high
school history doesn't gel. Occult symbols, ritual murder, Appalachia
magic, and religious undercurrents are apparent early, yet Cara
continues to pursue the psychological. Spooky flashes and dream
scares break her point of view, and backstory of her husband's murder
on Christmas feels forced amid the cool babysitter uncle banter. All
the family elements seem unnecessary; doctor dad keeps pushing Cara
to prove her motivation and it would be better if she was alone. The
psychology interrogations are a tense who is who with angry alters
and who's going to blink first chilling. Unfortunately, the medical
treatment is fast and loose, and local superstitions, iron nails to
ward off evil, and who does or doesn't wear a cross don't get enough
attention. JRM's personality changes are well done amid gory
discoveries and satanic possibilities, and thankfully we mostly hear
rather than see the bone cracking transformations. The one on one
scenes are best, yet they don't get us any closer to the root source
and Doctor Cara actually doesn't seem very good at her job? Her
daughter is a plot device to advance the science versus god when our
supposedly religious doctor spends too much time on a medical
solution when it's clear to the frustrated audience she is totally
missing the demonic at work. We wonder why the authorities weren't
involved sooner because she continually oversteps her medical bounds
and makes the situation worse. Religious mothers and granny witches
take too long to get to the backwoods backstory, with intercut
rituals and over the phone info dumps making Cara look stupid
alongside one step behind detectives and repeated road trips. The
freaky is good when it happens, but so much time is wasted on cryptic
ominous that it makes viewers question if there is another version of
this left on the cutting room floor. Sepia toned back and forth faith
versus faithless cures or curses are confusing with technological
audio and visual ease advancing revelations when the characters
should be experiencing the consequences directly. It's foolish that
critical horror action happens while our doctor merely listens on the
phone, muddling point of view and familial motivation and doing a
disservice to the emotional, chilling leads. Hospital versus witch
doctor choices wait while phone contrivances allow for more driving
with in-world hop, skip, jump convenience on top of too many
characters and plot detours when we should have focused on the
psychosis versus religion twofer. The sacrificial action, influenza
timeline, and twists upon twists unravel, descending into wooded
chases instead of any scientific or spiritual resolution.
It's
Bad
Operation
Blood Hunt
– Louis Mandylor (My
Big Fat Greek Wedding)
directs and stars in this 2024 action horror lark featuring Jonathan
Rhys Meyers amid vampires, werewolves, and World War II South Pacific
incomprehensible. The brief 1928 opening has a unique black and white
scheme with stylish hints of color and yellow glows, but the
subsequent modern de-saturated drone photography does not
set
the period mood– and it only gets worse from there. The initial
werewolf shock is actually well done, however it's premature to
reveal the wolf in the first five minutes. Location changes and
onscreen notations telling us it's 1945 London jar with hamfisted
contemporary dialogue.
Fedora
wearing, Bogarting it up JRM is hammy yet suave amid wooden
deliveries, Kung Fu strobe, and confusing direction that make the
cast seem like they are in different scenes. There are pieces of
everything here from Dracula
to
Kong: Skull Island, and
with the modern metal music and cool silver crossbows, they could
have tossed in time travel and it wouldn't be out of place. Overlong,
obnoxious banter introduces try hard people a half hour in with
freeze frame titles while they jump out of a plane: casanova,
tracker, assassin, spy, sharpshooter, veteran, supernatural
specialist, gambler. None of this preposterous can be taken seriously
largely thanks to the World War II trappings – visualized only by
the period helmets that are too big and fall down over the actors'
eyes. The perplexing Wikipedia summary reads like a novel, and JRM's
vampire bar with the cool black and white flashbacks look like
they're from another movie. Why is all this jammed into one
ninety-four minutes when it could have been contemporary set?
Werewolf slices and slashes are too few and far between, and it all
should have been from the village's perspective where shaman rituals
and animal curses give the asshole intruders what they deserve. The
bad vampire wants to get to the North Pole, and I can't imagine how
anyone in this movie kept a straight face. Attempted dramatic
moments, deaths, and dire radio calls are inadvertently bemusing
thanks to a contemporary edgy ballad. Ironically, a woman's arms
being ripped off by the werewolf is another good effect, but we don't
get to the hairy action, silver bullets, and curse mythology
explanations until the final twenty minutes. Blaming the native
village history feels racist, and intercutting the mercenary island
action with London explanations that it's all about hidden gold and
not the monsters adds more messy. But hey, maybe every film needs a
naked woman who is clearly wearing a flesh tone tank top yet is still
treated as if she is naked. JRM is a vampire who's been listening to
everything the entire time, and a racist coda inviting them to Egypt
to battle mummies leaves it open for a sequel, lololol. I can't
believe I watched this whole thing!
