Dames and Doppelgangers
by
Kristin Battestella
Well
I think these monster fighting, dual role playing, and spooky butt
kicking ladies from across the decades deserve a second look!
Another Me – Sophie Turner (Game of Thrones), Jonathan Rhys
Meyers (The Tudors), Rhys
Ifans (Anonymous), and
Claire Fiorlani (Meet Joe Black)
anchor this 2013 British/Spanish doppelganger teen thriller
which is admittedly poorly structured and padded to start with
violent dreams, a trying to be ominous narration, and critical family
moments shown in flashback rather than real time. More Macbeth
and high school play jealously cliches, emo photography, and music
moments litter the first ten minutes, but Meyers makes for a dreamy
drama teacher alongside lingering shadows, assorted reflections,
filming through windows, and double camera trickery. Coming and going
gaslighting a neighbor, quick passing glances, double takes, and
ignored graffiti warnings add simmer while single white female same
haircuts and frienemy understudies shape a waiting in the aside, play
within a play dual layer. Stairs to and tunnels fro delay the
foreboding but the claustrophobic, up close elevator panic is well
done amid fine illness, adulterous stupidity, and marital breakdowns.
We don't see many scary encounters – just an overreacting teenager
jumping to conclusions when she could have, you know, asked her
parents if there was an in utero twin problem. The pace is slow and
unsure in giving the character drama room or allowing for the
supposed to be spooky. A tale can be both but the round and round
builds up to a bigger scare that doesn't happen, the physicality of
it all is never really explained, and the outcome is fairly obvious.
It might have been interesting to have seen the villain, experienced
her double interactions, and witness some opposite acting chops from
Turner. Fine twists do happen, but with seven minutes of credits
eating into the 85 minute runtime, writer and director Isabel Coixet
(My Life without Me) needed both more development time for the
deserving cast and a tighter focus on the phenomena. This is nothing
new to longtime scary viewers – similar plots have been done better
in The Twilight Zone's “Mirror Image” and Poe's “William
Wilson” – but the PG-13 spooky will be entertaining for younger
audiences.
The Dark – The viewer can't see much to start this 1994
nighttime eerie thanks to the titular low budget coverage, and the
first fifteen minutes of ho hum Van Damme diner action trite is
unnecessary alongside poor editing and badly placed ominous
crescendos interfering with the real under the cemetery monster plot
convergence and ex FBI agent Brion James' (Blade Runner)
conflict. Our main golly gee groundsman is also weak, but there is
room for grave digging humor, daylight cemetery research, and you
know, headstones being sucked into the ground. Toxic contamination
and mutant animal possibilities are interesting, and having a
pre-Scream Neve Campbell as an investigating Mountie isn't as
bad as it sounds. Although cops tying themselves together with ropes
and going down into the tunnel under the cemetery at night with only
a glock and a lighter is totally a no brainer! The lack of subtitles
helps in overlooking some bad dialogue, however captions would have
clarified the healing DNA properties and technical science talk. It's
better that we don't really see the whole pseudo prehistoric beastie,
just a largely undefined head, shadowed teeth, slimy drool, and
grabby reptile hands. Though laughable at times, the dangerous
sinkholes and falling through the graveyard ground remain scary,
monster or not. And say hey, a waitress and a lady cop talking about
monsters passes the Bechdel test! A lot of the 90 minutes here is B
picture run of the mill, but there are enough creepy possibilities
and inadvertent humor for a late night Halloween marathon.
Dead of Winter – Stairs,
wheelchairs, a photographer in a cast, and a suspicious glass of milk
– director Arthur Penn (Bonnie
and Clyde) accents this
1987 doppelganger thriller with Hitchcock references, blustery
snowscapes, isolated mansions, and down phone lines. Red nails, long
cigarettes, fedoras, holiday music, antiques, dark roads, and retro
cars evoke an eighties meets forties noir mood while struggling
actress Mary Steenburgen (Melvin
and Howard) leaves her
crowded apartment for a seemingly lucrative acting job. The audience
expects some deception thanks to a psychiatrist turned producer Jan
Rubes (Witness),
mirrors, creepy photos, cameras, and television playbacks toying with
a film within a film duality. However, the basic reveals happen
early, and the unseen faces, violent car attacks, and suspect make
overs build pace and twists for the identity games afoot. Television
static, distorted cinematography, attic passages, mice, and hidden
bodies add to the crazy switcharoos, and Roddy McDowell (Planet
of the Apes) is a
delightfully passive aggressive pressure cooker to match
Steenburgen's superb triple duty performance. Sure, some of the Mary
on Mary fight scenes may be amusing because we know the cinema tricks
involved, but the twofold filming is also well done considering such
difficulty. Despite some unclear blackmail and money MacGuffin
schemes, wild screams, finger cuttings, and increasing peril top this
one off nicely.
But
a Skipper
Breeders
– This 1997 remake of alien monsters and mating coeds is also
called Deadly Instincts and
is an Isle of Man production. Who knew? Unfortunately, rather than
monsters at university run amok, this is set on an American campus
with Boston logos galore and embarrassing basketball scenes. Could
you have chosen a tougher accent to destroy? Not to mention this is
an all girl school but the throwback male hero is named Ashley just
to keep the shouts and screams confusing. The opening interstellar
graphics look like bad porn designs, as does the duct tape and
tinfoil our alien lady is wearing, and the meh monster design is
nonsensical with crystals, slime, and some kind of glow necklaces
impregnating chicks. Was there no budget left for gore after buying
all the Boston stickers for the police cars? The cops seem more like
unnecessarily antagonistic mobsters, and the barely there plot
somehow devolves into snipers in the sewers shooting themselves
instead of the mini wannabe Godzilla. The only redeemable thing here
would be a healthy dose of expected horror exploitations, but the
catfights, lingering thigh zooms, cheap makeouts, ass shots, naked
locker room jiggle, and shower conversations are so gosh darn tame it
takes the fun out of everything. This is an hour too long – even at
1.5 speed nothing happens – and schlock like this is for a drinking
game only.
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