Guy Pearce Re-Watch: Horror and Sci-Fi

 

Horror and Science Fiction Fare from the Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch! 😱

Those who follow my Twitter account @ThereforeReview know that I have spent these pandemic years perusing through a Guy Pearce Career Re-Watch. I retreated to this happy place because Pearce can always be depended upon to turn in a great performance in often exceptional films.

In interviews, Guy Pearce has claimed horror and genre films aren't his forte, yet over his career, Pearce has nonetheless provided audiences with several entertaining, polarizing, and thrilling genre bending performances. 

Please click through to previously written reviews and videos at I Think, Therefore I Review, InSession Film or with the Women InSession Podcast, and Keith Loves Movies for more in depth analysis along with these quick commentaries and countdowns.

Bad Bonus: The Seventh Day

8. Prometheus – Looking at this 2012 Alien prequel purely from a Guy Pearce standpoint can be somewhat depressing when you think of what his superior Ted Talks 2023 short as Peter Weyland promised compared to the not so secret old man holograms, arrogant foolishness, and god-complex folly the film gave us. We are ripe for a Weyland TV show right now, but the less said of Alien: Covenant, the better. I would have watched a movie with Michael Fassbender (Hunger) and Guy Pearce waxing existential in a white room instead of the movie we got.

7. Sunrise – Director Andrew Baird opens this 2024 horror drama with warnings of sacrificial appeasement to The Red Coat as a Chinese American family takes in a drifter asking for fresh blood. The horror keeps restarting amid reports of dead animals and rah rah racist speeches, and the narrative is crowded with multiple immigrant struggles and horror vengeance that each deserved more time. We inexplicably never really get to know the “you people” being terrorized by Guy Pearce's pulpit spewing hooligan, and viewers wonder whether this should have been a straightforward drama told in order rather than a piecemeal supernatural tale with flashbacks. Fortunately, Pearce embodies the bloody commentary with his perceived superiority – oozing demented slurs, vile insults, and deep seeded ease. Though uneven and not as cohesive as it could be, Pearce's despicably effortless characterization and the gory consequences are worth seeing. 

6. The Time Machine – This 2002 H.G. Wells remake starts great with groundbreaking visuals, Victorian charm, and a steampunk backstory for Pearce's Alexander Hartdegen. Our desperate traveler asks what if he could go back in time to save his late fiancee, but halfway thru the narrative, however, we're thrust into a contrived white savior action hero movie. The injured professor Alex is suddenly scaling towers and jungle cliffs for a new cause that has nothing to do with his original motivation. Though entertaining with choice moments from Pearce, that what if potential isn't fully achieved. (Just like writer John Logan's Catriona Hartdegen in Penny Dreadful – but that is separate ponderance.) 

5. Equals – Guy Pearce and Jackie Weaver (Animal Kingdom) aide forbidden young lovers Kristen Stewart (Underwater) and Nicholas Holt (X-Men: First Class) in director Drake Dormeus' 2015 dystopian, emotionless future. The austere architecture, nondescript clothing, anonymous SF conformity, and regimented jobs establish this tranquil world well. However we learn nothing about how or why this Collective came to be, and the slow, easy to zone out pacing and often chilly, arms length storytelling imitate the society herein perhaps too well with an overlong, numb mood. Simple names like “Switched-on Syndrome” that would have been cool in the nineties are too bland and derivative of the superior Equilibrium despite up close, intimate filming and improvised scenes. The stolen touches and secret trysts lead to a desire to escape, and the elder allies risk their own hidden emotional selves in a well done finale for fans of the cast – and there is a bonus David Selby (Dark Shadows)! 

4. Zone 414 – The superficial, first draft, rushed retreads in this 2021 SF thriller from director Andrew Baird (One Way) try to do too much and will disappoint viewers expecting a tighter sociological examination. Retro futuristic, gritty nineties tech jars with the modern surveillance camera splices; the supporting ensemble is underutilized and the missing girl mystery is a MacGuffin detracting from Matilda Lutz's (Revenge) emotional android Jane. Guy Pearce's detective with a shady past coldly shoots a pleading android and disassembles it's brain core, claiming he's above the Zone depravity but taking this case solely for the paycheck. Scheduling issues forced Pearce and Travis Fimmel (Vikings) to switch their original roles, and although I can see Pearce hamming it up as our megalomaniac robot creator, his David is older, jaded, and rolling his eyes. The best moments here are the existential one-on-ones between David and Jane debating who is the prisoner or the prison, and their introspective point of view should have been the film's focus. Fortunately, interesting possibilities on control, vice, and ubiquitous machines that see and hear our depraved secrets lead to disturbing culprits, blowtorches, and choice demented moments. Standard model female robots are recirculated to creeps who pay not to hurt them...much. Although the sci-fi potential feels incomplete unless you watch this more than once, I like the intriguing nuggets here. 

3. Don't Be Afraid of the Dark – Writer Guillermo Del Toro (Crimson Peak) provides a perfectly freaky old house with lots of spooky trappings and an ominous basement for snobby architect Guy Pearce alongside Katie Holmes (Batman Begins) and Bailee Madison (Good Witch) in this atmospheric 2011 remake. The obnoxious adults don't believe the depressed child's creepy encounters, leaving wise viewers with should have done, shout at the TV moments and obviously ignored evidence. There are some typical, tiresome horror clichés, and pat explanations, too; showing the malevolent tooth fairies completely too soon takes away from the monster mystery and otherwise finely done suspense, darkness, and fear. Fortunately, smart uses of shadow, flashlights, and good old fashioned if implausible Polaroids keep up the brooding scares and somber pace as the family dynamics fracture over the increasing horror violence. The very eerie little voices accent some disturbing child in peril scenes – leading to a bone cracking finale. 

2. Ravenous

1. Brimstone