Two
Too Obvious Horrors
by
Kristin Battestella
These
recent women in horror films make for an unfortunately obvious duo
playing into cliches and doing much too much. Pity.
Hold
Your Breath –
Sarah
Paulson (American
Horror Story) anchors
this 2024 Hulu original set in 1930s Oklahoma during the Dust Bowl.
Coughing and gasping dreams, our mother's prayers to not be evil, and
already deceased children giveaway everything upfront along with
flashbacks of dad leaving to work on the railroad and daughters
locking their door. Dust lingers in streams of light shining between
wood planks; the women wipe, sweep, and beat the sheets but dust is
everywhere. On edge neighbors trying to escape monstrous storm clouds
lead to wagon accidents and burying dead animals. Families must cling
to the safety lines or be swept away in the howling winds. Bedtime
stories of the previously tall, golden wheat fields don't alleviate
the rattling house, creaking wood, and dirt dunes billowing against
the door. Promises to join their father when he sends money become
notches on the wall counting his absence while the cows quit and a
self-proclaimed healing hands minister hides in the barn.
Unfortunately, ridiculously loud modern crescendos interfere with the
suspense – deflating the innate breathing, nosebleeds, and dirt in
their mouths. There should be no music save for the banging shutters,
and although they serve the plot, one wonders if all the other
townsfolk are truly necessary. Even our deaf daughter is a
contrivance rather than a fully developed character serving the
masks, sleeping pills, unknown man, women alone, and mailbag
warnings. Entertaining angels unaware Lot scripture reiterates the
feminine dangers while the superfluous town gossips whisper about
what violence goes on behind closed doors. Friendly knocks on the
door from those colloquial ninnies are rebuffed as mom practices
putting on her smile in the mirror amid congested interior
barricades, fires, and sleepwalking. Pretty white dresses are ruined
with blood and no one believes there was a man terrorizing them once
you say he's a speck of dust that came in under the door. Viewers
understand our unfit mother's selfish descent as the family cycle
perpetuates with sewing needle mishaps, shooting at voices in the
dust, and children in peril. However grieving visions playing at the
mental versus horror metaphors become an overlong, predictable excuse
when the crazed, everything's fine pretending was enough for a
straight isolation thriller. Despite a fine setting, atmosphere, and
performances; this is laid on thick and obvious from the opening
scene.
Immaculate
–
The similarities to The First Omen are
indeed apparent, and the obvious title is obvious to everyone but
novice Sydney Sweeney (Madame
Web)
in this 2024 seen it all before nunsploitation yarn. Although
questions at customs and searching the suitcase establish the Italian
dictionary, Bible, and stuffed animal nervousness about taking the
forthcoming vows; the opening runaway nun caught for buried alive
screams is unnecessary. I wish the lovely on location filming and
scenery were bright enough to actually see and I'm not sure when this
is supposed to take place? However the American accent is jarring –
an out of place modernity amid the rapid intermixed Italian
exposition, diegetic choir chants, and eerie courtyard processions.
Suggestive bridal vows, handsome priests, kneeling before the men,
and kissing the ring innuendo are laid on thick but the spooky
atmosphere and rituals beneath the inner sanctum aren't scary because
the audience knows more than our vomiting novitiate. Brief visual
distortions and nightmares give way to a happy daylight montage with
chores and kitchen quaint even as chickens are killed and old convent
patients die. Giggling bathing gossip and questions about if she has
been chaste lead to humorous crescendos as they whip the cover off
the ultrasound machine. Apparently, she's so
faithful
the miraculous mom never
questions why a convent for dying nuns needs an obstetrician on call.
It's tough to support a protagonist that has wine, faints, and wakes
up pregnant but isn't suspicious despite Madonna ceremonies, teeth
falling out, and jealous drowning attempts. Askew funerary angles,
hidden scripture, hair effigies, cross brandings, and a tortured nun
getting her tongue cut out attempt medieval touches while mom-to-be
in white roams the halls at night with a candle. Chicken ruses,
bleeding emergencies, and prayers over said bloody sheets lead to
chases and a rough shower scrubbing. The priest puts on black gloves
and apologizes if she feels unsafe after being subjected to a rusty
nail with 2,000 year old sinews yet it's all so on the nose thanks to
egotistical experiments, fetus failures in jars, misused scripture,
and secret lab equipment. Questions debating why God hasn't stopped
them and Ave
Maria
choirs feel religion-lite as our woman in labor runs, fights, and
climbs the cool catacombs. She damns her water for breaking after
bludgeoning the mother superior with hefty a crucifix while Carol
of the Bells
plays. She strangles the eminence with a rosary when he's smoking and
sets the genetics priest on fire, too, as you do. Despite being
eighty-odd minutes with lengthy credits eating into the actual
runtime, this feels both overlong yet lacking in resolution or
consequences. Fortunately our wild, covered in blood mother bites off
her umbilical cord and smashes her unseen demon baby with a rock –
actions accented by nails on chalkboard screaming and humorous
“thump” and “sloshing” closed captions. This is a comedy and
I laughed out loud.
