Opening Night on the Dracula Boat
+ Passages, Talk to Me, and an August movie diary
In between obsessively rewatching every Christoper Nolan movie (it was for a good cause), returning to Letterboxd (will I ever finish the draft of “Mean thoughts I have while scrolling through Letterboxd” saved to my desktop?), and obsessively listening to Taylor Swift (can’t even get into this one), I managed to catch a few new releases. Before the month ends, I’m hoping to make it to Bottoms and sit down with the new folk horror Enys Men. Let me know what else I should catch!
Passages, Ira Sachs (in select theaters)
Most of this newsletter will be about horror movies which Passages technically is not, though it does depict one of the greatest movie monsters: the artistic temperament. Tomas (Franz Rogowski) is a film director who, despite being married to Martin (Ben Whishaw), begins a relationship with Agathe (Adèle Exarchopoulos). We follow Tomas—and literally follow, as the camera is often positioned behind him, his head blocking the other actors' faces in a confrontational representation of his consuming ego—as he blows up all of their lives, repeatedly, over an indeterminate period of several months.
Petulant and impish, Tomas is still irresistible to both of his lovers, a feat of Rogowski’s mercurial performance. Perhaps his childishness is why he is able to ensnare Martin, who desperately wants to become a father, and seduce elementary school teacher Agathe: they react with parental fondness, rather than repulsion, towards his Peter Pannish impulsivity. In the film’s extended sex scenes, we see how Tomas is able to make both of his lovers consistently doubt their instincts and take him back; the shared language of sex and sexuality is the only one native to the entire trio. Passages is not just an exploration of the relationship dynamics between the artistic ego and those relegated to its accessories, but an examination of intercultural and interlingual conflict. The three, each embodying elements of a somewhat stereotypical national identity—Martin: English and repressed, Agathe: French and aloof, Tomas: German and temperamental—only splinter when the consequences of this physical relationship grow too big for sex to solve.
The Last Voyage of the Demeter, André Øvredal (in theaters)
As one of the few writers on the Dracula beat, I saw an early screening of this reworking of the Bram Stoker orig out of my contractual obligation to Vulture and my moral obligation to seaward dreck. I initially thought the film might have a compelling angle to a story that's been adapted to (un)death; for the non-Drac heads, Dracula’s ocean voyage from Transylvania to London offers one of the greatest images in the book. The ship arrives in a horrible storm with only one figure visible aboard—the swaying corpse of a sailor, his hands tied to the helm.
What should be a tense, atmospheric The Thing-like thriller playing on very contemporary fears of an unknown disease in a confined space is instead a glacially paced slasher starring tall Gollum as Dracula. The real tragedy is saddling the recently Tony-nominated Corey Hawkins with whatever the nineteenth-century version of respectability politics is in the original character of Doctor Clemens. We hear several speeches from the Black doctor about having been chased across Europe in his pursuit of safety and stability, and yet the seemingly obvious parallel between his backstory, and the many interpretations of Dracula as a manifestation of xenophobia, is never explored. I would like to once again remind the public: horror movies can be ninety minutes.
Meg 2: The Trench, Ben Wheatley (in theaters, in blessed 3D)
Joining the rarified pantheon of shark movies that star a Black actor who is mainly there to do the rap over the end credits (the other key member being Deep Blue Sea starring LL Cool J and his canonical Deepest Bluest (Shark’s Fin)), Meg 2 is the even bigger, even stupider sequel to the extremely blah The Meg. In Meg 2, we return to a universe where prehistoric megalodons live just below an impenetrable, yet constantly penetrated, deep-sea ocean layer.
Both movies suffer from never quite knowing when or what they're satirizing, but I actually much preferred The Meg 2, which has more of a sense of humor, excludes one of the more bizarrely racist scenes of the late 2010s, and introduces a whole bunch more antediluvian terrors. Still, the bigger the monsters get, the more ridiculous it is that they seem so hell-bent on going after human prey. Even at our, biggest, beefiest, and Jason Stathamiest, we’re relatively teeny compared to these hundred-foot beasts. The Meg 2 does not have an ending, it just stops, in a way that is either incredibly cowardly or avant-garde. Mostly it gives us more time to enjoy the masterpiece that is Page Kennedy's "Chomp (Bankey Ojo Remix)."
Talk To Me, Danny Philippou and Michael Philippou (in theaters)
One of those horror movies that isn't so much scary as it is just inappropriate. Some things should not be seen, and this Australian movie about a group of teenagers who make a game out of talking to the undead contains many of them. What would otherwise be a generic “do you know what your kids are doing/if you don’t talk to them someone else will” horror flick is elevated by a strong central performance from newcomer Sophia Wilde. I love how it Aussiefies the scene from Get Out where Chris and Rose hit a deer—in this, our oh-so-Southern Hemisphere protagonists stumble upon a whimpering kangaroo dying in the middle of the road.
Evil Dead Rise, Lee Cronin (streaming on Max)
The return to the Evil Dead universe is a surprisingly good time, honoring its forefathers with loads of splatter and unabashed crudity. Having recently sat through a slate of soft-edged horror like The Boogeyman and whatever those door movies were called, I truly doubted they’d go as cruel and dark as the Evil Dead calls for. Worry not: like its Oceanic sister above (Evil Dead Rises was shot in New Zealand), it revels in some truly despicable moments.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem, Jeff Rowe (in theaters)
A perfectly fine movie for both current and former boys. I eagerly await a studio bold enough to recognize that they can activate young dad nostalgia with music besides “No Diggity” and the same three Tribe Called Quest songs. I guarantee there is a CD buried in the console of someone’s Subaru called “cool dorm tunes” that will Manchurian Candidate every man in a five mile radius.
Theater Camp, Molly Gordon and Nick Lieberman (in theaters)
A refreshingly tender break amidst a month of nonstop horror, Theater Camp is a very funny and very sweet ode to theater kids and the people who raise them (gay camp counselors). A wannabe tech bro takes over his mother’s beloved theater camp, despite knowing less than nothing about the art form that everyone around him is obsessed with. Exceptional casting of both the child and adult cast helps keep the film rolling to its apex: the original musical, which I can confirm will appear heavily on my Spotify Wrapped.
"the bigger the monsters get, the more ridiculous it is that they seem so hell-bent on going after human prey." <--- this is my problem with Marvel movies, and really any of the many recent movies whose premise is a huge struggle against galactic-scale forces.