STRANGERLAND: FAMILY MATTERS

To say the family featured in STRANGERLAND is dysfunctional would be an understatement. This new drama starring Nicole Kidman and Joseph Fiennes will surely disturb most and present all with a story that will frighten but not in a jump-in-your-face way. If nothing else it will start conversation with those who watch and go out for coffee after.

The location is a desert town in Australia, a beautiful scenic area of stone and sand that offers a home to what appear to be drifters and those getting by. Tossed into this town is the Parker family, recently relocating there for reasons unknown until later on. None of the four family members are happy to be here and some are more vocal about it than the rest.

Father Matthew (Fiennes) is a pharmacist who seems to have trouble relating to anyone in the house, in particular his wife Catherine (Kidman), a woman who still feels that emotional and physical need for her husband but whose affections go unfulfilled. Their oldest child, daughter Lily (Maddison Brown) is the rebellious child, a young girl turned 15 who seeks the attentions of any and all males she encounters, something that will lead this family down a torturous path. Lastly there is Tommy (Nicholas Hamilton), a young boy who is torn by the problems his family faces and who deals with it be sneaking out and walking the streets and nearby area in the dark of night.

The movie opens by exposing these problems to us but never explaining just what it was that happened to bring these four people to this point. All we know for sure is that Lily offers what most would call tramp like behavior, sleeping with boys her age and older. Is this a response to their moving, is it because of something at home or is it just an act of teenage angst? Before the end of the film all possibilities will be pursued.

It comes to a head when Catherine discovers one day that both children have not gone to school and have disappeared. With a major sand storm on the way, she contacts Matthew and they go to report them missing only to find themselves in the midst of the storm as they reach the center of town. When the storm blows over they report the missing children to the local police Chief David Rae (Hugo Weaving). Concerned but not overly so, he lets them know the children must be missing for 24 hours before a search is called for but begins on his own.

As the movie progresses the bits and pieces we’ve been left to wonder about are slowly revealed, the problems that laid beneath the surface of this family that they were dealing with, each in their own way but never together. Tossed into the mix is the problems faced by Chief Rae, personal with the woman he’s sleeping with whose brother may be a suspect in the disappearance and his attraction to the attractive Catherine. With each passing day as the children aren’t found, suspicions and accusations will fly, past wounds that had scabbed over will be opened wide and the mental anguish of all involved will take center stage.

This movie is not your normal fast paced detective drama that one would inspect. With the location being a small town in the middle of wide open spaces it doesn’t have that quick cut megacity feel to it. Instead we’re presented with a small town where most everyone feels they know everyone else’s business but at the same time don’t have a clue what is going on. People try to help by joining the search, refuse to believe anyone they know could have done harm to the children and all look with glaring eyes at the couple whose children have gone and they feel may be responsible.

Kidman does a great job here, as both a tormented mother concerned for her children and as a woman who loves and longs for a husband who is in retreat for some reason. Fiennes comes off as a combination of unlikeable and sympathetic at the same time. Weaving takes on a commanding presence in the midst of it all while at the same time showing a vulnerable side that makes him wonder till the very end just what happened.

As I said, this movie is not fast paced but not so deadly slow as to be boring. On the contrary each moment on screen doesn’t feel wasted. It all combines to make a taught thriller that keeps you wondering just what will happen next and with whom. It could be that the children hitched a ride, got lost in the desert or met with were the victims of foul play and the movie has you guessing with each scene. In the end it makes for a film that will hold our attention and consider the lives of the Parker family. Entertaining isn’t quite the word to describe the film but it will end with you thinking long after the final credits role.

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INSURGENT: THE BATTLE CONTINUES

It seems that today’s teens are being exposed to literature in an unusual format. The rash of teen novels in several parts took off big with THE HUNGER GAMES but there are other stories out there being read. That’s a great thing. While it’s not Twain or Hemingway it is reading that is going on and it might lead to their discovering the classics. In the meantime they’re enjoying the books being written now. So much that movies are being made from the novels. As well as the aforementioned GAMES there is the DIVERGENT series. Now the second film based on the second novel, INSURGENT, comes home to DVD.

When we last saw them Tris (Shailene Woodley) and Four (Theo James) had taken on the forces of Jeanine (Kate Winslet) and headed for the outskirts of Candor, the city where the story takes place. On the chance you missed that film this was a world where people were sorted into 5 different factions, each with their own responsibility to society. Tris had abandoned her family’s faction known as Abnegation (selflessness) in favor of the more adventurous Dauntless (the brave). Eventually with several others in her group they discovered a plot to kill the Abnegation faction by the Erudite (intelligence) faction using Dauntless soldiers being mind controlled to do the dirty deed. Tris and Four led a group to stop this and that’s where we pick up with this film.

On the run the Dauntless have separated and yet to rejoin one another. A secret box was found in the home Tris’ family lived in and Jeanine finds that the only way to open it is by using someone who is purely Divergent, an amalgamation of all the factions in one body. She sends the remaining Dauntless units out to find the traitors so she can use them for her goal, thinking that whatever is in the box can lead to the fall of the Divergent.

A near miss with being captured, Tris and Four set off to find the rest of their group, jumping a train filled with a group of factionless drifters. A short fight later and Four reveals who he is and asks to be taken to their leader. He knows who this is and it plays into the story later (sorry, no spoiler from me on this one). Refusing to join with the factionless at this time, they reunite with their group and make plans to take back Candor. But Tris, realizing that her being their puts them all in jeopardy, heads back on her own. What happens from there makes for a few tense moments, some high-speed action and a great story that ends without a complete conclusion. Two final installments are in the working stages as we speak, much like THE HUNGER GAMES.

What makes this movie work is the unique combination of story and action, of emotions and bravery put on display from start to finish. We know the characters after the first film but now we get to see how they react to the things that they learned and what they will do with that knowledge. It would be easy to just hide or try to go somewhere outside the walls that guard the area they live in. But rather than take that route we witness the growing up of young people willing to sacrifice themselves to make a better world. It’s a far cry from selfie taking spoiled children of today. With any luck they’ll get that out of this series of books and movies.

Woodley turns in another great performance. The most difficult thing for an actor to do is to take on a character that many already think they know and make that person their own. Woodley does just that here making Tris a sympathetic character that you can’t help but root for. James holds his own with her but it felt like his role here was less involved and more the heroic action figure that Four can become. Being this is the middle of the entire story that might change next time around. The supporting cast also turns in great performances but the majority of the acting is left in the hands of the central figures this time.

The movie looks great with some dazzling special effects sequences that are well done, computer generated realities that have you guessing as the movie carries on, wondering which sequences we’re watching are real and which are the worlds created by the machinery Jeanine uses to try and open the box. It all looks great and propels the story forward, something effects rarely do.

I highly recommend watching the first movie once more before tapping into this one but if you’ve seen it once you’ll begin to remember what happened rather quickly this time around. Then enjoy this one and find yourself waiting with the rest of us for the next two to appear. This series may not have taken the box office by storm as much as THE HUNGER GAMES did, but it’s just as appealing an entry in to the teen action genre. For me, it’s another one to add to the shelf, ready to be pulled down every so often and enjoyed once again.

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THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS: AND YOU THOUGHT YOU HAD BAD NEIGHBORS

If nothing else director Wes Craven always seems to bring to the table something interesting that we have never seen before. With each movie he’s made over the years he’s always made something unique when it came to horror films. Having done movies like THE HILLS HAVE EYES, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET, THE SERPENT AND THE RAINBOW and then SHOCKER, fans of Craven in 1991 were waiting to see what he would come up with next. They weren’t disappointed when he released THE PEOPLE UNDER THE STAIRS.

Youngster Fool (Brandon Adams) is a kid with far too many problems for someone his age. His mother is ill with cancer, his sister may be working the streets to keep them alive and the owners of the building he lives in want to evict him and his family no matter what their problems are. Then his sister’s friend Leroy (Ving Rhames) offers him an out. Leroy tells him that the owners of the apartment building are wealthy and he plans on burglarizing their home. He just needs someone Fool’s size to help.

Leroy, his friend Spenser and Fool scope out the house to see about getting in. Fool poses as a Boy Scout raising money but the owner of the house (credited as “woman” with Wendy Robie in the role) tells him to go away. Spenser then poses as a gas company inspector who worms his way into the house only to not come out again. When Leroy and Fool see the owner drive away in her car they break into the house.

All does not go well as they are first set upon by a guard dog. Once they get past that and start checking out the house in search of hidden gold coins Leroy has heard of, they start to find out this house is not what it appears to be from the outside. The windows are barred from the inside to start with. The front door has a doorknob that is electrically charged. And within the walls of the basement there are people, if that’s what you can call them, living in the darkness. Fool finds them along with the body of Spenser just as the owners return home.

Leroy is soon down for the count as the two owners (woman now accompanied by man played by Everett McGill) start to track down Fool. Earlier we were witness to them dealing with their “daughter” (A.J. Langer), a young girl frightened of doing the wrong thing that would set them off on her. Now she tries to help fool along with her friend Roach (Sean Whalen), one of the people under the stairs who escaped and who man has been trying to catch and kill for some time now.

As man tries to track down Fool and Roach things become apparent that this is no ordinary house. Trap doors, secret passages within the walls, hidden closets where man changes into an S&M leather suit to wear while searching for them with his shotgun all help to increase the creepy factor on screen. Just who these people are and what they’ve been doing isn’t completely revealed until the end of the film. Does the treasure actually exist? Are these people really as evil as they appear? And what about the people under the stairs? All is revealed before the credits roll.

This may not be the greatest film that Craven ever made but it did offer some scary moments, some skin crawling sequences and a different take on what could have been more of a haunted house type film. Instead he presents something completely different than what we’ve been exposed to before and that is always an exciting thing to see in a horror film. All aspects of movie making are on well done display, from set decorating to make up to acting. No one shines brighter than the rest but McGill and Robie, having just come off of TWIN PEAKS as a married couple there as well, have some of the scariest and funniest lines in the film. 

As is always the case with Shout/Scream Factory releases this is probably the best version of this blu-ray release that we will ever see. Not only are we presented with a crystal clear picture presentation the extras are formidable for a movie that’s this old. Audio commentary from Craven, another from stars Brandon Adams, A.J. Langer, Sean Whalen and Yan Birch, an interview with Wendy Robie, interviews with Greg Nicotero, Howard Berger and Robert Kurtzman of KNB Effects (this was one of their early projects), an interview with director of photography Sandi Sissel, an interview with composer Don Peake, behind the scenes footage and of course the theatrical trailer. Just getting through the extras will take some time and all are well done and interesting, especially the KNB portion.

If you’ve never seen the movie then you can’t call yourself a horror fan. If you saw it once and remembered it then you’ll want to see it again. If you’re a die-hard horror of Craven fan then you’ll want to clear a spot on your shelf for this release. And if you’re just in the mood to watch something that is both creepy and scary then give this one a watch. You won’t be disappointed.

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