Halloween arrives early this season — at least at movie theaters and on streaming platforms. Here’s a look at a variety of new films aimed to get you into the spirit.
“It’s What’s Inside”: Director/screenwriter Greg Jardin’s brainy, clever feature debut shakes a finger — you know which one — at the cruel head games that selfish lovers and jealous friends sometimes resort to playing. A batch of close friends gather to party at a groom-to-be’s (Devon Terrell) dead mom’s mansion the night before the nuptials. Old-time jealousies, longtime crushes and dirty secrets come to the fore when a techie inventor (David Thompson) hauls out the ultimate party trick — an electrode he cooked up in Silicon Valley that leapfrogs the soul of each “player” into someone else’s bod. The game starts out as weird drunken fun but takes a serious turn as the role playing goes to new extremes, and widens an already deep riff in the flat-lined relationship of Shelby (Brittany O’Grady) and Cyrus (James Morosini). Jardin milks the scenario for every creative ounce it’s worth and keeps the audience off-kilter throughout (even camera angles refuse to conform to the norms). Executive produced by Colman Domingo, “It’s What’s Inside” resists being caged by a specific genre, leapfrogging from horror to sci-fi to drama and beyond. The ensemble is perfect. I had so much fun watching it and can’t wait to watch it again so I can see how the heck Jardin pulled it off so successfully. Details: 3½ stars out of 4; drops Oct. 4 on Netflix.
“Salem’s Lot”: After a flurry of on-again/off-again release dates, this beleaguered version of a Stephen King bone-rattler rises from a 2½-year slumber in a studio coffin. Should it have stayed dead and buried? Nope. But it’s no great shakes either, more of a minor-league effort (there have been two TV series before) that bungles the King of Horror’s crackerjack Drac premise about a best-selling writer visiting his small Maine hometown where a bloodsucker reigns. There are some freaky moments (a floating dead boy tap-tap-tapping on an upstairs window gives you the willies) and a fiery finale at a drive-in that’s pure popcorn fun. But much of the time it’s more silly than scary, and a lot of it is outright dumb (has any character in it seen a vampire movie, for pity’s sake?) When screenwriter/director Gary Dauberman veers from the vampire stuff (a mildly passable Nosferatu-like creation) and zeroes in on mid-’70s nostalgia, “Salem’s Lot” pops to life. Too often, though, it’s listless and overloaded with bloodless characters. Lewis Pullman as author Ben Mears emerges mostly unscathed while the great Alfre Woodard as a town doc gets reduced to exclaiming and explaining. She deserves better. So do King fans. Details: 1½ stars; available Oct. 3 on Max.
“House of Spoils”: More creepy than frightening, directors/screenwriters Bridget Savage Cole and Danielle Krudy’s feminist culinary horror tale holds in its hand one winning recipe: An imposter-feeling “Chef” (Ariana DeBose) realizes her dream/nightmare when she quits a …read more
Source:: The Mercury News – Entertainment
