I fear that a second wave is coming as a result of all this, and that it may well end up being worse than the first, save maybe for the states that aren't opening up just yet. But even there, it's not as if the borders of each state are separated by, oh I don't know, a WALL or something like that- oh, the irony- so even they may be in for a resurgence.
The real travesty is that some states haven't even reached their peaks yet, and I think a few never shut down in the first place, so you can all expect things to get worse before they get better. I hate to be all doom and gloom, but it's sad but true, mark my words. This thing has been botched from the start and we're in for a bumpy ride as a direct result. Strap in, folks.
Anyway, that's not what you came for, so let's get back to it. I think I forgot to mention the whole ongoing Into the Dark coverage in my update, so I'm going to do that first and get to the stuff I watched on cable and other things later on- especially as both episodes were Mother's Day-related, so it's kind of logical to tackle that first, even if it is a hair late. I don't know what to tell you- it's quarantine, all bets are off, in terms of a reliable timeline for anything, it seems. Let's do this...
As most of you know by now, Into the Dark is a holiday-themed horror anthology series masterminded by Jason Blum and Blumhouse Productions, of The Purge, Get Out, Happy Death Day and Insidious fame, among many other horror offerings, as well as a few more mainstream efforts, like BlacKkKlansman, Whiplash, The Jinx, Sharp Objects and The Loudest Voice.
Each episode revolves around a particular holiday, although some are a bit iffy- next month's new episode is set on "Pet Appreciation Week," which isn't really a holiday- or even a day, period. (That said, always up for a Creature Feature, so I'm looking forward to it.) The following episodes revolve around Mother's Day, which was actually Sunday, so my apologies for the slight lateness- the new one was just released Friday, and I didn't have both watched until Sunday, so this is the earliest I could get to it. Sorry about that, but moms come first! 😉 (Especially when they're bailing you out of a pandemic...)
First up is Season One's offering, All That We Destroy, which revolves around a mother that would do literally anything for her son- probably more than most of the real ones would, I imagine, no matter how much you think your mom might love you, lol. Cult favorite Samantha Mathis, of Pump Up the Volume, American Psycho and TV's Under the Dome and The Strain, plays geneticist Dr. Victoria Harris, who is working on a project to clone organs to make them readily available to those who need them, when tragedy strikes.
(General spoilers ahead for those who want to go in cold, but not for the ending or anything like that. I just can't talk about the plot without, you know, talking about the plot. I'll put an "end of spoilers" alert in big, bold letters, after I'm done, for those who want to skip being spoiled on absolutely anything.)
Her troubled son, Spencer (Israel Broussard, of the Happy Death Day movies), is one of those kids that exhibits all the signs of being a serial killer in the making, including torturing and killing animals (not shown, but discussed, for all you animal lovers out there), being an outcast at school and verbally and physically abusing others.
When a playground game turns deadly, and her son only narrowly escapes being institutionalized, she yanks him out of elementary school and starts homeschooling him instead, with the hope that she will be able to curtail his tendencies using science and just plain good mothering.
Unfortunately, a chance incident leads to a girl being stranded in the area, which is witnessed by Spencer, who comes to her aid. His mother is out of the house at the moment, so he brings the girl, Ashley (Aurora Perrineau, TV's Progidal Son) back home, ostensibly to call for help. However, Spencer is now older and finds himself attracted to Ashley, and the feeling seems mutual. One thing leads to another, and tragedy strikes again, but when mom comes back home, she doesn't call the cops- she covers it up.
Even crazier, she sees an opportunity. What if, instead of letting things end there, she used her cloning technology to make another Ashley? That way, she could study her interaction with Spencer and see how and why things went wrong, in hopes of rectifying them. Perhaps needless to say, things don't go well, and, as we see in the very first sequence- which takes places after all of the aforementioned scenes- Dr. Harris is going to need a lot of clones to get to the bottom of all of this, if she ever does.
Even worse, there's a new girl in the neighborhood, house-sitting while her parents are away, Marissa (Dora Madison Burge, of TV's Friday Night Lights and Chicago Fire), and she's taken a shine to Spencer- chances are, this won't end well.
Also along for the ride is Dr. Harris' ex, Parker, played by character actor favorite Frank Whaley, of Pulp Fiction (he was Brett, who was told by Sam Jackson to "Say what again! I dare you!" right before he did and was shot repeatedly), The Doors, Swimming with Sharks, Hustlers and TV's Ray Donovan. He's reunited (virtually) here with his Under the Dome co-star, Mathis.
It's also interesting that Broussard was cast here, given the similarity of certain elements of the plot to the Happy Death Day series, though here, the tone is much more serious. This one is definitely not being played for laughs, that's for sure. If anything, it's all pretty disturbing, and not just on Broussard's end. Obviously, his mother is a real piece of work, and you have to feel for poor Perrineau, having to do what she did over and over again. Yikes. That can't be chicken soup for the soul, to be certain. Hope she was able to bounce back IRL like her character.
END OF SPOILERS!!!
All That We Destroy is hardly unprecedented, plot-wise, and plays a bit like a more overtly horrific combination of a few other sources, including the aforementioned Happy Death Day movies, Ex Machina, We Need to Talk About Kevin, The Prodigy and even Frankenstein, to a certain extent, only not quite as good as any of those. That is not to say it's bad by any means, just a bit derivative.
But it is very well-acted, with Mathis a real stand-out as a mother struggling, but not as much as perhaps she should be, with coming to terms with her son's affliction. Brossard and Perrineau are also very good, with the latter in particular finding unique ways to tweak her character as the episode goes on.
I'm actually becoming a big fan of Perrineau's as of late. She is somewhat of a Blumhouse regular, having previously appeared in True or Dare and another Season One episode of Dark, The Body. She's also in Equals, Passengers, Freaks of Nature, BOO! and When They See Us, all of which I enjoyed.
I was also a big fan of her TV series Prodigal Son, with character actor fave Michael Sheen (Underworld, Twilight, Good Omens) and genre favorites Tom Payne (The Walking Dead) and Halston Sage (The Orville), which just wrapped its first season, and will hopefully be back for another after the pandemic wraps up its ongoing season. She's also the daughter of Harold Perrineau, of Lost and The Rookie fame, so talent runs in the family, obviously.
As my loyal readers know, I also love a good, well-earned, dark ending, and this has a great one, so there's that as well. The Mother's Day thing is more metaphorical than thematic- the holiday is never mentioned, nor is it when the events take place, insofar as I know, putting this firmly in the arbitrary holiday category that more and more episodes of this show seem to fall into- same goes for the next one I'm about to review- but at least both episodes deal head-on with mother issues, so there's that, too.
To that end, we have the Season Two episode, Delivered, which is another one it's going to be hard to talk about without, um, talking about it, so here goes. Mother-to-be, Valerie (Natalie Paul, Mr. Mercedes, The Deuce, The Sinner S2), is attending yoga classes- or should I say "Momaste" classes, lol- when she meets single-mother-to-be, Jenny (Tina Majorino, Veronica Mars, Napoleon Dynamite), who, unlike her, does not have a doting husband, or even a boyfriend, and is clearly rattled by that fact- or is it something else?
After a certain point, Jenny becomes friends with Valerie and husband Tom (Michael Cassidy, Smallville, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice) and invites them to her place, which is a farmhouse in the middle of nowhere, for dinner. Things take a turn, to say the least, and Valerie finds herself fighting for both her life and the life of her child. It's basically Misery by way of the 2007 French horror flick Inside. And yes, that means things get mighty gory at times, for those who've seen the latter, though it's not quite as hardcore as that film.
By now, you're probably noticing a trend in these ITD episodes, in that they actually seem to take the plots of various horror flicks or novels or TV shows or whatever, and throw them into a blender and try to do their own thing with it. This episode is no different, save that it mostly cribs- no pun intended- from the two aforementioned sources, instead of multiple ones, for better or worse. As such, it all comes down to acting in this one.
Fortunately, the episode boasts a great cast, including a small-but-memorable turn by Micah Joe Parker (The Vampire Diaries, After She Wakes) as Riley, the mysterious "friend" Valerie keeps trying to avoid. But really, this is Paul and Majorino's show. Paul is riveting as a mother-to-be who is hesitant to become a mother in the first place, but soon learns the hard way to become one when she has to fight for the life of herself and her unborn child.
Meanwhile, Majorino, usually likable in most of her work, gets her Annie Wilkes on to great effect here. She's no Kathy Bates- who is?- or even Lizzy Caplan, who tackled the iconic role in the latest season of Castle Rock, but she does manage to bring something new to the proceedings, thanks to the twisty script, which has more turns that one might expect.
Especially as it's one of those movies that begins with a flash-forward to the ending, which I usually hate, as it tends to give away the ending in advance, or at the very least, who lives. Here, it turns out to be somewhat misleading, as it's actually from towards the end, instead of the ending, per se.
Still, unlike All That We Destroy, I saw most of the twists here coming a mile away, seeing as the episode has a tendency to telegraph its punches throughout the film, and not just in the opening scene. Still, points for at least trying to bring something new to the table. Even if it's nothing those who've seen Misery and Inside haven't seen before, it's still worth a watch for the strength of the two leading ladies alone.
But in the battle of the mothers, Destroy definitely wins the bout by a longshot, even if you can also trace back its sources of inspiration and predict a lot of the twists there as well. But it has just enough stuff to keep you guessing and a satisfying twist at the end to recommend it slightly more, so I'd say go with that one first. Both have their moments, though.
Oh, and fair trigger warning to animal lovers out there: there's a pretty hardcore scene in Delivered involving violence towards an animal towards the end that you might want to avert your eyes for, if you cringe at that sort of thing. You'll probably see it coming and know when to say when.
I couldn't help but notice in the credits, where they have the bit about "no animals were harmed in this film" and so forth that it specifically said: "no animal was harmed in THOSE scenes," as if to say, "Yeah, we know that bit was especially disturbing, and looked pretty real, but we can assure it wasn't and the proper authorities observed it to prove it." So, yeah, THAT happened.
Also worth a mention to those that cringe at hearing the same song over and over again, a la Daryl's torture in The Walking Dead: I hope you like The Babys (their spelling, not mine), which ironically, would have been more appropriate for Delivered, but is actually in Destroy. (Hear the song here. And yes, I get that it was used ironically. Duh. 😜)
I wasn't familiar with them, but I looked them up, and it turns out I was familiar with the singer, John Waite. If you're a child of the 80's like I am, or older, you might remember his hits "Missing You" and "Change." Anyway, that Babys song gets played a LOT, so fair warning there, too.
All of that notwithstanding, I say check 'em both out. And with that, I wish all you moms out there a happy Mother's Day, and hope you're staying safe, healthy and happy as you can be at this particular time. Love you all! 😇
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