Minus Nothing

After the latest American kaiju offering, we were psyched for Godzilla Minus One (2023). It's a Japanese mid-budget movie with a lot of buzz. It was hard to get to see for a while in the US, presumably to give the domestic product a chance.

It starts during WWII. A kamikaze plane makes an emergency landing on a Pacific island. Munetaka Aoki, the head mechanic, figures that the pilot, Ryunosuke Kamiki, is faking a mechanical issue to get out of his mission. He tacitly approves. But when a giant lizard attacks the island, Kamiki has a chance to use his plane's machine on the monster, but freezes. When the fight is over, only Kamiki and Aoki are still alive, and Aoki blames Kamiki.

When the war is over, Kamiki goes home to Tokyo. He finds only rubble where is old house was. His parents are dead. A woman who was his neighbor gives him the news, then remembers he was supposed to be a kamikaze pilot. Now she blames him for not doing his duty and dying in battle to protect Japan. 

He runs into a young woman, Minami Hanabe, with a baby. He tries to get rid of them, but she follows him back to his spot in the ruins, and refuses to leave. She knows he can't leave them to die. The hostile neighbor eventually comes by to show them how to take care of the baby, both scornfully and tenderly. 

He gets a job clearing mines from the harbor. It pays well because of the danger. His crewmates include naval scientist and a man too young to have fought in the war. When he says he wished it lasted longer so that he could have fought, Kamiki sees red. But when Godzilla shows up again, now much bigger and with atomic heat breath, they are going to have to help take him down.

The first part of the movie is almost a simple Japanese post-war drama, with the Godzilla attack as just one other terrible thing along with the war, the fire-bombing of Tokyo and everything. Kamiki suffers from PTSD and survivor's guilt. Although people keep telling him to come back alive, when he does he is ashamed. He wants to help Hanabe and the baby, although he isn't in love with Hanabe, and the baby isn't his, or even hers. He's mostly good at his job, but gets very twitchy when faced with danger. 

The last part is almost all a modern action movie attack on Godzilla. Here, Godzilla is a horrifying force of nature, earthquake and volcano combined. But our scientist has a plan to stop him. Kamiki will fly a prototype jet fighter to distract or lure the monster. He even gets the mechanic Aoki to help - and so he can partially atone. He doesn't tell the scientist, but they plan for him to kamikaze into Godzilla if nothing else works. 

And I'll put in a SPOILER. Japan has finally gotten around to building ejector seats into their planes. He does come back alive.

The combination of a sensitive post-war drama and action monster movie is really incongruous. Post-war Tokyo is filmed really well, and so are the monster scenes, especially at sea. There's a black-and-white version, and we really want to see that too.

Gentlemen Don't Open Each Other's Mail

I was looking forward to The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare (2024) as a classic stupid action movie. But was it stupid enough or too stupid?

It starts with two men in a sailboat being stopped by Nazis. Beefy Henry Cavill and beefier Alan Ritchson claim to be Swedes on a sailing holiday. When the Nazis start to get heavy, they start goofing. "I'll give you 100 francs to kill that man." "Oh, no, don't kill me! I've been a naughty boy." Just being silly drunks, with broad Swedish accents. But when the Nazis discover Henry Golding below decks, gunfire breaks out, ending with all Nazis aboard dead. That would leave the Nazis on the cruiser nearby, but diver and demo expert Hero Fiennes Tiffin has just gotten back from putting a bomb on the side. So far, so successful.

Back in England, we see Cavill getting their assignment from Cary Elwes and Winston Churchill, Rory Kinnear. They are to go to the African island of Fernando Po, and destroy the ship the Nazis are using to supply their subs. They will be aided by sexy Eiza Gonzalez and Babs Olusanmokun, who runs a popular nightclub and gambling den in Casablanca. 

First, they need their buddy Alex Pettyfer, who is being held by the Nazis on a neighboring island. With 60 soldiers guarding him, that will only be about 15 a piece for our gang. Easy peasy.

You see, these guys are hard core. Ritchson, in particular, plays a Danish wildman, skilled at hunting and tracking, and killing silently with bow. It's funny seeing someone who's so buff that he makes Cavill seem slender. And they are loosely based on real people, the early secret agents who inspired Ian Fleming to write James Bond. In fact, Fleming himself is present, played by Freddie Fox. 

But sadly, movie is never as good as the goofball set piece at the beginning. They pretend to be Swedish sailors again when when an Allied ship stops them, but they just cop to being English right away. Since this is directed by Guy Ritchie, we hoped for more humor.

But Ms. Spenser, who is usually neutral on action movies, did ask to see that first scene again when we finished. Since they used it in the trailer, I assume they knew what they had.

X = ?

In preperation for watching Godzilla × Kong: The New Empire (2024), I rewatched Kong: Skull Island. It's funny how far the franchise has moved. K:SI is, among other things, a re-imagining of the King Kong story as an Apocalypse Now flavored Vietnam meditation. The later movies, much less.

GxK catches us up with the state of the monsters. Godzilla stomped a bit of Rome, but is curled up asleep like a cat in the Colosseum. Deep beneath the Earth, Kong is feeling a bit melancholy - and has a bad toothache. In the Hollow Earth observation station, scientist Rebecca Hall calls in rogue veterinarian "Trapper", Dan Stevens. He's the type to swing from a copter to lasso the infected fang and yank it out. Sort of an Indiana Jones type, or maybe a parody thereof. It's hard to tell if he's comic relief or not. 

But scientists are picking up an odd signal, and so is Kaylee Hottle, the deaf girl who is the last of the Iwi tribe of Skull Island. So, with the help of conspiracy podcaster Brian Tyree Henry, they head to the underworld to see what's what.

Among other things, Kong picks up a little friend, a mini-Kong. Although Kong is the last of his species, there are some other giant apes around (these guys look more like orangutans). They are enslaved by an evil king ape, and also kept locked up in a special area of the Hollow Earth, along with a tribe of Iwi. Hottle finds out that her new family have been broadcasting a warning, one that will take Kong and maybe even Godzilla as well, to combat.

Unlike Skull Island, this is a very modern movie. Lots of exposition is done via cable news, Henry's modern comic relief, etc. It's nice to see Mothra brought in to mediate between Kong and Godzilla, and Hottle is a lovely presence. Mini-Kong is sort of mixed - Kong tries to treat him as a protege, but he's a little shit (of a giant ape). I guess he had a lot of trauma. 

In connclusion, I'd say not enough Godzilla, Kong was too mopey, and Mini-Kong too much of a brat. When do we get Godzuki?

Also, did I miss the movie where Godzilla defeated Mecha-Godzilla? Or did it just run off of my mind like water off a duck?

Dislodged

Ms. Spenser asked for a spooky movie, and I had The Lodgers (2017) in one of my watchlists. It seemed perfect: a spooky house, old-timey setting, some mysterious monsters... Well.

Twins Charlotte Vega and Bill Milner live alone in an old run-down mansion. We learn through a nursery rhyme that the three rules of their lives are: Never leave the house after midnight, never admit a stranger to the house, and never leave each other alone. But Vega is clearly chafing at these restrictions. She stays out late and gets chased home by vague creatures. Milner is more timid, also pale, neurotic and neurasthenic. He begs Vega to be careful, to follow the rules, and not leave him alone.

When Vega goes into town, the rough men there bully her, but one-legged war veteran Eugene Simon comes to save her, and they begin to become close. She begins to hope that he will take her away from the cursed house. 

Since we find out early on that their parents were twins as well, and killed themselves, it's pretty easy to guess the nature of the curse. 

The monsters, or "lodgers" who enforce the curse are a little less clear. There is a bit of oily fluid that drips upwards, and some glimpses of bony monsters. I don't actually see them lodging much, but maybe I just don't get it.

Also, I fell asleep. This happens a lot, so it's really no judgement on the movie. But it did move pretty slow. Ms. Spenser reported that the ending was icky and disgusting, and not in a good way. It did have a nice atmosphere of corruption, but that was about it. big disappointment. 

Black Comedy

The first I heard about The Blackening (2022) was the tagline: "We can't all die first". That was all I needed to convince me.

It starts with a young black couple coming to a secluded house in Marin (according to the travel montage). They are preparing for a Juneteenth reunion with their college friends group. In the (ominously locked, then unlocked) game room, they find a game called "The Blackening". It features a blackface Sambo caricature that asks black trivia questions. When the guy answers one wrong, he gets a crossbow bolt through the neck. The woman tries to escape, but is pulled back.

Then we meet the rest of the crew driving up. DeWayne Perkins, a typical gay best friend, is driving two of his friends Grace Byers and Antoinette Robinson, who don't want him to know they've invited Byers oft-cheating boyfriend. When Perkins starts asking, "Who all's going to be there?", I get it. Comic Brandi Brown does a bit about always asking this before going to any party or gathering.

X Mayo is driving up separately and meets a very geeky fellow student Jermaine Fowler at a country store. His car broke down, and Mayo very reluctantly drive him up. When they all arrive, they find Melvin Gregg being interrogated by a white park ranger, who didn't expect to see black people in these parts. He came up with Byers' ex(?)-boyfriend, Sinqua Walls.

They settle into house (cabin in the woods), and start the party with some drinks, some smokes, maybe a molly or two, and some cut-throat Spades. Then they find the game room, and The Blackening game. 

The movie is partly based on horror/black horror tropes - Black guy dies first, never split up, don't go down in the basement, etc. They do reluctantly split up, amd one group meets the white ranger. When they tell him they split up, he says, "But you're black!". The Blackening's trivia questions are tests of basic black knowledge: name 25 black inventions, sing all the verses of the Black National Anthem, name the 5 black actors who appeared on Friends. (The correct answer to the last is "I don't watch that white shit.")

But it's also based on the range of black characters: gay friend, successful businesswoman, slightly dangerous bad boy, party girl, African from Africa, and even a geeky loser who voted for Trump. The message is: There's many ways to be black. And none of them are safe from the police.

Maybe I liked this because it was pretty tame, both in scares and racial politics. I got most of the jokes, although I probably missed a bunch too, due to whiteness. Any way, I picked up my copy at the local library book (and DVD) sale, and am proud to have it in my collection 

Floppy Haired Emo Horror

The horror-fest continues! We had an interesting double bill: Insidious: The Red Door (2022) and Suitable Flesh (2023).

I:TRD is the fifth Insidious movie, and it is suppposed to be the final entry (until the next one). It goes back to the story of Patrick Wilson and his son. It starts with them being hypnotized to forget the trauma of those movies, and the whole Further thing. It catches up with the family ten years later, at the funeral for Wilson's mom. He is divorced Rose Byrne, and his son has grown up to be Ty Simpkins, an emo arty type going to college in the next week. He and Wilson don't get along, mostly because Wilson has been physically absent and mentally vacant for a long time. But he does drive him to college.

At college, Wilson encourages his son to join a frat, and finds out that he has been assigned a black woman roommate, a goofy math major played by Sinclair Daniel. She's fun. 

Simpkins' art classes are pretty intense, with cult-leader type Hiam Abbass presiding. To get them to dig deep for creativity, she uses something like a hypnotic induction, which causes him to see and paint "The Red Door", which he must close. To get him to lighten up, Daniel drags him to the frat party, which is pretty funny. It includes frat president Nick the Prick in a diaper talking about letting men be men, excessive drinking etc. After agreeing this is lame, Daniel gets him to go upstairs to look through everyone's shit. But in one room, Simpkins sees a puking ghost, probably of a student who died in the frat from alcohol poisoning. 

So we have Simpkins seeing ghosts, astral projecting (on purpose), and having visions of the ghost world intruding on daily life (while also goofing around with Daniel). Meanwhile, Wilson is only trying to figure out his problems a little bit. He does look up a YouTube made by Specs and Tucker introducing Elise (the best part of these movies, killed off too soon). That's it for them.

It wasn't very good, although I did like Daniel. The only sane one in the movie, I guess. But note the following: floppy haired emo boy, astral projection, hypnotism...

It starts in the psychiatric ward of Miskatonic University. Barbara Crampton is visiting Heather Graham, who is confined to a padded cell. She seems to have killed someone, mangled him beyond recognition. But Crampton is a friend, and wants to know the story...

Graham was a psychiatrist, happy with her life. (By the way, she wrote a book on astral projection.) One day, a young man comes in, shaking with fear. Now, we were positive this was Ty Simpkins, but it turns out he is just the same type (floppy haired emo) and actually Judah Lewis. It turns out he is afraid that his father is trying to take over his life. Graham treats this as a normal abuse situation, but then Lewis gets a call from his father. He has some kind of seizure, and comes to with a completely diffferent personality. He's no longer afraid, cocky and sarcastic. He just leaves.

Graham goes home to her handsome, concerned husband, Jonathan Schaech. That night, when they make love, she imagines he is Lewis. This gets deep under her skin, and she goes to his address, where she finds Lewis' father, Bruce Davidson. He's a gross, very sick man, who almost dies in front of her until she puts his pills in his mouth. 

The next time she meets Lewis, he brings her home and tries to convince her to help him kill Davidson. The deal is, if he chants a spell, it causes a body swap. The third time her does this to you, it's permanent. He wants Lewis' young, healthy body. Lewis wants to kill him, and destroy his brain to stop this. But before he can, there is another body swap. Since Graham still doesn't get it, Lewis (with his father's mind in his body) manages to seduce her. During sex, he swaps bodies with her, and then back.

It gets wilder from there. 

Director Joe Lynch based the movie on an H.P Lovecraft story, and also on the schlocky movies Stuart Gordon made in the 80s. These were also based on Lovecraft, and starred Crampton. Since I haven't seen them, I don't know how close they are. But it was definitely creepy, gory and sexy - maybe a little too much sexy for my taste. But overall, a good horror. And it was fun seeing the modern Miskatonic U. campus.

But it was funny getting two movies, very different, with so many points of congruence. What a coincidence. OR WAS IT?

Hispanic Panic

It's hard to pass up a movie called Satanic Hispanics (2022). I didn't have much information about it other than that it was a Hispanic horror anthology. (Note: I got this from the library, where my phone reception is very poor, so no checking Rotten Tomatoes, etc). But it seemed likely. 

It starts with a massacre scene - a house full of people killed in various bloody ways. There is one survivor, Efren Ramirez. The police take him in for questioning, and he says he'll explain it all, but he has to be out of there in 90 minutes, or something bad will happen. He gives some random explanations, but decides to tell them a story.

This story takes place in a house in Argentina, where a young man, Demian Salomon, is waving his phone flashlight to show a pizza delivery guy something. But he doesn't see it. Salomon turns out to be a professional Rubik's Cuber, living in his deceased grandmother's house. But there is something there that he can only see if he waves the lights in the proper sequence. He brings in a psychic podcaster who doesn't see anything at first, then runs out. And that's before the thing appears in ordinary light.

This story doesn't do much for the police. So he tells another about a Halloween party at a bar, where a real vampire, Hemky Madera, has drained the whole crew. But he gets a phone call from his vampire girlfriend, Patricia Velasquez, reminding him about Daylight Savings Time, and that he needs to get home in a hurry. Since he can't turn into a bat like he used to, he needs a ride. This section is pretty What We Do In the Shadows, and also pretty funny.

The next story takes place in Mexico. Ari Gallegos has been working with the CIA to take down a politician. Now he is being chased by nahuales - traditional shapeshifters. This section is dead serious, and sort of shows an imagined ritual attack, with only a touch of actual magic. 

The last section features, surprise! Jonah Ray, from MST3K! What's he doing here - oh, yeah, he's credited as Jonah Ray Rodriques. He is meeting his ex, Danielle Chaves, at a Mexican restaurant to talk about their trip to Cuba. It seems that they and a group of friends recorded a ritual that she shouldn't have, and they are the last two left alive. So one of them must be possessed by nZambi Mpungu, king of the zombies. The only thing that can kill this creature is - the Hammer of Zanzibar. This section is both gory and hilarious, especially the story of the hammer.

After all this, the police still don't believe that Ramirez must be released, even though he's managed to fritter away his 90 minutes with pointless stories. Then, what he feared shows up.

Each of these stories have different directors and different styles, but tie together very well. I was surprised by how much humor there was - most of these anthology stories have one comic section. This one has two out of four (plus the frame story). We loved the vampire story, even if it was a bit familiar. The nahual story wasn't the strongest for us, probably because it leans on a myth that we weren't familiar with. Jonah Ray's was probably the most fun, but really, all of these are strong. We recommend.