Thank You For Flying Delta

 

Sometimes, timelines align in such a way that you get to watch a film under the absolute perfect circumstances. I'm thinking of how I had just moved into a probably haunted apartment when I first sat down to be terrified by Pulse, or how I had to watch a (perfectly legally) downloaded version of The Descent on a laptop in such a way that I had my face pressed against the screen. I got to see the horrid Indiana Jones & the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull on the big screen in Moscow but with a British speaker dubbing over all of the actors' dialogue. It made a bad movie perfectly enjoyable in the most bizarre of all ways.

Searching was a thriller I had on my watch list forever, but it never seemed to land on any streaming site. Instead, something better happened: Delta Airlines had it on its list, and as I settled in for a six hour flight, watching a movie set on a laptop on a screen just slightly smaller than that seemed all too right.

Quick Plot: Remember how Pixar's Up opened with a beautifully tragic montage that followed the full cycle of a marriage? Searching does something similar, as we dive into David and Pamela Kim's laptop screen and watch their happy years raising baby Margot, scary ones battling Pamela's lymphoma, elation over her remission, and devastation when cancer returns.

Now a moody high school senior, Margot grows distant from David, who seems to bury his head in his project management career to avoid talking about Pamela. One day, Margot doesn't come home. David waits a little longer than he probably should to contact the police, but that's what happens when you don't really know your daughter anymore. 

Like The Den or that Modern Family episode set on Claire's laptop, Searching's point of view is David's screen. That can mean Facebook windows, cam communities, Skype calls, or occasionally, news reports. Through it all, John Cho creates a truly natural dad at the end of his rope acting straight to a computer monitor. 

Written by Sev Ohanian and Aneesh Chaganty (the latter of whom also directed), Searching is a tight thriller that keeps you on the edge of your seat (safely buckled in, in my case). It's a mystery that by its very limitations, can only give you so many clues at a time, forcing you to be in step with David's investigation. Even when you think you're smarter than the movie, it packs a few more tricks to throw you off the trail. 

High Points

Having now seen several movies in the computer POV style, I know that it's not easy to keep the visuals engaging (I still don't understand the adoration for the stiff Host). Whether it's Cho's skills in front of the camera, Chaganty's behind, or the editing team of Will Merrick and NIcholas D. Johnson, Searching remains riveting.

Low Points

I had ONE detail gnawing at me from about 45 minutes in, but Searching's finale reveals that plot point to be an integral part of the reveal so you know what? I've got nothing. This is an excellently put together film

Lessons Learned

See, all you people who look at my computer screen and wince, SEE: having dozens of tabs open rather than clicking and backtracking is MUCH MORE USEFUL AN EXPERIENCE FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED THANK YOU VERY MUCH

Rent/Bury/Buy

I don't know that I'd say Searching is worth an expensive 3+ hour Delta plane ride, but it IS an incredibly engrossing and satisfying little watch. Maybe one day it will stream somewhere on land. When such a time comes, hop on.

So You've Decided to Play With Bitcoin

Another social media slasher? Must be Monday!

What a fine time to be alive.

Quick Plot: Early twenthysomething Matthias is updating his brand new/used Macbook just in time for Skype-style game night with a few pals. He's hoping the new bandwidth will make it easier to build an app designed to improve communication with his deaf girlfriend Amaya. Apparently, constructing a translation program is easier than attending a few classes in ASL.

As he fumbles through the setup process, Matthias becomes intrigued by his computer's previous owner Norah, a mysterious man who made a lot of promises to women on Facebook while hiding some very dark videos in buried folders. When he shares them with his Skype circle, Matthias realizes he's stumbled on a very dark, very dangerous dark web.

Or, like, The Den. He found The Den. 

Which is super confusing since Unfriended: Dark Web reads more like a sequel to The Den than the first Unfriended, which was actually about online bullying and Facebook ghosts, sort of like Friend Request (the one about Facebook, not the one about Anthony Michael Hall playing Gary Busey). It's incestuous and confusing and for the sake of you, dear reader, I'll try to push past it.

Side note: remember how we learned that Anthony Michael Hall doesn't know where a woman's ass is actually located? Good GOSH I love Friend Request 

Anyway, before Skype can crash and demand you update to the next version, Matthias and his pals have become the newest targets for Norah's sadistic cohorts. 

Like the unrelated Unfriended, Dark Web is "set" entirely on a laptop. We see snippets of Norah's dirty deeds via his grainy videos, and real-time attacks as he sets his sights on Matthias's pals. First time director Stephen Susco (who previously penned a batch of horror scripts, including the 2004 remake of The Grudge) seems to have learned from the glut of internet horror films, keeping the action fairly clear in view and not forcing its audience to squint.

Yes, we're still victims to the typical "lots of attractive people shouting at the same time to the monitor", but perhaps because the characters are a little more mature than most of these types of films, it's not nearly as irksome. It might have been a simple personal preference, but I found myself moved enough by the better-than-usual cast to care about their fate. Once the action hits its point of no return, Susco creates some genuinely effective tension. 

Much like The Den, Smiley, and the very crowded catalog of these kinds of films, I'll probably have a very hard time remembering any of the particulars of Dark Web. It doesn't create a lasting impression or offer anything that new, but for its 90 minutes, I was pretty taken and invested. Sometimes that's all you want a horror flick to do.

High Points

I've said it before and I'll likely say it countless times again: having your characters be nice people is vital to having your audience care whether they live or die. Matthias's pals aren't perfect, but the fact that our lead makes a key decision to save a stranger rather than himself goes a long way in keeping us on his side

Low Points

The fact that this movie has four different endings (two were apparently planned as a theater gimmick, which went over just as well as it did for Clue) suggests a certain lack of confidence in what the story be

Lessons Learned

No good can come from attempting to be ambitious with a used computer

Fast typing is a vital life skill

Any coed group of friends will always, without fail, include one straight white a$$hole

Rent/Bury/Buy

Look, Unfriended: Dark Web doesn't break any ground (well, unless you count two of the four alternate endings, but I digress). But hey, for its fairly quick running time, it gives you a pretty tense, very mean little ride into some very dark places. If that's appealing to you, you can catch it on Hulu. 

He Sees You When You're Googling

Welcome to another installment of Pretty Little Liars in horror movies! This time, it's the best of the liars, both in terms of character (sassy Hannah Merrin) and actress (the genuinely talented and charismatic Ashley Benson). 

Quick Plot: Emma is a shockingly pleasant economics grad student who has just moved to a fairly spacious 1-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn while she finishes her education at NYU. Having just ended a tumultuous relationship, she's a little hesitant to jump into the dating pool again, even when nice guy Mike throws her some pickup lines about cheese. 

Eventually, Emma settles in comfortably to her new life. She makes a good friend with fellow student Nicole, takes things slow with Mike, and reconnects with her parents over video chatting. 

Unfortunately, we as the audience know this because someone has been hacking all of Emma's electronic devices and spying on her from within (sort of, you know, like Pretty Little Liars). Little by little, Emma begins to realize that something is wrong, leading to such a sad state of justified insecurity that she becomes a genuinely different person than before. 

Written and directed by Branden Kramer, Ratter is a simple story that understands the horrors of being the object of obsession. We don't need grand stalking sequences or brutal torture when we have all the fear we need in Emma's eyes and the cracks in her voice as she finally tells her sweet but so-far-away parents.

You could certainly look at Ratter as a partner to the much crueler The Den. Both tell very similar tales in the same "somebody's watching you" style and rely on their strong lead actresses. Both are (mild spoiler alert) ultimately very heartbreaking because of their leads' performances. I suppose I'm satisfied with having seen both explore this in an effective way, but it doesn't mean i need to experience it again.

High Points

Playing natural to what essentially amounts to a found footage format is harder than it might seem (witness the performances in the majority of the genre), and Ashley Benson is so perfectly natural and likable in the role that it makes Ratter all the more tragic

Low Points

Aforementioned tragedy

Lessons Learned

Wisconsin is more than just cheese (though that remains the easiest talking point)

Antivirus software remains as ineffective in 2016 as it was in the '90s

Seriously, stopping in the middle of a crowded street in Manhattan is no joke

Google Image Search of the Day

The beauty of the word "ratter" is that it also applies to an adorable breed of dog, leaving most of my computer monitor populated by cute but sad Ashley Benson and cute and usually happy these:

Rent/Bury/Buy

On one hand, Ratter is a very well-made and effective thriller. On the other, it's just so damn sad to watch. Take that as a cautious recommendation. 

Hell Is Other Skypers

Like it or not, this is the age of social media and it would be darn silly for the horror genre to not embrace it (particularly considering its large teenage audience makes up a good chunk of the participants). Titling your film Unfriended and setting it in the realm of Skype may, on paper, seem a tad too trendy, but let’s face it: this is how we live now. 

Quick Plot: Blaire and her friends are high school seniors having a Skype group call that keeps being interrupted by a mystery account user. Is it just a glitch, or someone eavesdropping? More importantly, is said someone the vengeful ghost of Laura Barns, a former frenemy who killed herself after an embarrassing video was posted online?

Like The Den, Unfriended is a film that takes place entirely on a laptop. While that might sound insufferable, director Levan Gabriadze manages to make it quite compelling. The cast is game and all equip themselves well, despite the fact that they're all essentially acting straight to a webcam. They speak like what this 30something writer believes to sound like real teenagers, and for the most part, aren't making stupid decisions merely to move the plot along.

We should get one thing very straight: the characters of Unfriended are fairly awful and highly unexceptional people. That doesn't necessarily work against the film's favor. Like a lot of teen-centered horror films, the film isn't asking your heart to bleed for its eventual victims. At the same time, its sextet of Skype users isn't so over the top Heather Chandler-esque that we're actively rooting for each one's demise. It's an interesting balancing act.

That fine line has been a vital part of virtually all found footage or internet-based horror films over the last ten years or so. There are times when the awkwardness of shaky cam combined with a lack of character sympathies can be all out insufferable (see: Crowsnest). In other cases, it's simply a tool that can be built upon to make the viewer think more about the kinds of characters he or she might normally dismiss and beg for an early slasher kill (see: the highly underrated and incredibly disturbing Megan Is Missing).

Unfriended sort of finds a new place: it gives you characters that you believe are real, characters you don't like but don't necessarily need to see tortured, and plays their story out before you. Less than 80 minutes long, it wisely keeps the pace moving and mixes up its webcam storytelling when needed. While the concept of bullies getting their comeuppance isn’t new (where would 85% of ‘80s slasher be without it?), Unfriended has plenty of fresh ideas. It also manages to be genuinely unnerving in plenty of moments, making it, you know, a pretty darn effective little horror movie. 

High Points

Credit really does have to go to the young cast, who manage to give natural performances in a fairly unnatural context

Low Points

As much as it makes perfect sense for the particular story being told, it doesn’t make it any easier or more pleasant to watch a bunch of teenagers screaming at each other

Lessons Learned

Chat Roulette can be a surprisingly useful resource for potentially protecting yourself from vengeful ghosts

You know you're not the sharpest crayon in the box when your default browser is Yahoo

On the flip side, you know you're an aging blogger when you watch a teen-centered horror film and have to google a slang acronym used by the film's killer

As a bonus, aging bloggers everywhere get a free lesson: STFU apparently means "shut the f#ck up." Who knew? (aside from everyone under the age of 34)

Rent/Bury/Buy

Unfriended easily justifies its gimmick and manages to be a genuinely good, occasionally rather scary horror movie. It’s not quite at the top tier of this subgenre, but it’s definitely high up. 

Open Wide

When a person like me hears “was it as bad as Smiley?” in regards to something as bad as The Secret Village, you can count down from two before I proceed to find Smiley streaming on Amazon Prime to see just how rough a watch will be.

And then I question everything I know about my taste level when I finish and say, “you know, that really wasn’t that bad.”

Quick Plot: A little girl introduces her babysitter to a “Skype for strangers” chat site called The Den--

Oops. Wrong movie. This one’s called Hide & Chat and has the exciting twist that if you type “I did it for the lulz” three times, a masked man with a smiley face burlap mask will appear and brutally murder the stranger on the other side of your webcam. Naturally, the shocked babysitter goes home to immediately hop on Hide & Chat, befriend a stranger, and be fatally lulzed.

We next meet Ashley, an innocent college freshman moving in with her harder partying pal Elizabeth--

Wait. That’s not it. Though she may indeed be played by The Den’s Melanie Papalia, Ashley’s roommate is named Proxy. Because that’s apparently a thing (as are the names Binder, Crash, Kells, and Zane). 

Proxy is all about corrupting the willing Ashley, introducing her to pot, alcohol, and group of fellow college students who enjoy web pranks. It doesn’t take long for the obnoxious gang of millenials to spruce up a typical keg party with an invitation to Smiley.

Ashley is horrified by the tale so naturally, her and Proxy go home and triple lulz a stranger together to prove that it’s real. When she tries to report the events, Ashely receives the typical dubious stares from the police officers. It doesn’t help when we discover she’s bipolar and not currently on medication. 

What follows is many a dream upon dream upon dream sequence, as well as a few red herrings and a random performance by Broadway’s Roger Bart as a whiskey happy professor. Directed by newcomer Michael J. Gallagher, Smiley’s biggest problem lies in its tonal confusion. Ashley’s troubles seem to be taken seriously, but the movie as a whole can’t seem to decide if there’s genuine tragedy in these internet horrors. 

High Points

Filing under “other things this film has in common with The Den,” Smiley opens with a shockingly effective jump scare

While we’re on the “things this has in common with The Den,” let’s give a hand to the incredibly likable Caitlin Gerard, who manages to be extremely sympathetic in the lead role, even when the movie doesn’t quite know how to maximize her talents

Low Points

I actually dug the twist ending, but when you start to think back to some of the logic of it, I don’t know that it holds up

Lessons Learned

You don’t get to be king of the internet assholes without making a few enemies (and apparently, a lot of shitty mixed drinks)

Computer geniuses prefer to be called nerds

Dungeonmasters usually don’t get the princess

Common Mistake

I did not do it for the lutz

I did not do it for the lutz

Instead, I did it for the lulz

Pneumonic Device For Life

Look, there’s no shame in admitting that like 95% of the general population, you can never remember which one is Keith David and which one is David Keith. Well folks, I have the key to never mixing this up again, providing you were a fan of Six Feet Under. It goes something like this:

David & Keith were a couple.

This is David.

This is Keith.

This is David Keith.

This is Keith David.

Problem solved. 

Rent/Bury/Buy

Guys, I’ve seen worse horror movies than Smiley. Wayyyyyyyy worse movies. I realize that isn’t a ringing endorsement, but I guess I was just expecting something far less watchable based on word of mouth. It has plenty of dopey moments, but Gerard makes for a sympathetic lead and the internet twist on Candyma/Bloody Mary lore has its own appeal. I’m not telling anybody to invest in a watch, but it’s streaming on Amazon Prime and well, it’s one way to pass the time.