11-23-2020, 02:20 PM
The Clovehitch Killer (2018)
The title and promotion kinda suggests this is going to be some sort of cheap Blumhouse-type jump-scare horror film but it's a actually a really high quality, provocative, psychological drama. Charlie Plummer plays the son of a small-town Kentucky Scout leader in a very Christian neighbourhood but slowly he begins to suspect his father might be a serial killer. Dylan McDermott performs the father to perfection, the more he plays him as wholesome and kind, the more sinister he appears. The film raising questions of whether his conservative Christian faith has effected the father positively, or negatively. Director Duncan Skiles uses long takes, a still camera and cinematic compositions. 'The Clovehitch Killer' switches gear halfway through, which really ups the drama and certainly drops the jaw but it also dissipated the riveting suspense I was enjoying up to that point.
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Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
Another one of John Carpenter's later critical and commercial failures, although I thought this was actually pretty good. It was a Chevy Chase vehicle that he'd been trying to make for 5 or 6 years with Ivan Reitman attached. The sticking point might have been Chase's desire to play it seriously, when he was known as a comic, so unsurprisingly there are some tonal problems. I found it hard to tell if the ever present throwback Noir voiceover is meant ironically, or genuinely... but I think it's the latter. Chase does play Nick (the victim of a lab accident) very well and the overall tone is quite dark and concerned with the existential terror and problematic nature of being invisible to others and oneself, so the sporadic goofy humour is off putting. For example, there's an impressive FX shot of Nick running on a beach where we can only see his sweatband and running gear. A funny visual but it's a comedy cutaway inserted into a whole sequence of scenes about him trying to keep hidden and evade capture, so it feels disconnected and makes no sense. All the FX are very cool and inventive, especially the building that is randomly half visible, half invisible. Sam Neill is brilliantly creepy as a shadowy government agent trying to track Nick, to use him as a spy asset, or just dissect him. 'Memoirs of an Invisible Man' is either a drama with too many jokes, or a comedy with too few jokes... either way it's a thought provoking and entertaining 'North by Northwest' type adventure. I don't think it deserved to bomb as badly as it did.
The title and promotion kinda suggests this is going to be some sort of cheap Blumhouse-type jump-scare horror film but it's a actually a really high quality, provocative, psychological drama. Charlie Plummer plays the son of a small-town Kentucky Scout leader in a very Christian neighbourhood but slowly he begins to suspect his father might be a serial killer. Dylan McDermott performs the father to perfection, the more he plays him as wholesome and kind, the more sinister he appears. The film raising questions of whether his conservative Christian faith has effected the father positively, or negatively. Director Duncan Skiles uses long takes, a still camera and cinematic compositions. 'The Clovehitch Killer' switches gear halfway through, which really ups the drama and certainly drops the jaw but it also dissipated the riveting suspense I was enjoying up to that point.
<hr style="border: 1px solid white;" />
Memoirs of an Invisible Man (1992)
Another one of John Carpenter's later critical and commercial failures, although I thought this was actually pretty good. It was a Chevy Chase vehicle that he'd been trying to make for 5 or 6 years with Ivan Reitman attached. The sticking point might have been Chase's desire to play it seriously, when he was known as a comic, so unsurprisingly there are some tonal problems. I found it hard to tell if the ever present throwback Noir voiceover is meant ironically, or genuinely... but I think it's the latter. Chase does play Nick (the victim of a lab accident) very well and the overall tone is quite dark and concerned with the existential terror and problematic nature of being invisible to others and oneself, so the sporadic goofy humour is off putting. For example, there's an impressive FX shot of Nick running on a beach where we can only see his sweatband and running gear. A funny visual but it's a comedy cutaway inserted into a whole sequence of scenes about him trying to keep hidden and evade capture, so it feels disconnected and makes no sense. All the FX are very cool and inventive, especially the building that is randomly half visible, half invisible. Sam Neill is brilliantly creepy as a shadowy government agent trying to track Nick, to use him as a spy asset, or just dissect him. 'Memoirs of an Invisible Man' is either a drama with too many jokes, or a comedy with too few jokes... either way it's a thought provoking and entertaining 'North by Northwest' type adventure. I don't think it deserved to bomb as badly as it did.
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