Arkansas (2020)

Directed by: Clark Duke

Notable cast: Liam Hemsworth, Clark Duke, Vince Vaughn, John Malkovich, Vicica A. Fox

Arkansas is the kind of movie that doesn’t come along especially often, something compelling and intense, while being extremely quiet and meditative. Existing like a Michael Mann script filmed by Vincent Gallo, this film is (typically comedic) character actor Clark Duke’s feature writing and directorial debut. And as far as that fact alone goes? I feel very badly for Duke that this film came out at the point in history, it did because this film should be making huge waves right now, and will likely at this point be lost amongst our world’s current real crises. Which is a shame, because this story of crime, vengeance, and miscommunication feels especially relevant to its release year of 2020. Though in the interest of keeping this review apolitical  and timeless, it’s worth noting that rumination on doing what it takes to survive, whether it’s with honor, hook and crook, or lies, both direct and of omission, and the fallout from all of those choices does feel like a message that could stand-in any decade.

Hill of Freedom (2014)

Director: Hong Sang-soo

Notable Cast: Ryo Kase, Moon So-ri, Seo Young-hwa, Kim Eiu-sung, Youn Yuh-jung


For those who have been following my Hong Sang-soo journey in reviewing all his features and short films in chronological order here on Facebook will probably be confused seeing me leap from 2004's Woman is the Future of Man all the way to 2014's Hill of Freedom, but I assure you fragmenting and jumping ahead this way is as a result of this write-up coinciding with the June release of the film here in the U.S. after six long years. Was it worth the wait for Hong fans?

Hill of Freedom tells the story of a Mori, a Japanese man who has come to Korea in search of a local woman with whom he had feelings for during his last trip to the country two years prior. He writes her a note, which does manage to get to her, and we see that she is very sick. He retraces his steps from yesteryear, revisiting old cafes, restaurants, and even her place of employment that he also taught as an English teacher. She is nowhere to be found. Seeming lost, Mori stumbles onto new faces, makes new friends, falls for a new woman, and downs a ton of booze in a typical Hong outing that features an English heavy dialogue as its new focal point, that further expands on the 2012 Isabelle Huppert driven In Another Country, which adds the awkwardness of broken common language as a means of communication, although here it's taken to new heights, becoming both a strong point and weakness to the overall work.

Blood Tide (1982)

Director: Richard Jefferies

Notable Cast: James Earl Jones, Martin Kove, Mary Louise Weller, Deborah Shelton, Lydia Cornell, Jose Ferrer, Lila Kedrova

Between the cast, the writers, and a ‘creative consultant’ credit to Brian Trenchard Smith, I was positively excited for Blood Tide to get its new Blu Ray release from Arrow Video. Could this be another long-lost forgotten cult gem that was discovered while dragging the waters? On paper, absolutely. It reads like a sure-fire hit with its combination of Greek island cult elements, an ancient monster, and the horror meets adventure narrative. However, Blood Tide is a film that oddly evades ever dedicating itself to any of those pieces. Instead, it leans heavily into the convoluted dramatic tension of its characters and takes itself wildly seriously as it loosely ties together its genre elements. At the core, there is a great film, but the results of this 1982 aquatic thriller is far from there and the film ends up being more of a slog than the film it looks like on paper.

When Neil (Kove) and his wife (Weller) end up on a Greek island looking for his sister (Shelton), they stumble onto an archeologist (Jones) who is trying to uncover an ancient mystery. When he accidentally unleashes a water monster that is hunting the local women, they must all band together to figure out what the creature is and how to stop it.

Vivarium (2020)

Director: Lorcan Finnegan

Notable Cast: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Jonathan Aris, Senana Jennings, Eanna Hardwicke

It’s not very often that a film hits home in such an unnerving way that it’s hard to shake. As a reviewer dedicated to cult cinema, particularly of the genre kind, it’s easy to think ‘well, been there, seen that’ to even the strangest corners of the cinematic world. Occasionally a film strikes out in an unexpected way. Vivarium is a film that has systematically flown under the radar in my sphere and it wasn’t until I saw it in a Redbox rental unit that I just randomly grabbed it for the night. Two days later and the film just writhes under my skin. It’s an odd film, yes, never quite embracing any one particular genre in full and never actively moving away from its Twilight Zone inspired roots, but Vivarium is a film seething with symbolism and empowered by its intimate and often emotionally raucous message.

Due to its high brow concept, Vivarium is a film that can be a little problematic to review without spoiling its many, many strange reveals. Thus, in the spirit of being spoiler free, this review may read a little vague. Hopefully the praise that I am about to lay onto the film still seeps through.

Debt Collectors (2020)

Director: Jesse V. Johnson

Notable Cast: Scott Adkins, Louis Mandylor, Ski Carr, Vladimir Kulich, Charity Collins, Mayling Ng

As both a huge fan of director Jesse V. Johnson and action icon Scott Adkins, I’m always down to partake when either of them release a new film. Put them together and I’m throwing my wallet into their hands. However, when it was announced the two would be re-teaming up for a sequel to The Debt Collector, called Debt Collectors, I was a bit perplexed. You see, if you’ve seen the first film, you know that it definitively ends the story of our two makeshift anti-heroes, French and Sue. There wasn’t a lot of room for a sequel. Yet, here we are with the bickering banter of our two favorite collection agents in this – and I only assume – first sequel to the surprise action hit. While Debt Collectors isn’t quite the pleasantly humorous surprise of the first, it’s still a rock ‘em, sock ‘em slab of entertainment that delivers on all of the expected elements of the first film. It’s impeccably charming, loaded with the usual action awesomeness from the directing and star duo, and gives the fans what they want from a sequel.

Seven months after the events of The Debt Collector, Sue – once again played with the charming trashiness of Louis Mandylor, finds French bouncing at the local bar. A bar that was, more or less, used as a comedic set piece in the first film. French, played by my pick for Batman Scott Adkins (how many letters do I have to write to Warner Bros. to get that to happen?,) is having a rough go of it and Sue gives him the opportunity to get back into the debt collecting game for one last round. Three collections. Two days. $70,000.

Monstrum (2020)

Director: Huh Jong-ho

Notable Cast: Kim Myung-min, Kim In-kwon, Lee Hye-ri, Choi Woo-shik, Lee Kyung-young, Park Hee-soon, Park Sung-woong, Lee Do-gyeong, Lee Kyu-bok, Kim Jung-hui, Kim Kang-il, Cho Won-hee, Yun Hui-su, Han So-yeong

It wasn’t that long ago that I was joking with my friend that the only great horror films South Korea could produce were ones of the thriller variety, but boy oh boy could they deliver on that front. Naturally, as soon as I made that claim both Train to Busan and The Wailing dropped in the US and completely made my joke a joke. It’s not that the industry in SK wasn’t making decent horror films, it’s just that there weren’t a lot of truly memorable and distinctive horror films. However, as the Korean Wave only continues to gather steam in a variety of artistic endeavors there is now an excitement to their horror material that I never quite had before. Combine that with my love of giant monster movies and I can tell you that I was rather ecstatic to jump into Monstrum.

Verotika (2020)

Directed by: Glenn Danzig

Notable cast: Ashley Wisdom, Rachael Alig, Alice Tate, Kayden Koss

Verotika, may I never again have to write so much about so little, is based on Danzig’s own comic series, Verotik (violent/erotic. Get it?) Glenn Danzig brings us an erotic horror anthology that offers nothing erotic and nothing horrific save for the attempts at eroticism. Frankly, I have no particular way to even fault it as an anthology in concept, but I would really, really like to. I can, however, make fun of their attempt at a host character Morella (I believe she is from the comic but, I have never read it and am not inclined to put forth the effort to research it) and their attempts at a “Cryptkeeper, but a hot girl” kind of thing. She has a few bits of dialogue of which nothing is clever, funny, or involving a morbid pun, and her portions are rarely even pertinent to the segment she’s hosting. This is just the start to this anthology.

Blood Quantum (2020)

Director: Jeff Barnaby

Notable Cast: Michael Greyeyes, Elle-Maija Tailfeathers, Forrest Goodluck, Kiowa Gordon, Olivia Scriven, Stonehorse Lone Goeman, Brandon Oakes, William Belleau, Devery Jacobs, Gary Farmer, Felicia Shulman

Although the entirety of the zombie subgenre of horror has become, for lack of a more sincere analogy, like a horde of thoughtless and all-consuming undead. It’s overwhelming if you try to take them on all at once and repetitively tiring if you try to peg them one by one. It’s to the point that I often don’t watch them unless there is some kind of angle that really intrigues me. It’s a far cry from my zombie hungry youth powered on childhood memories of Romero’s Dead films and the wild inhibitions of the Return of the Living Dead franchise. Fortunately, there are some films that not only have taken a unique lens to the zombie genre but ones that are succeeding at it too. Enter in Blood Quantum, the latest Shudder exclusive to hit the illustrious horror streaming service. Taking a few pages from the book on ‘how to make a successful Walking Dead plotline,’ Blood Quantum is a far more intriguing film because of its foundational angle and execution than it is once it starts hitting the more traditional genre beats.

Samurai Marathon (2020)

Director: Bernard Rose

Notable Cast: Takeru Satoh, Nana Komatsu, Mirai Moriyama, Shota Sometani, Munetaka Aoki, Ryu Kohata, Yuta Koseki, Motoki Fukami, Shinsuke Kato, Joey Iwanaga

As soon as Samurai Marathon came to my attention, it was a film that immediately went onto the ‘must see’ list. Between the concept, the direction of Candyman helmer Bernard Rose, and a role for Takeru Satoh of Rurouni Kenshin fame, this film was of substantial interest. After knowing that information, I blocked myself from watching any trailers or learning anything more about the film. I had seen enough. It was probably a mistake to do such a thing. My expectations were not in line with what the film was and my initial watch was, to put it lightly, perplexing. I assumed that ‘marathon’ was more of a symbolic word. Nope. This is a ‘based on a true story’ film where a bunch of samurai volunteer to race cross country for the entire second half of the film. The title, which was originally Samurai Marathon 1855, was fuckin’ literal. I was not prepared for it.

Extraction (2020)

Director: Sam Hargrave

Notable Cast: Chris Hemsworth, Rudhraksh Jaiswal, Randeep Hooda, Golshifteh Farahani, David Harbour, Priyanshu Painyuli, Sam Hargrave

It’s become quite apparent over the last few years that we are, in fact, living in a post-John Wick world. At least when it comes to action cinema. This is something that I have discussed briefly in a few other reviews, but with Extraction, it truly comes out like a shotgun blast. Now, technically speaking, director Sam Hargrave has worked with the 87Eleven team before in some regard so the John Wick connection can be somewhat apparent, but Hargrave has been working as a stuntman and coordinator for years. If that’s not known beforehand, all you have to do is watch Extraction once to know that it’s directed by a stuntman. Not only are the stunts, coordination, and choreography exceedingly fantastic, but the film uses action as a truly dynamic storytelling tool. The combination proves to be a structurally sound foundation for the rest of the film.