Diabolical Danger

1984's Red Dawn, adapted for the screen and directed by John Milius, has been called many things – ‘the most right-wing blockbuster ever made’, ‘the most violent movie ever made’. . . but, by today’s standards, it is hard to take all of this too seriously (especially that latter statement – things have gotten a whole lot bloodier as time has gone by). An entertaining (if outrageous) B-style movie premise that pulls from old westerns (think High Noon, Rio Bravo and The Cowboys) and guerrilla warfare tactics, this version of 1989 (it is set five years in the future) finds a secret Russian, Cuban, and Nicaraguan alliance bringing with it an unexpected invasion of the United States. . . seen specifically in Calumet, Colorado (this the beginnings of World War III).

Perhaps the most wild and audacious opening ever seen in a giallo, 1975's Autopsy, co-written and directed by Armando Crispino, starts with a rotisserie of people committing suicide in both shocking and outlandish ways. . . only for the camera to then take us into one of the last taboo places in film, the morgue, to show us the bodies piling up in the life of half American/half Italian Simona Sanna (Mimsy Farmer) – this is clearly not the Rome we normally see in movies. Now, you may be wondering what all these bodies have to do with her. . . well, she is a young doctor working on a research project revolving around the difference between suicides and well hidden murders made to look like the former. As you might imagine, it is grave subject matter. . . so much so that she is struggling in her romantic relationship with photographer Riccardo (Ray Lovelock) and is even hallucinating that those dead bodies are coming back to life.

Upon viewing Ad Astra some two years after its initial release, it is not completely surprising that it was a failure at the box office. A film rooted in cinema of the sixties and seventies (you should notice connections to 2001: A Space Odyssey and Apocalypse Now), co-writer and director James Gray (Lost City of Z) takes his time building a familial drama set around space travel. Not the adrenaline rush that was Gravity, nor containing the outward scope of Interstellar, Gray’s story (which he co-wrote with Ethan Gross) looks inward at a man struggling with the bond he has with his father. This man is Roy McBride (Brad Pitt), a successful Major who has always lived in the shadow of his legendary father, H. Clifford McBride (Tommy Lee Jones – perfect casting) – the man to lead the Lima Project to the outer reaches of our solar system (specifically Neptune) to do research on possible extraterrestrial life.

Walking a narrow tightrope between giallo and horror, 1972's Murder Mansion, by then first time director Francisco Lara Polop, pulls from films like The Cat and the Canary (either the 1927 or 1939 edition) and House on Haunted Hill (1959), as well as sources like Agatha Christie’s “And Then There Were None” and maybe even Scooby-Doo, to create a bizarre concoction that mostly works. Opening in a most unexpected way for either a giallo or horror feature, motorcycle meets sports car in a blistering country road race, the former driven by calm, cool, and collected Fred (Andrés Resino), while the latter is floored by cocksure Mr. Porter (Franco Fantasia – talk about a name). Only fueling the fire, sultry fashionista Laura (Lisa Leonardi) is spotted hitchhiking. . . the motorist winning the pick-up over the biker, the chase continuing as they weave in and out of sporadic traffic. . . only for the biker to convince her to join him at their next gas station stop (as Mr. Porter is a tad too handsy).

Like a twisted take on the vigilante sub-genre of the 1970s (think Billy Jack or Dirty Harry), writer/director Emerald Fennell turns a lens on modern society with her 2020 film Promising Young Woman – a most thought provoking tale for our time. Following Cassandra (Carey Mulligan – an absolute powerhouse here which has earned her an Oscar nod), she is a woman in her early thirties who is stuck in time. With a tragic event from her past that has forever changed her present and future, the former medical school student now finds herself working a dead end job at a coffee shop for friend Gail (Laverne Cox).

“He’s a real nowhere man, sitting in his nowhere land, making all his nowhere plans for nobody. Doesn’t have a point of view, knows not where he’s going to. . .”. A slightly abridged version of the first verse and chorus of The Beatles’ iconic song “Nowhere Man”, these mesmeric lyrics tell the tale of a man afloat in his life with no anchor – lacking the passion, drive, and spirit to make him truly whole. Very much akin to the central character in 2021's Nobody, an action packed film written by Derek Kolstad (the scribe behind the John Wick franchise) and directed by Ilya Naishuller, Hutch Mansell (Bob Odenkirk), is suffering from middle class (and aged) ennui. Though that last statement may sound more like something from Mike Nichols’ The Graduate than an action packed extravaganza, this is a far cry from a character drama.