Hereditary

Year of Release:  2018
Director:  Ari Aster
Screenplay:  Ari Aster
Starring:  Toni Collette, Alex Wolff, Milly Shapiro, Ann Dowd, Gabriel Byrne
Running Time:  128 minutes
Genre:  Horror

Annie Graham (Collette) is a miniaturist artist who lives with her husband, Steve (Byrne), their 13 year old daughter Charlie (Shapiro) and teenage son Peter (Wolff).  Following the death of Annie's reclusive mother, with whom she had a very troubled relationship, the family become haunted by mysterious, malevolent forces.

To say too much about this film would be to spoil it.  This is a quiet, unsettling, serious horror film, which, while referencing classics such as Rosemary's Baby (1968), is very much it's own thing.  It's worth pointing out that this film does demand patience.  It's long for a horror film and quite slow, building up atmosphere and suspense, but there are some shocking plot developments and towards the end it really kicks into high gear.  The acting is superb, especially from Toni Collette who really carries the film, although she is very well supported, particularly by Alex Wolff and Milly Shapiro as the two kids.  It's very well made with effective sound design, a lot of the film takes place in complete silence, with subtle sounds emerging suggesting dark forces.  The film is largely free of graphic violence, although there are some disturbing images.

Family matters:  Toni Collette in Hereditary 

The Keep

Year of Release:  1983
Director:  Michael Mann
Screenplay:  Michael Mann, based on the novel The Keep by F. Paul Wilson
Starring:  Scott Glenn, Alberta Watson, Jurgen Prochnow, Robert Prosky, Gabriel Byrne, Ian McKellen
Running Time:  96 minutes
Genre:  Horror, war, fantasy

The Carpathian Mountains, Romania, 1941, a German Army detachment led by Captain Klaus Woerrmann (Prochnow) take over a remote citadel (or "keep").  Two looting soldiers accidentally unleash a powerful demonic force which starts picking off the soldiers one by one.  A group of SS soldiers, under the command of the sadistic Eric Kaempffer (Byrne) arrive at the keep as reinforcements.  When strange messages appear written on the walls, the Germans force a Jewish historian Professor Theodore Cuza (McKellen) to decipher the messages and find out what is killing them off.

This odd curio from a director best known for glossy crime thrillers (such as Manhunter (1986) and Heat (1995))  is a good movie hidden inside a bad one.  The original director's cut ran three and a half hours, but director Michael Mann was contracted to deliver a movie no longer than two hours.  However the studio, Paramount, were unhappy with Mann's two hour cut and took the film out of his hands, cutting it still further to 96 minutes.  This accounts for the many continuity errors and plot holes.  For a film set in 1941, this is a very '80s movie filled with billowing dry ice and a synth-heavy score from Tangerine Dream.  The production design is impressive and there are visually striking moments, however some of the visuals just don't work.  The film's creature is never particularly convincing or impressive.  It never particularly works as a horror film, because it isn't very scary and too confused, but it does have an eerie, dream-like atmosphere in places.  It does have some interesting ideas, and the central story is novel and interesting, and the central theme equating the real-life horror of Nazism with fantasy horror, is interesting if in kind of bad taste.  It's frustrating that so much of the film is never really explained, and the climax is practically incomprehensible.
On it's original release the film was very badly received (including by F. Paul Wilson, the author of the original novel who strongly disliked the film), and flopped commercially, but it has since become something of a cult film.  It's worth seeing because the good bits are good and it deserves points for originality.

         Ian McKellan explores The Keep

The Usual Suspects

Year of Release:  1995
Director:  Bryan Singer
Screenplay:  Christopher McQuarrie
Starring:  Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne, Benicio del Toro, Chazz Palminteri, Kevin Pollak, Pete Postlethwaite, Kevin Spacey
Running Time:  106 minutes
Genre:  crime, thriller

This became one of the iconic films of the 1990s, launching director Bryan Singer and stars Kevin Spacey and Benicio del Toro into the front ranks of Hollywood.  Following a horrific gun battle which leaves twenty seven dead, the sole survivor, small time con man "Verbal" Kint (Spacey) tells FBI agent Kujan (Palminteri) of the events leading up to the massacre, starting six weeks earlier in New York City, when Verbal met thieves McManus (Baldwin), Fenster (del Toro), Hockney (Pollak) and Keaton (Byrne) at a police line-up.  In the holding cell they come up with an audacious robbery, that brings them into contact with lawyer Kobayashi (Postlethwaite) who claims to represent the mysterious and legendary criminal mastermind Keyser Soze.

The film is mostly constructed in a flashback structure moving between Kujan's interrogation of Verbal and Verbal's telling his story.  It's a fast-moving and intriguing story that mostly seems to be moving one way, telling a story that will doubtless be familiar to any thriller fan, but then takes some real turns, leading up to what is one of the most famous final twists in movie history.  Writer Christopher McQuarrie won the Best Original Screenplay Academy Award.

The film has some great performances, Kevin Spacey won Best Supporting Actor at the Academy Awards.  However, the casting of white English actor Pete Postlethwaite as the apparently Indian Kobayashi strikes something of a false note, although the false note might actually be intentional.  Also the only prominent female character, Keaton's lawyer girlfriend Edie played by Suzy Amis, barely has any screentime, and really has nothing to do.

The film is full of quotable lines, and Singer directs with a distinct style, creating some memorable images.  Several scenes have really entered the annals of pop-culture.  It's not a perfect film by any means, many of the characters are quite cliched and, aside really from Verbal and Keaton, the rest of the gang of crooks just seem to be there to fill up space.  It's worth watching though, because it is very entertaining, and the climax is still effective.

 Round up The Usual Suspects: Kevin Pollak, Stephen Baldwin, Benicio del Toro, Gabriel Byrne and Kevin Spacey