XX

**½

 When I learned of a new anthology horror film directed exclusively by women, I was definitely interested. I have been longing for women to get their chance behind the camera, as horror from their perspective certainly interests me. I always felt that out of all the different genres in the film industry, horror is one of the most progressive, or so you'd think. But it is 2017 and just now are we getting horror films with the likes of the Soskas among a few others. It is a start, at least. 

I love anthology horror films. I just like these bite-sized, don't-stay-longer-than-necessary short films knitted into a whole, patterns of variety appealing differently to each viewer. One viewer might consider a certain tale to be the best while another finds favor in perhaps the less-liked among the majority. I have always enjoyed reading from a group of people regarding which tale among an omnibus they prefer and the reasons are often quite diverse and unique. Even here the last few years VHS and its sequels took on "reality horror", merging the found footage with the omnibus. While not perceived as altogether successful, soon The ABCs of Death arrived on the scene to further take the platform of VHS and go just a bit crazier. I think both VHS and The ABCs of Death opened a door for XX (2017). With a lot of hungry horror filmmakers out there, these kinds of films are the entrance they so willingly kick open if so allowed. I have noticed on my Facebook that the indie horror scene could be on its way to thriving again. This is what I have yearned for. I want the freedom and lessened restrictions allowing filmmakers to take us down all the dark roads that help us rationalize why fear of the possible is important. But I also like to be taken down the darkened paths that lead us into the surreal and bizarre, hiding in the shadows of imagination and, in their dormancy, seem prime and ready to jump out and scare us. I was hoping for perhaps a little of both in XX (2017), so I went in with a real sense of anticipation but a slight bit of trepidation...horror has proven to be a genre that can hurt you if you get yours hopes up too high.

**½

In the macabre, disturbing The Box, a dark secret found in a gift-like box (set during Christmas time, for extra impact) causes those who know of it to just lose interest in eating. While on a subway going home, boy Danny is intrigued by a red gift box in the arms of a rather imposing gentleman who gladly (this is what I found rather chilling) lets him peek inside. Danny’s mom and sister aren’t too far from him, just kind of waiting for home. What I found particularly fascinating about The Box is the ambivalence of the mother. Susan just seems to take everything in stride, including the fact that her son is gradually starving himself to death without any signs of trouble with doing so. Danny just doesn’t want to eat and his parents seem helpless. His father, Robert, is deeply unsettled by his son’s deterioration. It gets worse. Once Danny tells his sister and father what he saw in the box, they follow him, no longer eating as well. So the family gradually succumbs to the starvation while Susan looks on. Again, Susan just doesn’t seem to care less. While Robert is initially chomping at the bit and gnawing inside over his son’s not eating, Susan just kind of remains chill. I found her about as unsettling as what happens to her family due to whatever was in the box. It isn’t until daughter Jenny that Susan starts to realize the gravity of the situation. There is something distinctive in visual presentation that I found striking. Like all the food that looks as if it came right out of a top tier restaurant…going untouched. The way the cinematography frames it from a bird’s eye view…how delicious it looks. Yet whatever is in the box takes its allure away. Food that would otherwise make your mouth water, framed like a commercial putting forth its best dishes, doesn’t appeal to those aware of what is in the box. Susan isn’t given the secret no matter how she tries to draw it from her family. The box holds its secret from Susan. For some reason, she’s undeserved of it.

If anything, it does appear that Susan only “awakens” when bothered by not knowing what the secret is. Her family starts wasting away (only their bodies are ravaged, because they themselves don’t appear to be unhappy at all!) and Susan has a dream that they are feeding from her body…particularly jarring is her smile as it happens! The narration offers a tinder voice that does have feeling, particularly when Susan speaks on trying to locate the man with the box. She tells us that she’s hungry. Perhaps what they had, that secret that the box seemed to provide, gave them all the sustenance required. They had what they needed so any hunger that might have existed before no longer took precedence. Susan wants that same “gift”. But the box…and its secret…appear elusive.

**½

Melanie Lynskey is one of many actresses known for that familiar face that you just notice. She just has that quality in expressiveness, saying with her eyes, mouth, tilt of her head, way with her words, and altering demeanor that can’t help but leave an impression on you. She emerges in the supporting cast, with her nicely subtle tones in her performances or unafraid willingness to lay it all out when need-be. I personally think we are in a golden age of performance. Great female talent just continues to pop on the screen, offering such rich, nuanced reactions and textured response to whatever drama or unexpected developments they might encounter. I had HBO on in the background while putting together a writing for the blog sometime back and Togetherness was the television show featured. It has since been canceled but Lynskey grabbed my immediate attention. She found herself attracted to another man even as her own marriage was on a bit of a rut. The marriage wasn’t a wash, but Lynskey just gradually became seduced to a man she eventually sleeps with while on a trip with him, regretting it the day after. How she plays the “next day” scene, realizing her error and that this man isn’t really all that amazing as the seduction might have led her to believe, speaks of quite a truth…the disappointment in herself and gradual ache that emerges as this error becomes completely real and regrettable rests right on her face and in her body. With all this said, she is just perfect for The Birthday Party, which does rely on facial expression and bodily response…the very qualities that are in her wheelhouse.

The plot is “what you see is what you get”. Lynskey’s Mary wakes up, encounters her icy au pair, Carla, and finds her husband dead from apparent suicide (a bottle of pills emptied are found as is a liquor glass caught in a death grip). No one knows of the dead husband and because it is the birthday party day for their adopted daughter, Lucy, Mary decides to try and hide him. Hiding a dead body on this day will prove quite tough for Mary. You have the nosy neighbor interrupting her, kind of inserting herself into an invite to the party, while Carla and Lucy also offer interference. Eventually Mary buys a bear costume off of her party’s DJ to hide the husband in it. Of course, this proves to be a failure as his dead head flops right into the birthday cake! What I think stands out besides Lynskey’s fun performance is the director’s (Annie Clark) quietly 80s synth score with its subtle intensity. The final scene—the party itself—is a lot heavier and more pronounced in its score, as Annie wants to up the ante in terms of how exhausted Mary is and how disastrous the results of this day will have on Lucy. But there are no layers to it all. It is just a bad day for Mary, unexpectedly thrust into an unplanned cover-up that goes horribly awry.

Here's a Clip

**

Four young adults locate a desert, mountainous terrain, picturesque and remote, parking their camper for a night’s stay. While climbing one such mountain, they overlook the landscape and eventually encounter glyphs painted on a rock facing. Gretchen presses up against the glyphs and some type of attachment takes over her body, turning her into a growling, ferocious beast. Her dopehead brother, Paul, doesn’t heed Jay’s warning that his sister is now a possessed “spirit monster”, going to see if she’s okay. She’s not okay. And soon Paul won’t be okay, either. Nor will Jay or Jess. While Paul is hurled through a windshield, Jay isn’t able to escape the camper in time, with Gretchen clawing him, while Jess falls down a cliff, breaking her leg. This is basic monster movie. Nothing really all that complex or thought-provoking. It is over and done with in a hurry, too. Doesn’t really stay still long enough to catch its breath, the plot just sics Gretchen on them. 

Before Gretchen goes all primal on her family, they lovingly pick on her by scaring her. That she would actually be the one that is to be feared perhaps is the episode's clever joke.

**

 

Cora’s son is reaching 18 years old and he wants to associate with his estranged father, seemingly off in Hollywood a womanizing movie star. Andy is going through ch-ch-ch-changes. Bleeding all over the bathroom floor, with peculiar black nails growing out of his fingers and toes, Andy develops violent tendencies (he plucked finger nails from a fellow student, stabbed a squirrel to a tree, and has become hostile) and a rotten attitude. Cora confides in the postal worker of her neighborhood that Andy is misbehaving and her concerns are obvious. The school principal and a teacher in the office with Cora and the victimized girl’s mother brush off the horrible finger nail plucking incident. Andy is considered “special” by them, as if they consider him a spiritual figure! Then the postal worker sweet on Cora asserts that Andy has a role to fulfill and that the Hollywood bad boy that is supposed to be his father is but window dressing. Andy, it seems, is the spawn of Satan! 

In fact, as Satan seems to emerge after Andy tells Cora to kneel and crawl to him, it all but appears he must fulfill his destiny. But Cora tries to appeal to the human son she raised into a young man. The breaking bones and blood seepage that results from the mother and son’s embrace/hug I guess indicates that the only way to not be “sacrificed” is to perish together. Chet, the postal worker, recognizes Cora’s ex maybe even coming to an agreement with Satan for Andy! You see a wing and then darkness shadow Cora and Andy before their tragic fates are sealed. Yeah, so that was that.

The Box

The Birthday Party

Don't Fall

Her Only Living Son

The anthology is connected loosely by stop motion animated sequences involving a doll-faced dollhouse that walks about grabbing birds (stuffing them in other dolls), eating bugs (the best I could tell), sewing items (including a tooth) to itself, and eventually awakening a human-sized doll with a door on her chest (yeah, strange as it sounds). If you like grotesque animation (and I do, actually), this might be right up your alley