Dark Distractions is Two Years Old Today!

My blog is officially two today, and just like last year, I thought it would be interesting to do a post that is more for me than anyone else. A post that will let me see what I did in the last year, and how that improved on the year before. It will also include some shout-outs and thanks, as I didn't do it alone.

The year before last I wrote 43 blog posts. This past year I did 75. I’m pleased that I almost doubled my output, even though I know quantity is no assurance of quality. I will aim to double it again this year.

I went from around 25 Twitter followers to around 300. I’m not chasing numbers as it’s all about quality followers, not just slack-jawed “I’ll follow you if you follow me’ers.” Twitter is nice but I don’t think I’m social enough to really take full advantage. Even so, my goal for this year is to pass the 1000 follower mark.

My blog traffic went from around 2,000 hits to around 21,000. It’s nice to see some traffic, even if a lot of it is just automated bots and crawlers. I think this year my goal will be another 10X increase to around 200,000 hits.

I managed to get an article into every edition of the Geek Syndicate Magazine, and thirteen articles/reviews for the website. I will aim to continue that level of contribution to the magazine (as it is beyond my power to make it come out more frequently) but I will try to increase my website contributions.

I wrote 9 film reviews for the Generic Movie and TV blog before I decided to part company with them and put my effort into my other areas of interest. I did have a look at letterboxd but think that I will just keep the odd film review to my blog.

I wrote 17 pieces of flash fiction for #fridayflash. Fridayflash is a great community of writers and it has only really been the second half of the year that I have been able to fully take part and commit to publishing a story each week. I think it has helped my writing a good degree to have something weekly to aim for.

I entered 5 competitions gaining various places/mentions in each, which won me a free ebook (Grey Matter Press) and my stories featuring in 3 print and ebook anthologies (Darker Times). I had only entered one competition before these, and that was before this blog even existed. I am committed to keeping the competition entries flowing as I feel that they are the main way to gauge my progress and, if won, the main way to get my name out more. It was also very nice to be able to hold my work in printed form, something physical to show for the effort. On a larger note, I aim to plan and complete a novel of some kind in the next 12 months.

I joined the Horror Blogger Alliance, which has led to three review requests from people that found my blog and asked me if I fancied reviewing their books/films. 

I was given a Liebster award by Steve Green which was very kind of him. It wasn’t my first but the first one I was able to accept. Paul Dail gave me my first but it came at a time where I couldn’t meet the criteria for accepting it and so it fell from my mind. I appreciated the gesture though.

One low point was that I did sign up to do NaNoWriMo but just couldn’t get started with it. I had a couple of ideas for novels that I wanted to follow and the indecision ended up putting too much pressure on me so I just let it drop.

As usual, I would like to thank my good friend Paul Brewer, who has tirelessly commented on my posts when I'm sure he has had much more interesting things to be getting on with. Thanks as always Paul :).

Thanks to everyone who knows me, reads my stuff and lets me know that I am not writing in a vacuum.

Casey.

Contact Me

Dark Pondering - Update

I just wanted to thank Kat and Jamie at Generic Movie and Tv for giving me the chance to write for them at the start of this year. I have decided to part company with them after around ten months of contributing movie reviews, as my time is being taken up with other writing projects and I don't feel I can have my attention divided in that way at the moment. I wish them all the best and hope to see Generic move on to bigger and better things.

This month also saw me sign up for NaNoWrMo but it has turned into a bit of a tool to berate myself with. I have continued to write, but just cannot get into the right headspace for a longer work, partly due to a few bad events in other areas of my life. I am getting there but I am sad that I couldn't make the best of Nano this year.

Contact Me

Dark Review - The Number 23

Review of the film The Number 23 

By Casey Douglass 

 

Numbers can be tricky things. When we are children, they baffle us, when we are grown up, they help us keep track of our finances, and when we grow old, they may baffle us again unless we are lucky and hold onto some of our mental ability. Sadly, for animal control officer Walter Sparrow (Carrey) the number 23 becomes bothersome in a more unusual way. It hounds him and follows him. Everything he notices evolves or devolves to 23.

The decline in his mental state starts after a strange dog attack which makes Walter late for meeting his wife Agatha (Madsen). This gives her time to buy him a tatty old book from a second-hand bookshop titled “The Number 23, A novel of Obsession by Topsy Kretts.” Walter is sceptical that it will hold anything more than his passing interest, but soon finds himself devouring the book, mainly due to it seeming to incorporate some aspects of his past, such as his favourite book as a child, featuring “Fingerling” the adopted name of the character in the book. Fingerling is a detective who leads a dark and troubled life, although believes himself to be a good person. Walter imagines himself as Fingerling as if he were seeing the events transpiring through the detective’s own eyes.

The number 23 begins to rear its head more and more, with Walter beginning to doubt his own perceptions, troubled by murderous dreams, and wary of the similarities repeatedly thrown in his face by the book and his own life. To be clichéd, things come to a head, but it’s hard to say more about the events of the film without spoiling the story, so I won’t.
The film is filmed in two styles. There are the usual, everyday scenes with Walter and his family or anything that could be called his mundane life. The other scenes are the Fingerling detective scenes, which are shot in minimal colour and take on a very Noir aspect, the streaks of blood or the grey-scale shots of Fingerling’s pained expression on finding yet another body. This works very well and as the film progresses, they muddy into the more mundane reality in a disconcerting way.

Carrey is very good in this serious role. I didn’t expect him to be good at portraying a troubled and conflicted character, or should that be a fully mature adult who doesn’t crack jokes every few minutes. It was a pleasant surprise upon seeing it at the cinema and it still holds true with subsequent re-watching. The other cast members do their job and provide believable foils to bounce his increasing madness off, but Carrey is very much the star.

I rate this film highly because it is skilfully done and takes a good stab at portraying how obsession might develop in someone. If you like noir-esque mystery films with strange books and creepy synchronicities, The Number 23 won’t disappoint. Now if you go back and count the number of lines of this review…they don’t come to 23, sorry to disappoint.

Rating: 5/5

This review can also be on Generic Movie Blog UK here.

Contact Me

Dark Review - In Time

My review of the film In Time 

By Casey Douglass

 

Have you ever been with someone who continuously checks their watch? I know that time rules all of our lives to some degree, but to keep an eye on it when there is no real need is just pointless. However, if instead of a watch you had a glowing countdown timer on one forearm, that slowly ticks down to zero, and when it gets there you expire and hit the ground…I think I would be watching it too.

In Time is set in a future where people have been genetically altered to stop ageing once they reach the age of 25. This activates the countdown timer which everyone is born with and which already has one year on it. They can earn time by working, but every aspect of life literally costs them time. A coffee might be 3 minutes, a bus trip 2 hours. Everything whittling down those glowing figures on their arms. Time has replaced money in every possible way, except that being broke now kills you instantly.

Will Salas (Timberlake) is a blue-collar worker, never having more than a day on his timer. One night a good deed performed for a stranger sees him acquiring over 100 years. The only draw back is he is suspected of robbing the stranger and causing his death by “timing him out”. A short time later he is unable to save his mother (Wilde) as things conspire against her, and this sets him on a path of revenge. He uses the time to traverse the various time zones of the region and sets out to take everything from the people who have the most. On this journey, he hooks up with the daughter of a man who has more time than a Time Lord.
Her name is Sylvia Weis (Seyfried), and Will proceeds to break her out of her overly safe and restrictive world, first by being different, and then, by kidnapping her when things go badly for him. The rest of the film sees them bouncing between conflicts with her father, the timekeepers, headed by Raymond Leon (Murphy) and Fortis (Pettyfer), the leader of a gang of time thieves called “minute men”.

Now for the opinion part. I felt let down by the film and I am not entirely sure why. I had seen the trailer before going into it, and I was quite excited by the subject matter and the look of the film. I even got over my maybe unwarranted dislike of Justin Timberlake to actually watch it. The acting did the job, even if it wasn’t mind-blowing, and there were some interesting dynamics and twists involving Will and Raymond in regard to his long dead father and questions of morals and ethics. The environment was well thought out, although the stars were the cars. There only seemed to be a few types but they are all suitably futuristic looking and sound like they are run on a mixture of Tesla coil and liquid witchcraft. Everything else felt like typical futuristic dystopia. The occasions where their time counters ran very low certainly added to the tension of the film, wondering if they would die, or if they would find a way to survive a little longer. If any kind of conversation or bartering was involved, it certainly took on a heated and frenetic tone.

Maybe In Time is an action film wearing the mantle of a more intellectual sci-fi showing, but failing to mask its true nature. I don’t know. I enjoyed the film, I just felt it could have been better.

Rating: 3.5/5

IMDb

 This review is also available on Generic Movie Blog UK here.

Contact Me

Dark Review - Straightheads

Straightheads Review 

By Casey Douglass 

 

Directed and Written by : Dan Reed

Starring : Danny Dyer , Gillian Anderson ,  Anthony Calf , Ralph Brown.

Straightheads is a revenge film, and would happily be filed in the “Revenge Film” section of the local rental store, if they had such a section, and if those stores still existed. However, it would be doing it a great disservice to label it as such and leave it at that. It is a revenge film done right. It isn’t the cheesy kind of 80s film which takes a shallow look at the victim-aggressor relationship and wraps it up in corny one liners. Rather, it revels in a surprising amount of depth and moral complexity, happy to occupy the grey areas of the moralistic compass, rather than live at the extremes.

Adam (Dyer) is a security guy hired by Alice (Anderson) to fit her stylish modern house with a security system that would not be amiss in a jewellery shop or some kind of bordello. She then invites him to the house-warming party of her boss, giving him a nice suit and a wry smile, seeing him as just another accessory to her outfit. On their way home from the party, after some nocturnal fumbling in a nearby woodland, they are attacked by a group of men. Adam is severely beaten and practically left for dead. Alice is dragged from the car and raped for the sport and merriment of the trio. This is the catalyst, the event that sets Adam and Alice on their path of revenge.

There are some interesting themes running through the film, alongside the self-evident revenge thread. One is the irony of having a security system fitted, and then spending the rest of the evening acting recklessly and taking risks whilst driving and debauching. Another lovely touch is the hand of fate or coincidence in causing the events to transpire in the way they do. Fate causes Adam and Alice to be stopped and vulnerable on a narrow country line, yet a short time later, fate also provides Alice with the means not only to track down one of the men responsible, but also gives her the means to accomplish it.

I really enjoyed how the main characters all occupy various grey areas in their morality, and yet changed as the film went on. Dyer plays the reluctant Adam with his usual guy-who-has-seven-shades-knocked-out-of-him bloody grimace and his attempts to cope with his physical injuries via booze and getting high. Alice is his opposite, played by Anderson as an outwardly calm independent person who sets out to get her revenge via any means necessary. There is in interesting scene half way through the film where she asks Adam to tell her what to do, and while at the time it felt odd, a little thought seems to suggest it was her way of making Adam part of the unfolding events, rather than be a moaning spectator. It was truly interesting to see how Alice and Adam interact with each other. I suspect that had the events of that night not happened, they would have just been two bodies up for a one night stand and then parted ways. They are thrown together by the awful event, but even that event is later explained by more moral shades of grey.

The film revels in tempting the characters to cross various “lines” and then, through their behaviour and sometimes erratic actions, it can be seen that they pay a very real price for pushing themselves on, possibly becoming like the very men they despised at the start. It is of great credit to Dyer and Anderson that they play this game of moral brinkmanship incredibly well. If you like surprising films acted very well, with a dash of bloody revenge and nudity, give Straightheads a try.

Rating : 5/5

IMDb
 

The review can also be found on Generic Movie Blog Uk here.

Contact Me

Dark Review - Thirst

Thirst Review

By Casey Douglass

Directed by : Chan-wook Park
Written by : Seo-Gyeong Jeong , Chan-wook Park , Émile Zola
Starring : Kang-ho Song , Ok-bin Kim , Hae-suk Kim , Ha-kyun Shin

Whenever some kind of plague or disease is cutting a swath through mankind, one of the questions rarely answered by movies is “How would it effect a vampire?”
Most movies seem to view the vampirism itself as the plague, so in this respect, Thirst is giving you two afflictions for the price of one, in the manner of some backward pharmacy. Thirst follows the story of Sang-hyun (Kang-ho Song), a Catholic priest who volunteers himself for experimentation at an out-of-the-way institute that is trying to find a cure for the Emmanuel Virus that is proving fatal for anyone who is unlucky enough to catch it. It consists of blisters that grow and split, gradually ravaging the body of the poor sod that has contracted it, slowly spreading inwards until it affects the muscles and organs. Sang-hyun takes to it like a martyr, hoping it will bring him closer to God. He whiles away his time writing optimistic letters to his old patients and playing his flute, until the day blood gushes from the end of the instrument and he is rushed into surgery. He dies on the operating table and is covered over with a sheet. Before the doctors can even turn away, his croaky voice seeps out from beneath the white covering, reciting a prayer that becomes the last link to his old faith throughout the rest of the film. He has awoken a vampire, and as you can imagine, this is quite an awkward position to be in for a Catholic priest.

It isn’t all bad though, as the vampirism holds the EV virus in check, and also grants him the usual powers and desires that go hand in hand with any blood sucking story. The story is then set up for the conflicts and clashes of desire that are inevitable. It is very interesting to see the way he rigidly holds to his Catholic faith, but as the seriousness of the situation impinges on his mind, he loosens his hold a little. Things come to a head even more when he meets Tae-ju (Ok-bin Kim), the wife of his childhood friend. She is very unhappy in her life, running barefoot at night in shear exasperation and fantasy of what it would be like to really run away. Her restlessness and Sang-hyun’s identity crisis draw them together as two people unhappy with their place in the world and seeking answers.

Thirst is a very nice take on the usual vampire style film. There are no incisors that emerge with a clicking noise, nor are there any of the really fantastical abilities such as shape-shifting or mind control. This really helps the film in my opinion as it lets you concentrate on the human aspect a little more, and shows that no matter how powerful you might become, your frailties and weaknesses will still accompany you. The scenes of the film itself are shot in quite a dark way, much of the film taking place at night or in dim rooms. There are some scenes which are in brighter areas and they do add a nice contrast, and later in the film, one particularly violent scene takes place in the brightest room of the whole film, which I think sets up a nice comparison with the issues of dark and light and good and evil that the film plays with.

Thirst is a great watch and I think it is a film I will carry with me for a while, which is usually a good sign that a film appealed to me. If you enjoy subtitled films and vampires, it doesn’t come much better.

Rating: 5/5

IMDb

My review is now up on Generic Movie Blog UK here.

I had hoped to have a short story up today but it's not quite ready yet so needs to bake awhile longer.

Contact Me

Dark Review - Parker

Parker Film Review

By Casey Douglass

Directed by : Taylor Hackford
Writers : John J. McLaughlin , Donald E. Westlake
Starring : Jason Statham , Jennifer Lopez , Michael Chiklis , Wendell Pierce , Nick Nolte

Parker is a high-concept sci-fi thriller with a rich philosophy and epic scenes of majestic beauty. Sorry if that made you choke and dribble coffee down your chin…I am joking! Do you need a tissue?

Parker is the usual kind of Jason Statham movie, and that doesn’t have to be a bad thing. Parker (Statham) is a thief with more highly developed morals than his contemporaries.

The film starts with him striding into a fairground dressed as a vicar, complete with grey wig and dog collar, although looking more like he might just punch someone rather than offer spiritual support. He and the other four men in his team are pulling a job, and the first fifteen minutes of the film sets the pieces in position and then slowly knocks them down. After which comes the almost inevitable cock-up, followed by the double cross which sees Parker fighting for his life and mightily pissed off he is too.

From this moment on, the film is about him getting what is owed to him, tinged with the chance for some brutal payback. While trying to track down his old team, he crosses paths with Leslie Rogers (Lopez), a failing real-estate agent that he hoodwinks into showing him around. She inadvertently hels him find where his gang are holed up as they plan for their next big score. This dynamic changes when she reveals herself to be more intelligent than he takes her for and sees through his fake papers and identity. The rest of the film sees them as active partners, her the bumbling newbie, while he has to tolerate her mistakes.

The film progresses at a nice pace, the gaps between one bout of violence and the next never seeming long. When it does happen, it is usually swift and brutal, although in this particular film Statham ends up trying to pull a John McClane, seeing just how beaten and injured he can be and still serve up retribution. There is also a nice brand of humour that popped up in unexpected ways which helped lighten the film a little.

I enjoyed the plot of the film, although there were the usual few question marks over some of the characters. Hurley (Nolte) plays Parker’s mentor and father to his girlfriend. He is conveyed as an old hand when it comes to shady dealings. Unfortunately, his part seemed particularly throw away, there to nudge Parker onto the job that becomes his downfall, and as occasional moral support. He then disappears less than half way into the film. Parker’s girlfriend is also quite a flimsy character, there to patch him up when he is injured, and to just weigh on his mind at times to show that he is a caring guy. There is also the well-known scene from the film trailer, that shows Lopez stripping in front of Statham so that Parker can see that she isn’t wearing a wire. Fair enough, the plot gives a reason for it, but when you see it you can’t help thinking it was put in to show that J.Lo still has it and to draw in a few more male cinema goers.

I couldn’t help but feel that if you added a nice black Audi and a little more driving, you could have happily put the word “Transporter” in the title, next to a number four. The character Parker is incredibly like Frank, both obsessed by morals and rules, both unwilling to see innocents get hurt, and both dressing in similar ways. I do enjoy Statham’s films, and the similarity didn’t particularly bother me. If you aren’t really a fan of Statham, I am not sure this film will win you over. I enjoyed the film for what it was, an interesting tale punctuated with brutal fights and the odd exhilarating stunt.

Rating : 3/5

IMDb

Review also on Generic Movie Blog UK here.

Contact Me

Dark Review - Ghost Dog

Ghost Dog Review

By Casey Douglass

Directed and written by : Jim Jarmusch
Starring: Forest Whitaker , John Tormey , Cliff Gorman , Henry Silva , Isaach De Bankolé , Tricia Vessey , Camille Winbush .

Finding a philosophy to live by is something that has become quite important to me over the years. If you don’t have a vague idea of where you want to go and how you are going to get there, you can end up bouncing from one distraction to another for the rest of your life, and ultimately being at the whim of outside forces. Having a semblance of an idea about the kind of person you want to be, and how you would like to react to certain situations can become invaluable in times of hardship. I have yet to find my own life philosophy, be it set out by others (which just seems wrong to me) or self-created. Ghost Dog is someone who has certainly found his.


Ghost Dog (Whitaker) is the story of a man who chooses to follow the writings of Hagakure: The book of the Samurai. Saved from almost certain death when he was younger by Louie (Tormey), a passing gangster type, Ghost Dog returns years later offering his services as a hitman, taking Louie as his Master, and adopting the position of Retainer himself. The film begins with Ghost Dog carrying out a job for Louie, which is complicated by the unexpected presence of the mob boss’s daughter. Ghost Dog becomes the focus for the ire of the whole consortium and must juggle his feelings of loyalty to his Master and his actions against his master’s masters, so to speak.

The Hagakure infuses Ghost Dog’s way of life in almost every respect, be it the manner he chooses to be paid on only the first day of autumn or the way he communicates with Louie via pigeon. This guiding hand gives Ghost Dog much tranquillity, and also litters the film with many contrasts and comparisons between the old giving way to the new. He lives in a shack on the roof of a tall brick building, his pigeons lofted next to him. The shrine he bows to and lights incense on overlooks a large chimneyed industrial complex, which is a lovely contrast that nestles against his own practices. This theme of old giving way to new also appears in other aspects of the film. The mob organisation has fallen on hard times, their income falling and properties up for sale, a sorry-looking room of elderly gangsters, their financial debts mirroring the moral debt of gratitude Ghost Dog owes to Louie.

The above might make Ghost Dog sound like a forlorn loner who has little to do with humanity besides the people he eradicates, but this is not the case. He chooses a solitary life but he is not cold to people, he just doesn’t mix with them more than necessary. His best friend is Raymond (Bankolé), a French ice cream seller who speaks as little English as Ghost Dog does French. Yet, the two of them share a bond that seems to get past this apparent impediment, one often knowing what the other means, even if they aren’t certain they have got it right. They also look out for each other and both share the “outsider” status in society. As the film progresses, Ghost Dog chats to a young girl called Pearline (Winbush) and shares his books with her. He also introduces her to Raymond, the ice cream truck and park becoming the focal point of their interactions. These are the scenes in the film which give the most insight into Ghost Dog’s character.

Ghost Dog also enjoys life’s simple pleasures, and the film has a great pacing that conveys this in a relaxing yet intelligent way. Whether he is driving a stolen car listening to a CD with the window down observing the night-life of the slums around him, or sleeping peacefully on the rooftop surrounded by his pigeons, he doesn’t let the big stuff get in the way of the truly soul nourishing stuff, even if it is sometimes to his own detriment. One scene in the film sees him missing the perfect long-range sniping shot just because nature intrudes.

The film has a bitter-sweet ending that stays true to the themes that have emerged during its roughly two-hour duration, the final scenes holding the most emotion seen in the entire film. As the credits roll, you feel that you have truly had a glimpse into someone’s life, what makes them tick, what they care about, and how they view the world. You also see the pros and cons of living your life by a rigid doctrine, and the peace of mind and dangers that go along with it. Ghost Dog is one of my favourite films, if not the favourite. I hope if you watch it, you will enjoy it as much as I have.

Rating: 5/5

IMDb

My review is also here on Generic Movie Blog UK.

Contact Me

Dark Review - Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters

Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters Review

By Casey Douglass

Director and Writer: Tommy Wirkola
Starring: Jeremy Renner , Gemma Arterton , Peter Stormare , Famke Janssen

“This swamp witch used to have power, respect and numerous children to eat. Now, she fights over skinny orphans and must always keep a wary eye out for Hansel and Gretel; two witch hunters who between them have severely reduced the local population. Just two pieces of gold can change the life of this poor witch for the better!” I can just imagine this advert appearing on the TV while people are eating their dinner. While accurate in its content, anyone with half a brain would know that it was merely spread as a tool of witch propaganda, hoping to get people to drop their guard and feel pity for the old hags.


Hansel (Renner) and Gretel (Arterton) certainly live up to their moniker of Witch Hunters in this reworking of the old Grimm fairytale. Abandoned in the dark forest by their father (for their own good dontcha know), they stumble across that oh so famous house, you know the one, constructed from sweets and cakes and all things that make your teeth scream and your stomach gurgle. This is where they encounter their first witch; no mild-mannered old lady either but a hideous razor toothed crone with shrieking voice and a glowing wand. This part of the tale follows the usual route, with an impromptu cremation of the witch and Hansel and Gretel standing next to each other panting.
The traditional fairytale ended not long after this point, but H&G:WH is just getting started. The main title credits roll, the montage of medieval art showing brother and sister culling witches as they slowly grow older, taller, and more bloodthirsty. The story catches up with them many years later, when both are adults and more than a little jaded with the world and their fame. They take on the role of vermin exterminators, called in to trouble spots by mayors and villages struggling with disappearing children and outbreaks of witch phobic behaviour. The village in this film is under an extra special threat however, and the outcome has more than purely business implications for the two siblings.

The film progresses at a very nice pace, never too long between the odd humorous moment or expletive, and the action of actually dispatching the witches in suitably gory ways. The film is rated 15 and I would say it sits nicely in that bracket. The combat is fast paced and inventive, and the resulting splattering of gore suitably over the top to be enjoyable and a little humorous. There are some great set pieces to keep the carnage ticking along, and as the film progresses, the odd new creature or variation of witch all help to hold the interest.

The reworking or improving of the old Grimm tale is very clever, with a few twists that you can see coming easily, and others which might genuinely catch you unawares. I went to see this film expecting a bit of fun wrapped in some gore, and what I got was an appreciation of how you can adapt and expand on existing stories while keeping to the spirit of them, if not the letter.
If there are negatives about the film, I am sorry to say that it falls on the acting. Renner and Arterton both maintain steely expressions for the most part, the depth of emotion seemingly limited to the odd scream or grimace of pain. Peter Stormare as the sheriff plays an almost comedic role, even though he is also meant to be a nasty piece of work. Famke Janssen is very good as the most powerful of the witches who can appear more human if she wishes. Even appearing as human, Jansen gets a lovely sinister quality to her expressions and speech, which only improve more when she is in full-on hag mode.

The score for the film is your typical olde-worlde type fantasy fare, functional but not something to rush out and track down. The odd piece of heavier rock also features, with a great track over the end credits by the now sadly defunct band Animal Alpha.

The only other thing that I felt was an issue was the 3D. It did its job well in some scenes, at the most, you could say it didn’t get in the way. Many of the earlier scenes are amongst dark trees at night, and the 3D there was pretty woeful. Films like Prometheus were very dark also, yet the 3D in that was uniformly good, in my humble opinion. A minor gripe.

I liked Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters. I went thinking it would at the least be a bit of fun, and was pleasantly surprised by the twists and turns that the story took. The occasional humour and over the top gore lent it a lighter feel, and the setting and creatures were for the most part very good, if you can overlook the odd bit of tame looking CGI.

Rating: 3.5/5

IMDb

Also posted on Generic Movie Blog UK here.

  

Contact Me

Dark Review - Franklyn

Franklyn Review

By Casey Douglass

Written and Directed by : Gerald McMorrow
Starring : Eva Green , Ryan Phillippe , Sam Riley , Bernard Hill

Reality is a fickle thing. No sooner do you think that you have it pinned down, then something comes along that makes you question it, or some bright spark tells you that there are many realities, and everyone’s reality is unique to them. Well if that is true, in my reality, there is no place for line-dancing, Justin Bieber or four quid popcorn at the cinema. However, whatever reality you reside in, Franklyn is a film that plays with this kind of brain twisting issue with great skill.


The film is set in two superimposed realities, the more mundane and rainy high-rises of London, and the fantastic vistas of Meanwhile city. It follows the story of four people who wend their way through the winding streets, all suffering with great feelings of loss and sorrow, and all clinging to some manner of psychological crutch to help them live through the pain. The four are entwined from the very start of the film, the tangled threads of their solitary lives pulling tighter together as the film progresses.

One of the characters is firmly entrenched in Meanwhile city, Jonathan Preest (Phillipe). He walks the streets a persecuted man as he is the only inhabitant of Meanwhile city who has neither faith nor religion. Meanwhile is chock-full of all kinds of religions, from the familiar to the more extremely farcical. There is one based on the manual for a washing machine and another based on the noble art of the manicure. The Ministry (read as the people in charge) is forever on his tail as he tries to find and kill the head of a shadowy organisation called Duplex Ride, an individual that is ironically known as the Individual. This shows one of the many philosophical questions laced throughout the film. A lone guy with no religion in a city of faithful sheep, wanting to kill the one guy known as the Individual. The whole film is littered with clever thought-provoking devices like this. As far as character realisation, Phillipe plays Preest with suitable menace, his lines snarled out through a face (when not wearing Preest’s mask) that he manages to keep reasonably emotionless, yet still somehow conveying threat.

The other three characters are more firmly in London, although each has at least one aspect of their life that could be seen as a bit “Meanwhilish”.


Emilia (Green) is an art student who frequently orchestrates her own suicide attempts as a means to reach out for something, some kind of loving contact or resolution to her internal struggles. Eva Green plays her so well; she is a master of mercurial emotions sliding across her features, all somehow ending in a look of trapped sadness. Eva Green also plays another character in the film who is the mirror opposite of Emilia. This character is light and airy and all of the things Emilia is not.

Milo (Sam Riley) is suffering from rejection as he is jolted at the altar on the day of his wedding rehearsal. Cue lots of forlorn thousand yard stares and kicked puppy expressions from Riley as he plunges into the feelings aroused by everything falling away from him, taking sanctuary in his friends and the familiar.

The final character is Peter Essa (Hill), a man of religion and curator of a church. He is searching for his son, in more ways than one, and his crutch is his unwavering faith in God. Hill plays Essa very well, making him come across as humble and put upon by the world. He is also good at getting some of Essa’s naivety to shine through when dealing with some of the harsh realities of what is going on.
The stories of these four flirt with each other throughout the film, often visiting somewhere in Meanwhile city as a passenger with Preest, then some time later seeing the corresponding part of London with one of the others. In this way the film imparts meaning that otherwise might be lost. It does leave a fair few head scratching moments that aren’t explained though, which I like very much.

One scene sees Milo follow someone he thinks he knows into the basement level of a building. He hears children laughing and playing, yet when he walks into the room, it is full of old men playing dominoes. I am not sure what that means; maybe it was Meanwhile intruding on London. Who knows. There is also a strange cleaner who all three of the London-based characters talk to at one point or another. He seems to know what is going on, and his words prod them onto different paths. This isn’t really explained at the end of the film, you are just left to draw your own conclusions, which again, I quite like.

The threads of each tale come together quite spectacularly at the end of the film, where for good or ill, some things are resolved and others don’t really end very well.

The film itself is shot very well. Meanwhile city is a true metropolis with ram packed buildings reaching for the sky, large statues and figure heads looming over them in a sort of Gothic splendour. The characters are all shot with a slightly different colour palette which lends their scenes deeper emotion and novelty, and the score is suitably orchestral, varying from the grand theme of Meanwhile city to the quiet mundanity of urban London. Each element plays with the others to produce something that just feels very right.

It is a truly great film, one that hasn’t had nearly enough coverage in my opinion. I managed to miss this at the cinema, and it is rare to see it on Blu-ray or Dvd in shops nowadays. It is a little easier to purchase online but not by much. I think this is a great shame. I can only wonder if it sells any better in Meanwhile city.

Rating: 5/5

IMDb

Also available to read here on Generic Movie Blog UK.

 Contact Me

One Year On

My blog is one year old today. I wasn't sure if I would still be posting to it a year down the line. Going by my past attempts at blogging/website making, the chances were slim. Here we are though, so I must be doing something right, and it must have ensnared some small part of me as things I don't enjoy soon get dropped pretty quickly.

There were some spells where my posts became intermittent, nearly always health related, so I won't be beating myself up over that, even though it irked me at the time.

Over the year, I have broadened my writing to give myself a little more variety in the kind of things I write. I enjoy writing fiction, but the addition of the odd review here and there gives me the option of something a little different. I still intend to stick with the darker side of entertainment as that just appeals to me. I did notice that any fiction I submit as horror/dark gets less page hits than something I submit as cross-genre, so I am not sure if my choice of genre is making things more difficult for me. Thinking about it, I don't really know many horror readers, on or offline, so this year might be more about finding where they are hiding, going into their lairs and seeing whats what.

I feel that I have spread my leathery wings a little more, having a couple of websites agree to the odd contribution from me, namely Geek Syndicate and Generic Movie Blog. I really don't mind writing for free, it is just nice to be part of something and for others to value my writing. Publishing my own stuff on my blog is fine, but having other people want my writing on their site, it's a nice step up.

This year, I hope to reach more people with my writing, maybe find a few more Twitter followers and maybe get the odd thing published in traditional media, even if they are just the letters page of a magazine or the odd competition win. At the least I would like to increase my output, health permitting.

Thanks to Paul Brewer for his support as well, and for his diligence in letting hardly any of my posts stay on zero comments. I appreciate it mate :). Thanks also to everyone else who I have interacted with or come to know a little. A few other shout outs go to Barry Nugent at Geek Syndicate, Kat at Generic Movie Blog, and Paul D.Dail . If I missed anyone I am sorry, it doesn't diminish my thanks to you too.

Heres to another year.

Casey

 Contact Me