Behemoth (2020)

Movie Name/Year: Behemoth (2020)
Genre: Horror
Length: 88 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: ColourBleed Entertainment, Level 33 Entertainment, Première TV Distribution
Director: Peter Sefchik
Writer: Peter Sefchik, Derrick Ligas
Actors: Josh Eisenberg, Paul Statman, Jennifer Chruchich, Richard Wagner, Whitney Nielsen, Vadym Krasnenko, Nicole Krasnenko, Angela Nicholas, Hamilton Matthews
 
Blurb from IMDb: A desperate father will risk anything, even his soul, to save his terminally ill daughter
 

Selina’s Point of View:
When reviewing a film like this, I feel it’s important to keep one fact in mind. Behemoth was advertised not on the strength of its plot or acting, but on its low budget – high quality CGI. That tells me that the creative team knows that this film is a vehicle for the graphics, and not much else.
 
That’s how it was served to me, so that’s how I’m going to look at it.
 
As predicted, the acting is insincere and the plot is underdeveloped. (Though I did really enjoy the ending.) I’m going to ignore those aspects, though.
 
The CGI was where there was some serious promise.
 
It wasn’t perfect. There were some scenes where people got thrown and it looked like someone tossed a Stretch Armstrong into the setting. There’s also a moment where a horde of demons appears on screen and it looked like something from a 90s video game.
 

That said, when it did succeed – it was impressive. There were some demonic visuals that caused me to whistle in appreciation. At one point, the audience got a look into hell and that setting was just about flawless. There were also moments where the real-world rippled into something else, and those moments were almost always done phenomenally.
 
For most of Behemoth, I found myself shocked at how much the creative team managed to accomplish in a $65,000, self-financed, indie film. There are B-movies that I love that don’t hold a candle to this flick graphically. In that way, it is impressive.
 
Instead of giving Behemoth a score, I’m going to simply call it a pass. As a movie, Behemoth is a failure. There’s no escaping that. It accomplished what it set out to do, though. We now know what kind of quality can be accomplished on a tight budget with enough talent. I believe, with a bit more money and better actors – this could have been magical.
 
Maybe the next one will be.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – None
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 4.1/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – Pass
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: R
 
Movie Trailer:  

Inside (2021)

Streaming Services: Netflix
Movie Name/Year: Inside (2021)
Genre: Comedy, Drama, Music
Length: 87 minutes
Rating: TV-MA
Production/Distribution: Netflix
Director: Bo Burnham
Writer:  Bo Burnham
Actors: Bo Burnham
 
Blurb from IMDb: A new comedy special shot and performed by Bo Burnham, alone, over the course of the past year.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
People have been commenting on how much of a gut punch Bo Burnham’s (The Big Sick, Rough Night, Promising Young Woman) Inside is. It built up so much that I became unbearably curious.
 
I love comedy that comes with a message. George Carlin (Dogma, Mater’s Tall Tales, Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back) was insanely good at that kind of thing, and his specials are the ones I’ve always loved the most. Comedy specials that leave me thinking on deeper things are the ones I seek out. They help you swallow the truth with a spoonful of sugar.
 
There was a frightening amount of truth in Inside. It was extremely disturbing, incredibly relatable, triggering… and there was no real sugar to make it easier to swallow.
 
If someone asked me the genre of this special, I would call it an experimental stand-up comedy/horror. It’s something I’ve never seen before. It didn’t just leave me thinking, it left me sobbing – and there were times near the end that filled me with significant dread.
 
Nothing about this was expected. As much as I knew about the ‘gut punch’ aspect, nothing could have prepared me for what I watched. I really can’t stress that enough.
 
I think I’m going to be processing Inside for a very long time… but I don’t have that long to write this, so I’m going to have to work off of how I feel now. In this moment.
 

Bo Burnham created this special during 2020 – at the height of the pandemic. He filmed it in a room, alone, for a year. During that year he was intensely honest about his mental health. He highlighted how chaotically trapped the majority of us have been during this pandemic.
 
He started out by talking about systemic racism, global warming, and the uses of social and political causes to fuel capitalism. It was easy to trick myself into believing it was going to be one of his usual specials.
 
As the year started to pass, Inside showed how the isolation and the depression began to send him spiraling. The songs stop feeling like their goal was to make anyone smile. They begin to feel more like something he was doing to get the worst of it out. I don’t know if any of it was acted, but it feels like the whole thing was very genuine. It was a visual representation of how a lot of us have felt this past year.
 
Inside was brilliant… but it was not an easy watch. I will almost definitely never watch it again. I don’t think I could handle it.  
 
What’s worse is that the people who would benefit the most from watching something like this, never would.
 
All those people who didn’t take the pandemic seriously, who refused to wear a fucking mask, who played politics with peoples lives… they were responsible for dragging this whole fucking thing out longer than it ever had to be. They caused the silent casualties of COVID. The people who drowned in depression, sitting alone in their homes, trying to wait it out and do the right thing. If you’re anti-vaxxer, an anti-masker, or a science denier… the loss of those people is your fault. This could have been over in a month. Fuck you.
 

Cat’s Point of View:
I think everyone just about agrees on a singular fact: the last year has been rough. There’s so much division about everything else, but we can all come together over that one topic. I don’t want to digress into the divisiveness or anything else, though. That’s not the point.
 
In the face of all the wonky stuff in the world, I know quite a few of us have asked ourselves: Is it okay to laugh when so many are miserable? My answer is simple. Yes. It’s crucial to keep laughing and to find ways to help others find laughter. It could be the one bright spot that saves someone from the abyss of depression. You never know. It’s just good for you. It’s science!
 
What does that have to do with today’s review? Well, we’ve watched a comedy special – Bo Burnham’s Inside. It isn’t the first bit of comedy we’ve reviewed while the world’s been on fire, but it’s the first comedian’s solo special we’ve done in a while. 

It’s topical.
 
Burnham is also brilliant and this is the first comedy special he’s produced in years.
 
What I didn’t expect was for it to be cathartic. I related on another level to this production.
 

I didn’t laugh as much as I thought I would. Inside wasn’t devoid of comedic elements, but some were darker than others. Nearly everything hit on buttons pertaining to this whole pandemic quarantine crazy experience that the whole planet is gripped in.
 
The ultra-sensitive may not want to watch, but Burnham’s work really hasn’t ever been anything that catered to everyone. Further, anyone triggered by the discussion of suicide may want to give this special some careful consideration before watching. I don’t feel it’s a spoiler to explain that he didn’t spoof it, nor did he act like he was going to – there’s just some dark humor laced real talk about personal mental health and a window into the stir-crazy that quarantine could inspire.
 
Moving on!
 
Burnham is also quite musically gifted. One thing I always enjoy about his specials, regardless of my like or dislike of his content – the music is great and always entertaining. He has an amazing understanding of composition – which is evident in all aspects of this special.
 
It’s phenomenal that he also produced every last bit of this on his own at home – no crew or supporting staff at all. One element that stood out to me in this special was the lighting and how he played with it to shift perspectives and add effects.
 
I’d say Inside is definitely worth a watch, even though it isn’t for everyone – and certainly isn’t for young viewers. If you have Netflix, check it out.
 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 97%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – 94%
Metascore – 98/100
Metacritic User Score – 8.4/10
IMDB Score – 8.9/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 5/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 3.5/5
 
Movie Trailer:

The Amusement Park (1973/2021)

Streaming Services: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: The Amusement Park (1973/2021)
Genre: Drama, Horror, Thriller
Length: 52 minutes
Rating: Unrated
Production/Distribution: Laurel Tape & Film, Lutheran Film Division, Potemkine Films, Shudder
Director: George A. Romero
Writer:  Wally Cook
Actors: Lincoln Maazel, Harry Albacker, Phyllis Casterwiler, Pete Chovan, Marion Cook, Sally Erwin, Michael Gornick, Jack Gottlob, Halem Joseph, Bob Koppler, Sarah Kurtz, Aleen Palmer, Georgia Palmer, Arthur Schwerin, Bill Siebart, Gabriel Verbick
 
Blurb from IMDb: An elderly gentleman goes for what he assumes will be an ordinary day at the amusement park, only to find himself in the middle of a hellish nightmare instead.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
If you are one of those people who is known to say, “they just don’t make horror films the way they used to” – then I have good news. The Amusement Park is a new old film. I don’t mean that in a hypothetical way.
 
The Amusement Park is a lost George A. Romero (The Crazies, Night of the Living Dead, Creepshow) flick that was filmed in 1973. It was found in 2018 and restored. That means that this old film, is completely new.
 
In this movie, Romero was trying to highlight the discrimination and abuse that elders face, despite the fact that the majority of us will eventually be a part of that group. He utilized an amusement park as a way to show how people treat the oldest generation and hypothesized that it’s because of our fear. Not just our fear of death, but our fear of being in their shoes.
 
It’s a heavy subject, and one that a newer film might have glossed over with significant gore and visual effects – but that would have altered the message. It might have separated it further from reality and made it all easier to swallow. In this presentation it’s raw and anxiety inducing.
 
Without the Hollywood beautification treatment, we’re left with the bare bones of a mockumentary/drama. We see a man entering his elderly years with hope, then quickly learning exactly why he was warned against that. We watch people steal from him, ignore him, treat him like a freak, and attempt to scam him.
 
If this had been released in the 1970s, it would have had the same kind of high ratings it will have now – but there’d be one difference.
 
The knowledge that the subject still holds water 50 years later, would be lost on us.
 

Everything shown in the film is recognizable today. The images and sounds may be distinctly 1970s, but the ideas translate through time.
 
We all make fun of those prank calls where someone tells us our computer is infected, or that they’re trying to contact us about our car’s extended warranty – but those calls aren’t directed at the majority of the population. They are looking for elderly people who don’t understand technology – or current-day business practices – so they can drain them for everything they’re worth.
 
Recent movies like I Care a Lot (2021) touch on subjects like this.
 
It’s a problem that has stretched through, at the very least, a half-century (likely longer).
 
I believe Romero was looking to force his audience to face the atrocities he outlined in The Amusement Park, and I think he succeeded. So much of it was an incredible sensory overload of anxiety and existential dread… and he did it without any of the horror tropes or visuals that we are used to. There was nowhere to seek comfort. No safe scenes.
 
It’s not a movie that’s going to be for everyone, but it’s still horrifyingly effective.
 
The Amusement Park will be available for streaming by Shudder on June 8.
 

Cat’s Point of View:

When you hear the name George A. Romero, the thoughts that follow generally flash to classic horror movies featuring zombies. Romero is fairly synonymous with the horror genre, in general. With that in mind, when you tell someone that a lost Romero film has been found and remastered for release, it might just spark a tingly feeling of anticipation – well, at least it did for me.
 
The Amusement Park wasn’t exactly what I was expecting. There are minimal amounts of blood. There aren’t any shambling zombies – at least, not by the genre’s modern definition. The horror here was very real all the same. This movie just unabashedly smacks you in the face that time is ticking, and one day death will come for us all. The Amusement Park also draws an effective parallel to remind us that life can be a circus or a rollercoaster at times, and there are swindling carnival barkers around every corner.

Even though I was warned going in that this would be a psychological horror movie and disturbing at a deep and visceral level, I still underestimated how profoundly it would impact me.

 
One of my deepest fears is reaching a point that I am trapped in my own head with the world going on around me without a chance for me to interact or communicate. While that wasn’t exactly the case here, it wasn’t that far a reach to envision that sort of situation. I am left rattled in the wake of the credits.
 
The Amusement Park was quite obviously filmed many years ago, and yet the flaws in society that the film brought to light are no better today than at the time of filming. It’s sad that all of our ‘modern advances’ in the decades that have passed have not created a better environment for the aging members of our population. The divide between the haves and have-nots and that created by racial bias is pretty much just as great now as then. Those that are affluent are afforded more care and consideration than those that lack such resources.
 
I could get on a soapbox and rattle on about this for days. I’ll spare you. The point is that The Amusement Park wasn’t merely meant to be a horror movie – it is also a call to action. It’s meant to make everyone think and put themselves in the protagonist’s shoes.

I don’t think I’d be able to recommend The Amusement Park enough. Change doesn’t happen from sitting idly by. Hopefully, this movie will spur change – of course, I’m an eternal optimist and so I can only hope for the best here. At the very least, Romero's movie forces us to consider our humanity in a very stark and unflinching manner. Perhaps the true horror here is that we, as a society, seem to be caught in a vicious loop to continue this pattern...and without change, what fate awaits us all? 

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 91%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None 
IMDB Score – 7.1/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – 5/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 5/5
 
Movie Trailer:

Fried Barry (2021)

Streaming Services: Shudder
Movie Name/Year: Fried Barry (2021)
Genre: Comedy, Horror, Sci-Fi
Length: 99 minutes
Rating: NR
Production/Distribution: The Department of Special Projects, The Department of Special Projects, Enigma Ace Films, Panalux, Panavision, Zootee Studios, Shudder
Director: Ryan Kruger
Writer:  Ryan Kruger, James C. Williamson
Actors: Gary Green, Chanelle de Jager, Brett Williams, Joey Cramer, Bianka Hartenstein, Sean Cameron Michael, Steve Wall, Hakeem Kae-Kazim, Tamer Burjaq, Jonathan Pienaar, Colin Moss, Brendan Sean Murray, Ryan Kruger, Marty Kintu, Gaham Clarke
 
Blurb from IMDb: Barry is a drug-addled, abusive bastard who - after yet another bender - is abducted by aliens. Barry takes a backseat as an alien visitor assumes control of his body and takes it for a joyride through Cape Town. What follows is an onslaught of drugs, sex and violence as our alien tourist enters the weird and wonderful world of humankind. FRIED BARRY is based upon the short film of the same name, which earned 57 official selections and 12 wins at festivals around the world.
 

Selina’s Point of View:
The past hour-and-a-half has been torture.
 
Before I go too far into reviewing Fried Barry, however, I need to take a few things into account.
 
First, and foremost, I don’t tend to like experimental films. Much as I love the horror-comedy sub-genre, there are only a small amount that I’ve ever seen that claim to be ‘experimental’. I’ve liked none of them.
 
Secondly, the director didn’t set out to make a good film.
 
Director Ryan Kruger (The Man Who Beat the Man, Prime Circle: Doors, The SA Way) has stated in several interviews that he wasn’t out to make a flick that everyone would like. There are plenty of people that shy away from mainstream film-making, but his intentions go beyond even that. He sought to make something so strange and unique and ridiculous, that it becomes unforgettable by default.
 
He wanted to make a cult film.
 
I thought that was a little bold of him. Bold to assume that a ‘cult’ status is something that you can seek out from the start.
 
Cult cinema is usually eccentric. It involves original pieces that are extremely memorable and re-watchable. If that was the whole definition of the cult genre, then yeah, you could definitely predict if a project was going to hit the mark. But it’s not.
 
It’s not just about how a film is created, written, or even developed. It can be something that comes out in wide releases or just sent straight to video. What makes a cult film is how it’s received.
 

Directors make movies for specific genres. They can seek to make drama, or a horror, or a romance. They can seek to make flicks that settle into sub-genres like teen stories, superheroes, occult, etc. But it’s the audience that makes a film: cult.
 
No director can control the audience.
 
That said, I think Kruger is onto something here.
 
I’m not going to lie, I fucking hate it. There is not a god damn thing that I enjoyed about Fried Barry. Personally, I’d rather never watch any other movies than watch this one again. It was, as I said earlier, torture to sit through.
 
If I look at it through the scope of what the director was trying to do, though…
 
I think there’s a possibility he succeeded.
 
I will never be able to unsee Fried Barry. It will be scorched into my brain for eternity. It’s weird, and ridiculous and absolutely disgusting. And there are people that I know who will see it once and fall completely in love. They will adore it just for its eccentricity and the message they see behind the script. They will re-watch it and pass it along to others.
 
I will look at them strangely, but if those people actually form a cult for this film, they won’t need me or my opinion.
 
Ryan Kruger is a mad genius. Now get me out of here.
 

Cat’s Point of View:

I have stared at a blank page for a bit now, just…unsure how to put what I’m feeling into words in the wake of the credits rolling for Fried Barry.
 
One thing’s for sure, I feel fried by that movie. What the hell did I just watch?
 
Calling it a strange trip seems like it would be both too on the nose and, at the same time, the understatement of the century.
 
Let me revisit my earlier statement. There’s a second thing that’s ‘for sure’ here, as well. Kids should be nowhere near this movie. Not only is there flagrant and graphic drug use, but there are explicit sexual scenes, and some brief male nudity… among other things I can’t mention without spoilers.
 
The runtime for Fried Barry is just a little over an hour and a half, and there’s a freaking intermission break. Why? Did they run out of ideas for scene transitions? It was so brief that I’m not even sure that it was really intended to be used as such, and debated even mentioning it like it might have been a spoiler to do so. It illustrates the absolute wackiness of this film, however.

 
I think the tone is appropriately set when the opening credits list this as ‘A Ryan Kruger Thing.’  Not a movie or production. Its own creator called it a ‘thing.’
 
This is Kruger’s feature-length directorial debut, expanding a short that he had created back in 2017. I haven’t seen it, I’m afraid, so I can’t comment on whether or not this is a continuation of that story or just a revisitation to the character, etc.
 
If I had to sum this experience up in one word, it would be spastic. The story, characters, settings – everything was spazzy. I imagine that anyone watching this under the influence of mind-altering substances might get an entirely different experience – either in enjoyment or a one-way ticket to a bad trip.
 
The crazy thing is that I kind of liked it...a teeny tiny bit. I admit that grudgingly because this was frankly a horrifying and grotesque film experience that I cannot unsee. I was repulsed and drawn in by it at the same time. I spent a lot of time literally saying ‘what the fuck’ to myself, however. There were a few places I just had to laugh. Under all the insanity, there was an actual story. It surprised the hell out of me, to be honest.
 
I can tell you with certainty that I will never watch this again. This is, however, exactly the sort of movie you tell your friends about to get them to watch it in order to share the misery and see their reactions. For that reason, it very well may become a cult hit.
 
Either way, Fried Barry will be available on Shudder May 7.

Rotten Tomatoes Critic Score – 83%
Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score – None
Metascore – None
Metacritic User Score – None
IMDB Score – 6/10
 
Trust the Dice: Selina’s Rating – Pass/5
Trust the Dice: Cat’s Rating – 1.5/5
 
Trust-the-Dice’s Parental Advisory Rating: NC-17
 
Movie Trailer: