This Guy at the Movies

“It Ends with Us”

Genre: Romantic drama

Country: United States

Directed by Justin Baldoni

Written by: Christy Hall, adapted from the 2016 bestselling romance novel of the same name by Colleen Hoover

Starring: Blake Lively, Justin Baldoni, Brandon Sklenar, Isabela Ferrer, Alex Neustaedter, Jenny Slate, Hasan Minhaj, Amy Morton, Kevin McKidd

Rated: PG-13 for domestic violence, sexual content, some strong language

Run time: 2 hours, 10 minutes

Release date: In theaters Aug. 8, 2024

Where I saw it: Yes Cinema and Café in Columbus, Ind., on a Monday late afternoon, $6, about 20 other people in the theater

What it’s about: Lily Blossom Bloom (Lively) moves to Boston after her father’s death to open a flower shop. She meets Ryle Kincaid (director Baldoni), a handsome, wealthy neurosurgeon, and they eventually embark on a relationship that becomes volatile. In the meantime, Lily crosses paths with high school sweetheart Atlas Corrigan (Sklenar), who owns a nearby upscale restaurant. What will Lily, whose father (McKidd) abused her mother (Morton), do when Ryle gets physical? And how does Atlas figure into the situation?

What I liked about it: “It Ends with Us” hangs on the performance of Lively, who (despite many in the online movie-discussing community pondering if she was miscast because she is 36 and the Lily in the book is a 20-something) delivers a performance that is just right for this type of movie. She has a certain easygoing charisma about her, and the audience will root for her to make the right decisions. She also is convincing in the most dramatic parts but never lets Lily become too heavy because, despite the story being about domestic abuse, it’s also a romance novel film. Ferrer is the standout among the rest of the cast as the teen version of Lily and resembles Lively so much in appearance, manner and voice that it’s not obvious the story is flashing back the first time it does so. Many of the stronger portions of the movie are the flashbacks, which also star Neustaedter as the young Atlas. Their scenes beg for a separate movie about their story. … The scenes of abuse could have been grittier, and great pains were taken to make them ambiguous at first (though much of the audience will already know what is going on based on the book and the trailer), but slightly toning down those moments seems to have been a shrewd filmmaking decision since doing so lets the film appeal to a romance novel sort of crowd while still making its heavier points. That paid off in the movie having made $50 million domestically during its opening weekend. … Many have complained about the lengthy 130-minute running time, and though “It Ends with Us” isn’t exactly fast-paced, it didn’t seem painfully long.

What I didn’t like about it: While this movie is (obviously) enjoying broad appeal, it could have (and perhaps should have) delved more into the abuse angle. Also, Lily’s relationship with her mother should have been explored more. Morton’s Jenny is a stereotypical nagging movie mom when, as the victim of domestic abuse, she should have been so much more. The only scene in which Lily broaches the topic with her mother comes late in the going, with Jenny telling her daughter she stayed because it was easier than leaving and that she loved Lily’s father. Not going deeper than that felt like a missed opportunity. … Any other complaints would be about the usual romance story clichés (including the predictable story arc) and Hallmark movie qualities, and (conceding that this is based on a popular romance novel) one wonders if this story could have been more effective if the key players weren’t rich and beautiful people (and they are because that feeds into romance fantasies). … Lily’s love interests fit too easily into slots, with Ryle being the jerk that she stays with in part because he is ridiculously handsome and ridiculously successful, and Atlas being the sensitive nice guy (who cooks, of course) who never gets the girl. If you are going to leave open the possibility of Lily and Atlas eventually being a thing, you’d better give Atlas at least one troubling quality, because the helpful nice guy would be of little interest to Lily or any woman like her.

My score: 64 out of 100

“Cuckoo”

Genre: Horror/mystery/thriller

Countries: Germany, United States

Written and directed by: Tilman Singer

Starring: Hunter Schafer, Jan Bluthardt, Marton Csokas, Jessica Henwick, Dan Stevens, Greta Fernández, Astrid Berges-Frisbey, Mila Lieu, Konrad Singer, Proschat Madani, Kalin Morrow

Rated: R for violence, bloody images, language, brief teen drug use

Run time: 1 hour, 43 minutes

Release date: Made debut at Berlin International Film Festival on Feb. 16, 2024, in American theaters Aug. 9, 2024

Where I saw it: Kan-Kan Cinema and Restaurant on the near eastside of Indianapolis, on a Sunday afternoon, $13, five other people in the theater

What it’s about: After the death of her mother, grieving teen Gretchen (Schafer) moves with her father Luis (Csokas), stepmother Beth (Henwick) and mute half-sister Alma (Lieu) to a resort in the Bavarian Alps that is overseen by Herr König (Stevens). Then lots of strange stuff happens which I would try to explain if I had understood what I had seen.

What I liked about it: “Cuckoo” is in fact cuckoo, as in crazy. It’s weird, and just keeps piling on the unsettling strangeness to the point that about halfway through I turned to my son and said, “What the f*ck is this?” During all the nonsensical happenings, which aren’t fully explained but aren’t entirely left hanging (see below), Schafer, as a teen who is fully aware that what is going on around her is off even if no one else does, and Stevens, as the diabolical type who is a jump-scare every time he just sort of shows up in a scene out of nowhere, deliver fascinating performances that hold this together about as much as it could be held together. Schafer strikes just the right balance between cynical and sensitive, her Gretchen rebellious but also concerned about what is happening to her and others around her, especially her much younger half-sister. Stevens could have let Herr become a parody of mad scientist types, but he is, while amusing, uncomfortably sinister with every bit of German (or German-accented English) that comes out of his mouth. No matter what he is up to (and we can’t be fully sure what it is), you can be assured that if he is doing it, it’s messed up. … The film makes great use of sound design and setting, with the resort remarkably sterile in a 1960s/70s European sort of way, while a human (maybe) making screeching noises not unlike a pterodactyl (maybe) is like fingernails on a blackboard. … It’s hard to say what Singer was going for thematically, but it involves families, the dynamics of second-marriage families and men trying to manipulate the reproductive process and control women’s reproductive rights. Or he was just in the mood to string together a bunch of “WTF?” moments.

What I didn’t like about it: The climactic scene was a letdown, as the first 75 percent of the film seemed to be setting up a more interesting ending. It’s as if Singer ran out of ways to keep topping himself. “Cuckoo” threatens to turn into an action movie with a shootout, and it seemed out of sync with what came before it. … Singer gives the audience bits and pieces of exposition in the final act, but it only goes so far in explaining what is going on and creates more questions than answers. Not explaining everything is a good filmmaking move, but giving cryptic explanations that only serve to confuse the matter is not. Explaining nothing was another decent option.

My score: 79 out of 100

In “This Closeness” (American; 2023; indie drama; running time 1 hour, 29 minutes; written and directed by Kit Zauhar; N/R but includes nudity, sex, language; made debut at South by Southwest festival on March 10, 2023, available on VOD and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video and Mubi), writer/director/actor Zauhar explores the power dynamics of intimacy and the longing for connection but also the ways in which we humans abuse it. A smart, minimalist, single-setting film made on a shoestring budget, it’s a mumblecore movie for Gen Z. It alternates between (too) talky and periods of quiet. Zauhar asks the audience to identify and empathize with characters who are highly unlikeable, and that can make it a challenging watch, especially when their personas get in the way of the messaging. Tessa (Zauhar) and Ben (Zane Pais) are an unmarried couple who have arrived in Philadelphia for his high school reunion. Tessa is an AMSR YouTuber with many followers but, as Ben puts it, is not an online celebrity. He is a journalist who met Tessa while working on a piece about AMSR. They have booked an apartment for their stay, and instead of finding “Lance” (who listed the place), they meet Adam (Ian Edlund), a strange, quiet young man who lives there and will be the couple’s host. Tessa and Ben find Adam weird but, little do they know, he thinks they are odd too. Cracks have formed in the couple’s relationship, made more noticeable when Ben brings home a flirty former high school classmate (Jessie Pinnick as Lizzy) after a night of drinking. Perhaps spurred by jealousy, Tessa tries connecting with Adam by giving him a sample of AMSR that includes her lightly touching his face and hair. How will Ben react to this? Will the divide in their relationship grow? Is Adam so strange as to be dangerous? Adam is the most sympathetic character by default, a young man clearly neurodivergent and one who might or might not have created his “best friend Lance.” Ben is an a-hole, one who thinks nothing of asking Lizzy where she ranks on the “slut scale.” Tessa is not happy with hers and Ben’s relationship dynamics (we know this from a call to her therapist) but stays with Ben in the hopes that she can “win” the situation. Tessa and Ben think they are intellectuals, especially when they have been drinking. The movie takes a turn to the erotic in the final act, but the characters are so off-putting that it feels like clinical sex and more power grab than pleasure. Zauhar mostly gets her points across. It’s just too bad that more tolerable characters couldn’t have made the points.

My score: 52 out of 100

“Wendy and Lucy” (American; 2008; indie drama; running time 1 hour, 20 minutes; directed by Kelly Reichardt, written by Reichardt and Jon Raymond, based on Raymond’s short story “Train Choir”; rated R for brief language, brief drug use, unsettling situations; made debut at Cannes Film Festival on May 22, 2008, available on VOD and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video and Mubi) is what Reichardt’s movies are: sparse, slow, quiet, melancholic, realistic, thought-provoking and heartbreaking. Michelle Williams, in her first of four collaborations with Reichardt (the most recent being 2022’s “Showing Up”), delivers a powerful performance that beautifully matches the tone and intentions of the movie. On the surface it might appear that not much is going on here, but Reichardt is subtly (and sometimes not so subtly) saying plenty about suffocating poverty and isolation among those for whom the American dream is a pipe dream. Williams plays Wendy, a young woman who is traveling, in a 20-year-old Honda Accord, from Muncie, Ind., to Alaska to chase a vague employment opportunity. “I hear they need people there,” she says. Her companion on the trip is her dog, Lucy. Wendy is down to just a couple of hundred dollars when she arrives in a small town in Oregon. She and Lucy sleep in her car. One morning a by-the-rules Walgreen’s security guard (Walter Dalton) tells her she can’t sleep in the parking lot and must move her car. When her Honda won’t start, the security guard helps her push it to the street. Wendy and her dog are hungry. With Lucy tied up out front, Wendy is caught shoplifting, and by the time the police process and release her, Lucy is gone. A frantic Wendy goes looking for her dog. In the meantime, a mechanic (Will Patton) informs her that her car will take $2,000 to fix and that she would be better off junking it. Will Wendy find Lucy? Can she improve her situation in a system that seems stacked against those like her? “Wendy and Lucy” is a painful watch. You, depending on your moral compass and political leanings, might side with Wendy and wish she would find one compassionate person who could help her or get just one lucky break. But you might also wonder why she would drive all the way from Indiana to Alaska for an uncertain job, or why she would steal a can of dog food instead of seeking help. The most telling lines in the film are from a soulless grocery stockboy who says, “The rules apply equally to everybody” (that’s debatable), and the mildly helpful security guard who assures Wendy the system is fixed. Expect the tear ducts to get a workout in the final act, when Wendy must make a difficult decision because her slivers of hope are slipping away. Reichardt’s use of stark realism and intimate storytelling practically dare the audience to ponder the plight of the poor and homeless. “Wendy and Lucy” was released as America was about to slip into the Great Recession. For many like Wendy, the situation hasn’t improved much since then.

My score: 85 out of 100

“Harold and the Purple Crayon”

Genres: Family comedy/fantasy

Country: United States

Directed by: Carlos Saldanha

Written by: David Guion and Michael Handelman, based on the 1955 children’s book of the same name by Crockett Johnson

Starring: Zachary Levi, Lil Rel Howery, Benhamin Bottani, Zooey Deschanel, Jermaine Clement, Tanya Reynolds, Alfred Molina (voice), Ravi Patel, Camille Guaty, Pete Gardner, Seth Robbins

Rated: PG for mild action and thematic elements

Run time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

Release date: In theaters Aug. 2, 2024

Where I saw it: AMC Classic Columbus 12 in Columbus, Ind., on a Thursday late afternoon, $4.89 with senior discount, one other person in the audience

What it’s about: Harold (Levi), now an adult (he’s a toddler in the source material) who lives inside a story where he can create anything by using a purple crayon, ventures into the real world with his friends Moose (Howery) and Porcupine (Reynolds), where they meet a widowed mom (Deschanel as Terri) and her imaginative young son (Bottani as Mel). But living in the real world proves challenging for Harold, who just wants to meet his “old man.”

What I liked about it: “Harold and the Purple Crayon” is a nice-enough movie and a sincere effort to expand upon the beloved source material (though that might rub some potential audience members the wrong way) and expand its reach to possibly a slightly broader demographic. This film will appeal mostly to those in elementary through junior high schools and to their parents and grandparents, for whom the book was part of their childhood. … First-time live-action feature filmmaker Saldanha seems to be striving for breezy fun while creating visual interest and delivering the book’s important themes. The animation and CGI used to make Harold’s crayon creations (and products of other characters’ imaginations) are of decent quality, thanks in part to Saldanha having been given ample budget ($40 million, and this movie doesn’t seem poised to make that back) to pull it off. … Though the final scenes venture into ridiculousness, they also provide the funnier moments, especially when they involve Gary (Jermaine Clement), a librarian and frustrated fantasy author who is the villain. … The opening sequence, done in the book’s simple line drawings, made me wish the entire movie had been made this way.

What I didn’t like about it: Little about “Harold and the Purple Crayon” rises above middling family movie fare. It was mildly funny throughout but didn’t deliver belly laughs, was a mildly engaging story that was never fully immersive, and touched on sentimentality and feel-good messaging (always believe in yourself, create the world you want to live in by imagining it) but never resonated emotionally. The mixing of live action and animation gave the movie a much busier feel than the story dictated. … Levi’s performance felt off. He’s already done the wide-eyed man-child thing before in the two “Shazam!” movies and is less convincing here than in those two films. He seemed to be reaching for a tone that wasn’t coming across in his performance. … The final act, though it did produce laughs, felt like it was trying to be the climactic scene of a Marvel movie by way of “Lord of the Rings.”

My score: 54 out of 100

“Infested” (original French title, “Vermines”) (French; 2023; horror; running time 1 hour, 45 minutes; directed by Sébastien Vanicek, written by Vanicek and Florent Bernard; N/R but includes violence, gore, language, drug use; made debut at Venice Film Festival on Sept. 21, 2023, available on VOD and streaming services, including Shudder) is great when it’s giving the audience the creeps and not so great when spiders – and I mean a LOT of spiders, from tiny to human-sized – are not in view. If spiders that can jump onto your face and chew it off and get inside you and slither out of your skin weird you out, you’ll be plenty weirded out. Director/co-writer Vanicek takes a stab at making this commentary on the socioeconomic divide and law enforcement’s treatment of the disadvantaged, and he tries too hard to tack on sentimentality, especially in the final act, when all we want to see is scary spiders. Kaleb (Théo Christine) is a young man who lives with his sister (Lisa Nyarko as Manon) in an apartment that was owned by their deceased mother. The building is huge and looks slick from the outside but is a slum. No one who lives there seems to have a job; Kaleb, who is polite and helpful, makes a living by selling expensive sneakers on the illegal market when he isn’t smoking weed. He also collects bugs, and one day he buys a small spider from a local bodega. The spider, which was captured in a desert in the Middle East, quickly gets out and, well, that’s not good. Though a single spider, it starts laying eggs, and soon there must be something like 100,000 spiders in the building. And, because of something to do with Darwin, each generation of spider is larger. Will Kaleb and the other tenants make it out alive? Probably not, since the evil police have quarantined the building and closed it off. It’s hard to say what is more frightening: hundreds of tiny spiders crawling inside of victims; dozens of human head-sized spiders in webs lining a hallway; or a human-sized spider that is blocking the path of a car. “Infested” — which is loud, hyperactive and profanity-laced with a rap score — loses steam in the third act, when Vanicek tries to frame the police as the worst creatures and ties up storyline loose ends with forced emotion. The strongest emotion in “Infested,” though, is fear.

My score: 63 out of 100.

***

“Eight Legged Freaks” (originally titled “Arac Attack”) (American; 2023; horror/comedy; running time 1 hour, 39 minutes; directed by Ellory Elkayem, written by Elkayem and Jesse Alexander; rated PG-13 for some violence, brief sexuality, language; in theaters July 17, 2002, available on VOD and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video) is, as my son put it, the “Sharknado” of its time. But with spiders because sharks don’t have eight legs. Like “Sharknado,” “Eight Legged Freaks” is ridiculous by design. Though Elkayem and co-writer Alexander weave in obligatory plot points (like a forced romance), this movie is nearly all spiders all over the place all the time. No one involved seems to be taking this seriously, and with good reason. Is it scary? No, not really. Is it gross? Sometimes. Is it funny? Yeah, mostly. Is it entertaining? Certainly. Chris McCormick (David Arquette) has been away from the ironically named Prosperity, Ariz., for about a decade. A rugged loner who (of course) drives a vintage pickup truck, Chris is back in town because his deceased father had said the mines the family owns (the ones that went dry and left Prosperity not at all prosperous) had gold in them. Unbeknownst to the simple town folk, the crooked mayor (Leon Rippy as Wade) has been playing a game of hide the ooze in the mines. When a few barrels of said radioactive waste make their way into a local creek that just so happens to be near a place where a weirdo (Jay Arlen Jones as Leon) keeps spiders … well, you can guess the rest. The spiders are mutating by the minute and growing ever larger, and that’s a problem for Prosperity. What will the locals do, and will their saving grace have anything to do with the copious amounts of explosive methane gas in those mines? You bet it will. Arquette, at the time, was the only big name in the cast (which also included a teen Scarlett Johansson pre-stardom), and his performance is all over the map, from disinterested to way over the top. All the performances would have earned Oscars had no other movies been made in 2002 and the academy felt compelled to give away the statuettes anyway. The restoked old flame between Chris and Sheriff Samantha Parker (Kari Wuhrer), possibly the most attractive woman to ever work in law enforcement, is just sort of there so that there can be a kiss during the climactic scene. No effort is made to build tension or hide the spiders, who are hilarious as they bound around while chasing young punks on dirt bikes in the desert. Spiders crawling out of a hose and into a man’s mouth, on the other hand, is a real “yuck” moment. “Eight Legged Freaks” loses points for not being an indie “B” movie but a big studio production with a big budget ($30 million, more than $52 million in today’s dollars) pretending to be a “B” movie. That’s not to say you can’t be ridiculous with big studio money behind you, because this certainly is.

My score: 67 out of 100.

I have watched 11 of M. Night Shyamalan’s 16 feature-length films (his output includes the 1992 independent drama “Praying with Anger,” which never received a wide release; and the 1998 dramedy “Wide Awake,” which got a limited release only after Shyamalan’s high-profile sale of the spec script to “The Sixth Sense”). Here’s how I rank them from bottom to top, with each film’s domestic box-office haul and the critics’ and audiences’ scores from Rotten Tomatoes:

11. “Lady in the Water” (2006), $42.3 million, 25/49

10. “Old” (2021), $48.3 million, 50/53

9. “Glass” (2019), $111million, 37/66

8. “The Village” (2004), $114 million, 44/57

7. “Knock at the Cabin” (2023), $35.4 million, 67/63

6. “Trap” (2024), estimated $16 million on opening weekend, 47/64 (as of Aug. 4, 2024)

5. “The Visit” (2015), $65 million, 68/52

4. “Signs” (2002), $228 million, 75/67

3. “Split” (2016), $138 million, 78/79

2. “Unbreakable” (2000), $95 million, 70/77

1. “The Sixth Sense” (1999), $293 million, 86/90

“Trap”

Genres: Psychological thriller/crime drama/music

Country: United States

Written and directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Alison Pill, Hayley Mills, Jonathan Langdon, Mark Bacolcol, Marnie McPhail, Kid Cudi, Russ, Marcia Bennett, Vanessa Smythe, Lochlan Logan, M. Night Shyamalan

Rated: PG-13 for some violent content and brief strong language

Run time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

Release date: In theaters Aug. 1, 2024

Where I saw it: VIP Legacy 9 in Greenfield, Ind., on a Friday early evening, $7.75 with senior discount, about 25 other people in the theater

What it’s about: When a man (Hartnett as Cooper) who is a serial killer (known as “the Butcher”) takes his unknowing teenage daughter (Donoghue as Riley) to a pop concert starring Lady Raven (Saleka Shyamalan), he soon realizes he has walked into a trap designed to catch him and tries to hatch a plan to get out of the arena. 

What I liked about it: The first half. It’s a fun (and cheesy), briskly paced, tense (but dotted with humor) thriller that recalls similar films from the 1990s. The arena setting is huge and is filled with thousands of people (including a suffocating police presence) who can either help or hamper Cooper’s efforts. And much of it is shot from the point-of-view of our killer, with director/writer Shyamalan daring the audience to root for the guy, as much as you can root for a serial killer (and that’s revealed early on and was given away in the film’s trailers). It’s a fascinating game of cat-and-mouse, with Cooper seemingly a step ahead of everyone except an FBI profiler (Mills) who has had success catching guys like the Butcher. … Hartnett, who was a thing many years ago (from the late 1990s through the 2000s), is back in a leading role, and he’s a fun watch as he walks a tightrope between likeable middle-aged dad and secret vicious killer. Shyamalan serves up plenty of shots of Hartnett’s face (and sometimes just part of his face) up tight, and Hartnett has a way of conveying a sociopath’s niceness that is given away by evil (and even sadness) in his eyes. He and Donoghue enjoy a comfortable chemistry; they seem like they really are a dorky dad and pop star-obsessed teen. … Shyamalan makes a couple of wise choices here. Though “Trap” includes a couple of twists (and they are good ones), it never feels as if it is building to that one, big, possibly cringey Shyamalan reveal. And his penchant for including melodramatic segments of exposition here is limited to just a few lines. By Shyamalan’s standards, this is straightforward moviemaking. … Real-life rapper Kid Cudi has a hilarious turn as a demanding performer called “the Thinker.”

What I didn’t like about it: Though it didn’t drop off as much as I feared, the second half, when the story leaves the arena, is the weakest, and it started to make the film seem long, especially since Cooper proves so elusive that it’s comical. Hartnett’s charm also wears thin as he starts behaving more like serial killer than average dad. … “Trap” has too much of the writer/director’s daughter, Saleka Shyamalan, and, yes, it feels like nepotism. A musician in real life, she wrote and performed her own songs, which sounded good enough to someone who doesn’t listen to much of today’s dance-centric pop music. But the film includes a lot of songs, and it starts seeming like a concert playing out in real time. And then Saleka, suddenly, takes on a more prominent role after the music ends, and she is, to put it kindly, not a great actor. Or a good one.

My score: 77 out of 100

No movie is more emblematic of the enigmatic output (16 films over 32 years) of filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan than “The Village” (American; 2004; period thriller/psychological horror; running time 1 hour, 48 minutes; written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan; rated PG-13 for violence, frightening situations; in theaters July 30, 2004, available on VOD and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video). It’s a great film until … it isn’t. And when it falls apart, the great film you thought you had watched up until the Shyamalan trademark twist (actually, this has two) also crumbles. To be fair, “The Village” has much going for it, with plenty of the necessary pieces for the kind of filmmaking that stands the test of time. The cinematography of the legendary Roger Deakins is at times breathtaking, and Shyamalan has a real eye for framing and use of depth of field. The sweeping score of James Newton Howard, punctuated by the haunting violin work of soloist Hilary Hahn, was nominated for a Best Original Score Oscar. The performances are a mixed bag, but the cast features big hitters – Joaquin Phoenix, Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt among them — who deliver in a big way (one of Shyamalan’s greatest gifts as a director is coaxing great performances out of his actors). And Shyamalan, a little more pessimistic than normal, is sincere in his desire to make this an allegory about the U.S. government ramping up its reach to “protect” us from “outsiders” following the 9/11 attacks. But he is trying so hard to be serious that it all ends up being sort of silly. And the allegory works, kind of, but doesn’t. That might not make sense. But this is a movie that, like much of what would follow from the filmmaker, doesn’t often make sense.

In 19th century (or is it?) Pennsylvania, those in a remote village live in constant fear of creatures (maybe?) that live in the surrounding woods. The villagers and “Those We Don’t Speak Of” have an uneasy truce, one that is tested mostly when the village’s restless young men go into forbidden areas. The village is run by a group of oh-so-serious elders, led by Edward Walker (Hurt). One day, after a young villagers’ death due to illness, a stoic but kind young man (Phoenix as Lucius Hunt) approaches the elders and informs them he wants to travel through the forbidden area and to “the towns” to retrieve medicine. He is denied, and the “creatures” become more aggressive, leaving skinned dog carcasses lying around and invading the village by night. Now, forget about all of that for a moment (because Shyamalan will), because Lucius is secretly in love with Edward Walker’s daughter, Ivy Elizabeth Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is vision-impaired but can “see” the color of the villagers’ auras, or something like that. Lucius and Ivy announce their engagement but, uh-oh, that angers Noah Percy (Adrien Brody), who has clear developmental and anger issues. He stabs Lucius multiple times, leaving the kind young man clinging to life. Ivy, despite her impairment, will go through the woods and retrieve life-saving medical supplies while not giving away the villagers’ secret to those in “the towns.” Does she have anything to be afraid of?

Of course not. (SPOILERS ahead if you haven’t got around to watching this in the past 20 years.) Turns out the “creatures” were a hoax perpetuated by the elders, who apparently were willing to go as far as skinning dogs to perpetuate the illusion. And the village was not part of the 19th century. It was present day, with the allegedly utopian village, founded by Walker and the other elders who had been part of a trauma support group, in the middle of a wildlife sanctuary. That’s right, it was an Amish-style cult. Say, wouldn’t anyone flying over the area notice this? Shyamalan has got you covered, as the government had, for vague reasons, issued a no-fly zone order for the area. That’s convenient. Shyamalan will ask the audience to suspend belief in other ways, like buying that a group of sociopathic liars could create a “utopia” that uses fear (is that utopia?) to keep younger folks in check and could somehow perpetuate the façade without anyone finding out.

Are you willing to just roll with this sort of thing? Because if you are, you will enjoy “The Village,” or at least forgive it. The film represented a turning point for Shyamalan, who was coming off three critically acclaimed hits, “The Sixth Sense” (1999), “Unbreakable” (2000) and “Signs” (2002) (quick, name Shyamalan’s first two movies if you can, and good luck), and was arguably at the height of his powers. “The Village,” though a huge financial success, was the first of his major release films to receive mixed reviews, and when I say mixed I mean critics (and audiences, as it turned out) either loved it or hated it (Roger Ebert famously put it on his “Most Hated” list). Time has been somewhat kind to it, though many still know the movie for no reason other than those awful twists. Shyamalan went into a deep slump after “The Village” (at least from a critical standpoint and, eventually, financial standpoint), not rebounding until the modestly budgeted found-footage horror movie “The Visit” (2015) found an audience and (mostly) friendly critics. The issues that have plagued his output in the past 20 years all are on display in “The Village.” It takes big swings, with big misses, is sincere but goofy, wonderfully and meticulously crafted, but with dialogue that only vaguely resembles the way normal humans speak, and hinges (to a fault) on turning everything you have watched upside down. If you have just recently discovered movies and want to know what that Shyamalan fellow is all about, this would be a good place to start.

My score: 64 out of 100.

“Good Boy” (Norwegian; 2022; psychological horror/romance/dark comedy; running time 1 hour, 19 minutes; written and directed by Viljar Bøe; rated R for some violence, gore, disturbing material; in Norwegian theaters June 1, 2022, available on VOD and streaming services, including Amazon Prime Video) takes a simple and strange premise and extracts it for all it’s worth. It’s a twisted, creepy ride, one of those films that will have you grimacing, exclaiming “WTF!!!” and, yes, laughing (albeit uncomfortably) throughout. It’s a slow burn that pivots on a jolting twist about halfway through, then threatens to derail (but doesn’t) as it gets violent and piles on the absurd weirdness, including that final shot. It will leave you with numerous questions, including what that was that you just watched and what it means. And it will unnerve you that it’s still residing in your head.

Christian (Gard Løkke) is a young adult who is model-level handsome and a multimillionaire. An orphan, he lives along in a spacious country home. Well, almost alone. You would think Christian wouldn’t need dating apps to meet women, but he does. He meets Sigrid (Katrine Lovise Øpstad), who seems nice enough but perhaps a tad desperate (and that’s important). With the help of alcohol, they hit it off, and he takes her back to his mansion for an overnighter. The morning after, Christian introduces Sigrid to his dog. Only that’s not a dog. It’s a man in a dog costume, and his name is Frank. He crawls on all fours, pants and eats out of a doggy bowl. So what’s the problem? Sigrid is, understandably, weirded out. But she agrees to a second date because that romcom sort of bestie (Amalie Willoch Njaastad; Norwegians sure have fun names) who knows what’s best (or not) for her  reminds Sigrid that, a) he’s model-level handsome and, b) he’s a multimillionaire. Sigrid’s willing to ignore a hundred red flags if that’s what it takes to make this work, especially when Christian explains that Frank is an old high school friend who did not have anyone else to take care of him and loves playing the role of dog. Christian, self-described as antisocial, surely wouldn’t lie, would he? Why is he taking Sigrid to his secluded vacation home? Why does he insist that she surrender her cellphone for the weekend? Why can’t the doors be unlocked from inside? What’s up with Frank, anyway? And why is he such a horny man/dog? That’s a good boy!

The concern here is that the concept would lose steam, but Bøe won’t allow it, and a compact 79-minute run time helps. The story always has one more gasp up its sleeve, right down to that final moment. What a cute little puppy! If you need meaning from a weird low-budget Norwegian horror movie laced with black comedy, a couple of the possibilities would include, a) a twisted riff on the “50 Shades of Grey” movies (hey, that nice, handsome and rich guy was named Christian, too), b) a not-so-subtle jab at people who treat their dogs as humans (only in reverse), c) commentary on the power dynamics in a relationship, with perhaps (or not?) socioeconomic implications, as in the less privileged (and that would be Sigrid and, yes, Frank) willingly submitting to the more privileged in hopes of getting metaphorical table scraps. Or, instead of pondering it (until after the closing credits), you could just be humored and made all squirmy by it. Need a pet? Maybe you’ll consider adopting a man dressed in a dog costume. Is there such a thing as human rescue dogs?

My score: 88 out of 100.