Horror Movie Mini-Reviews: She Dies Tomorrow (2020) and Exhibit A (2007)

She Dies Tomorrow (2020)

Amy is sure she's going to die tomorrow. Her friend Jane checks on her, only to also be consumed with the thought of dying tomorrow. After struggling to create some art and injuring herself, Jane goes to her sister-in-law's birthday party in her pajamas and passes along the thought to everyone. As it spreads, things spin out of control.

She Dies Tomorrow is a wonderful exercise in existential dread. How would you act if you knew with complete certainty that you would die tomorrow? Amy drowns her sorrows in booze and listens to dramatic music (Mozart's Requiem, the most dramatic music ever). Her boyfriend rages and destroys a room. Jane stumbles into her mean sister in law's birthday party in her pajamas. Others become brutally honest about their relationships or go to the doctor for help. People's behavior before and after the realization is completely different. Before, they seem relaxed and normal, but afterwards, becomes awkward and unnatural. The conversations afterwards are surreal and brutally honest.

 

This film is bound to be divisive and of course prompt the tiresome "is it horror" debate. I found it viscerally uncomfortable and full of nihilistic dread. The performances are top notch and the visuals range from mundane to vibrant and abstract. She Dies Tomorrow is a memorable experience that doesn't follow established tropes.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins 

Exhibit A

* major spoilers * 

The King family seems like any other. Judith is interested in photography and doesn't get along with her brother Joe, who's a bit of a jerk. The patriarch Andy is under pressure to get a promotion to alleviate their financial problems and move the family into their dream house. The promotion seems always on the horizon and their money problems worsen, especially after Andy decides to build a pool in the backyard. His behavior gets more and more erratic as time goes on, leading him to come home covered in blood one day. It's only the beginning of his spiral out of control.

Exhibit A is a found footage movie marked right away as evidence. Most of the footage is taken by Judith documenting her family and her next door crush (which is actually invasive and creepy). Her father seems like a good-natured, sweet guy who care about his family. The truth comes out in small doses as Andy has mood swings, starts smoking, gambles compulsively, . The scene where Judith finds trash bags full of used scratchers is absolutely chilling. He tries to repeatedly assure the family everything is fine, but everything points to the opposite. The ending sequence is horrific to watch as Andy attempts suicide and Judith saves him tearfully. Instead of thanking her, he smothers her to unconsciousness and dispatches the rest of the family. 

This film moves pretty slowly, but shows a complete picture of the family before the tragic end. Each of the family members is nuanced and harboring a secret of some kind. This is a fascinating fictionalized look at a family annihilator, a man who kills his entire family usually tied to their own failure, their desire to to start a new life, or perceived betrayals from their family members. I hadn't heard of Exhibit A before it got on Amazon Prime, but it's one of the most effective found footage movies without supernatural elements. 

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

SDCC 2016: Mysterious Galaxy Signing and Shopping Spree

Mysterious Galaxy is an amazing indie bookstore in San Diego that puts on so many awesome author events. I hadn't been to their new location since they moved, so it was a bit hard to find. However, the interior layout is so much better organized and open than the old store. Check it out if you're ever in San Diego.

Friday night of Comic Con, they held a Gail Carriger book signing for her new releases, Imprudence and Poison or Protect. The first hour or so was a loose Q&A session where fans asked questions and Gail answered as best she could. She gave her book recommendations (Uprooted by Naomi Novik and Court of Fives by Kate Elliott), character name creation (usually having some hidden meaning about the character), and easter eggs of minor characters showing up in other book series in the same world. She also spoke of her past as an archaeologist specializing in ceramics which she studied and excavated all over the world. Next year, she will be entering a writing hiatus, but will still be attending events.

Poison or Protect is a self published romance novella feature Sophronia from the Etiquette and Espionage books. Gail admitted to being a bit squeamish about writing romance especially the "nookie" scenes (her words). She decided to self publish in order to write in a shorter, harder to sell format and also continue the series with LGBT characters in perhaps a more explicit way than her publisher would like. I'm excited about it (even though romance really isn't my thing) since it delves into minor characters in her world we wouldn't normally see as closely. Needlessly to say, the signing was awesome and informative with many fun people who exchanged book recommendations with me.

On the Monday after Comic Con, I went back to the store to go on a shopping spree with my left over money. Here are all the books I bought (which I meant to take a picture of before I put them all away):

Your Brother's Blood by David Towney
The Dark Earth by John Hornor Jacobs
Dinner by Cesar Aira
Thirst by Benjamin Warner
Imprudence by Gail Carriger
Poison or Protect by Gail Carriger
The Knife of Never Letting Go by Patrick Ness
Bird Box by Josh Malerman
We Are All Completely Fine by Daryl Gregory
The Girl Who Raced Fairyland All the Way Home by Catherynne Valente
The Boy Who Lost Fairyland by Catherynne Valente
My Best Friend's Exorcism by Grady Hendrix
Disappearance at Devil's Rock by Paul Tremblay
Fellside by M.R. Carey

I love this bookstore because I never would have heard a lot of these books and authors in a bigger store or Amazon. This store focuses on mystery, horror, science fiction, and fantasy and is willing to include lesser known books alongside the big names. I hope to have you all read reviews for most if not all of these books whenever I finish them.

Horror Movie Mini-reviews: Darling and Baskin

* Darling

Darling tells the story of a young woman in presumably the 60's taking care of a large, lush mansion with a dark history. The owner warned her that the last caretaker killed herself, but she soldiers on, slowly going mad. It's a bit like Lords of Salem: very light on plot and heavy on visual style. The entire movie is filmed in black and white without a whole lot of dialog. Darling is our otherwise nameless protagonist, portrayed brilliantly by Lauren Ashley Carter. It's clear that she's a bit disturbed when she arrives at the house with a perfectly bland facade and it cracks spectacularly as the film goes one. Much of the film is driven by odd camera angles, closeups, unsettling flashes of images, and Carter's expressive face. The camera slowly follows her as she walks the streets of the city as her mental faculties deteriorate and she chooses her target. The sense of unease is enhanced by the varying score accompanying the film by Giona Ostinelli. One moment, the music is a beautiful, conventional piano score and the next it practically assaults the ears. This film isn't perfect, but it's an unsettling, beautiful, gory piece of art. The only drawback is that it is excruciatingly slow (which I didn't mind) and some of her faces made me laugh during the crazy moments. I recommend that anyone watch the film at least once whether you find it boring or slow because it's so visually striking and truly does take you on a trip to madness.

My rating: 4/5 fishmuffins

* Baskin

Baskin features a crass, corrupt team of Turkish cops answering a call and descending into hell. The first third of the film establishes their characters in a very uncomfortable to watch scene. To me, it was just as uncomfortable as the nightmarish visions late in the film. These men tell crass, horrible stories to each other involving mostly their sexual exploit until they turn that aggression onto an innocent waiter just to throw their weight around. Practically each one of them is an awful person either actively or passively allowing each other to bully innocent citizens and abuse their power as police. I felt little sympathy as they suffered. The film is an interesting mix of dream and reality. The visuals inside their personal hell were truly horrific and unexpected. I watched never knowing what my eyes would be assaulted with next. The weird dream sequences/flashbacks that interspersed the plot dragged it down and slowed the tempo. Other than that, it's a pretty solid hell flick that shows unique hell plateaux. I don't have any strong feelings about it either way.  If nothing else, it's an unique experience that I haven't seen before.

My rating: ?/5 fishmuffins