Movie Review ~ House of Darkness

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The Facts:

Synopsis: Driving home to her secluded estate after meeting at a local bar, a player out to score thinks his beautiful, mysterious date will be another casual hook-up. While getting acquainted, their flirtation turns playful, sexy, and sinister. Hoping to get lucky, his luck may have just run out.
Stars: Justin Long, Kate Bosworth, Gia Crovatin, Lucy Walters
Director: Neil LaBute
Rated: R
Running Length: 88 minutes
TMMM Score: (8/10)
Review: Playwright Neil LaBute had a healthy go in Hollywood for a time. Bursting onto the scene with the wicked workplace black comedy In the Company of Men in 1997, the director went on an intriguing spree of work that included everything from the 2000 comedy Nurse Betty to a misguided remake of The Wicker Man in 2006. Adapting his celebrated play into The Shape of Things in 2003 is still one of my favorites, as is the time capsule that is 1998’s Your Friends and Neighbors. Aside from the decidedly commercial Lakeview Terrace in 2008 and 2010’s Death at a Funeral, LaBute has mucked around in TV/streaming the past few years, having been cold-shouldered from the theater world.

I had to read the credits for House of Darkness a few times because it had been so long since I’d seen LaBute’s name attached to a project I had completely forgotten that I was missing his acerbic style. One watch of the creepy preview, though, and you could almost instantly spot the LaBute dialogue. There’s a rhythm to his work; a snap and a crackle between characters that is undeniably entertaining to sit back and enjoy. That the writer/director was again exploring the horror genre made it more intriguing.

An unexplained but unnerving opening image over the credits sends a shiver sliver up your spine before a title card reading “Once Upon a Time…” appears on the screen. It’s an excellent set-up for LaBute to drop the viewer right into the action, following a car down a dark road at the end of an evening out. Hap (Justin Long, Tusk) met Mina (Kate Bosworth, The Devil Has a Name) at a bar and offered to give her a ride home. Driving so far out of his way, he’s hoping for more than a handshake, and once they arrive at her impressively imposing castle of a home, he readily accepts her offer to come in for a drink.

Once inside, the two get to know one another better, which is when LaBute’s talent for verbal sparring comes in handy. Like him or hate him, LaBute is excellent with dialogue and treating his characters with the intelligence they deserve. Reading between the lines of passive-aggressive retorts or half-answered responses to questions, these characters hold one another accountable even when it’s against their better judgment to do so. In this way, House of Darkness feels like it could have been adapted from, or started as, a stage play because there are so many long stretches that are just Hap and Mina talking to one another without much else happening.

Of course, there are other things afoot in the house. As much as Mina says they are alone in the large manor, Hap catches glimpses of shadowy figures lurking down dark halls and other nooks but keeps shaking them off as figments of his tired imagination. To his credit, LaBute never tips his hand too far into letting the audience in on what’s happening, even though it’s not a giant leap to grasp where things are heading before the night is over. Still, there’s a hot-wire tension between the two that builds throughout, and the deeper Hap gets into it with Mina, the more we question who we should side with if things go south. 

Casting is pivotal for a small chamber piece like this, and LaBute was on target with Long and Bosworth. Long has the right chops to play an appealing if smug, proto-nice guy that still wants some physical compensation for his good deed. There’s a nastier way to play the role (see Barbarian, for example), and Long resists the urge to reveal all of those rough edges too early, giving Hap a fighting chance to stay in our good graces as long as possible. I thoroughly enjoyed Bosworth’s slinky role as a possible femme-fatale; her every move suggests someone who wants the hunt and plays with their prey before moving in for the final attack. It’s a performance that needs to build steadily, and Bosworth meters the clues out nicely. 

LaBute isn’t out to jump scare you, but there are a decent number of chilling moments in House of Darkness, enough to make you consider keeping a light on while watching it. It’s a surprisingly brisk watch, perfectly rounded out at 88 satisfying minutes. There are enough subtle touches by the actors and director sprinkled around that it might even be one you consider watching again to catch what you missed on your first trip. Maybe House of Darkness signals LaBute’s next wave is approaching, but for now, I’m content that this tour was so rewarding.

Movie Review ~ End of the Road

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The Facts:

Synopsis: A cross-country road trip becomes a highway to hell for Brenda and her family. Alone in the New Mexico desert, they have to fight for their lives when they become the targets of a mysterious killer.
Stars: Queen Latifah, Ludacris, Beau Bridges, Mychala Faith Lee, Shaun Dixon, Frances Lee McCain
Director: Millicent Shelton
Rated: R
Running Length: 89 minutes
TMMM Score: (7/10)
Review:  Like many others reviewing movies today, I grew up watching the great Siskel & Ebert duke it out weekly on their eponymous television show. I learned a lot hearing the two critics debate the pros and cons of what they enjoyed and disliked about the various new releases that came out over the years, and while their opinions were obviously coming from one perspective (white, hetero, male), I appreciate even more now that the show taught me perspective. Especially Roger Ebert. I’m not in any minority when I say that I’ve liberally lifted from him the necessity to evaluate each movie on its merits, doing my best not to compare it to anything else that week or even outside of its genre. That’s not fair to the film or the reader.

Take a film like End of the Road. This new Netflix movie starring Queen Latifah is predictable fare with a clear skeleton of previous movies cobbled together, albeit with a highly likable cast and filmmaking far above in the creativity department. It’s not going to win any awards or be the most known for on the resume of anyone involved, yet it gets the job done in the best way possible. However, it’s being released right in the middle of festival season when many critics are reviewing the first crop of potential Oscar hopefuls, so it’s bound to get compared to those films in passing. It’s not in the same league as those, nor does it intend to be. For what it is and what it sets out to do, End of the Road plots out its course and takes audiences on a fast-moving thrill ride with few bumps along the way.

Recently widowed and faced with substantial medical bills, Brenda (Queen Latifah, Girls Trip) is forced to sell her home, uprooting her children to move back to Texas and in with her mother. Understandably her teenage daughter Kelly (Mychala Faith Lee) and young son Cam (Shaun Dixon) aren’t thrilled about losing their father, home, and friends in quick succession, but they’re all pitching in to help their mom. Also coming along on the trip from California is Brenda’s brother Reggie (Chris ‘Ludacris’ Bridges, F9: The Fast Saga), who struggles to be a dependable figure in the lives of his family.

The group isn’t too far into their trek when they run afoul of some racists in Arizona (note: the tourism board of AZ will be none too pleased with this one), the first encounter with broadly drawn characters that target Brenda’s family. Shaken, they find a hotel to stay at for the night only to find themselves next door to a man murdered later that evening. As they try to save him, Reggie notices a bag hidden in the bathroom filled with unmarked bills, a bag a local drug kingpin will do anything to get back. Once he figures out that Reggie has made off with the bag, it becomes a game of cat and mouse as Brenda has to find a way to get the money back to a shadowy figure who ups the ante by stealing something of hers in return.

Making her feature film debut, director Millicent Shelton works with production designer Lucio Seixas (Chemical Hearts) and cinematographer Ed Wu to create a hyper-neon-realism of the Arizona desert locations where the film takes place. It makes End of the Road feel like it’s taking place in an alternate dimension at times, which aligns with the entire situation being so foreign and strange for Brenda and her family. Colored with pinks, purples, and other neon glows, I thought it looked incredible and helped the viewer not to focus on some of the more traditional twists and turns the movie leans into. 

Screenwriters Christopher J. Moore and David Loughery concoct a standard wrong place/wrong time scenario and find a way to have Brenda, Reggie, and her kids get into all kinds of worsening situations throughout a harrowing night. Most of this is as believably executed as possible, sold nicely by Queen Latifah, who never gives less than 100% in any project she undertakes. There’s always natural ease to her acting, which helps the viewer acclimate to whatever character she’s trying on for size, and it’s refreshing to see the Oscar-nominated actress in a more physically active part. When she takes charge in the film’s second half and begins to steer the ship instead of letting it sail on its own, you wish you were in a movie theater to see how an audience would have reacted.

I also enjoyed Chris Bridges as Reggie and the strong scenes he shares with Queen Latifah, especially the two children. The uncle character gets a chance for redemption, and while none of the acting in End of the Road needed to be as strong as it was for it to be as enjoyable as it turns out to be, it’s appreciated that the cast took the movie as seriously as they do. In more minor roles, Beau Bridges (Hit & Run) looks good at 80, and his investigating sheriff stands out in the supporting players, along with Frances Lee McCain (Scream).

Running a smooth 89 minutes (shorter if you consider the very long credits), this is a film you can invest time in and not run out of gas. One of those movies you might have stood in line for a Friday night in 1993 and watched while devouring a bag of popcorn with a raucous audience, End of the Road delivers on its promise and doesn’t ask anything more of you. That’s the kind of movie that feels good at this time of the year, so zoom zoom over to Netflix and start ‘er up!