Chimera Strain

Shades of sci-fi.

(2018) Science Fiction (Vertical) Henry Ian Cusick, Kathleen Quinlan, Erika Ervin, Jenna Harrison, Karishma Ahluwalia, Jennifer Giulameti, Raviv Haeems, Kaavya Jayarm, Lawrence Sampson. Directed by Maurice Haeems

 

There exists a jellyfish (Turritopsis) in nature that is virtually immortal. Poor scientist Quint (Cusick) is desperately trying to harvest the secret of the creature’s immortality in order to save his wife (Ahluwalia) and children from dying of a rare genetic disorder in a hard science sci-fi film (which went under the title Chimera during its initial festival run) from first-time writer-director Haeems.

He allies himself with Masterson (Quinlan), a billionaire who wants to save her own dying husband and is willing to see that Quint finishes his research, despite the fact that some of the research he needs – into stem cells – is forbidden by law. As Quint becomes more desperate, he begins to descend into madness, having long conversations with his comatose wife while his patient colleague Charlie (Harrison) looks on. Can Quint save his family and find the secret to immortality? And what price will he pay to find it? How far is he willing to go to save his wife and kids?

This is the kind of movie that wants to be a thinking person’s sci-fi film, but forgets that you need to have a viable story. Characters act against type and engage in tangential conversations that are ultimately meaningless to the plot other than to deliver philosophical broadsides to the audience. The movie looks nifty enough with a kind of world-going-to-the-dogs look to it, and lord knows the actors are doing their very best but they often look puzzled, as if they can’t figure out the dialogue they’ve been given to speak.

There are a lot of really deep concepts here (some cribbed from sources as diverse as Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein and Modern Science), but sadly Haeems only gives them lip service rather than a deep dive. With a more experienced writer this might have been a really compelling science fiction opus.

REASONS TO SEE: Ideal for those who love esoteric science fiction.
REASONS TO AVOID: Too many platitudes, not enough character development.
FAMILY VALUES: There is nudity and some disturbing images.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: The names of the characters were all taken from the classic Henry James story Turn of the Screw
BEYOND THE THEATERS: Amazon, AppleTV, Fandango Now, Google Play, Hoopla, Redbox, Roku Channel, Vudu, YouTube
CRITICAL MASS: As of 7/10/2021: Rotten Tomatoes: 60% positive reviews; Metacritic: No score yet.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Replicas
FINAL RATING: 5/10
NEXT: Upheaval: The Journey of Menachem Begin

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New Releases for the Week of January 24, 2020

THE GENTLEMEN

(STX) Matthew McConaughey, Charlie Hunnam, Michelle Dockery, Colin Farrell, Henry Golding, Eddie Marsan, Hugh Grant, Jeremy Strong. Directed by Guy Ritchie

An Oklahoma entrepreneur who built a billion-dollar marijuana business in London looks to cash out while he still can. His intentions trigger a flurry of activity as a rogue’s gallery of characters try to steal his business out from under him. This is Ritchie returning to his gangster comedy roots.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website
Genre: Caper Comedy
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for violence, language throughout sexual references and drug content)

63 Up

(BritBox) Bruce Balden, Jacqueline Bassett, Symon Basterfield, Andrew Brackfield. This groundbreaking documentary series from Michael Apted reaches its ninth edition as it follows a group of Britons, checking in with them every seven years from the age of seven – they’re 63 years old now.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Documentary
Now Playing: Enzian Theater
Rating: NR

Clemency

(NEON) Alfre Woodward, Aldis Hodge, Wendell Pierce, Richard Schiff. A burned-out prison warden develops a relationship with a death row inmate she is tasked to execute.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Drama
Now Playing: Cinematique of Daytona, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for some disturbing material and language)
 

The Last Full Measure

(Roadside Attractions) Sebastian Stan, Christopher Plummer, Ed Harris, Samuel L. Jackson. An all-star cast headlines this story based on actual events in which a Pentagon staffer is tasked with investigating a Congressional Medal of Honor request for a soldier for his heroic actions 32 years previously in the bloodiest battle of the Vietnam War. As he digs, he discovers a government cover-up of a secret they want to keep buried along with the dead.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: True Life Drama
Now Playing: AMC Altamonte Mall, AMC Disney Springs, Cinemark Orlando, Cinepolis Hamlin, Old Mill Playhouse, Regal The Loop, Regal Winter Park Village
Rating: R (for war violence and language)

The Turning

(Universal) Mackenzie Davis, Finn Wolfhard, Brooklynn Prince, Joely Richardson. A beautiful young nanny is put in charge of two orphans in a mysterious house in rural Maine, only to discover that neither the house nor the children are what they appear to be. Based on the classic Henry James novel The Turn of the Screw.

See the trailer here
For more on the movie this is the website  
Genre: Horror
Now Playing: Wide Release
Rating: R (for terror, violence, disturbing images, brief strong language and some suggestive content)

ALSO OPENING IN ORLANDO/DAYTONA:

Detective Chinatown 3
Disco Raja
Gul Makai
John Henry
Que Leones
The Rescue
Street Dancer 3

ALSO OPENING IN MIAMI/FT. LAUDERDALE/KEY WEST:

Cunningham
Detective Chinatown 3
Disco Raja
Disturbing the Peace
The Edge of Democracy
Elsewhere
Panga
Psycho (2020)
Que Leones
The Rescue
Shylock
Street Dancer 3

ALSO OPENING IN TAMPA/ST. PETERSBURG/SARASOTA:

Anjaam Pathira
Cunningham
Disco Raja
Panga
Street Dancer 3

ALSO OPENING IN JACKSONVILLE/ST. AUGUSTINE:

Panga
Raising Buchanan
Street Dancer 3

SCHEDULED FOR REVIEW:

The Gentlemen
The Last Full Measure
The Turning

FILM FESTIVALS TAKING PLACE IN FLORIDA:

Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival, West Palm Beach, FL
Sarasota Native American Film Festival, Sarasota FL

Crimson Peak

Exploring Allerdale Hall can be hazardous to one’s health.

(2015) Gothic Horror (Universal) Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Tom Hiddleston, Charlie Hunnam, Jim Beaver, Burn Gorman, Leslie Hope, Doug Jones, Jonathan Hyde, Bruce Gray, Emily Coutts, Alec Stockwell, Brigitte Robinson, Gillian Ferrier, Tamara Hope, Kimberly-Sue Murray, Sofia Wells, Peter Spence, Bill Lake, Jim Watson, Joanna Douglas. Directed by Guillermo del Toro

Some see ghosts as echoes of memories; people who left behind some of themselves when they die. Others see it as a transitory period between this life and the next. Regardless of how you see ghosts, they can be terrifying.

Edith Cushing (Wasikowska) – likely named for the veteran Hammer horror star Peter Cushing – knows all about ghosts. As a child, the specter of her recently deceased mother came to her to warn her “Beware of the crimson peak.” Clearly a message from your dead mother is one that will stay with you for your entire life.

She lives in Buffalo at the turn of the 20th century with her industrialist father (Beaver). She has aspirations to be a writer, sort of a distaff Edgar Allan Poe and she has no time for men, although ophthalmologist Dr. Alan McMichael (Hunnam) would love to catch her eye.

However, her eye is caught by Thomas Sharpe (Hiddleston), a down-on-his-luck baronet who has come to Buffalo with his sister Lucille (Chastain) to convince her father to fund the construction of his experimental mining machine which he is using to mine a rare ore that exists on his estate. Her father is suspicious and hires a detective (Gorman) to check out the siblings.

However, despite her father’s misgivings, Edith falls deeply in love with the handsome young noble and eventually marries him, leaving Buffalo for his crumbling estate in Cumberland and by crumbling we mean it; the roof has a gigantic hole, letting the weather in. Red clay seeps up through the floorboards and walls, looking uncannily like blood. Electricity works intermittently so candle power and fireplaces provide heat and light. Edith is warned not to go below the main level as it is dangerous. And to make matters worse, she almost immediately begins seeing ghosts, angry ones which reflect her relationship with Lucille which is cold at best and hostile at worst.

The ghosts that Edith is seeing aren’t even the worst thing; she begins to suspect that her new husband and sister-in-law are not whom they seem to be. Her investigations further exacerbate her doubts and she soon realizes that if she can’t unravel the secrets of Allerdale Hall, she might just become a ghost herself and I can’t think of any hell worse than spending eternity in Allerdale Hall.

Del Toro has been one of the fan favorites of horror since beginning his career with movies like Cronos, Mimic, The Devil’s Backbone and of course the Hellboy movies. This is something of a passion project for him, one that has been in gestation for years. It is a grand vista that he has painted with, one not unlike that which he created in Pan’s Labyrinth. Allerdale Hall is a magnificent set, as Gothic a look as ever brought to the silver screen. It is a place made for ghosts and ghost stories.

Del Toro has assembled a stellar cast but curiously, two of the main performances leave something to be desired. Wasikowska who can be compelling underplays her role to the point of somnolence while Chastain, one of the best young actresses in Hollywood is shrill and overplays her role in an eyebrow-arching silent film villainess portrayal that seems archaic to my 21st century sensibilities.

The story is straight out of the annals of Shelley and Poe – A.O. Scott of the New York Times correctly described it as “Henry James …filtered through the lurid sensibilities of Mario Bava –  overset with a deep melancholy that pervades every nook and cranny of Allerdale Hall, stained red with the clay that is everywhere, even coloring the snow crimson. Ghosts creep and crawl, their eyes black and empty as the night, their mouths open in tortured expressions of sorrow. A florid description yes, but the movie lends itself to such language.

Some have complained that this isn’t strictly speaking a horror film and I can see their point although I disagree with it. There are plenty of images that will haunt your nightmares but there are certainly elements of Hitchcockian suspense, particularly in the tale of the Sharpe siblings who could easily have been characters in a black and white opus of the Master in the 1930s. While this is set in an earlier period, there is definitely a tension throughout that Hitchcock would have appreciated.

Not everyone likes this movie; some have felt misled by the marketing which emphasizes the horror aspects (in fact the movie was completed in January but held back because Universal wanted it to be their tentpole Halloween release). This is definitely not like modern horror movies which emphasize murder and mayhem and depends largely on atmosphere; those who don’t appreciate old school horror had best give this one a miss. However, if you’re like me and love those brooding old haunted mansions full of things that go bump in the night, this is right up your alley.

REASONS TO GO: Gothic atmosphere. Some genuinely creepy disturbing images. Great set design.
REASONS TO STAY: Wasikowska a bit bland. Chastain a bit over-the-top.
FAMILY VALUES: Bloody violence, gruesome images, scenes of terror, some sexual content and a little bit of profanity.
TRIVIAL PURSUIT: Kingston, Ontario doubled for Buffalo in the film.
CRITICAL MASS: As of 10/23/15: Rotten Tomatoes: 69% positive reviews. Metacritic: 66/100.
COMPARISON SHOPPING: Rose Red
FINAL RATING: 7.5/10
NEXT: Six Days of Darkness concludes!