Lisa Frankenstein, Night Swim, There’s Something in the Barn

For a while there I thought Zelda William’s LISA FRANKENSTEIN was right up my eighties-loving alley but that dalley turned out to be a dead end and I ended up walking in circles looking for a viable exit and eventually, exhausted, fell asleep in a pile of trash in the corner and was urinated on by a stray dog (not his fault). The movie looks great, it’s got visual flair to spare and the cast is killer (both Kathryn Newton as Lisa and Carla Gugino as her overbearing step mom Janet are stellar) and the lovingly curated soundtrack is phenomenal ( I’m still stunned that I lived to see the day when The Chameleon’s “Up the down Escalator” was used in an outfit upgrade montage. On the other hand, it may be time to give The Pixie’s “Wave of Mutilation” a rest and one rendition of REO Speedwagon’s “I Can’t Fight This Feeling Anymore” is certainly more than enough). The uneven script is care of Diablo Cody (the underrated JENNIFER’S BODY) so there’s more than a few solid zingers amongst the onslaught of heavy-handed slang but all good intentions are dampened by the deadly decision to prematurely eradicate the film’s lively antagonist, a sin akin to sawing off three legs of the chair the audience is sitting in. Sure, the doomed outsider teen romance aspect may be enough to keep some lovelorn viewers smitten but I kept thinking I’d seen a similar union done far better before in 2013’s WARM BODIES. It’s not a total wash out, it throws you enough bones to make itself watchable but this wonky contraption may be too randomly cobbled together to stand as fully upright as it could have.

I’ve got more than enough backyard swimming pool related trauma in my past to be fully susceptible to the idea of a malignant pool taking out an innocent family Amityville-style. That said, I’m thinking NIGHT SWIM’s premise may be better suited to a short film (apparently, it actually sprung from a well regarded short and I'll have to track that down) or an episode of anthology television. Its already dubious plot is done no favors by a few over the top performances, funky effects and ridiculous reveals yet I gotta admit such broad strokes allow a certain amount of campy comedy to flourish and make the absurdities strangely watchable. Although the movie loiters in the shallow end ( a philosophical pool cleaner tries to inject meaning but his efforts are moot) its undemanding nature is sorta endearing and in the end, super likable Wyatt Russell’s earnestness as a self sacrificing father somehow keeps the sinking ship somewhat afloat. It’s not hard to see why this one was blasted by critics upon release (with the exception of Stephen King who notably compared it to Spielberg’s classic DUEL) but I found it a harmless enough diversion and I figure the world needed at least one killer pool movie anyway.

It’s possible my views cannot be trusted when it comes to Christmas set horror films due to the fact that I love them so much and treasure nearly every new addition to the sub-genre (within reason). I’m also of the mind that Martin Starr (FREAKS AND GEEKS forever) should be in every movie possible. In THERE’S SOMETHING IN THE BARN Starr stars as idealistic American father Bill Nordheim who drags his skeptical family (second wife Carol (Amrita Acharia), son Lucus (Townes Banner) and daughter Nora (Zoe Winther- Hansen)) to his ancestral farm in Norway to live a more peaceful and simple life. Well, you know the old saying “The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry especially when your barn is home to a persnickety elf who demands you adhere to certain rules which you ignore thereby condemning your family to an onslaught of non-stop grief and carnage” (BTW:The elf and elves in question here bare a closer resemblance to common bearded/hooded garden gnomes, the kind of which appeared in the 1983 British horror anthology SCREAMTIME). This Hilarious dark comedy romp follows in the snowy footprints of holiday set, regulation-happy, morality fables GREMLINS (’84) and KRAMPUS (2015) and it does both of those classics proud with its well balanced blend of violence, humor and sentimentality. My only regret is that I did not have the opportunity to watch it during the proper season but there’s always next X-mas to fix that pint-sized oversight.