Get Out (2017)

Horror and satire seem to make for a potent mix and Get Out is the latest entry in this sub-genre, joining the likes of The Stepford Wives and They Live. With genuine scares and a relevant social message, the film is a pitch perfect mix of excruciating satire and nerve shredding horror

Chris Washington (a star-making turn from British actor Daniel Kaluuya) is a young black man getting ready to visit the family of his white girlfriend, Rose Armitage at the upmarket country estate where they live. But no matter how friendly and welcoming everyone is, there is no denying something weird is going on. Why do the family's black housekeeper and grounds keeper, Walter and Georgina, seem so passive and mindless? What is going on with Mrs Armitage's hypnosis techniques? And why is one of the Armitage's guests warning Chris to "Get Out"?

This is a remarkably assured début from writer director Jordan Peele, who manages to get the balance between shocks and satire right, so that one does not overwhelm the other, and makes the shocks and satire genuinely shocking and funny respectively. The script is a master-class in discipline and structure, with hardly a wasted scene or line, clever set-ups that all pay off, and some great lines ("I would have voted for Obama a third time if I could"). Peele also throws in plenty of horror tropes that genre fans will instantly recognise, but does not rely on them to plug gaps in the story.

The cast is also uniformly excellent, led by Daniel Kaluuya as Chris, trying to retain his cool and dignity in the face of increasingly weird and uncomfortable events. As the Armitage parents, Catherine Keener and Bradley Whitford combine a welcoming charm with an unnerving forcefulness and underlying menace, and Caleb Landry Jones is memorably obnoxious as Rose's brother Jeremy.

Race is always in the news, but recent events have made this film feel even more relevant. However, what makes Get Out so different and successful is the unexpected way the topic is tackled. There are some scenes of Chris falling foul of authority figures, but the main focus of this theme is elsewhere. Equally hurtful is the patronising privileged condescension from the white liberals at the Armitage house. Despite their friendly attempts to ingratiate themselves, for them, black people are judged purely in terms of how useful they are.

Get Out Trailer 02.24.2017 by CineManiaTV

Scanners (1981)

Best remembered for the iconic scene of an exploding head, courtesy of make up legend Dick Smith, Scanners has a fascinating central idea but is hampered by a wooden lead actor and a plodding, sometimes messy script which fails to make the characters as interesting as the premise.

Scanners are people with extraordinary X-Men style psychic powers, able to join with, read and control the minds of others, with sometimes terrible side effects, such as in the previously described head explosion. One of them, Daryl Revok (Michael Ironside) has clearly let that power go to his head as he is hell-bent on world domination using Scanners loyal to him. The mysterious Dr Paul Ruth (Patrick McGoohan) wants to stop him, using both the resources of his employers, the shady ConSec Corporation, and one Scanner, Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) who has not fallen under the spell of Revok. But as the bodies pile up, so do the questions, as nobody seems to be who they say they are.

Cronenberg made Scanners during the first phase of his career, a phase that also included Shivers, Rabid, and The Brood, and out of this astonishing, disturbing and bloody body of work, Scanners is easily the weakest. At this stage of his career as a filmmaker, Cronenberg had never been one for involving human drama, preferring to use his characters primarily as a means to explore themes and ideas. In this respect Scanners is no different, but what those other films all had was a little something extra.

With Shivers and Rabid it is a lurid energy, betraying their exploitation film roots. The Brood had a human interest story, and for all the blood and perverse scenes still feels like a heartfelt and personal work. Scanners has none of these, and after the initial shock of the exploding head, Cronenberg moves away from the unique sexually charged body horror of his other earlier work towards a more conventional sci-fi / spy genre, crossover film, with evil scientists, car chases and guns. Disappointingly, the exploding head does not occur again, and, coupled with some clunky scenes of expositional dialogue, and an odd departure of one main character, it rather leaves the impression that not all the kinks and loose ends in the script had been ironed out before filming commenced. Perhaps the most notable missing element, certainly one I found surprising for a Cronenberg film, is sex, both in terms of sexual chemistry between the leads and any kind of sexual desire in any of the characters.

The other big liability is the actor in the main role, and while Stephen Lack may have surprising large blue eyes that make for a memorable face, here his delivery is stiff and wooden, sometimes to the point of sucking the life out of a scene. Scanners does have two aces in the cast, Patrick McGoohan and Michael Ironside. McGoohan brings gravitas and believability to the character of Dr Ruth, while Ironside gives Revok a charismatic unpredictable menace.

Smith's excellent make up skills make a comeback in the explosive finale between Vale and Revok, and also worth a mention is Howard Shore's score, a mix of dramatic sweeping strings and cold eerie synths that blend seamlessly with the images on the screen.

Antiviral (2012)

The feature length debut from writer/director Brandon Cronenberg, Antiviral is a cold, creepy mix of satire and body horror, set in a world where people do not just want to get under the skin of celebrities, they want to get the celebrities under their skin.
 
Caleb Landry Jones plays Syd March, a worker at a clinic that takes live viruses from ill celebrities and sells them to obsessed fans. He also has a lucrative sideline selling pirate samples, smuggling them out in his own body. When Syd becomes infected with a disease that kills super star Hannah Geist, he must solve the mystery surrounding her death before he succumbs next.

Brandon Cronenberg is the son of "body horror" pioneer David, so comparisons are inevitable and perhaps unavoidable, but given the subject matter and the execution, these would arise anyway, no matter who was behind the camera. Some of the tropes, such as the morally dubious corporation, body modification, and the lone man getting into a situation way out of his depth, will be familiar from earlier films of Cronenberg Sr., such as Videodrome and Shivers (as well as from the writings of William Burroughs, a big influence on David). In addition, like those films, the story moves at a slow, deliberate pace, with the emphasis is on the exploration of ideas rather than characters, or heavy handed moralising.
 
However, Antiviral is by no means a slavish copy of any of these, with a style and contemporary look of its own, which contrasts with the grungy feel and slightly lurid, exploitation movie trappings of a film like Shivers. The sleek white offices of the Lucas Clinic, with smiling receptionists and plasma screen TVs pumping out a constant information dense stream of news, feel like the headquarters of any large corporation anywhere in the world today, while the recognisable contemporary urban landscapes help root the more outrageous ideas in reality.

There are also some recurring motifs in the camerawork, especially the handheld, over the shoulder shot, which crops up repeatedly, and made me think of a paparazzi stalking it’s prey.

The piracy storyline gives the film a very contemporary feel, but also with an outrageous twist, that sees the pirated cells used by a delicatessen to create the ultimate in celebrity tie-in merchandise. Special mention must also go to the soundtrack by E.C. Woodley, a mix of glacial cold glacial strings and throbbing synths.
 
The lack of sympathetic, fully rounded characters and the detached, intellectual approach to the subject matter will mean Antiviral is not for everyone, but it is a fascinating debut, and leaves me intrigued as to where Cronenberg will go next with his career.