SXSW 2021: Paul Dood's Deadly Lunch Break by Nick Gillespie

Paul Dood's Deadly Lunch Break has a rather brilliant premise. We have all seen the first rounds of reality talent shows in which the production team puts the spotlight on the most talentless and deluded, at times scary participants, with their dramatic walkouts as their dream of stardom are ruined by the judges, uttering some stern threats while security staff is on standby. So what if one of them actually followed through and went all Falling Down?

SXSW 2021- WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn

"If you tell a thirtysomething male he is Jesus Christ, he is inclined to believe it". 

WeWork: Or the Making and Breaking of a $47 Billion Unicorn is the account of the rise and fall of WeWork, one of the biggest venture capitalist bubbles in recent years and his near messianic co-founder Adam Neumann. WeWork was in the not so glamorous business of renting office space in premises it had refurbished with a trendier edge except that with it came some grand promises of a new lifestyle, of a work revolution, of changing the world even. In it, Academy Award winner Jed Rothstein has interviewed several former employees at every level as well as those bought into the We lifestyle and gathered some extensive footage for a forensic investigation into this unicorn company, that promised so much and failed so hard.

Berlinale 2021: Bloodsuckers - A Marxist Vampire Comedy by Julian Radlmaier

Writer/director Julian Radlmaier ‘s 2021 film Bloodsuckers – A Marxist Vampire Comedy (Blutsauger in the original German) has firmly nailed his genre aspirations to the mast of his film title. Nominally set in late 1920s Germany a wandering actor Ljowushka (Aleksandre Koberidze) becomes of interest to a wealthy German vampire Octavia (Lilith Stangenberg) who at first, assumes the Russian is an aristocrat fleeing the Soviet regime. Holidaying in her family’s seaside estate with her lovelorn servant or human vampire familiar Jakob (Alexander Herbst), Octavia quickly acts on her attraction to Ljowushka and he is invited to stay. 

The Lawyer by Romas Zabarauskas

In The Lawyer, Lithuanian corporate lawyer Marcus (Eimutis Kvosciauskas) meets a Syrian refugee, Ali (Dogac Yilkiz) on a cam service and travels to Belgrade to meet him and help him escape to Western Europe, while some complicated feelings slowly develop between the two men.

The premise might make you think you are about to watch an issue film, not there would be anything wrong with that but while film is acutely attuned to contemporary social concerns, it is the best kind of social films, one that never forgets about cinema and characterisation as opposed to just serving us a dour lecture, while still putting the focus on the injustice of the world.

Wrong Turn by Mike P. Nelson

In Wrong Turn, a group of teenage friends is hiking the Appalachian trail when their idyllic trip turns into a nightmare as they find themselves stalked and hunted by unseen assailants. As their situation becomes more and more desperate, their fight for survival forces them to challenge and reconsider their moral values.

In the mid 2000s, horror classics remakes were all the rage, with The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (2003), Amityville (2005), Friday the 13th (2009) and a few others of variable quality. Among those came Wrong Turn (2003), an original film despite some familiar tropes that became a beloved minor classic, one that spawned five sequels with diminishing returns.

The new Wrong Turn is neither a sequel nor a remake but a reboot. After a prologue, the action is mostly told in a long flashback and at first the story is fairly close to the first film except that the group of teenagers has been transposed to our era thanks to some  signifiers that are a little too obviously signposted without having much narrative weight.

Broil by Edward Drake

In Broil, Chance Sinclair (Avery Konrad), a troubled teenager, is sent to live with her grandfather in his sprawling mansion after she attacks a classmate who had provoked her. There she begins to realise the extent of her family's power and wealth as well as their monstrous secrets...

It is not that big a spoiler to discuss what the members of the Sinclair family really are, with clues early on such as their aversion to spending too long in the daylight and the daily blood transfusion Chance has to go through due to a "genetic disorder". So kudos to Edward Drake for coming up with a fresh take on the vampire lore.  It is not uncharitable to say that the plot is confusing however. He and co-writer Piper Mars, seemingly filled with ideas, let their enthusiasm get the better of the self-critical judgment and there is just too much going on, too many characters... If only the script had been tightened and allowed audiences to breathe a little.

Willy's Wonderland by Kevin Lewis

In Willy's Wonderland, a drifter (Nicolas Cage) finds himself stranded with a broken car in a small town. Having to work to repay his debt at the local repair shop, he spends the night cleaning an abandoned family amusement park where the happy mascots suddenly come to life and run amok.

Comparisons between Willy's Wonderland and Five Nights at Freddy's, the iconic horror video game in which a security guard has to survive the night while surrounded by some homicidal animatronics, will be inevitable due to the similarities between their premises. There are also echoes of The Banana Splits (2019), an adaptation that subverted the family friendly TV series and turned its friendly furries into mechanical, murderous monsters. This is where the connection ends however as while that film aimed for a camptastic pop culture satire, Willy's Wonderland plays it mostly straight, surprisingly so for all its assumed silliness. The origin story behind the carnage is also more disturbing and gruesome than just a mechanical malfunction and while there are several funny scenes, Kevin Lewis is skilled enough to not let them derail the darker tone.