Josh Bell
This week’s minor VOD releases include a rewarding naturalistic drama, along with two uneven single-location thrillers and two movies with nearly identical titles that are each awful in their own unique way.
Hellhounds (VOD January 9): “Werewolf biker gang” sounds like a foolproof concept, but writer-director Robert Conway finds a way to botch it, killing off most of the lycanthropic motorcycle crew before the movie begins, leaving behind just one Hellhound. Instead of a battle between the Hellhounds and their rival gang of werewolf-hunting bikers, the Silver Bullets, Conway focuses on a disjointed story about the hunt for an ancient werewolf named Lucella (Eva Hamilton) and her sadistic henchman. It takes a while before the disparate plotlines coalesce into a battle between Lucella and the biker whose alias is, uh, Alias (Nathaniel Burns). When they finally arrive, the werewolf transformations are a mix of terrible CGI and equally terrible practical effects. The characters are uninteresting, the acting is flat, and Conway’s attempt to liven things up with copious gratuitous nudity comes across as desperate. This is a movie so miscalculated that it randomly throws in D.B. Cooper as a supporting character, only to immediately turn him into an anonymous werewolf victim. Grade: C-
First Time Caller (VOD January 12): It’s no surprise that directors J.D. Brynn and Abe Goldfarb adapted their film from a podcast, since almost nothing would be lost if all of its visuals were removed. Goldfarb is the only actor onscreen, playing online shock jock Brent Ziff, who receives a disturbing call from a man (Brian Silliman) claiming that he can predict the imminent apocalypse. Brent is deliberately obnoxious, but writer Mac Rogers also avoids giving him any discernible political viewpoint, and he remains obnoxious even as the caller’s warnings start to come true. Brynn and Goldfarb add occasional onscreen flourishes via soundwaves of Brent’s broadcast and impressionistic flashes of the outside world, but they mostly rely on Goldfarb to carry both the plot and the emotional journey. Still, it’s hard to care about Brent the misogynist asshole discovering compassion as the world crumbles around him. A podcast can convey the scope of a global catastrophe with just audio, but as a movie, First Time Caller mainly showcases its limitations. Grade: C+
Hellhound (VOD January 12): Veteran assassin Loreno (Louis Mandylor) almost immediately botches his supposed last job before retirement, making his status as a legendary killer questionable from the beginning. It’s hard to tell if director Joshua Dixon and screenwriter Niccolô de la Fère are aiming for a deconstruction of the hitman action movie, or if they’re just unable to properly set up their story. Either way, Hellhound is a tedious exercise in grim violence, with lengthy digressions into existential musings about human nature — which are even more tedious. In Bangkok, Loreno is hired to kill a local crime boss who was responsible for the murder of a wealthy foreigner, but there are no personal stakes to that perfunctory quest for vengeance. Hellhound meanders through various detours into hotels and alleyways, punctuated by sporadic mediocre fight scenes, before Loreno finds a more direct purpose for his mission. Mandylor is a B-movie workhorse who often elevates basic material, but he can’t bring life to the rudimentary action or the pretentious philosophizing. Grade: C-
Laced (VOD January 12): Things go wrong pretty much right away in the murder plot between lovers Molly (Dana Mackin) and Victoria (Hermione Lynch) to take out Molly’s abusive husband, and their efforts to salvage the plan only make things worse. That’s to be expected in a thriller like this, and writer-director Kyle Butenhoff sticks to the playbook of better movies from Double Indemnity to Blood Simple, as Molly and Victoria deal with a series of complications over the course of one long night in a snowbound cabin. There’s more talk than suspense, though, especially once Molly’s semi-estranged brother Austin (Zach Tinker) arrives at the worst possible moment. Despite the constant chatter, the relationships are poorly defined, and the sometimes stilted performances don’t help. Rather than creating a sense of moral ambiguity, Butenhoff just invites confusion over the motivations for the murder. The single location eventually limits the storytelling possibilities as much as it constrains the characters’ options. Grade: C+
A Place of Our Own (Select theaters January 12; VOD January 16): The intentions are more admirable than the filmmaking in this scrappy Indian drama, which is rough around the edges but still compelling in its portrayal of a marginalized community. Trans women Laila (Manisha Soni) and Roshni (Muskan) just want to live their lives in peace, in a home where they won’t be constantly harassed and attacked. The two friends face prejudice and resistance at every turn as they try to find a place to live, while holding down jobs and navigating difficult personal circumstances. The stars, both non-professional actors, give appealing, heartfelt performances, although the supporting performances can be a bit shaky, with characters that are not as well-rounded. Laila and Roshni stop to give a literal lecture in the middle of the movie, but the filmmakers (a group known as the Ektara Collective) never lose sight of their protagonists as people first, with unique feelings and dreams that are more than just the means to deliver an important message. Grade: B
