{"id":13022,"date":"2019-12-23T11:55:51","date_gmt":"2019-12-23T19:55:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/?p=13022"},"modified":"2019-12-23T11:56:03","modified_gmt":"2019-12-23T19:56:03","slug":"josh-bell-says-dont-forget-sweetheart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/josh-bell-says-dont-forget-sweetheart\/","title":{"rendered":"Josh Bell Says Don&#8217;t Forget: <i>Sweetheart<\/i>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>J.D. Dillard\u2019s fascinating survival horror movie <em><strong>Sweetheart<\/strong><\/em> premiered at Sundance and was produced by the genre specialists at Blumhouse, who\u2019ve made hits of smart horror movies including <em>Get Out<\/em>, <em>Unfriended<\/em> and <em>Happy Death Day<\/em>, and who also produced Dillard\u2019s first film, 2017\u2019s <em>Sleight<\/em>. Yet <em>Sweetheart<\/em> bypassed theaters entirely, opening exclusively on VOD and digital video in October. Anyone who stumbles across it on Netflix (where it debuts December 25) will find a lean, gripping story about a young woman (played with intensity and vulnerability by Kiersey Clemons) stranded on a desert island that turns out to be the hunting ground for some sort of sea monster.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Clemons is the only actor onscreen for a large portion of the movie, and she easily commands the audience\u2019s attention with a performance that could stand alongside Tom Hanks in <em>Cast Away<\/em> or Robert Redford in <em>All Is Lost<\/em>. When the cast eventually expands, Dillard and his co-writers Alex Hyner and Alex Theurer use their horror premise to comment on issues of gaslighting and emotional abuse, much as Ari Aster does in <em>Midsommar <\/em>(albeit much more efficiently). The visceral thrills give way to a lasting emotional impact.\u00a0<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"21\" height=\"24\" class=\"wp-image-12642\" style=\"width: 21px;\" src=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/crookedc.png\" alt=\"\" srcset=\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/crookedc.png 21w, https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/09\/crookedc-224x245.png 224w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 21px) 100vw, 21px\" \/><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.justwatch.com\/us\/movie\/sweetheart-2019\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Availability<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>J.D. Dillard\u2019s fascinating survival horror movie Sweetheart premiered at Sundance and was produced by the genre specialists at Blumhouse, who\u2019ve [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":13025,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1399,1381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-13022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-looking-back","category-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/539"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13025"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}