But like a lot of successful independent filmmakers, LaBute made a bumpy transition to the mainstream, working as a director-for-hire on forgettable efforts like the comedy remake Death at a Funeral<\/em> and the thriller Lakeview Terrace<\/em>. His 2006 Nicolas Cage-starring version of The Wicker Man<\/em> has become notorious for its entertaining awfulness. Those movies aren\u2019t bold or challenging, just misguided. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Since then, LaBute has worked extensively in TV, as the creator of Syfy series Van Helsing<\/em> and the showrunner of The I-Land<\/em>, possibly the worst-reviewed series in Netflix history. He\u2019s also continued to work in theater, where he got his start and where most of his most provocative ideas seem to have gone, although there have been cancellations<\/a> of some of his plays<\/a> amid rumors of inappropriate behavior. Before this current doubleheader, he hadn\u2019t written or directed a feature film since 2015\u2019s Dirty Weekend<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n It would be great to report that Out of the Blue<\/em> and House of Darkness<\/em> represent a return to form for LaBute, or even that they\u2019re worth watching, but neither movie reaches that level. Of the two, House of Darkness<\/em> engages more directly with LaBute\u2019s familiar themes of gender and sexual politics, although both are about devious, dangerous women manipulating dumb, horny men. In Out of the Blue<\/em>, LaBute applies those themes to a shoddy film noir pastiche, while in House of Darkness<\/em>, he places them in a slightly more effective Gothic mood piece. In both cases, he\u2019s let down by his own clumsy writing, low production values, and weak performances.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Both movies also wear their literary influences on their sleeves, and in Out of the Blue<\/em>, the characters reference James M. Cain\u2019s classic crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice<\/em> early and often. It\u2019s of special interest to the improbably named Marilyn Chambers (Diane Kruger), an unhappy housewife who\u2019s new to the small Rhode Island town where Connor Bates (Ray Nicholson) has spent most of his life. The older woman and younger man are instantly drawn to each other when they first meet at a secluded beach, and when Marilyn visits Connor at his library job, seeking crime stories about women killing their husbands, he steers her toward Cain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Anyone can guess where this is going, but LaBute draws out the plodding romance with antiseptic, deeply unerotic sex scenes, while Marilyn meekly demurs about the bruises that she says come from her wealthy, abusive husband. When Connor finally suggests that he could kill Marilyn\u2019s husband while she and her teenage stepdaughter (Chase Sui Wonders) are out of town, it almost sounds like an afterthought. Nicholson (whose father Jack starred in the 1981 film version of The Postman Always Rings Twice<\/em>) and Kruger have no chemistry, and Nicholson fails to convey Connor\u2019s romantic and sexual passion, or his anguish over a past that involves a stint in prison for an impulsive act of violence.<\/p>\n\n\n\n LaBute indicates the passage of time with a steady stream of title cards that say things like \u201cNot long after that\u201d and \u201cTwo or three weeks later,\u201d and Hank Azaria gives an over-the-top performance as Connor\u2019s probation officer, who spends the entire movie wearing a windbreaker with \u201cprobation\u201d written on the back in large capital letters. Connor enjoys watching old noir movies on TV (albeit in the wrong aspect ratio), but Out of the Blue<\/em>, which has all the visual sophistication of a detergent commercial, looks nothing like those classics. Even if LaBute is aiming for a campy noir parody, he misses the mark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n There\u2019s more visual flair to House of Darkness<\/em>, although it takes place entirely in a single location, a remote, lavish mansion that main character Hap (Justin Long) refers to as a \u201ccastle\u201d when he and his date, Mina (Kate Bosworth), first pull up. House of Darkness<\/em> opens with its own title card, reading \u201cOnce upon a time,\u201d and LaBute presents it a bit like a fable, complete with its own moral lesson. Mina wears a conspicuous choker around her neck, and she introduces Hap to her sister Lucy (regular LaBute collaborator Gia Crovatin, who\u2019s also in Out of the Blue<\/em>), so it\u2019s not like LaBute is hiding this movie\u2019s literary influence, either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Hap, however, doesn\u2019t seem to be familiar with Bram Stoker\u2019s Dracula<\/em>, so he doesn\u2019t realize what fate awaits him at the end of the movie. He just thinks he\u2019s going to get laid, after meeting Mina at a bar and offering to drive her home. She encourages this idea at first, although she always pulls back before things go too far, instead letting Hap blather on about sex and relationships, occasionally catching him in small lies or obfuscations. He\u2019s a stereotype of a sexist hypocrite, who calls himself \u201cone of the good guys\u201d but immediately assumes that the sisters will be up for a threesome.<\/p>\n\n\n\n More than Dracula<\/em>, LaBute\u2019s influences in House of Darkness<\/em> seem to be movies like Hard Candy<\/em> and Promising Young Woman<\/em>, but his circular dialogue, which Long delivers in an annoying stammer, ultimately says nothing. Bosworth is miscast as the sultry, otherworldly seductress, and House of Darkness<\/em> takes 88 minutes for a wind-up that would be dispatched in the pre-credits scene of a typical vampire movie. It\u2019s less vapid and cheap-looking than Out of the Blue<\/em>, but it\u2019s still only a pale reflection of the viscerally upsetting work that made the film world take notice of LaBute 25 years ago.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Out of the Blue<\/em> (now playing in select theaters and on VOD): C-<\/strong> The controversial writer\/director’s dual return to feature filmmaking is a pale reflection of his former ferocity.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":539,"featured_media":18801,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[340],"tags":[1436],"class_list":["post-18799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-movie-reviews","tag-reviews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799","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=18799"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21884,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18799\/revisions\/21884"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18801"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/house-of-darkness-1024x512.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
House of Darkness<\/em> (opens in select theaters September 9; on VOD September 13): C<\/strong> ![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"