Josh Bell
In this week’s low-profile VOD releases, a pair of BFFs reckon with life-changing events, a pair of convicts explore a lonely planet, and a pair of filmmakers tarnish the legacies of H.P. Lovecraft and Screenlife.
Adult Best Friends (VOD February 28): Real-life adult best friends Delaney Buffett and Katie Corwin probably had a great time co-writing and co-starring in this annoying dramedy, but that enjoyment doesn’t extend to the audience. Childhood besties Delaney (Buffett) and Katie (Corwin) are on opposite paths in adulthood, with the responsible Katie newly engaged to her nice-guy boyfriend (Mason Gooding) and the immature Delaney still partying and sleeping around. Nervous about breaking her engagement news to the codependent Delaney, Katie plans a girls’ beach getaway to ease the transition, but of course various wacky complications ensue. Those complications include numerous irritating comic-relief supporting characters, who are only marginally less tolerable than the protagonists. Buffett (daughter of late singer-songwriter Jimmy, whose songs pervade the soundtrack) directs with the same slacker energy as her character, although she eventually finds some heartfelt moments when the friends are finally honest with each other. By that point, it’s just a relief for them to reconcile so that they’ll stop pestering viewers with their whiny self-involvement. Grade: C
Unspeakable: Beyond the Wall of Sleep (VOD March 4): Not long ago, director Joe Lynch’s Suitable Flesh proved that a modernized H.P. Lovecraft movie with amped-up sexuality could be highly entertaining, but writer-director Chad Ferrin achieves the opposite effect with this dreadful adaptation. Ferrin adds father-daughter incest and literal monster penises to Lovecraft’s 1919 short story about a staffer at a mental hospital convening with the dreams of a disturbed patient, and he retains remarkably little from the story itself. A rough-looking Edward Furlong plays Ambrose London, the renowned sleep researcher who’s called in to consult on the case of convicted child molester Jim Fhelleps (Robert Miano). Fhelleps’ alternate personality Joe Slater goes on a killing spree, and also seems to use mind control to turn others into murderous zombies. Lovecraft is known for exploring the ineffable, but Ferrin’s film is just incomprehensible, with terrible performances, clumsy dialogue, and lots of empty gross-out moments. Bai Ling shows up in the last 10 minutes to writhe around and mutter unintelligibly, which perfectly encapsulates Ferrin’s approach. Unspeakable indeed. Grade: D
Bloat (VOD and select theaters March 7): The Screenlife brand overseen by producer Timur Bekmambetov has fallen pretty far from the heights of the Unfriended horror movies and kidnapping thrillers Searching and Missing. Writer-director Pablo Absento adheres so loosely to the format that she might as well not bother at all, and having all the action take place on the digital screens of main character Jack (Ben McKenzie) only makes the story fragmented, confusing, and less urgent. Jack mostly glowers at his computer while his young son Kyle (Sawyer Jones) has seemingly become possessed by a Japanese water demon. Jack’s wife (Bojana Novaković) and kids are on vacation in Tokyo while he’s on lockdown at a military base, so he frantically engages in online research and enlists an inordinately accommodating friend (Kane Kosugi) as his on-the-ground assistant. McKenzie struggles to convey either concern or terror in his essentially solo performance, and the demon’s manifestations, which involve vigorous cucumber-eating, are underwhelming. The careful precision of superior Screenlife movies has been replaced by poorly rendered horror clichés. Grade: C-
Guns of Redemption (VOD and select theaters March 7): Someday a filmmaker with actual talent and clout is going to realize that Casper Van Dien has far more to offer than his decades-old B-level hunk reputation indicates, but until then he’ll continue to work with hacks like director Brian Skiba, who puts the minimal required effort into this forgettable Western. Van Dien brings a sense of haunted regret to his grizzled Civil War veteran, who just wants to atone for his wartime sins by helping a small-town preacher (Sean Astin) rebuild the local church. Instead, he’s placed in the position of protecting a group of women forced into prostitution by a sadistic traveling impresario (Jeff Fahey). Astin takes his small role seriously, and Fahey piles on the nastiness as the villain, but the rest of the acting is shaky, the plot is thin and awkwardly paced, the action is weak, and the period details are sloppy. Van Dien trudges through, once again making the best of a bad situation. Grade: C
The Silent Planet (VOD March 7): In the tradition of sci-fi films like Moon and Prospect, writer-director Jeffrey St. Jules creates a bespoke, ramshackle future with just a single basic setting and a couple of actors. That simple foundation hints at a larger universe beyond the remote planet where Theodore (Elias Koteas) and Niyya (Briana Middleton) have both been sent as punishment for major crimes. Only one person is meant to be on this planet at a time, mining a rare ore in complete solitude, but Niyya arrives while Theodore is still alive, despite a sensor indicating that he’s terminally ill. The two form a wary bond even as they harbor suspicions about each other and the system that has placed them there. Shooting in actual locations gives The Silent Planet a sense of tactile reality, and Koteas and Middleton bring genuine emotional vulnerability to the heightened scenario. There are some questionable logistics, but the core relationship is affecting and meaningful, as are the deeper questions that the premise elegantly if enigmatically raises. Grade: B+
