Josh Bell
This week’s minor VOD releases bring us a priest with a gun, a proper English detective, a killer named Rotcreep, and a teen who wishes to be cool.
Exorcist Vengeance (VOD and DVD February 8): Professional Charles Bronson lookalike Robert Bronzi stretches his acting muscles a bit as a troubled, pistol-packing priest who’s called to a remote country estate to deal with a potentially possessed housekeeper. Bronzi’s performance is a mix of melancholy and soporific, as his Father Jozsef recalls past trauma in gauzy flashbacks. B-movie mainstays Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca J. Matthews struggle to find new ways to generate suspense and violence within the contained setting, eventually turning the story into a sort of slasher movie as a hooded killer (who may or may not be the possessed woman) starts offing family members. The attempts to give Father Joszef a meaningful backstory are haphazard and inconsistent, and the other characters are similarly half-formed. The housekeeper’s demonic voice is so distorted that it’s often hard to understand what she’s saying, and the crude special effects undermine the potential scares. It all leads to an anticlimactic ending that severely overestimates Bronzi’s capacity for gravitas. Grade: C-
Miss Willoughby and the Haunted Bookshop (VOD and DVD February 8): You’d be forgiven for assuming that this British mystery drama is the latest installment in a long-running franchise. When the title character (Nathalie Cox) decides to investigate the supposed haunting of a local bookshop, she laments that she “hasn’t had a case to work on for ages,” and there are frequent references to past events and personal histories. But this is a standalone original feature, even if it never quite shakes the feel of an overgrown TV episode. A wealthy orphan raised on her family’s massive estate by her military-trained guardian (Kelsey Grammer) and schooled in both hand-to-hand combat and deductive reasoning, Miss Willoughby is like a cross between Miss Marple and Bruce Wayne. The case itself is nothing special, but it features enough twists to keep viewers on their toes, and Cox and Grammer make for a fine detective duo. The Miss Willoughby Mysteries would fit perfectly on BritBox or Acorn TV, if it existed. Grade: B-
Those Who Walk Away (VOD and select theaters February 11): Just because a character mentions writing a paper about Ursula K. LeGuin’s classic short story “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” doesn’t mean that this self-serious horror movie carries the same level of philosophical insight. Literature grad student Avery (Scarlett Sperduto) brings up LeGuin, seemingly to impress Max (Booboo Stewart) on their first date. It turns out that Avery is actually articulating the theme of the movie, which shifts from talky relationship drama to surreal horror at around the halfway mark. Avery convinces Max to take their romantic evening to an isolated, abandoned house, where a killer with the unfortunate name of Rotcreep claims his victims once a year. Constructed to look like a single continuous take, Those Who Walk Away is padded with conversational filler at first, but once the terror begins, director Robert Rippberger delivers some impressively elaborate set pieces, even if the story and characters remain incoherent and annoying. Grade: C
Supercool (VOD and select theaters February 11): A team of Finnish filmmakers create an American teen movie that seems to exist in an alternate dimension, with a distorted sense of teenage behavior based solely on consumption of other teen movies. The plot is familiar, as awkward outcast Neil (Jake Short) spends one wild night trying to connect with his crush Summer (Madison Davenport), supported by his loyal best friend Gilbert (Miles J. Harvey). The twist is that Neil has made a wish to be “cool,” and has been transformed into a suave catalog model type in the eyes of everyone around him. The filmmakers aim for Big meets Superbad, but the mechanics of Neil’s transformation never make sense, and the exaggerated hijinks (mostly involving Neil’s dirtbag neighbor, played by Damon Wayans Jr.) are similarly incomprehensible. Neither the emotional beats nor the excrement jokes make their intended impact. All the rhythms are there, but the specifics have been lost in translation. Grade: C
Along Came Wanda (VOD February 14): Wanda (Cathy DeBuono) is a free-spirited delivery driver who owns a camper van that also functions as a food truck, out of which she sells artisanal soup. She’s the perfect person to shake up the life of middle-aged divorcee Mary Beth (Constance Brenneman), who’s befriended Wanda over the course of her numerous pandemic-inspired delivery orders. Wanda invites Mary Beth on a road trip that takes them to a spiritual retreat and the home of a psychic medium, to help Mary Beth move into a new phase of her life. Writer-director Jan Miller Corran tries to create an empowering story of female bonding and sexual awakening, but the dialogue is full of overexplained self-help platitudes—including numerous fourth-wall-breaking asides from Mary Beth—and the stars have minimal romantic chemistry. Like its title character, Along Came Wanda is too cheerful and upbeat to truly dislike, but also not nearly as endearing as it’s made out to be. Grade: C 
