Josh Bell
This week’s minor VOD releases feature zombies in post-apocalyptic Canada and on a New Jersey movie set, plus a loser looking for his dog and a bunch of famous houses.
Die Alone (VOD and select theaters October 18): Carrie-Anne Moss plays a badass warrior who rescues a confused young man and teaches him about their post-apocalyptic world, but Die Alone is no The Matrix. It’s no Memento, either, although Moss’ character may also be messing with the memories of the amnesiac man she claims to be helping. Mae (Moss) offers to take care of Ethan (Douglas Smith), who’s lost and disoriented following a car accident with his girlfriend Emma (Kimberly-Sue Murray) as they were fleeing from an ongoing zombie outbreak. The plant-based zombies are impressive creations, but the excessively somber story is a slog as it meanders toward a fairly obvious twist. Moss does her best as a character whose true motivations have to be held back for the sake of the big reveal, and she’s still great at expressing steely resolve. Smith is much shakier as the perpetually perplexed Ethan, and at a certain point he doesn’t seem worth the effort, either from Mae or from the audience. Grade: C
Alien Country (VOD October 22): There’s enough enthusiasm to director and co-writer Boston McConnaughey’s sci-fi comedy to carry it for a little while, but the characters and concepts aren’t nearly as funny as McConnaughey makes them out to be. As demolition derby driver Jimmy (K.C. Clyde) and his singer-songwriter girlfriend Everly (co-writer Renny Grames) get more involved in fending off an alien invasion in their small Utah town, the movie loses much of its charm, and McConnaughey’s manic sense of humor starts to sputter out. There’s still some cool creature design for the alien invaders, particularly on a small budget, and the actors throw themselves into the silliness, although the more the movie explains about the extraterrestrial attackers, the less it holds together. There’s also no reason to get emotionally invested in the status of Jimmy and Everly’s relationship as they navigate an unexpected pregnancy amid the potentially world-ending attack. Alien Country ends with a tease for another tongue-in-cheek take on a genre staple, but one dose of McConnaughey’s shtick seems like plenty. Grade: C+
All You Need Is Blood (VOD and select theaters October 25): Writer-director Cooper Roberts credits himself here with the name of his main character, but it’s safe to say that this isn’t a Fabelmans-style recreation of his actual childhood filmmaking experience. Teenager Bucky Le Boeuf (Logan Riley Bruner) is an annoyingly pretentious aspiring auteur, who only reluctantly plans to make a “zom-dram” so he can fulfill the horror requirements of a local film festival and win a cash prize. Bucky lucks into verisimilitude when a mysterious meteorite changes his dad (Tom O’Keefe) into an actual zombie, and instead of mourning the loss of his father, he excitedly incorporates this new development into his film. Roberts aims for a gore-filled celebration of the joy of filmmaking, but the characters are so insufferable that he instead ends up achieving the opposite result. Some of the low-fi practical effects are endearing, but the shrill comedy (especially Mena Suvari as a demanding diva) is grating, and Roberts drags out the thin, tedious story. At least Bucky only bothers with making short films. Grade: C
Hangdog (VOD October 25): Desmin Borges has been a reliably amusing, low-key supporting player on TV comedies like You’re the Worst and the current season of Only Murders in the Building, but his, well, hangdog presence becomes tiresome when he’s called on to carry an entire feature film. It doesn’t help that husband-and-wife filmmaking team Matt Cascella and Jen Cordery have made Borges’ Walt into a sullen, ineffectual whiner, whose journey toward self-actualization only makes him more irritating. The morose, unemployed Walt is charged with taking care of his live-in girlfriend’s dog Tony while she’s away on an important business trip, and of course he immediately loses the dog, sending him spiraling further into anxiety. Walt’s odyssey through the quaintest corners of Portland, Maine, as he searches for Tony could have been rendered as broad comedy, but director Cascella and writer Cordery opt for twee life lessons, courtesy of characters who are even more ostentatiously quirky than Walt himself. Both the dog and the girlfriend seem like they’d be better off without him. Grade: C
The House From… (VOD October 28): Wouldn’t it be cool to live in the house from a famous movie or TV show? This lively, upbeat documentary answers that question with a resolute “maybe,” although director Tommy Avallone focuses mostly on the positive, possibly because people like the owner of Walter White’s house from Breaking Bad (who appears exclusively via social media videos of her yelling at people to get off her property) didn’t want to participate. Avallone finds an impressive range of likable interview subjects, from semi-indulgent bystanders to dedicated superfans to shrewd entrepreneurs. Narrated by Jason Lee and executive produced by Ryan Reynolds, the documentary is firmly pro-showbiz, although it does offer some musings on pop-culture landmarks as the new holy pilgrimage sites. The visits to various houses can start to feel too similar, and Avallone has to add some redundant padding to get to feature length, but overall The House From… is a fun, breezy tribute to iconic residences and the people who preserve and celebrate them. Grade: B
