Double Feature: Come To Daddy (2019) & Secrets In The Hot Spring (2018)

Its been a while since we’ve done a double feature but we’re back! Movie watching has really taken a big hit this year somehow (in comparison to previous years..at least with the first few months). This time’s pair-up is a horror comedy double as I look at 2019’s Come To Daddy and 2018’s Taiwanese film Secrets In The Hot Spring.

Let’s check it out!

Come To Daddy (2019)

Director: Ant Timpson

Cast: Elijah Wood, Stephen McHattie, Garfield Wilson, Madeleine Sami, Martin Donovan, Michael Smiley

A man in his thirties travels to a remote cabin to reconnect with his estranged father. – IMDB

Suffice to say that in recent years, Elijah Wood has been getting involved in some interesting independent horror films especially with his company SpectreVision that has also put out some awesome horror films (psychedelic for the most part). Its hard to not be intrigued by anything that has his name attached to it. Come To Daddy was one that I avoided during the festival circuit because it would be accessible and no doubt, Come To Daddy is another intriguing one. The tone and pacing is a little odd at times with the first half being landing a lot better than the second half but always playing with some horror and slipping in some comedy breaks in between. The second half definitely seems like it loses a little steam after the “twist” is revealed which causes quite the change in atmosphere.

The cast and performances here are really great. Elijah Wood is fitting in this role Norval as a man in his thirties which has been with some privilege that ends up trying to get some kind of resolution from his estranged father who is not a very appealing person played incredibly well by Stephen McHattie. The dynamic and dialogue between these two characters creates this very entertaining and unsettling sort of atmosphere. Not to mention the whole character design of Elijah Wood’s character The side characters also have some weird moments and have little character reference points whether its a cop who believes that criminals have a certain type of eyes for example. However, there isn’t a big cast here so its not hard to follow.

To be fair, its hard to really talk about this too much without giving the twist away as that lays out a lot of the purpose of the film and the reason of why his estranged father reaches out to him years later, a question that the character also asks as a pivoting point despite everything that happens surrounding him. There are some minor illogical moments as well. Overall, its a fun little movie which was both odd and intriguing

Secrets in the Hot Spring (2018)

Director (and writer): Kuan-Hui Lin

Cast: Ting-hu Zhang, Sing Hom, He-Hsuan Lin, Mimi Chu, Kar-Ying Law, Chin Chi, Kai-Wei Chiu, Shu-yao Kuo

Three youngsters meet by accident at a mysterious hot springs hotel. There, they fall into an unforgettable adventure. It starts off scary but soon turns funny when they have to try and save a family. – IMDB

Secrets in the Hot Spring probably isn’t going to stand-out to anyone as they browse the horror or comedy or international films section however it is something of a fun little hidden gem. Diving into a part horror and part comedy balance for the most part, this Taiwanese film is downright silly and yet fittingly so. Of course, I must yet again reiterate that comedy is very suggestive and I feel like this type of humor might not be for everyone. The best way to probably determine for familiar Asian film viewers is the type of humor that Hong Kong veteran actor & actress, Kar-Ying Law and Mimi Chu brings as they are part of this film as the grandparents running the hot springs hotel. They really pull together the film with their performance. The three youngsters are played by less familiar faces (at least to myself as the current scene of Taiwanese actors in the recent decade is one that I have yet to dive into). The contrast in each of the youngster’s characters also balance out the their performances whether in dialogue or reaction. It’s pretty good choice in casting.

Perhaps what makes Secrets in the Hot Spring fun is that its conscious about how silly it is and embraces it using both horror tropes and some ridiculous reactions from the characters to make it work on many levels and be just a very simple entertainment. However the writing is fairly clever as it uses its horror and comedy blend to create the twist as well. There are some little jump scare moments but overall, its not a very scary experience so hardcore horror fans might be disappointed. What also adds to the simplicity is the small cast of 5 (or maybe 7) characters and a good use of the hot spring hotel setting as it uses the location really well bringing together the past for the main youngster character who is meant to be the future heir and slowly reveals his past and his reluctance. The big finale is a little cheesy but then its arguable that the story itself not taking itself seriously being the tone actually works together in general.

Another one where the twist is one that is well-executed and makes it rather fun and elevates itself from a bit of the Asian film melodrama. There is no doubt a little considering it has a portion of the family back story shared here. In some ways, I can’t say that this movie is particularly sophisticated but it sure was a fun time making it a little hard to evaluate whether its a good movie but it is an entertaining one that’s not completely mindless but the humor also is more physical and interaction between the characters than in its dialogue which doesn’t have as many translation issues also. Overall, Secrets in the Hot Spring is a fun film. Hardcore horror isn’t really a forte in Taiwanese films (in my limited experience) so its nice that they approach it with humor.

Double Feature: The Night Comes For Us (2018) & Come and Find Me (2016)

Next double feature is here! This time is a bit of a fast pace film duo with Netflix distributed Indonesian action crime film The Night Comes For Us and drama thriller Come and Find Me. The first I originally watched as a contender for opening the Ultimate 2010s blogathon and the second was just a random pick and I hadn’t watched an Aaron Paul movie in a while. Let’s check it out!

The Night Comes For Us (2018)

Director (and writer): Timo Tjahjanto

Cast: Joe Taslim, Iko Uwais, Julie Estelle, Zack Lee, Salvita Decorte, Sunny Pang, Hannah Al Rashid, Dian Sastrowardoyo, Abimana Aryasatya

Ito (Joe Taslim), a gangland enforcer, caught amidst a treacherous and violent insurrection within his Triad crime family upon his return home from a stint abroad. – IMDB

Indonesian cinema has been gradually finding its spot in the last decade or so especially when The Raid: Redemption arrived in 2013. With the two main leads from that film being the leads in The Night Comes For Us, the least we do know is that there will be some fantastic action. There’s a lot to love about The Night Comes For Us even if its very much a lot of the same bloody, fast-paced and action-packed sort of deal that Indonesian action films have been showing (at least in my very little experience from the 3 films I’ve seen..so I could be wrong, and if I am, please let me know other Indonesian movies to check out).

Running the movie and being caught up in this action thriller is Ito played Joe Taslim who is amazing because he is this good-looking rugged action star who truly has some fantastic moves, not surprising since he was on the Indonesia Judo national team for a while. Between him and Iko Iwais as well as the femme fatale characters and Ito’s buddies, the action has a lot of variety and keeps it pretty fresh throughout with different weapons and stylishly violent.

A lot of people want to bring in the Chinese into their action crime thrillers these days. Being Chinese myself, I naturally tend to judge the believability of the people speaking this language and for myself, the actors speaking Chinese definitely could be better. However, the story itself was in some ways rather straight forward and it was somewhat of big plan or just reasoning as to why Ito wanted to make that first decision to save the girl and slowly gives an idea of his spot with the Six Seas and then into the relationship with his friends.

Come and Find Me (2016)

Director (and writer): Zack Whedon

Cast: Aaron Paul, Annabelle Wallis, Garret Dillahunt, Enver Gjokaj, Terry Chen, Zachary Knighton, Chris Chalk

When his girlfriend goes missing, David must track down her whereabouts after he realizes she’s not who she was pretending to be. – IMDB

Its not surprising that Come and Find Me was an unknown title to myself. It did only have a limited release and VOD. Its quite a pity because while Come and Find Me follows the motions of a general thriller of this type in a relatively predictable way, its actually executed pretty well. I might also be a little skewed because this type of setup where past and present intertwine when done well is a pretty neat structure. I do admit thay there is a beginning sequence that feels like the setup took a little longer than needed.

Aaron Paul is definitely the central character here as David who finds his girlfriend missing one day and then realizes something isn’t quite right when her friend comes to trash their place in search for something. Its this that starts his search for her in another direction and leads him to find him her different secrets and essentially who is really is. Aaron Paul does deliver a great role here. Plus, I love movies that throw their characters on wild and unexpected rides turning them from clueless innocents into tougher characters.

Come and Find Me was a pleasant surprise. It had some slower moments but overall it was executed fairly good. There was a bit of intrigue and mystery and thrills. Its a decent random pick.

That’s it for this double feature!
Have you seen these two films? Thoughts!

Halloween Double Feature: The Purge: Anarchy (2014) & The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Due to some changes, the second double feature got changed and I ended up moving up The Purge franchises second and third film, The Purge: Anarchy and The Purge: Election Year, which has been a long overdue revisit to the franchise after watching the first film years ago. I liked The Purge relatively a lot but was a little skeptical on how sequels would work with it so lets see how these two sequels did *crossing my fingers that we are are getting closer to horror territory*.

The Purge: Anarchy (2014)

Director (and writer): James DeMonaco

Cast: Frank Grillo, Carmen Ejogo, Zach Gilford, Kiele Sanchez, Zoe Soul, Jack Conley, Michael Kenneth Williams, LaKeith Stanfield

Three groups of people intertwine and are left stranded in the streets on Purge Night, trying to survive the chaos and violence that occurs. – IMDB

Arugably not as star-studded as the first movie The Purge (review) with Ethan Hawke and Lena Headey, The Purge: Anarchy actually doesn’t have quite the same type of home invasion horror but rather changes into a downtown street level type of Purge as a few groups of people end up in the streets during the Purge night and ends up being saved by Sergeant, played by Frank Grillo. While it still have the chase element, the horror elements are rather less however retaining the Los Angeles location from the first movie.

The Purge: Anarchy is actually quite slow overall. There is action going on but it always feels like the pacing isn’t particularly great. Taking it to the streets is a good idea as that is where the danger is and makes the scope bigger onto the people and citizen and the different elements on a societal levels. It gives a depth to The Purge tradition and structure. That’s the part that does work for The Purge: Anarchy and makes this sequel work more.

Another big plus for The Purge: Anarchy definitely goes to Frank Grillo who lead a lot of this film as Sergeant who ends up taking care of the  two families that he ends up helping out while having his own agenda. Its a character that definitely was appreciated in this whole thing as it pulled together the human elements as well as the action elements which is great because he ends up also being there in the next film of The Purge franchise. Is it very horror scary? Not really, its more of the action thriller drama sort of deal with some horror in terms of being chased and hunted down.

The Purge: Election Year (2016)

Director (and writer): James DeMonaco

Cast: Frank Grillo, Elizabeth Mitchell, Mykelti Williamson, Joseph Julian Soria, Betty  Gabriel, Terry Serpico, Edwin Hodge, Kyle Secor

Former Police Sergeant Barnes becomes head of security for Senator Charlie Roan, a Presidential candidate targeted for death on Purge night due to her vow to eliminate the Purge. – IMDB

The Purge: Election Year takes another angle of the near-future world of where it takes place. This time showing the political angle of the this era as The Purge for the first time has no limits on who can be killed during The Purge, opening it up to the political figures as well. Taking it to another level of this world which adds some more depth from where the franchise has gone. Another link here is Frank Grillo, which reappears giving this a timeline of 2 years later from The Purge: Anarchy (and at one point refers to it) and now doing security detail for the opposition party leader, Charlie Roan.

The Purge: Election Year has a lot more horror as it shows a lot more “purging” moments around the city which has everything from beheading to hanging to lit up cars to crazy young adults and all kinds of things bloody. It adds to jumpscares and amplifies the whole purging experience (which the previous film lacked, in my opinion). At the same time, it also manages to balance out the action elements in the chase as they try to protect Charlie Roan from being caught by the opposing parties and the New Founding Fathers. It shows more of the unwritten rules during Purge Night as well as the secret organizations that are also against the Purge and the different goals they have. Most of all, now its about weapons and such with lots of gun fights and the likes but Frank Grillo also gets to show off some hand to hand combat and its a different pacing but adds to the variety of action here.

The downfall of The Purge: Election Year are some very disposable and annoying characters added in, like the over the top performances from the opposing guy which is a minister and seems like he’s a crazy person by the end. It was a bit over, just like the lit up car with the young girls, specifically the character of Kimmy which was just ridiculously over the top, out of her mind and got rather annoying. The crazy is supposed to be scary but I’m not quite sure it had that effect. Luckily, they do balance these smaller characters with some pretty good main characters from Charlie Roan (played by Elizabeth Mitchel) and Leo (Frank Grillo) paired with some fantastic characters that they meet from deli owner Joe Dixon (Mykelti Williamson) who does a great team with Leo and was one of the best performances here along with his employee, Marcos (Joseph Julian Soria) who also added and the badass lady nicknamed Pequena Muerte, Laney Rucker who is also really great.

Overall, The Purge: Election Year does a good job. It still goes through a lot of the same motions of how these films are structured but the story does elevate itself each time a little more to give more depth from different angles and learn more about the society. This film kind of wraps up this whole Purge business so when the chance presents itself, its time to go back to the next film which is the prequel The First Purge of how it all started.

Halloween Double Feature #2 is done!
Are you a The Purge franchise fan? Thoughts? Which is your favorite film from this franchise?

Ultimate 2000s Blogathon: Juno (2007) by From the Depths of DVD Hell

The guest to join this Ultimate 2000s Blogathon is Elwood Jones, my co-host of Movies and Tea and Game Warp Podcast as he represents his own movie blog, From the Depths of DVD Hell. For reviews of movies that stray away from the mainstream and dive into the obscure, cult and foreign selections, this is the place to go! For this blogathon, he chooses to take a look at 2007’s indie coming of age teen comedy Juno.

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Title: Juno

Director: Jason Reitman

Released: 2007

Starring: Ellen Page, Michael Cera, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Allison Janney, J.K. Simmons

Plot: After finding out she is pregnant, high school teen Juno (Page) she soon finds herself face with some tough choices of what to do about her unborn child.

Review: Having been brought to the attention of producer Mason Novick after he discovered her blog about stripping Diablo Cody was almost instantly a hot property first for her memoir Candy Girl: A Year in the Life of an Unlikely Stripper and unquestionably when she claimed the Best Screenplay Oscar for her debut script. Of course like anything which is a hot property on it’s release there is always the question as to if they still hold up down the line which in particular was what inspired my own re-watch of this film having watched it when it on its original release but hardly thought about it since while Cody despite being marked as an exciting new voice has struggled to create anything which comes close to her debut script.

Juno is the blueprint of the smart-mouthed hipster teen which Director Jason Reitman wastes little time in establishing as she trades barbs with Rainn Wilson’s sarcastic convenience store clerk, after walking through her town swigging Sunny Delight to Barry Louis Polisar’s “All I Want is You”. Even her pregnancy announcement to best friend / Crush Paulie (Cera) has her dragging a furniture set to his lawn only to drop it on him with such casualness that she might as well be making diner plans. At the same time she is unquestionably the sort of character who only exists in the fictional realm with his smart mouth and retro obsessions and certainly with the numerous smart mouth teens which followed in the films wake, as well as a string of teen pregnancies labelled “The Juno Effect” by Time magazine after 17 students at a Gloucester, Massachusetts high school became pregnant which many accused this film and Knocked Up released in the same year of glamorizing teenage pregnancy though how the later could be accused of such a thing is unclear, more so because none of the cast are close to high school age. What makes Juno stand out though is unquestionably Ellen Page who’d prior to this film already caused waves for her pedophile punishing antics in Hard Candy and here really made the character her own as she influenced many of the key details for the character such as her hair as well as the soundtrack being heavy on Kimya Dawson as she felt that this is what Juno would choose to listen to.

Soundtrack wise there’s a mixture of hipster folk from the aforementioned Kimya Dawson and her old band the Mouldy Peaches and a couple of Belle and Sebastian tracks mixed in with a some retro tracks from Mott the Hoople and a Sonic Youth cover of the Carpenters “Superstar” which became one of the selling points of the soundtrack. Largely its just background music which never seems to gel with the film as more often battles for your attention with what’s happening on the screen rather than complementing it. Removed from the film its a fun background music for hangouts, hinging largely on how much you like the abstract tones of Kimya Dawson.

One of the most refreshing aspects to the film though is is how it approaches the subject of teenage pregnancy as Juno is clear from the start that she has no plans to keep the baby with a sobering visit to a Women first clinic broaching a taboo subject which most films wouldn’t touch. Sure the film might not be venturing as deep as Tony Kaye’s “Lake of Fire” but it’s acknowledgement of abortion gives the film much more of a grounding that you would have expected from a film so focused on whitty pop culture influence dialogue. This visit in terms of plotting does serve a purpose as ultimately leading her to Mark and Vanessa to arrange a closed adoption which also forms the real meat of the film as starts to learn more about this couple she is going to be giving her child to.

Seeing this couple develop like our opinions of them over the course of the film is one of the strongest aspects of the film with Vanessa initially coming off the cold only to showing deeper levels of warmth to her character especially with her desire to become a mother. Mark on the other hand still clings onto few traces of rock star ambition that Vanessa allows him to keep in “his room” of their pristine house while he now pays the bills writing jingles for commercials which needless to say plays his character perfectly off Vanessa’s who is seen as the dream crusher initially with Juno and Mark soon bonding over a love of music and horror movies. By the time that Juno is due to deliver this relationship soon takes a darker turn reminding us once more just how well Bateman does suburban creepy while Cody pulls a switch-a-roo with our feelings for these characters the final pay off being delivered not in some stirring monologue but instead a simple note.

Perhaps it could be argued that the film does let Juno off attachment free when it comes to her baby as she is merely just the carrier and host to this child and any comment she really makes about the child is in how its effecting her physically than any kind of connection. As a result she give away her child and settles back into her life nine months prior to this incident now only with the knowledge that she has unconventionally helped someone out.

Juno in many ways marked the high watermark for the American Indie genre before the collapse of several of the major studios which soon saw the remaining studios move away from investing in such risky material which is something of a shame when we consider the wealth of material which came out of this period such as Little Miss Sunshine and The Squid and The Whale. At the same time while this film might not feel as hip on the rewatch as it did back on it’s original release a strong likeable performance from Ellen Page carries the film which at the least should be appreciated for it’s fierce originality as it sidesteps genre cliches to deliver it’s story in a voice which is very much its own.

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A huge thanks to our final guest Elwood Jones for joining with this blogathon with a great review of Juno.

We head into me and Drew’s conclusion posts after this one. If you missed any entries, you can find the entire list HERE.