Double Feature: The Land of Steady Habits (2018) & Edge of Fear (2018)

Its been a while since the last double feature! I do apologize for the tardiness. Writing time has been limited but I do have a lot of double features backlogged that will be going up soon. The first two is Netflix drama film The Land of Steady Habits and a home invasion thriller Edge of Fear.

Let’s check it out!

The Land of Steady Habits (2018)

Director (and co-writer): Nicole Holofcener

Cast: Ben Mendelsohn, Elizabeth Marvel, Connie Britton, Bill Camp, Charlie Tahan, Edie Falco, Thomas Mann

After leaving his wife and his job to find happiness, Anders befriends a drug-addicted teen, sending him down a path of reckless and shameful behavior. – IMDB

The Land of Steady Habits is a film about a man struggling with the new norms after retirement. Anders is by far an character that is very unlikable, by his own self-destructive nature and the way that he doesn’t hold by what he says. From the the start, its a character that is meant to be flawed and feeling more realistic and closer as a regular person and its because of Ben Mendohlsohn’s portrayal of this character that truly gives this story a lot of depth into this man’s change from the old ways: divorce, moving to a new home, early retirement and yet giving up all the things of old hasn’t really brought him a lot of joy as he tries to find companionship in sleeping with strangers but having issues there as well. Because of the character almost unable to find happiness in this new norm and yet constantly barging unreasonably into his old life aka his wife’s house, it almost gives this character a lot of deeper moments about the dilemma he is in.

The father-son relationship that portrays as well as the “friendship” that he has with the family friend’s seemingly delinquent kid ends up being a big focal as it portrays a growth of a man to slowly become more responsible especially in the face of what happens at the end. It helps question the character about who he is both as a parent and as a person in reflection of his choices.

Overall, The Land of Steady Habits feels a lot like a trip down a complex character study. Its a bit out of my league as its far from where I am in life. However, the character’s development and depth is rather depressing at parts especially on the twist of situations. Plus, as with movies with this, its rather quiet and subtle especially how the movie starts following through this routine of this man. It probably isn’t for everybody but as a drama film, it definitely does deliver on some levels especially in this flawed character.

Edge of Fear (2018)

Director: Bobby Roth

Cast: Rockmond Dunbar, Zhu Zhu, Shen Lin, Robert Knepper, Dean Cudworth, Robert Crayton, Robert Patrick, Amaury Nolasco, Andy Mackenzie, Jodi Lyn O’Keefe

After being stabbed in the heart by ruthless home invaders, a man is left for dead. Now weak, outnumbered, and knife sticking from his chest, he attempts to do the impossible: save his wife from these murderers before he bleeds to death. – IMDB

I think I watched Edge of Fear because it was going to leave Netflix or maybe I just did because it seemed like a movie that was good as background noise. In some ways, Edge of Fear has a good idea with its setting in the middle of the woods isolated and with no form of transportation to exit if anything happens. Not sure why anyone does that, but sure, I can buy that since no one expects to have their home invaded by criminals. Part mystery, part thriller and kind of an home invasion film, Edge of Fear lacks a lot of each of those things. The main reason being that its all very generic from the characters to the crew that takes over the cabin to the turn of events. Nothing is very unpredictable. Plus, the dialogue itself leaves a lot of space to be elevated.

In reality, the characters here aren’t too bad. The main characters going to the victims who are the Chinese doctors who were invited out. The fight to survive is definitely there except they are also faced with a bunch of fairly all brute and no brains (or at least it feels that way) minions who are doing the wrong things at the wrong times. Leading these two is the character portrayed by Robert Patrick who is obviously the better actor of the cast especially since he seems to really be great at these darker characters and can be rather menacing. The other would be the man that this crew helped escape from prison played by Robert Knepper who had an interesting sort of character design which all comes into play for the big finale.

Overall, Edge of Fear is a rather lackluster film. I didn’t have particularly high expectations for it seeing as I went into this film not knowing much about it.

That’s it for this double feature!

By Night’s End (2020)

By Night’s End (2020)

Director (and co-writer): Walker Whited

Cast: Michelle Rose, Kurt Yue, Michael Aaron Milligan, Carlos Aviles, Matt LaBorde, Jeff Ridgway, Troy Faruk, Lucius Baston

A couple wake up in the night to a man searching for something in their home. After they are forced to kill him in self defense, they decide to take one hour before calling the police to search for what they hope is a hidden fortune. – IMDB

Home invasion films can be quite a thrill to watch. The most unexpected things come out of the independent films scene sometimes and By Night’s End does have a decent premise even if there are a few issues with it overall. However, if you are a fan of alternate Christmas movies, this might be one to take into consideration since its set on Christmas even if all it has is a Christmas tree, ornaments and some funky holiday hat before things really take a turn.

By Night’s End is a small film both in cast and its single setting and passing through a single night, except for the opening scene that sets a little earlier to set up the plot and mystery. The story focuses on a couple who is trying to move on after the loss of their daughter while struggling to make ends meet as they both have employment issues. While those issues do come into play as the couple is trapped from one bad decision to another struggle to avoid the home invasion from happening in their conversation to give their relationship a basis, the story’s strength is really in the interaction with their home invader and the action bits which is enforced as the female lead Heather is a stunt woman turned actress who makes those action scenes more engaging. The execution of the movie from one suspense moment to the next action and the power balance between especially Heather and the home invader is done rather well even if the dialogue between the characters do fall flat. While the dynamic between the home invader and the couple are decent, the home invader’s character does fall into very familiar territory for this sort of character.

With that said, for a fairly barebones home invasion story, the story does give a few twists. One that happens fairly early in the movie that changes it direction to something else which adds a little more complexity to the story, even if that the first scene shows an obvious clue that drove me a little crazy when the characters didn’t connect the dots until a lot later in the story. However, there is a good amount of depth and little surprises especially in the little escapes and action scenes as the couple fights for their survival and escape while trying to find out why their home has been targeted. There’s a good building of atmosphere and tension as it plays with lighting and darkness. By Night’s End may have a little issue with script and dialogue however, for the most part, it does hit a lot of the home invasion tension that makes it a rather fun watch overall.

DarkCoast will release By Night’s End on October 6th on various digital platforms (Amazon, iTunes, DirecTV, FlixFling, Google Play, Vudu and AT&T)

*Screener provided by DarkCoast*

Fantasia Festival 2019: Door Lock (2018)

Door Lock (2018)

Director (and co-writer): Kwon Lee

Cast: Hyo-jin Kong, Sung-oh Kim, Ye-won Kim

Door Lock is a 2018 South Korean thriller about a woman who suspects that someone is trying to break into her apartment and tries to figure out who it is.

Door Lock is the South Korean remake of 2011 film Sleep Tight except taking it from the other perspective. If you haven’t seen Sleep Tight, you probably want to see it after this one, mostly because then the thrills of figuring out who is the bad guy will be taken away. At the same time, if you have seen it, then this one might just be an exercise of watching the story from a different angle set in a different city. Falling into the category of never having seen the original, Door Lock is a mystery thriller mixed a different twist on the home invasion genre.

Starting with the opening scene of a woman going home to her apartment and being attacked suddenly, Door Lock quickly changes to a woman who wakes up and has a certain routine that has set herself in almost an compulsive way so the little changes automatically spark her attention. Despite her safety precautions of moving to a big building with better security and installing an electronic door lock, she still feels unsafe however one night, she is woken up by the sound of someone trying to break into her apartment frantically. Except her suspicions aren’t enough to keep the police to investigate further so she decides to take matters into her own hands.

Door Lock isn’t exactly a new idea and in the thriller department, it really takes noticing that one clue and that one dialogue in the movie to already have suspicions of the invader. However, there is some nice execution here. Right from the beginning, there is a sense of being followed as the camera will move from different angles and through surveillance cameras and from ceiling shots. Its quite creative and adds to the unsettling feeling of being observed. The sounds aren’t overpowering as well. It raises as the scene intensifies but also takes the care to focus on the little sounds in the surrounding like the clock ticking for example and isolating onto the everyday sounds amplified. There’s one scene that the soundtrack done really well where it follows two characters and there is a contrast on the soundtracks playing which was unique. The audience also gets a lot of the insider information, know more than the main character which works especially as the quick reveal of what is going on which leaves the rest of the story to question who, why and how.

In South Korean films, there’s always a notion about things being too slow because of its lengthy run time. In this case, it actually is the opposite. Its shorter run time actually deters it a little. It does give it a good pacing and the plot moves forward fairly quickly however there’s a lot of shallow characters especially the main girl who only gets caught in all the mess but feels never gives enough to be invested in her safety to begin with. Plus, the predictable misdirection to suspect other characters are fairly easy to see through as well. Perhaps the one thing that gets to be taken away from this is the concept of safety in the society and the false pretenses of it whether its the people around our everyday lives to the bigger buildings feeling more secure or the fancy gadgets to ensure safety all seems to have the loopholes that can be broken especially because they are also involving humans who might not all have the right intentions.

Overall, Door Lock is a decent thriller (from the opinion of someone who has never seen the original Spanish film). It has a few flaws to it but also has some tension and is fairly well-paced. Its cinematography and background sound design and soundtrack does it a lot of favors to build the atmosphere. Even if the characters are fairly shallow, the message it conveys is an important one.

Halloween 2018: The Open House (2018)

Next up on our Halloween marathon journey, the sparse marathon that I’ve seemed to make bad choices all over the place on movies that only seem to have horror elements to this point.  However, this one is a home invasion Netflix original horror called The Open House released earlier this year.

Let’s check it out!

The Open House (2018)

Directors (and writers): Matt Angel & Suzanne Coote

Cast: Dylan Minnette, Piercey Dalton, Patricia Bethune, Sharif Atkins, Aaron Abrams, Katie Walder

A teenager and his mother find themselves besieged by threatening forces when they move into a new house. – IMDB

Running at a little over 90 minutes, The Open House shouldn’t have been a chore to watch. Its a reasonable length but all this movie did was feel like a waste of time. It took the first half hour to set up the story and get them to the location and in the process of it all and continuing afterwards into a series of unnecessary atmospheric sounds and cliche moments and trying to create eerie moments in some unneeded parts. It feels like this movie is a lesson on less is more. Things can be normal for a moment. It doesn’t have to be intense dramatic scenes all the time. Or posing obvious questions about the odds things happening or “how weird an open house is” but then not noticing a squeaky door crack open in the hallway while standing in the kitchen, for a very  basic example that packs in both nonsense and cliche together.

I don’t like calling movies waste of time because there has to be a mentality of why this movie was greenlit despite my obvious lack of entertainment for it. The lackluster part really goes down to  the ending. Its never been my thing to have perfect bow-tied endings. Its nice to have vague endings in a way and while I try to stay spoiler free, I’ll talk further about what I think about the ending and what it was trying to achieve but didn’t. I could be wrong but if the movie didn’t feel like a eye-rolling cliche fest in the first place, while having a few better moments in the final act, the ending really did it in for me.

So here we go – SPOILER ALERT – highlight if you have seen the movie or don’t plan on seeing it so don’t mind reading about it:

The movie ended with pretty much everyone dead and us never really knowing who the killer is. What their purpose is is a question mark and nothing much else gets answered except our possible suspects pretty much get ruled out. The purpose behind this ending (as ridiculous as I found it) is that sometimes, the mystery is the horror that there is someone preying on open houses and the families in it. The unknown is the chilling factor here. Sometimes things don’t have reasons. 

Like I said, I could be wrong, Sadly, The Open House was executed so poorly that if there was a message, it just didn’t deliver well. There are some redeeming scenes at the end when things get a little more fast-paced but for the most part, its really quite a boring affair that takes too long to start and overdoes it with cliches making it also very predictable on what will happen next. I’m rarely so harsh on films but I have pet peeves specifically about movies and this one ticked off so many of those boxes.