Worth Mentioning - Fear. Panic. Delusion.

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning.

A '90s thriller, a comic book slasher, and a sci-fi trip.

RUN (1991)

Patrick Dempsey hasn't done much action in his career, he's primarily known for '80s comedies and the "dreamy" role he played on 243 episodes of Grey's Anatomy, but back in 1991 he starred in a really cool action movie, director Geoff Burrowes' Run.

I'm not sure why the screenplay required four writers (Dennis Shryack, Michael Blodgett, Daniel Petrie Jr., and James Dearden), because there's not much to it. It just provides a simple set-up for a steady stream of action sequences. Dempsey plays Charlie Farrow, a law student from Boston who is trying to earn some extra cash by delivering a Porsche to Atlantic City. Somewhere in the vicinity of Atlantic City, Charlie ends up playing poker in an underground casino, and his luck at the game drives another player into a violent rage. While attacking Charlie, that other player ends up tripping and bashing his head into a countertop, dying due to his own stupidity - and then Charlie finds out that the dead guy was the son of criminal kingpin Halloran (Ken Pogue). As far as Halloran is concerned, Charlie is guilty of killing his son, so he sics his lackeys on the kid. And those lackeys include several members of the local police force.

From the moment Charlie runs out of the casino (which happens around 17 minutes into the 88 minute movie) until the end credits start rolling, Run doesn't let much time pass before we get another action sequence. There are car chases, foot chases, and shootouts that take place in locations like a bowling alley, a shopping mall, an amusement park, and a racetrack. One of the most memorable sequences for me happens in a parking garage, and it involves a vehicle teetering on the edge of the structure.

Along the way, Charlie gets some assistance from Kelly Preston as a woman who worked in that underground casino, but Preston didn't have as much screen time as I would have liked. That's the only disappointing thing about Run as far as I'm concerned, because even if there's not enough Preston the movie is still a lot of fun.

RANDOM ACTS OF VIOLENCE (2019)

For five years, Todd (Jesse Williams) has been writing and drawing a comic book called Slasherman, a total bloodbath of a book that was inspired by the murders committed by a real, never apprehended serial killer that terrorized Todd's hometown when he was a kid. Now Todd is planning to end Slasherman, if he could just think of what to write for the final page of the last issue.

While he ponders that last page, Todd hits the road on a press tour, accompanied by his friend Ezra (Jay Baruchel), who owns the small comics publisher that puts out Slasherman, his assistant Aurora (Niamh Wilson), and his girlfriend Kathy (Jordana Brewster) - who really does not like or approve of Slasherman. The press tour takes the group through Todd's hometown, and while they're there it seems that they accidentally catch the attention of the real killer. Todd starts to receive strange, cryptic phone calls, and then people around him start getting murdered, their bodies displayed in ways that are reminiscent of panels from Slasherman issues.

Based on a graphic novel by Justin Gray and Jimmy Palmiotti, Random Acts of Violence was written (with Jesse Chabot) and directed by Baruchel, which is the top reason why I was interested in checking the movie out. Baruchel is best known for acting in comedy films and TV shows, what would a slasher movie directed by him be like? The answer is: very dark, brutal, and gory. It's also very stylistic, with nice camera moves and imagery that is often soaked with color. Sometimes the movie reminded me of films made by Mario Bava, sometimes it had me thinking of The Hitcher - never in terms of quality, but the visuals and certain scenarios.

Guts are spilled, heads are severed, and the film also repeatedly confronts Todd about his decision to make the Slasherman comics in the first place, as it appears he's being disrespectful and exploiting tragedy for his own gain. The people who bash Slasherman do have a point. I'll watch and enjoy slasher movies all day, but if a movie that claims to be telling the story of a real killer goes too far with the exploitation, I tune out.

Although I liked Random Acts of Violence, I was often put off by the characters featured in it. I didn't like most of these people very much, I couldn't really connect with them. But overall, it's a good slasher movie.

PARALLAX (2020)

Writer/director Michael Bachochin's Parallax is a two hour long mind game that had me intrigued at first, but began to wear out its welcome about a third of the way through. By the end it had lost me completely, as I was both tired of playing this mind game and baffled as to what was going on. In the end, I'm not able to tell you exactly what was happening in Parallax or why. I fully admit, I did not "get it".

The story centers on a couple, Lucas (Nelson Ritthaler) and Naomi (Naomi Prentice), and we're introduced to them at a time when Lucas feels that the love of his life is slipping away from him. Naomi feels out of place in her own life, she doesn't recognize or remember anything - even when Lucas brings her grandmother over, Naomi says she has never met the woman before. We're told that Naomi has a history of mental illness and the couple's therapist Dr. Ted (Ted Gianopulos) suggests that she might have dementia. But just when it seems the film could be a straightforward drama about a woman dealing with mental deterioration, Bachochin starts introducing other elements to the story that mix in the question of whether or not something supernatural or sci-fi may be going on here.

Naomi is plagued by nightmares of drowning, but she also finds that she can visit the beach at any time of day just by touching her paintings or concentrating for a moment. She appears to be physically transported to the water. In this other reality (dreamworld? different dimension?), Naomi meets a woman named Mikayla (Hattie Smith), and it seems that she was in a relationship with Mikayla, either earlier in her life or in a parallel dimension. Now Naomi has to figure out which reality she inhabits is her true reality, if any of them are. And what's up with that room in her house that she and Lucas have both accepted is off limits?

Parallax gets very trippy, to the point where it was making me think of Nightmare on Elm Street and Phantasm movies, but if those classics had the thrilling horror elements stripped out of them. You could also say it's like Inception without action, leaving only scenes of characters drearily making their way through scenes that may or may not be dreams. I wasn't interested enough in this slow burn to stay invested in the characters through the series of confusing moments.

The film does impress on a technical level, aside from a stylistic choice that did not work for me: this is one of the most oddly framed films I have ever seen. Bachochin often chose to have the characters on either the far right or far left of the screen, leaving most of the screen to be taken up by empty space. There are also moments where characters are too low in the frame, like one shot where we only see Naomi from the bottom of her eyes up, with a lot of empty space above her head. Clearly Bachochin wanted these moments to look like this, but I found it to be very off-putting.

The cast did well in their roles as they helped bring the madness to life. I don't know if it's a coincidence that the lead character and the lead actress are both named Naomi, if the character was renamed after Naomi Prentice was cast, or if Bachochin specifically crafted the film to be a showcase for Prentice, but she shows that she is capable of carrying a film. Ritthaler and Smith offer solid support, and viewers may be split by their characters. Do you think Naomi should be with Lucas or Mikayla? Will you still be rooting for them by the end of the film?

This movie is only recommended to viewers who enjoy confounding mind game films and want to be left wondering what they just watched. If you're not into "was it all just a dream?" films (or at least not into ones that don't involve horror icons), this one isn't likely to win you over because it doesn't have enough going on in it.

The Parallax review originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com