Worth Mentioning - Change the Voices in Your Head

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. 

Cody looks at three genre movies that are each streaming somewhere.

The following reviews originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

THEY/THEM (2022)

After spending more than thirty years building up his screenwriting career and earning three Oscar nominations along the way (for Gladiator, The Aviator, and Hugo), John Logan has teamed up with Blumhouse Productions to make his directorial debut with the horror movie They/Them (we’re meant to pronounce the title They-slash-Them). Logan’s choice to direct a horror movie isn’t that surprising, given that he has worked on projects like Alien: Covenant and Sweeney Todd before, and created the television series Penny Dreadful, but it is somewhat surprising that he decided to make a slasher. A very pleasant surprise.

They/Them is set at a gay conversion camp called Camp Whistler, where a group of LGBTQ youths arrive to spend a week under the guidance of owner Owen Whistler (Kevin Bacon) and his counselors, who are played by the likes of Boone Platt, Carrie Preston, Hayley Griffith, and Anna Chlumsky. The fact that Logan decided to give the conversion camp in his story the name Camp Whistler makes me wonder if it's meant to be a nod to the old belief that a person's sexuality can be determined by seeing if they can whistle or not. Conversion camps have awful reputations, but something seems off about this one right from the start because Owen seems way too nice. Too tolerant, too progressive. And sure enough, there are some very dark secrets hidden just beneath the surface at Camp Whistler. This would be a terrible place to spend time at even if there wasn’t a masked slasher lurking around, picking people off when the opportunity arises.

As you would expect from Logan, there is a very strong focus on character in this movie, and he spends time letting us get to know several of the kids who have come to this camp. There are gay males, lesbian females, trans characters, and one non-binary character who prefers the pronouns they/them. They each have their own reasons for being at Camp Whistler in the first place. Some were forced to go to the camp by their parents, while others have shown up with the hope that Whistler and his counselors will somehow be able to make them straight. And some of them do find their path in life while at this camp – but the help comes from being able to interact with peers who are dealing with similar issues. There are heartwarming, uplifting moments in They/Them as we see these youths discovering who they truly are and learning to accept themselves. Things get so uplifting, the youths even break out into a musical number at one point.

Theo Germaine, Quei Tann, Austin Crute, Monique Kim, Anna Lore, Cooper Koch, and Darwin del Fabro play the campers we get to know best during their time at Camp Whistler, and each one of them delivered a terrific performance, perfectly handling the material they were given. Germaine is our lead, the non-binary character Jordan, a strong and capable person who tries to help others out of this awful situation they’ve found themselves in. We spend more time with the campers than with the counselors, but Logan makes sure we know what's going on with the people running this camp as well. We find out how each of them works and whether or not they really want to help these kids.

In addition to the great character work, Logan also digs into the elements you expect to find in a slasher. Sex, violence, and bloodshed. It’s great to see Kevin Bacon in a camp slasher more than forty years after he met a bloody demise in the original Friday the 13th – and this really proves that Bacon should stay far away from camps, because nothing good ever comes out of it for him or the people around him. And there’s another treat for Friday the 13th fans in this movie. They/Them was filmed at Hard Labor Creek State Park in Rutledge, Georgia, at the camp right across the lake from the camp that served as Camp Forest Green (formerly Camp Crystal Lake) in Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI. So we’re seeing Kevin Bacon in a slasher movie, at the same lake Jason Voorhees stalked in Jason Lives. And “Jason Voorhees” is directly referenced in the dialogue. It’s also worth noting that this same camp served as the primary location in last year’s Fear Street Part Two: 1978. It’s always fun to see slashers overlapping and using the same locations.

Logan has gotten his directing career off to a great start with They/Them, which is a satisfying slasher movie with some impressive writing and acting. Kevin Bacon, bloodshed, a musical number, what more could you want from a movie? I will definitely be having more viewings of this movie in the future, because They/Them is (almost) perfect to me.

BESTSELLER (2022)

If you’re looking for a stalker thriller to watch, director Christina Rohn’s feature debut Bestseller is a decent one to check out – the main problem being that there’s just a little too much of it. At 103 minutes, it could have benefited from being a bit shorter and more focused on getting under the viewer’s skin. Scripted by Travis Goddard, Bestseller is an adaptation of a novel by Christopher Knight, and left me with the impression that the movie might have done well to leave out some elements of the book.

Bestseller stars Melissa Anschutz as literary agent Anne Harper, and for long stretches of the running time this is a one-woman show. Anschutz does a great job of carrying the film on her shoulders, handling everything the story throws at her, which includes some intense emotional scenes and lots of moments of her looking around at her surroundings with unease. Anne has had a lot of things to deal with lately: one of her clients was murdered, her young daughter has had medical issues (and may still have more issues to deal with). So she decides some time away at a remote lakehouse will do her some good. Of course, time at a remote lakehouse never does anyone any good in horror movies or thrillers. Soon after Anne arrives, she finds a manuscript outside her front door. Something left by a writer she has dealt with before. A writer who has now brought her a story about a literary agent being stalked while alone at a lakehouse.

It isn’t long before it becomes quite obvious that Anne really is being stalked by a sadistic maniac, and Bestseller is at its best when it’s showing us these stalking sequences. Building tension. Making us wait to see when the situation is going to blow up into screams and violence. Making Anne seem clueless when she doesn’t realize there’s a dead body at the lakehouse with her the whole time. It also might get you suspicious that Rohn, Goddard, and Knight are withholding information, because this is all too straightforward. The manuscript was delivered by a writer that Anne is familiar with, he has written about her being stalked, her actual stalking plays out just like it does in the book. It couldn’t be that simple, could it? The whole thing has already been given away 25 minutes into the movie? Thankfully, there are some twists and turns along the way.

One element of the film that seemed unnecessary to me was anything having to do with Anne’s daughter. I can imagine that Knight was able to delve into her medical issues and Anne’s feelings about the matter more deeply in the novel… but she didn’t need to be in the movie. All her illness really does is provide an excuse for why she doesn’t join Anne at the lakehouse, and in the end it’s just brushed aside. Anne is a single woman who lost a friend and needs a break from work, there really didn’t need to be anything more to her story than that. And without the daughter angle, the movie could have been slightly shorter while giving even more attention to the stalking, the tension, the thrills. Those elements do get a good amount of screen time as is, and builds up to a fun climactic reveal, but there are places where the movie could have been improved and the scenes with the daughter ended up making me ask, “Why bother?” Well, at least child actress Remi Ellen Dunkel got a job out of it.

While Anschutz is alone for most of the movie, the supporting cast members who show up here and there also make a positive impression. Kimberly Harsch (a.k.a. Kimber King) appears as the author who gets killed at the beginning, Dana Blackstone is Anne’s assistant, Terence Knox (best known to me from his role in Children of the Corn II) is a kindly doctor, DJ Perry is an awkward writer Anne has dealings with, Ralph Lister is the author of the manuscript Anne finds at the lakehouse, Victor Pytko shows up as a neighbor at the lake, Amy McFadden plays Anne’s best friend (who helps take care of her daughter while she’s at the lake), and Lana Wood – who famously played Plenty O’Toole in the James Bond movie Diamonds Are Forever – even has a couple scenes!

Bestseller isn’t a mind-blower. Its low budget is apparent, it has a subplot that leads nowhere, and it could have gone further with its scares. But it’s worth a watch if you’re a fan of thrillers. If you’re already a fan of Melissa Anschutz, you’re really going to love it. If you’re not, you might be a fan by the time the end credits start rolling.

WHAT JOSIAH SAW (2021)

Directed by Vincent Grashaw, What Josiah Saw is a fascinating film. Even though it deals with very dark subject matter and is populated with some awful people, you might find that you can’t tear your eyes away from it. Not even when it erupts into violence or shows you terrible things you’d rather not have seen. That’s because Grashaw brought the story crafted by first-time screenwriter Robert Alan Dilts to the screen with an unsettling atmosphere that envelops you while you’re watching the movie, and assembled an incredible cast to bring Dilts’ deeply troubled characters to life.

At the center of the story is the Graham farm out on Willow Road, a place that has a bad history going back decades. It was home to the Josiah of the title, a miserable and abusive alcoholic played by Robert Patrick, his wife Miriam, and their three children: Eli, Mary, and Tommy. One day, Miriam skipped church and was found hanging from the oak tree that stands in front of the house. Locals say that her ghost can be seen wandering the property at night. That may or may not be true, but what we quickly find out for certain is that Josiah is still a scumbag decades after his wife’s death. In present day, he and the simple-minded Tommy (Scott Haze) are the only Graham family members still living in the old farmhouse… and the life they have together is not pleasant.

What Josiah Saw is separated into chapters, each one adding different Grahams into the story. The film begins with Josiah and Tommy, and for the first thirty minutes it’s almost just a two-man show with Patrick and Haze doing incredible work in their roles as we watch these strange, lonely guys bounce off each other. Now, the first thing we hear Josiah say he saw is a six-inch-tall leprechaun standing out in the field, crapping a rainbow. But that is, unfortunately, not the sight mentioned in the title. What Josiah Saw actually references a vision he is struck by one night: a vision that informs him his long-lost wife is burning in Hell, and will continue to do so until he and Tommy straighten out their ways and right a great wrong. Before we get information on what exactly Josiah thinks they need to fix, we move on to the next chapter, where we meet Eli.

Eli’s chapter gets the most screen time, and goes off on such a tangent – one involving a kidnapped child, a traveling carnival, and cursed gold – that it almost makes the movie start to feel like an anthology. But this twisted solo adventure we follow Eli on is so interesting, it doesn’t feel frustrating to be so far away from the main story at the Graham farm. Eli is played by Nick Stahl, an actor who had a shot at the big time but then saw his career collapse due to addiction issues. Now Stahl is sober and making a comeback – and his real-life back story made him the perfect choice to play Eli, a paroled convict dealing with substance abuse issues much like the ones Stahl endured. Stahl has had rough times, and Eli is still neck-deep in his rough times.

Then it’s time to meet Mary (Kelli Garner), who is going through the process of adopting a child with her husband Ross (Tony Hale). But Mary’s suburban life isn’t as picture perfect as she would like to make it appear. It’s clear that her mental health issues are rooted in something that happened back at the farm she and her siblings grew up at… and there was more going on there than the devastating loss of Miriam. The sins of the past start to become clearer to the viewer once Eli shows up at Mary’s house. All of the siblings have been sent letters from an oil company that is interested in buying the Graham property on Willow Road. And they’re all going to have to get together at the old farmhouse to discuss this offer. Of course, things don’t go well when the Grahams are reunited. This is one of those movies where you know from the start that we’re heading toward disaster. We’re just hanging on to see exactly how bad and gut-wrenching it’s going to get.

What Josiah Saw has its share of issues. With a two hour running time, it feels like Grashaw and Dilts were being a bit too self-indulgent at times. It definitely could have been trimmed down a little bit. It also doles out information in such a way that you might not have all the facts clear by the time the end credits start rolling. But even if the ending isn’t entirely satisfying, and even if the movie takes longer getting there than it needed to, the overall story is so intriguing (and troubling) and the performances are so strong, the film still holds up as a great achievement for everyone involved. Dilts has gotten his screenwriting career off to a terrific start, and we’re almost certain to see more notable works from Grashaw in the future.

I was disturbed by a lot of things in this dark drama / psychological horror story, but I was also really impressed by What Josiah Saw. This one is definitely worth checking out – and I will be watching it again.