Worth Mentioning - Don't Dream It's Over

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 spends Friday the 13th with a couple horror movies.

The following reviews originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com

CANDY LAND (2022)

After making a handful of crime dramas and thrillers, writer/director John Swab shifts into the horror genre with his fifth feature Candy Land – but he definitely didn’t just dive into formula or clichê with his first horror project, as evident from the fact that he cited ‘90s cult films like Bully and Welcome to the Dollhouse as sources of inspiration. Candy Land has been described as a truck stop slasher, and it does become that in its second half, but the influence of ‘90s indie dramas is clearly felt in the movie. It’s even set in the ‘90s; around Christmas 1996, to be exact. So it’s a bit of a shame that it’s being released in January, because it would have been a fine addition to genre fans’ holiday horror viewings, complete with decorations, Santa costumes, and Christmas songs on the soundtrack.

The story of Candy Land drops us into the lives of a group of sex workers who operate out of a truck stop at Exit 17 on Route 66 – the “last stop for quality action” for drivers who are westbound. These lot lizards, which happens to be the term used to describe truck stop sex workers, are Sam Quartin as Sadie, Eden Brolin as Riley, Virginia Rand as Liv, and Owen Campbell as Levi… and while we spend a good amount of time with them and get to see the harsh realities of their day-to-day existence, I was still left feeling like the characters were a little lacking. I came to care about them over the course of the film, but that’s mainly just because they’re people who are living a bit of a rough life. I don’t feel like I actually got to know much about them or who they really are. Other characters they interact with frequently include Nora (Guinevere Turner), who runs the motel where they live, and Sheriff Rex (Billy Baldwin), who is infatuated with Levi and is compelled to cheat on his wife with him.

Another character is soon pulled into their orbit: a young woman named Remy (Olivia Luccardi), who seems to have been exiled from the religious cult she was raised in. A cult that advises people to “repent, or you will be left for the final cleansing”. Anyone reading this has probably seen enough horror movies to know that taking Remy under their wings and helping her transition into sex work isn’t the wisest thing for the lot lizards to do. But that is what they do, and when people start turning up slashed to death in and around the truck stop it’s no surprise to the viewer.

Candy Land turns into a body count movie in its second half. By the end, this thing has as many dead bodies in it as a Friday the 13th movie. When the kills happen, they’re not as flashy as you would hope to see in something like a Friday the 13th, but this slasher fan was thoroughly satisfied with the amount of bloodshed. I was also surprised at just how many characters ended up being slashed. Yet the movie never quite becomes your typical slasher, retaining that gritty and raw ‘90s indie feel throughout and pushing boundaries whenever it gets the chance to. In fact, the sexual content packed into the first 15 minutes or so may be enough to turn away some viewers.

The actors all do great work in their roles, which is another reason why I came to care for the characters despite not feeling like I got to know enough about them. Quartin, Brolin, and Rand all make their characters fully believable, which makes it tougher to watch whenever something bad happens to them. Turner and Baldwin are both excellent as their characters, each detestable in their own way. Campbell and Luccardi are given some of the most intense moments to bring to the screen, and both play their intense moments in flawless ways.

Candy Land wasn’t always the most enjoyable ride, but I was impressed by it overall. And when the end credits started rolling, I was glad I had spent 90 minutes of my time watching this movie. Especially since it rewarded me by playing one of my all-time favorite songs over the credits.

POSSESSION (1981)

Director Andrzej Żuławski’s 1981 horror film Possession was never a movie that was destined to be embraced by mainstream audiences, but there has always been an audience out there for the film – it has just had difficulty reaching the viewers that would get the most out of watching it. In the United Kingdom, the film was banned as a video nasty. For the U.S. release, forty minutes were whittled out of its 124 minute running time. Home video releases have come along and then gone out of print, and the DVDs and Blu-rays are going for prices some collectors probably aren’t willing to pay for something they’re not familiar with. But now Possession is streaming on the Shudder service, which may be the film’s best chance yet to reach viewers who are going to be blown away by it.

Żuławski came up with the story for Possession, which he then fleshed out into a screenplay with Frederic Tuten, when he was going through a very dark and depressing time in his life. His marriage had ended in a devastating divorce, and soon after he was driven out of his home country of Poland because the Communist government didn’t approve of his filmmaking endeavors. He had lost his wife, he was a man without a country. He contemplated suicide – but instead, chose to purge all of the dark emotions he was feeling by making a new movie. That movie was Possession. A raw nerve of a film that clearly gets across the fact that the director was working through some issues.

Much of the movie plays out like an intense divorce drama. Mark (Sam Neill) works as an international spy, a job that keeps him away from home for long periods of time. As he returns from being away for a while, he finds that his home life with his wife Anna (Isabelle Adjani) and their young son Bob (Michael Hogben) has completely fallen apart. Anna wants a divorce, she has found someone else. So now the married couple has to figure out how to proceed. Who gets custody of Bob, what the visitation rights will be like, who will get their apartment. But every time they’re in the same room with each other, their interactions devolve into screaming matches complete with broken furniture, physical altercations, and even self harm with an electric carving knife.

At first, Mark is led to believe that Anna is leaving him for Heinrich (Heinz Bennent), a man who’s into peace and love but is also able to bust out some nice fighting moves if Mark tries to get rough with him. But the fact is, Anna has been cheating on both Mark and Heinrich. There’s a third lover in the mix… and Mark’s quest to find out who that lover is takes the film down a path that leads deep into gross-out horror territory. The fact that the movie is on Shudder and features a credit that reads “Special Effects for the Creature by Carlo Rambaldi” makes it obvious that this isn’t just the divorce drama it first appears to be… and in the second half of the running time, the viewer is witness to some truly disgusting sights, bloody murders, and some very bizarre scenarios. There’s even gunfire and explosions. Chances are you won’t understand what the hell is going on, but it’s quite a ride.

Possession is baffling, but it’s also incredibly well crafted. The cinematography by Bruno Nuytten is wonderful to look at, even when there’s something repugnant on the screen. The film also benefits from its locations. It was filmed in Berlin in the midst of the Cold War and is packed with shots of the Berlin Wall. Żuławski chose this city simply because it was the closest he could get to making the movie in the communist world that had thrown him out, but it adds greatly to the overall effectiveness.

The movie is truly carried on the shoulders of Neill and Adjani, both of whom turned in awe-inspiring performances that, understandably, emotionally drained them. As confounding at the movie gets, Neill and Adjani are both captivating to watch as they make their ways through some very extreme and weird scenes. At one point, Adjani was tasked with having to act out a literal miscarriage of Faith, and that turned out to be one of the most talked-about, memorable, standout scenes of the film. The actress has said that it took years for her to shake the role of Anna, which earned her the Best Actress award at the Cannes Film Festival and the César Awards (the French version of the Academy Awards). Those awards were well-deserved, as Adjani impresses in both the loud, flashy scenes, but can also break your heart with just a look and a change of expression.

So it’s highly recommended that you give Possession a chance while it’s streaming on Shudder. Check out this horror movie that deserves to be seen by a lot more genre fans than have had the chance to watch it up to this point. I first saw the film ten years ago (I even wrote a blog article about it that was shared on Twitter by Sam Neill himself, so that was a proud moment) and it has stuck with me ever since.