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.
The following reviews originally appeared on ArrowintheHead.com
UNSEEN (2023)
Two of the best thrillers to be released in the last few years were John Hyam’s Alone and Randall Okita’s See for Me – and if you were to drop those two movies into a Mixmaster, the resulting concoction would probably be something very much like Yoko Okumura’s feature directorial debut Unseen. Like Alone, Unseen is about a woman escaping from the clutches of a killer who has taken her to a cabin in the woods, running off through the forest in hopes of finding help and civilization. The women in both movies even end up taking a plunge into a river. And as in See for Me, the endangered woman in this movie has vision issues (in this case, she is extremely nearsighted), so she has to get on a video call with a third party and hope they can guide her to safety. So Unseen is quite reminiscent of Alone and See for Me, but at the same time it has its own style and quirkiness that makes it a unique viewing experience. Even if you have already seen those other movies, Unseen is worth checking out on its own merits.
The story scripted by Salvatore Cardoni and Brian Rawlins begins with Florida gas station cashier Sam (Jolene Purdy) dialing a wrong number right before reporting for her shift. This misdial connects her with Emily (Midori Francis), a Michigan doctor who has been abducted by her ex-boyfriend Charlie (Michael Patrick Lane), who has taken her out to a cabin in the woods with the intention of killing her. He says it’s the only way he can properly move on from her. Okumura and the writers don’t waste any time getting the action rolling; Sam makes her accidental call to Emily’s phone in the very first scene, and Emily exits the cabin – without her much-needed glasses – at almost exactly the ten minute mark. Unseen is all about the adventure Emily and Sam go on through the woods, together but at long distance, and that adventure takes us through the rest of the film’s perfectly short and quick 76 minute running time.
If you’re wondering, the movie does give an acceptable explanation for why Emily is guided through the woods by the random person who accidentally called her number instead of a 911 operator (and yes, 911 is called before the gas station clerk is called). That allows the viewer to just go with it as the at-first reluctant and overwhelmed Sam tries to help the beleaguered woman who’s roughly 1000 miles away from her escape from a dangerous situation. And Emily isn’t the only one who has to worry about her safety. As Emily makes her way through the woods with Charlie tracking her, Sam has unpleasant dealings with a customer, Missi Pyle as a wealthy woman who is the ultimate “Karen” even though her name is actually Carol. And the gun-toting Carol’s even-bigger-gun-toting Hubby Wubby.
While Sam and Emily are both down-to-earth characters we come to like and care about as the story plays out, the villains in the movie lean toward the ridiculous. Charlie only slightly so; he stills comes off as a serious threat. But the people Sam has to deal with at the gas station go way over-the-top, bringing a quirky humor into the picture. It didn’t fully work for me, but it wasn’t off-putting. I was too invested in what was going on with Sam and Emily for Carol and her cohorts to turn me away.
Jolene Purdy and Midori Francis both deliver great performances, and the quiet moments between the thrills allow them to bounce dialogue off of each other that gives us a deeper understanding of both of their characters. When the thrills kick in, we’re rooting for them every step of the way, wanting Emily to overcome the threat of Charlie and Sam to be able to stay on the phone with her despite all the obstacles Carol and other circumstances in the gas station put in her way.
Unseen is making its way into the world as part of the eight-movie deal Blumhouse made with the network that was formerly known as Epix and is now known as MGM+. Whether you catch it on digital, VOD, or when it reaches MGM+, it’s worth seeking out. It’s 76 minutes of a good time watching two likeable characters deal with bad situations, and it’s a nice showcase for the talents of Purdy and Francis. With this, Okumura has gotten her feature directing career off to a solid start.
THE RITUAL KILLER (2023)
The story and screenplay for The Ritual Killer were cobbled together by a writing team of five different people: Bob Bowersox, Francesco Cinquemani, Luca Giliberto, Jennifer Lemmon, and Joe Lemmon. Director George Gallo then endeavored to bring their work to the screen as a film that really feels like it wants to live up to classic, gritty serial killer crime thrillers of the past. They even got a dash of Seven in there by casting Morgan Freeman in a supporting role. The film just wasn’t written quite well enough to reach the heights of the classics, and at times it seems like the script was assembled by having each of the writers contribute their favorite elements from past movies. You’ve got the detective on the edge, plagued by a tragic past. You’ve got the angry police Captain who doesn’t agree with our lead’s methods. The detective teaming up with a civilian to crack the case. The involvement of a detective in Italy, reminiscent of Hannibal. And a serial killer who’s into the occult. At its best moments, The Ritual Killer vaguely brings to mind the 1990 horror thriller The First Power... but it also doesn’t have enough of a budget to be as cool as The First Power was when the action breaks out.
The Ritual Killer may be underwhelming and unoriginal – and it peters out with an ending that’s not as satisfying as it should have been – but it’s not a bad way to kill 91 minutes. It’s interesting enough to hold your attention most of the time, especially once you get past the clunky first act. Part of that is due to the fact that Morgan Freeman is in the cast. Cole Hauser also does a great job playing the flawed lead, Detective Lucas Boyd, a guy who has a whole lot of flashbacks to bad times in his past that ultimately didn’t feel all that necessary. Vernon Davis doesn’t have much to do as the serial killer Boyd is after (no spoiler there, this isn’t a whodunnit mystery), but is captivating when he’s on the screen. Other notable cast members include Peter Stormare, who is usually great to see in any movie but was miscast as the police Captain in this one, and Giuseppe Zeno as the Italian detective who is often shown speaking English, but would have been better off speaking subtitled Italian.
The movie has a set-up that could have made for a better movie. The killer is an African witch doctor (thus why a professor of African studies gets involved) who believes that killing young victims and taking body parts from them has turned him into an invincible warrior. Now he’s a killer for hire, sacrificing people to bring more wealth and power to his rich clientele. Gallo and his writers weren’t afraid of going dark and disturbing with the idea, either. A couple of the victims the killer claims along the way are quite young. But the execution of the concept is lacking. For example, how can you have a killer who thinks he’s invincible, and even demonstrates his enhanced abilities in a couple scenes, and then not have the film wrap up with a bone-crunching final battle? It’s a letdown.
Freeman doesn’t have extensive screen time, but he does well with what he was given to work with in the scenes he has. Which is more scenes that you might expect, but not as many as you would hope for. And one particular scene gives Freeman the chance to work with what may be the least convincing actor he has ever encountered in his career.... But it’s really Hauser who carries the film on his shoulders, playing a character you might not like very much at times, but at least he’s not as awful as the killer he’s tracking.
If you’re only on the market for a great serial killer thriller, you can keep moving right past The Ritual Killer. But if you don’t mind watching something that would have been right at home filling space on a video store shelf twenty-five years ago, this fits the bill.
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