Titles can be misleading. There are films that deal with alien menace and others that look at issues much closer to home, exploring where people think they belong and where they actually find themselves. Can humanity survive on hope alone?
Monsters is one of those films that I didn’t really “get” until about half an hour before the end. This is the moment where you pull your chair a little closer to the screen and curse yourself for not appreciating it a lot more. Gareth Edwards’ film has received much praise and is certainly well worth a look. It’s also attracted attention for its tiny budget and has also had comparisons made with District 9. The latter is somewhat unfair. Whilst District 9 is a superior film, Monsters only has minor similarities and reminds of countless other science fiction movies (most notably Close Encounters).
A probe containing alien life samples crashes over Central America. Over the following years, new life forms begin to appear with most of Mexico subsequently quarantined as an “infected zone”. Monsters follows an American photographer Scoot (Andrew Kaulder) who agrees to escort lost tourist Whitney (Samantha Wynden) across Mexico to the US border. What could be sold as a typical gung-ho monster movie is as far removed from this description as possible. Edwards is skilled at depicting the danger surrounding Scoot and Whitney’s plight as they attempt to escape a dark and hazardous environment.
I’ve mentioned District 9 and Monsters recycles the premise where the viewer takes it as read that an alien menace is a given. Both films avoid any lengthy preamble to explain how the human/alien coexistence has arisen. We just accept that it has become uncomfortable. Both explore the alien entity as an accidental invader. There’s also a heavy Spielberg influence in Monsters. Problems of communication between humans (speaker of different languages thrown together), the sheer awe of the aliens in the eyes of our protagonists and the lurking menace of the aliens (Spielberg’s adaption of War of the Worlds). There’s also aspects of many a post apocalyptic film, a recent comparison being the cinema treatment of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road (although I think that The Road failed as a film).
Monsters is incredibly tense, mostly down to the aliens (huge, tentacled octopus-like creatures) being mostly off screen until the end. Instead we glimpse them during brief television news footage or as part of graffiti on abandoned buildings and only see the devastation they leave behind them. One of the more chilling parts of the film is when Scoot discovers an alien “nest” on the base of a tree in a forest, however the most frightening elements are all man made. The enormous wall built around the US to keep out the infection and the edgy military presence depicted by screeching low flying jets.
The film really comes into its own towards the end when Scoot and Whitney reach the US border and realise that safety isn’t quite as close as they’d have hoped. But when it arrives, are they really ready for it? My only criticism is the abrupt ending. By then I was gripped and wanted more. But this is unusual, unexpected and ultimately moving. Monsters is certainly recommended.
I approached Richard Ayoade’s Submarine a little cautiously; it’s a film that’s received a hell of a lot of praise and I was concerned that I’d be disappointed. Quite often with acclaimed films I feel there’s something missing from the experience because I just want to like them too much. But honestly I believe that the film lives up to the jubilation surrounding it. This is an outstanding debut feature for its director, an at times hilarious but ultimately moving film. And a cracking soundtrack from Alex Turner too.
Submarine is set in the 1980s. But unlike other postwar period British movies, it doesn’t wallow in the fake detail (Rick Gervais’ Cemetery Junction springs to mind as a recent example of overdoing a setting – the 70s in this case). I date Submarine at about 1987. But only because it features a fleeting reference to Crocodile Dundee. Otherwise there are only subtle clues such the lack of mobile phones (real letters are exchanged here). And we’re thankfully spared the pop soundtrack to accompany the era, where Turner’s touching acoustic melodies come to the rescue.
Craig Roberts plays Oliver Tate, an adolescent schoolboy in Wales. Oliver is by far the best character in the film, but first some background. His father is an ex Open University lecturer, a near hopeless case who lost his tv job for not knowing what to do with his hands. Noah Taylor plays Dad, a thin, heavily bearded, deep thinking individual prone to depression. Meanwhile Mum (Sally Hawkins) wearily dreams of the past, even though it only appears to consist of a time when her hair was longer, that is until ex flame Graham turns up. Graham is played by Paddy Considine, who adds his usual intensity to the role – although lacking the element of terrifying danger that accompanies his parts in Shane Meadows films. Badly bearded with a serious mullet, Graham is a new age guru who speaks nonsense at the local church hall. He’s even produced an unintentionally side splitting video. Despite Graham being so absurd, Mum – fed up with the straight laced world – may be falling for him again.
Oliver has issues of his own though. A dreamer in the line of cinema that can be traced back to Billy Liar, he begins by narrating an amusing sequence where he visualises the stunned and tearful reaction to his own death, starting with his class and ultimately encompassing the whole of Wales. This is one of the assets of Submarine, which is a film that will suddenly pull in unusual directions. Oliver’s keen to lose his virginity, and sets his sights on classmate Jordana (Yasmin Paige). She’s scary, always clad in a red coat and has a fondness for lighting fires. She’s also part of the bullying crowd, and Oliver gets drawn into this to woo her. Their courtship is touching and original, a sharp script and fine performances from Roberts and Paige. Roberts in particular, an actor who only recently came into my radar with his role in Being Human, is exceptional. And none of the characters in Submarine are particularly attractive or likeable, at least not when you meet them first, but they’re arguably very real. And I found I just had to go along with Oliver’s absurd view of reality, such as his far from flawless plan to get Jordana into bed.
So yes – a marvellous little film. Roberts aside, Noah Taylor is also excellent – although to be fair the entire cast excel. Steffan Rhodri and Melanie Walters are also great in smaller roles (Walters appeared also with Roberts in Being Human). But perhaps the true find is Richard Ayoade, who has suddenly gone from geeky star of The IT Crowd to emerge as one of the most promising new British film directors in recent years. Wow.
Hammer completists: look no further. Oliver Reed enthusiasts: welcome. Fans of obscure 60s British films: salut!
I’ve recently tracked down a copy of Paranoiac, a 1963 film directed by Freddie Francis, scripted by Jimmy Sangster and starring a young Oliver Reed. The film is part of Hammer’s series of psychological thrillers, that followed the success of Scream of Fear in 1961. Different from the usual Hammer output at the time, the films were in black and white and concentrated on non-supernatural plots in modern settings. They were also usually quite melodramatic. The general theme of Paranoiac is madness. Of the stark raving variety.
Oliver Reed plays Simon Ashby, a belligerent young man who is fond of a drink or two. He’s part of an odd family still reeling from the death of his parents in a plane crash and the apparent suicide of his elder brother Tony that followed the tragedy (apparent because – you’ve guessed it – the body was never found). Aunt Harriet (Sheila Burrell) and sister Eleanor (Janette Scott) share the Ashby country pile with difficult Simon. I say difficult because he’s portrayed by Reed at his drunken best. Although only receiving second billing to Scott he is the key actor in Paranoiac – reeling through the film in an inebriated rage, veering between leaning on family lawyer John Kossett (Maurice Denham) for cash handouts and racing home in his sports car to empty the brandy decanters and scream abuse at the servants. He’s a nasty young fellow and Reed plays him magnificently.
Things get off to an immediately creepy start in Paranoiac with Eleanor seeing glimpses of Tony hanging around, and this rather fragile young girl is pushed rather quickly to leaping off a cliff. Fortunately, Tony (Alexander Davion) seems benign as he saves her and is shockingly reintroduced into the family circle. Simon almost runs him over and then roars off in his car after ruining a flowerbed, whilst a suspicious Harriet turns him over to a grilling from Kossett. It’s all rather convenient you see, as Tony’s reappearance will grant him the Ashby fortune, otherwise due to Simon in a few weeks. Although something of a bugger for him, Simon doesn’t seem too bothered, his main concern being generally drunken and beastly. However Kossett subjects “Tony” to a “series of questions” (along the lines of “what did I buy you for your ninth birthday?”) to ensure that he really is the heir to the Ashby fortune.
Of course he isn’t, although they’re mostly fooled. “Tony”, it turns out, is in the services of Kossett’s crooked son (John Bonney), and matters aren’t helped by the still fragile Eleanor falling for him (together they escape the old trick of somebody tampering with the brakes on the car whilst they’re on a cliff edge picnic, Eleanor being saved from plunging to her doom yet again. Why do so many characters in so many films choose to have a picnic on a cliff edge?) Matters race towards an increasingly insane conclusion, with Reed pulling out all of the magnificent stops including wild eyed organ playing, masked knife-wielders, skeletons bricked up in basements and a concluding house fire.
Apart from Reed and Denham, the acting in the film is unmemorable. Lillian Brousse walks in and out as a French maid but is only irritating (as is Scott to be honest). Reed made several films for Hammer in the early 60s starting with small roles in the Two Faces of Dr Jekyll and Sword of Sherwood Forest in 1960. His first substantial part for them was in the more memorable The Curse of the Werewolf in 1961. Strangely, he was then moved from the horror genre to appear in more offbeat offerings over the next two years including Captain Clegg, The Scarlet Blade and The Damned. Most of these are now forgotten, although Joseph Losey’s The Damned turns up on television fairly regularly and is worth catching. In my view the 60s were Reed’s best decade as an actor by far.
Paranoiac is very low budget and very daft, although Oliver Reed does what he could do best – deliver an over the top although very entertaining performance. In his mid twenties, he looks trim and rather dashing. Some may even say that he was handsome at the time. I’ll let you be the judge of that.
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