Greta

Greta (2019)

Starring Isabelle Huppert, Chloë Grace Moretz, Maika Monroe, Colm Feore, and Stephen Rea

Directed by Neil Jordan

Written by Ray Wright and Neil Jordan

Click here for my Letterboxd review

The RyMickey Rating:  B

Movie Review - Out of the Dark

Out of the Dark (2015)

Starring Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, Stephen Rea, and Pixie Davies

Directed by Lluís Quilez

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

Ugh... one of these days I'll realize that horror flicks with limited theatrical releases even if they contain actors I know -- Julia Stiles, Scott Speedman, and Stephen Rea, in this case -- just aren't worth my time...particularly if Netflix has picked up streaming capabilities.  Until that day comes when I recognize this problem that I sometimes have, I'll at least know that I'll have some films filling in the lower rungs of my annual rating system.  Out of the Dark is one of these very films that falls into the lower echelons of the RyMickey Ratings.

When Sarah and Paul Harriman (Stiles and Speedman) head to Colombia for a new job working at the manufacturing plant founded and headed by Sarah's father (Rea), they're expecting a refreshing change of pace from their everyday life.  However, their daughter Hannah (Pixie Davis) begins to start acting odd and the Harrimans soon realize that their house may very well be haunted by ghosts of Colombian children.

Sounds generic enough, right?  I could deal with generic.  The problem here is that director Lluís Quilez has crafted a film that is so utterly dark that I found myself literally unable to see what was going on in the film's purported "horror" moments.  That's a huge issue particularly in a horror film that gains its suspense from jump scares rather than a build-up of tension.  It doesn't help matters that the screenplay attempts to shoehorn environmental awareness into the plot to levels of epic failure.  With the actors left squandering in a listless and lifeless plot, Out of the Dark is truly one of the worst films of 2015.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-

Movie Review - Interview with the Vampire

Interview with the Vampire:

The Vampire Chronicles (1994)

Starring Tom Cuise, Brad Pitt, Kirsten Dunst, Stephen Rea, Antonio Banderas, and Christian Slater

Directed by Neil Jordan

***This film is currently streaming on Netflix***

There's promise in the overall premise of Interview with a Vampire, but there's a surprising lack of drive and oomph behind the story with a particularly leaden final act that ends the whole thing on a disappointing note.  With two fairly bland main characters in the vampires Lestat (Tom Cruise) and Louis (Brad Pitt), the story simply can't maintain its momentum the whole way through.  However, thanks to thanks to some beautiful looking images, lovely sets, a nice musical score, and a fantastic performance from a young Kirsten Dunst, there's enough here to recommend the macabre flick despite the fact that it had the possibility of being better.

Bookended by modern-day scenes of two-hundred-plus-year old vampire Louis telling his life saga to a young San Francisco writer (Christian Slater), the general gist of the story is how Louis copes with being compassionate to humankind considering that he needs blood in order to survive.  Turned into a vampire by the insatiable and overtly sexual (in both hetero- and homosexual manners) Lestat, the two vampires we meet could not be more different.  As Lestat tries to help Louis maneuver through the new world of being a vampire, Louis can't quite succumb to becoming a true vampire -- he finds it next to impossible and almost repulsive to take a human's life in order to quench his vampiric need for blood.

While the tension between Louis and Lestat is amusing, the film really comes alive when a young Kirsten Dunst appears as twelve-year-old Claudia turned into a vampire and stuck in her child's body forever.  Dunst manages to become the star here and whenever she is onscreen, I was riveted by her performance.  When her character appears, it's as if life was breathed into the film.  She completely one-ups the "stars" Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt, both of whom have performances who vacillate between too subtle and too over-the-top.

As said above, the film looks stunning and gives off a tone of incredible sumptuousness.  Director Neil Jordan does create a nice balance between humor, drama, and gothic horror, however, the story just doesn't quite work all the time thanks to the two somewhat disappointing main characters.  Still, I found the whole thing very intriguing and, even a day later, despite some serious problems with the story, I'm thinking of it moderately fondly.

The RyMickey Rating:  C+