Vivarium

Posted on August 15, 2020 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I have heard that Vive la France is an expression used in France to show patriotism. Does the title have anything to do with it?

Vampire Bat: Well, I think that they have chosen an interesting name. It means an enclosure made for keeping animals in semi-natural conditions for observation or study.

Vampire Owl: It is strange, but I will agree to it. The name does catch one’s attention.

Vampire Bat: Do you wish to rename your vampires quarters with this name?

Vampire Owl: I haven’t even come close to renaming it. The present one is a highly intellectual one.

Vampire Bat: There is nothing intellectual about naming a home as mansion.

Vampire Owl: You will not understand. I have always wanted to have a mansion.

Vampire Bat: I will not understand such foolishness, ever.

Vampire Owl: I would rather be anywhere other than a vivarium.

Vampire Bat: Well, lets see where our main characters here happens to be.

[Gets a chocolate cake and three cups of iced tea].

What is the movie about? :: A young couple, Tom (Jesse Eisenberg) and Gemma (Imogen Poots) want to purchase a house and move in. Both are not married, but looks forward to start a new life together soon. For the same, they visit an estate agent, Martin (Jonathan Aris), who seems to be acting strange, but comes up with a special offer for them. According to him, a new development known as Yonder might be perfect for a young couple who is trying to begin a new life far away from the busy city life. The place which as a series of homes looking almost the same, seems to be beautiful, and at the same time, silent, empty with no house seemingly occupied, and also giving the feeling of being out of the world. Martin shows the couple around house number nine and then they cannot find him around. Gemma and Tom try to leave Yonder, but however they keep moving, they end up in front of the same house. The car eventually runs out of fuel and they are forced to stay in house number nine.

So, what happens with the events here? :: They try to go up to the roof of the building and see if they can have a better look, but there is only an unlimited of series of similar houses to be seen, and nothing else. All houses seem so perfectly identical, and even the sky looks the same everywhere, with the clouds also being perfectly shaped. As they looked towards infinity, they decide to follow the perfect sun-like thing by jumping over walls of the houses, going in a straight line. But that also leaves them at the same place. Then at home, they find food items and groceries being delivered. But soon, they find a little boy being delivered – “Raise the child and be released” – the message written on the delivery box said so, and they begin to think that it is their only way to escape. At the same time, Tom also begins to dig of a pit hoping to escape underground, as there is no other way to go. Can the couple escape from this seemingly impossible situation? Or will they be stuck there forever? What is with this child who seems to be growing up faster than normal?

The defence of Vivarium :: The movie keeps its mystery elements strong, and it arouses the curiosity of the audience with ease, and as it gets into such an environment very early, we are also into it guessing soon enough. This time, it is a kid who is at the centre of everything, and you remember the other kids who were indeed dangerous, including Orphan and The Prodigy. Lord of the Flies proved it with a group of kids, while The Room had another kind of child, with The Influence having a child becoming a nightmare. The movie shows the dream of buying a villa, and shows how the protagonists are trapped by it. There are many points in the movie which become classic, and its idea of the aliens is nicely divergent. The creepiness here is not in frightening people, and the maze-like structure which the villa becomes, is going to make even a Minotaur proud. After all, we are in such a structure, with no chance to escape, as each and every day brings the same routine, while we are caught in it.

The claws of flaw :: There are areas where Vivarium goes unexplained, and even though it does try to live up to its name, there is not really an attempt to go into that further, or give a stronger feeling about it. The aliens seem to be a little bit clueless about what they are doing too, at a time when all these could have had better explanation that showing a cuckoo growing up – this doesn’t exactly become the same. As the two protagonists have been alone for a long time, there were more that they could have done, and further methods of escape could have also been attempted. The boy here could have also been a little bit threatening rather than remaining annoying all the time – you remember the boy of The Room who was surely developing into a genuine threat. More additions could have been done within the neighbourhood to make it further creepy or rather scary.

Performers of the soul :: Imogen Poots is a highly underrated actress, and she proves to be fantastic yet again in this movie. The audience from this part of the world might know her from Need for Speed, the game-based movie which had her as heroine, looking kind of like Anushka Sharma from an angle or two. There has been many movies with her name with it, but I don’t think that any of them had a theatre release around here, except for, maybe the A-1 cities with big malls, like Chennai, New Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore and Hyderabad – maybe cities like Pune and Ahmedabad had them too, but that wouldn’t have attracted much of the audience. The British actress takes this role to perfection, and you can see many situations reflecting the same. Jesse Eisenberg will be known for the audience here for Now You See Me and its sequel as well as Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice which were the last big movies of him widely released here, and he also does a fine job. The rest of the cast just gives some good support.

How it finishes :: At a time when people got caught in their homes, or at times the neighbourhood with nowhere to escape, Vivarium becomes a fine reflection, as the protagonists are also facing the same situation. They are left with a house in the neighbourhood, and they can’t go into any other houses around there, and are to spend their time inside with whatever food is being delivered from outside. It does feel like a certain kind of quarantine, but this is the kind from where there is no escape. There is no network coverage on the mobile phone, and the television only shows some strange lines and grains all around. Vivarium doesn’t seem to reach that greatness that it intended, but it is so much close to it. The movie makes us feel our emotions, and make us think about the usual themes about humanity and other species well enough. It is a movie that we should watch, and will like more or a little less according to our tastes. You can feel an experiment, even though not exactly in the form of The Belko Experiment or The Platform.

Release date: 18th May 2019
Running time: 97 minutes
Directed by: Lorcan Finnegan
Starring: Imogen Poots, Jesse Eisenberg, Danielle Ryan, Jonathan Aris, Molly McCann, Senan Jennings, Eanna Hardwicke, Come Thiry

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@ Cemetery Watch
✠ The Vampire Bat.

Red Letter Day

Posted on July 12, 2020 by Tennyson

Vampire Owl: I have always loved letter with some colour on them.

Vampire Bat: You are talking about those letters which were dipped in blood?

Vampire Owl: We are now getting bloody letters through the usual platform?

Vampire Bat: Yes, the usual letters are no longer used, especially after he had that iron mask.

Vampire Owl: Is this a new method of identification?

Vampire Bat: Yes, for the letters which are meant for the Dracula Castle.

Vampire Owl: I thought that he no longer accepts letters.

Vampire Bat: You don’t know Uncle Dracula well enough.

Vampire Owl: What is there to know now? We have been with him for very long.

Vampire Bat: There is a lot more that we don’t know, and much more to be found out. Uncle Dracula will remain a mystery for longer than we can expect.

[Gets a mango cake and three cups of mixed tea].

What is the movie about? :: Melanie Edwards (Dawn Van de Schoot) had a divorce just recently, and has moved into a new neighbourhood with her daughter Madison Edwards (Hailey Foss) and her son Timothy Edwards (Kaeleb Zain Gartner). It seems to be an interesting neighbourhood, even though they don’t make many friends out there. Things go even further weird, as they receive mysterious letters asking them to kill the neighbours mentioned in their letters, or they will be killed. Melanie is surprised that she is asked to murder Alice Huang (Arielle Rombough), a girl living a few houses away, whom she admires a lot, and are of mutual help. Timothy finds out that he has to murder a strange man who doesn’t talk much, but is seen outside regularly while walking his cat. Madison finds it to be the strangest, as she is asked to murder her boyfriend who is supposed to be a lot older than her, and lives a strange lifestyle – her parents always disapproved of him.

So, what happens with the events here? :: Melanie feels that she could make things better by visiting Alice and her husband Lewis Huang (Michael Tan) who becomes suspicious about her due to a knife pointing out of her bag, and it leads to an exchange of words, and later a fight which leads to Melanie stabbing Lewis on the neck while Alice looks helplessly with her toddler. Meanwhile, the man whom Timothy was supposed to kill reach their home, and after looking at it for some time, starts making attempts to break the door and get in. Madison escapes through the window to find her boyfriend, while the man almost kills Timothy, only for Melanie to intervene, and kill him instead. Now, the question remains about what would happen to them with the whole town going berserk. Who will be killed, and who all can manage to survive without killing anyone? A group known as The Unknown takes responsibility for the problem, and police finally decides to take things seriously. But how many people will be dead by then?

The defence of Red Letter Day :: The idea is the one that strikes us the most as far as Red Letter Day is concerned, and the rest only follows. The thoughts about what people would do for survival, and when having the feeling that the family itself is undergoing a terrible crisis, is something that one needs to think about. But what becomes more scary is that this idea of murdering people is not just for survival as everyone in the movie are concerned – some people just seem to do the same for fun, with inherent evil in humans showing the presence. It proves that people are intrinsically bad, and do not trust others – violence is part of nature, as many poets have proven. Some moments are funny, and it makes the slasher feeling light. As this is quite a short movie, the plot which is too simple and doesn’t have much in it could be handled well enough. There are also very less number of characters, and so the complication is not there at all.

The claws of flaw :: There is a little bit too much blood and gore in this movie, which might not have been the right thing to do, when we consider the fact this was not really supposed to be of slasher genre. People might find it difficult to believe that something like this would happen – that people would just kill each other because of some letters, as they won’t accept the inherent evil. It is the same kind of people who keep questioning movies like Forensic without the true understanding of human nature. To be evil, human beings need no reason, because the tendency is always buried in between. The motive of a psycho killer needs to be the motive itself, for otherwise, it will only be a case of revenge, like shown in movies like Anjaam Pathiraa, making him just another killer. There is also a little bit of missing with the performances in this movie, and gory elements seem to be added with no reason at all. The movie could have also established it in a better way.

Performers of the soul :: Dawn Van de Schoot plays an interesting character, as a mother in the main role, and defending the family. Still, she doesn’t get that much to do around here. Hailey Foss who plays the daughter gets even less to do, and Kaeleb Zain Gartner gets limited too. Arielle Rombough did seem to have an interesting character in the beginning, but later gets limited to almost nothing. Michael Tan’s character is rather the strangest of them all. An attempt to create something like The Purge in the neighbourhood certainly needed better characters, and all of them needed more to do better. Within an hour and a quarter of time to get things going, focus on the characters was less, and it leads to most of the cast suffering, with not able to get their characters going. A movie like Red Letter Day which got the premise and the idea well and working, should have taken care of the same in a better way to help its cast to work further.

How it finishes :: Red Letter Day is not really the horror movie that you expect. It is supposed to be horror comedy, but there is a good amount of blood and gore in this violent movie, and that should confuse many people about the genre. But this one surely makes an effective experience, and we also get a glimpse into the psyche of people, as they think about killing people without thinking too much about it. The inherent evil and the survival instinct in people begin to work, and there seems to be a certain amount of need to move away from law and order to embrace chaos, which can be seen here. Fear might be a catalyst, but in this movie, we can say that it is not really the same – there is distrust and a certain amount of desire to kill that makes people do this in this particular flick. You can watch this one hour and fifteen minutes movie to get that feel. With its short run-time, Red Letter Day doesn’t bring wonders, and just has enough to keep you interested in the idea.

Release date: 5th November 2019
Running time: 76 minutes
Directed by: Cameron Macgowan
Starring: Hailey Foss, Dawn Van de Schoot, Arielle Rombough, Kaeleb Zain Gartner, Roger LeBlanc, Tiffany Helm, Michael Tan, Peter Strand Rumpel, Ryan Irving, Greg Spielman, Josh Bertwistle, Marni Reisig, Cameron Gerlitz