We sometimes forget, sitting pretty in our safe little homes, that every civilization on Earth is connected via lonely stretches of highway. The further we travel between one town and the next, the more tenuous our connection to each society becomes, and the more vulnerable we tend to feel. It is on one of these lonely stretches of road that Southbound takes place, a patch of land where five tales of terror whizz past each other. It doesn’t matter where they’re all going, since they may as well already be in Hell.
Isolation and dusty highways are recurring themes in Southbound, but otherwise these scary stories usually have little or no connection to each other besides a passing glimpse of a fellow protagonist. Directed by David Bruckner (the V/H/S segment Amateur Night), Radio Silence (the V/H/S short 10/31/98), Roxanne Benjamin (who produced V/H/S), and Patrick Horvath (who didn’t work on V/H/S), the film suffers the uneven fate of many horror anthologies: its segments vary in quality, and sometimes wildly. But the overall effect is striking, and the best segment is so inspired that it lifts the rest of the film up with it.
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The Way Out, directed by Radio Silence, finds two blood-soaked mystery men on the run from a mysterious behemoth in the distance. They tear through the desert as fast as they can, but escape seems impossible. Their fear is palpable, their frustration even more so. The Way Out is enigmatic about its story, and may not satisfy you if you’re looking for easy answers. If you’re looking for an exciting new kind of monster, however, it’s going to grab you.
Siren, directed by Roxanne Benjamin, begins the way many horror films do. A group of young people stranded by the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, but a least all of them are women this time. They are picked up by an off-puttingly chipper middle-aged couple, who invite them over for dinner and promise to fix their car, but there’s something wrong with them, something wrong with the neighbors, and something terribly wrong with the roast.
The Orchard
The biggest problem with Siren is its ending, which gets sidetracked before it really goes anywhere. But that’s a big part of the appeal of the next installment, Accident, directed by David Bruckner. This story comes out of nowhere, when a driver – distracted by his phone – hits a bystander on the road, calls 9/11 and discovers to his horror that help is not on the way. The voices on the phone talk him through what needs to happen to keep his victim alive, and it’s not pretty. Not pretty at all.
Accident is a particularly ingenious piece of horror filmmaking, elegant in its construct and absolutely nerve-racking in its execution. There is a sadistic plausibility to the set-up that immediately invites our empathy, with both the victim and the assailant who, to his credit, really is trying to make things right. Where this short goes is unpleasant, and the trip is dangerous. It’s a fantastic short movie in its own right.
Jailbreak, directed by Patrick Horvath, was probably destined to be a bit of a letdown after the punishing Accident. It’s not a bad film but it’s probably the one short in Southbound that would have benefited from more time, and it might – with a little stretching – have even worked better as a feature. An old man is looking for his young sister, and he’ll do anything to find her, even use his shotgun. But the people in this middle-of-nowhere town have secrets of their own, and he’s not going to like what he finds.
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Many horror shorts have unanswered questions, in part because enigmas are scary and in part because there’s just no time to delve into complex mythologies. The bigger questions that Jailbreak hints at would seem to be more interesting than this little short is able to convey, which is basically a downtrodden way of saying Horvath’s film leaves you wanting more. Too much more. But at least you want it.
Radio Silence returns for the final short, The Way In, about a family who falls prey to a home invasion while on vacation. Revealing too much about this short would ruin it, but suffice it to say that Radio Silence deals just as well with straightforward violence here as they do with supernatural horror at the beginning of the film. It’s a mostly satisfying conclusion to a generally satisfying film.
There isn’t much tying Southbound together other than the locale and a DJ played by Larry Fessenden, whose dialogue seems to have been written specifically as connective tissue. (The same technique was used, to equal effective effect, in last year’s standout horror anthology Tales of Halloween.) But as a delivery system for several rock solid horror shorts (one of which is downright amazing), it’s an impressive film. Horror fans should definitely seek this one out, and everyone’s a horror fan, right?.
Top Photo: The Orchard
William Bibbiani (everyone calls him ‘Bibbs’) is Crave’s film content editor and critic. You can hear him every week on The B-Movies Podcast and watch him on the weekly YouTube series Most Craved and What the Flick. Follow his rantings on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
Crave’s Sundance 2016 Recap: 13 Short Movie Reviews
Sundance 2016 Recap | The Weird, The Wild and The Wow
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Agnus Dei
Anne Fontaine's tense World War II drama, about a convent full of pregnant nuns who have to hide their shame at any cost, is in some ways a conventional drama, and in others a potent and unexpected tale of women banding together in a society that is literally out to get them. Agata Kulesza, so strikingly independent in Ida, gives an about-face performance as a Mother Superior with so many responsibilities she cannot afford to doubt herself... even when she should.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Belgica
Felix van Groeningen's follow-up to the Oscar-nominated The Broken Circle Breakdown is, like its predecessor, a melodrama set against a backdrop of amazing Belgian music. Unfortunately, Belgica's melodrama (two brothers start a bar, one of them descends into infidelity and drugs) is so familiar and conventional that it fades completely into the setting, a kickass club that's so loud and smoky it wears out its welcome long before the movie comes to an end.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Cemetery of Splendor
Some movies should come with Cliff's Notes. Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Cemetery of Splendor is steeped in so much Thai mysticism that I suspect I only figured out half of what's going on, and as such I don't think I can critique it fairly. Suffice it to say I found this unusual drama about a woman's relationship with a soldier (whose sleep disorder may be the result of ghostly kings who need him to fight their battles in the afterlife) to be a very esoteric fantasy, recognizably human but interestingly strange.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Christine
Rebecca Hall gives an astounding performance as Christine Chubbuck, the reporter who in 1974 took her own life on the nightly news. Antonio Campos' film invites you to experience her despair in such a subtle way, you might not realize until it's too late how much you understand Chubbuck's rationale. No matter what year Christine ends up coming out, it's going to be one of the best movies of that year.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Hunt for the Wilderpeople
Light and sweet and thrilling, Taika Waititi's Hunt for the Wilderpeople is a refreshing return to the heyday of 1980s kids movies, when kids were a little jerkier and adventures were a bit more dangerous. A pudgy foster child goes on the run with his new uncle after a series of misunderstandings makes them Public Enemy #1, leading to moments that will warm the heart and sometimes even stir the adrenaline.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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LO AND BEHOLD Reveries of the Connected World
Only Werner Herzog could so boldly tackle a topic like "everything associated with the internet" and make a solid documentary about it, but while LO AND BEHOLD offers lots of food for thought, it's such a big subject that it's hard to feel satisfied by it. Still, the film offers an intriguing look at a number of people and issues, including internet addiction, harassment, solar flares and our eventual journey to Mars.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Love & Friendship
Whit Stillman, the director of Barcelona and Damsels in Distress, has so much in common with Jane Austen that it's remarkable that he's never adapted one of her stories before. In Love & Friendship he adapts Lady Susan, and pits a sublime Kate Beckinsale against a society that rightly decries her shenanigans in private but in public is too polite to defend against her Machiavellian machinations. Love & Friendship's plot may be a little on the thick side, but it's so funny you won't mind keeping track of who's who and why they're all sniping at each other.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Manchester by the Sea
Kenneth Lonergan's latest is a breathtaking drama about a man whose brother dies, forcing him to take care of his teenaged nephew. All the usual clichés are dashed in favor of an impossibly involving depiction of people who now have to make room for more daily struggles, and aren't always up to the challenge. The entire cast is great, but Casey Affleck and Michelle Williams are particularly incredible.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Other People
A gay television writer with no job, no boyfriend and no hope to speak of moves back in with his parents after his mother is diagnosed with terminal cancer. Chris Kelly's film is an emotional sucker punch at heart, but excellent performances by Jesse Plemons, Bradley Whitford and particularly Molly Shannon keep Other People funny, even while you're busy crying.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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31
Rob Zombie didn't come to Sundance with a little indie drama about people's feelings, he came with a small army of killer clowns. Sheri Moon Zombie, Jeff Daniel Phillips and Richard Brake headline a strong cast in an assaulting movie, destined to please Rob Zombie's fans and put everybody else off. For what it's worth, I had a good time.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Wiener Dog
From acclaimed misery merchant Todd Solondz comes a quartet of short films, all of them loosely connected by the presence of an adorable dachshund. The parts don't come together well, but individually they are all accomplished little tales, about a manipulated young boy, the awkward love of Dawn Wiener, a stifled film professor and a crotchety retiree. You will be bummed out. You might enjoy yourself anyway.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Wild
Nicolette Krebitz directs a film that sounds bold on paper, with scenes that may shock you, but regrettably doesn't explore its nastier elements enough to feel like it was worth the trouble. Wild is the story of a young woman who falls in lust with a wolf, and begins to devolve to its level as their relationship becomes increasingly unhealthy. It's intriguing, but it just doesn't go far enough with its premise.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
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Yoga Hosers
Kevin Smith's silliest movie yet stars his daughter Harley Quinn, and Johnny Depp's daughter Lily-Rose, as teenagers whose weekend of minimum wage work and senior parties gets derailed by a Nazi mad scientist. Everything about Yoga Hosers is ridiculous, but it's mostly funny and the two young leads are charming enough to carry the movie's occasional, less than funny moments.
Photo Courtesy of Sundance Institute
