Editor’s Note: You can always find Freeline Media critic Mike Fried seated in a movie theatre catching the latest releases, but did you know Mike also keeps up with what’s new on streaming services? Here are Mike’s latest reviews from the streaming universe. Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
EXIT 8 (AMC+/Shudder)
3/5
A man finds out his ex-girlfriend is pregnant and she claims the baby is his and he says he will meet her at the hospital once he gets out of the subway. The only problem is he cannot find the exit from the subway that will take him to the street. In fact, he is trapped in a loop of the same four subway tunnels with one man approaching him each time he sees the sign for Exit 8. He is given the following instructions: “Do not overlook any anomalies. If you find one, turn back immediately. If you don’t, do not turn back and go out from exit 8.” If he screws up, he goes back to the beginning.
Once I realized that this film was based on a video game, my first reaction was not to watch the movie because I generally don’t like video game adaptations; however, after seeing the movie Backrooms, and then enjoying what was done with so-called liminal spaces, I thought I’d give this movie a whirl.
And I’m glad I did, although it’s far from perfect. One of the advertisements on the wall of the subway is for an MC Escher exhibit and that quite clearly makes sense in the scope of what our protagonist — the Lost Man — has to overcome. Escher is the perfect usage because it exemplifies our daily lives, moving in the same direction and taking the same path that the red ants do in the promotional poster. In fact, one of the characters says “Going to work on a packed train doing the same thing day after day now that sounds like hell. So sad.”
The production design is absolutely amazing, created on a studio set to create Escher’s Moebius Strip, quite convincingly. And the cinematography matches the production design, with well lit interiors but subtly changing along with the passage of corridors. The sound design is equally well done with redundant sounds played over and over and over and Ravel’s Bolero used as a plot device. There are some visual effects but they are used sparingly but effectively.
But the thing about this movie is that, not unlike a video game, it requires your absolute attention — the same way that the maze requires complete attention from its participants (Yes, I used the plural).
Now for the downside. It’s based on a video game and it’s running time of 95 minutes — while not long in and of itself — makes this feel like an extended Black Mirror or Twilight Zone episode that doesn’t know where to end. And the digressions taken within the film are only a disservice to the characters. It’s not a horror film, although there may be some minor horror elements to it. It’s more in the nature of a psychological thriller, but to what end?
Fortunately, the movie is saved by its filmmaking. Nevertheless, it is a unique film, although far from memorable or rewatchable.
YOUR CHOICE!
REDUX REDUX (Hulu)
3.5/5
Interesting movie about a woman who can travel from one parallel universe to another (Yes, the multiverse) to kill the man who killed her daughter. She has done this thousands of times — and always on a Thursday because that the day the guy gets paid (gotta fund the vengeance somehow) and things are always going well until she saves a teenager from the same man in one universe and has to take her to another one.
Like I said, it’s an interesting premise and I only wish that the execution after the first 25 minutes of the story was as good as the premise promised. But it still works nicely. Michaela McManus is really good as Irene Kelly the woman searching for her daughter’s killer. And there’s great chemistry with Stella Marcus who plays the teenager, Mia, that Irene saves, who becomes her surrogate daughter.
But all good plans get fucked up along the way regardless of how much planning goes on, especially with the multiverse — just ask Pizza Poppa (IYKYK) and that leads to a really terrific third act.
Don’t want to say more than that because I’m a no spoilers kind of guy but this is a terrific midnight movie.
WATCH IT!
READY OR NOT 2: HERE I COME (HULU)
2.5/5
When I saw Ready or Not in 2019, I was amazed and astounded. A horror film that had me laughing from the beginning to the end. If you’re unfamiliar with it, a young woman (Samara Weaving) gets married to a rich family, but she doesn’t know that there’s a ritual. She has to play a game with the family. Sometimes people play chess, sometimes people play checkers. But she pulls out a card that says “hide and seek” which is one of the few murderous games involved. Now she must stay alive until dawn or a terrible curse will befall the family — so they are all in.
Taking place just after the first movie ends, Grace finds herself in the hospital handcuffed to a bed as a suspect in the arson and murders at the La Domas estate. Meanwhile a rich old man named Danforth (a wonderful cameo by horror god David Cronenberg) sends a message around the world to members of “the council” that “the bride survived. The La Domases are dead. The ball is in play.”
Let the games begin. The death of the La Domas family triggers a clause in the high council contract where the high seat controls everything including the world (there is an amusing scene with Cronenberg making a call and ending a war]. Grace is now handcuffed to her sister, Faith, and must fight against the other counsel members and survive until dawn. If Grace is killed, then whomever does the killing takes charge of the council.
Where this movie differs from the original is that back in 2019, I had a shit eating grin on my face from beginning to end. In this film, there are the occasional laughs but it’s sort of a case of “Ready or Not 2: the quest for more money”.
The cast was really good, leaning in to prop up a weak script. Besides Weaving and Cronenberg, the cast includes horror veterans Shawn Hatosy and Sarah Michelle Gellar as well as Nestor Carbonell, Elijah Wood and Kevin Durand in an, unfortunately, smaller role than Cronenberg’s. But, this time, it is Kathryn Newton, as Grace’s sister, Faith, that steals the show. She is absolutely terrific.
I’m not going to say it wasn’t entertaining because it had its moments. But i found myself looking at my watch because it just felt like a retread of the first movie. That’s not to say that there weren’t any funny moments. There’s an absolutely hysterical scene with Grace and another combatant who pepper spray each other at the same time and the resulting fight to “Total Eclipse of the Sun” where they don’t hit each other is really well staged.
I don’t know, maybe it’s me. I have seen well over 30,000 movies in my lifetime so it’s rare that I see something new and this certainly was not something that falls into the category of new. The descension of the story from a murder mystery in a full-blown Satanism actually seemed like quite a stretch, even by horror movie standards, and, unlike the original, even the deaths were far less creative than they could have been. And the ending was a mess both literally and figuratively
I watched the original film last night in preparation for this movie and even though I have seen that movie four times the sense of humor was still as fresh as the first time I saw it. The sequel was nothing more than a poorly thought-out cash grab by the writer/directors who go by the pretentious name Radio Silence.
SKIP IT- Watch the original (Alia on Hulu)!
AMERICANA (HULU)
3.5/5
A waitress with a stammer who hopes to be a country music star hooks up with a down on his luck veteran to try and steal a stolen and very valuable Lakota Ghost Shirt from a bunch of thieves. Now, one of thieves kills another one of the thieves and that thief is whacked in the head by his girlfriend — who steals the shirt and hightails it back to her family’s compound (think Warren Jeffs and Roman Grant) — in Wyoming and then shot with an arrow by the girlfriend’s younger brother (really, son) who thinks he is the reincarnation of Sitting Bull. Meanwhile a group of Native Americans kidnap the young boy as they want to recover the shirt.
You got all that?
What this movie has — besides terrific performances from leads Sydney Sweeney, Paul Walter Hauser, Halsey and Zahn McClarnon — is a twisty turny script and a funny one as well. Sweeney and Hauser are terrific together. They make a great couple. Who would have thought?
When the compound comes under fire and there’s a whole lot of killing and spilling of blood, one of the compound women — complete with high buttoned pioneer dress — says “I just washed this floor”.
But what makes this movie enjoyable is that it goes from crime thriller to neo-western. It could have turned into an eight heads in a duffel bag trying to be full of quirky characters and smart mouthed dialogue very quickly and easily but it doesn’t. There’s no overcomplication and first time director Tony Tost keeps the story grounded with very few frills.
That doesn’t mean that it is a perfect movie- far from it — but it is an enjoyable one that is wonderfully shot to capture the beauty of mid-America. And most importantly it tells an uncomplicated story about uncomplicated people.
WATCH IT!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
