Red Eye

red_eye_2005_film_posterLike Jack Torrance in The Shining, this Jack (OK, Jackson) is manifestly nuts, pre-going nuts in Red Eye. Cillian Murphy plays the sinister Jackson Rippner, obviously up to no good from the get-go, part of a team of hit-men going after the US Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security in South Florida.

And Rippner needs to lean on high-level hotel manager Lisa (Rachel McAdams) to get the ball rolling, threatening to kill her father if she fails to comply with the loon’s request to have the politico change rooms for a more favorable shot.

It’s a devastating premise, with a setting that’s already horrific to many: a turbulent flight. And Wes Craven mines the claustrophobia (close confines he referred to as “compressed”), spate of minor indignities, and discomfort of modern air travel with aplomb.

For the most part, Red Eye will have you summoning the drinks cart to steady the nerves.

The film is Craven’s follow-up to Cursed, a werewolf Miramax mess, and depending on how you view the late auteur, either one of his many post-Scream debacles or a decent, capably made time-waster.

So, is Red Eye the Concorde….Airport 79 of horror-thrillers? Or is it more of an Airport 1975?

Jackson charms future seat-mate Lisa in an airport restaurant before revealing his sinister plans at 30,000-feet, suddenly head-butting her to keep her quiet when she attempts to break loose.

When she comes to, her attempts to thwart him at every turn propel the narrative along for a mostly satisfying in-flight experience.

red_eye_filmWhere Red Eye sags is in its conclusion, almost Commando-esque in its bazooka silliness.

And Lisa’s beleaguered hotel colleague Cynthia (Jayma Mays from Glee), is called upon continually to save the day, despite being a frazzled neophyte who has no business in hospitality management.

The steeliness, drive and dynamite performance of McAdams as a strong female lead is thrown off by the usual trappings of dumb-dumb horror – the “you don’t have to do this” pleading, which never sways psychopaths (they’re psychopaths, remember?)- and unstoppable killer nonsense.

*** (out of 5)

Subterranea

subterraneaMistaking appearance for reality is the premise behind Plato’s Allegory of the Cave, where prisoners shrouded in darkness, perceive nightly flickering shadowy puppetry on a wall as the real world. In Subterranea, a Man with No Name is raised from boyhood to an adult in pitch black, his only contact to the outside through a mail slot.

It’s through this portal that he is given an education of sorts (if not exposure to vitamin D) by a mysterious figure known only as The Provider, who…um…”provides” the youngster with sustenance and materials read aloud.

Decades hence, The Captive (played by Bug Hall) is then released into the big, lit, color cacophony that is the world – alone, confused and with nowhere to turn. He emerges, cowering and fearful, as a subway train rattles past. It’s a pretty compelling introduction, not dissimilar to the jarring opener to the Pascal Laugier masterpiece, Martyrs.

Once free, a small time hood, the base, homeless Remy (Nicholas Turturro) tutors The Captive in the ways of his dog-eat-dog code of ethics, taking a shine to this “Rip Van Winkle” who understandably has only a limited understanding of social convention. The innocent is conscripted as  Remy’s accomplice, stealing charity donation funds from coffee shops, grifting, living out on the streets and then graduating to more dangerous crimes.

That’s when a woman Maya (Amber Mason), a material witness to a felony, takes an interest in The Captive and intervenes and the twosome try to fill in his backstory while the police sniff around.

Turns out there are others out in the world like The Captive, all of whom are trying to find out what happened to them and how their lives ended up as they did. One could consider Subterranea an extended metaphor of abuse in the Catholic Church, and the film spins a wholly intriguing unconventional narrative before slumping a little bit toward the back-end.

Still, a valiant effort. See for yourself.

The Montana-lensed indie flick was recently a Vortex Sci Fi and Fantasy Grand Prize winner at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. MVD Entertainment Group acquired the rights to the film.

*** (out of 5)