Danvers‘s Hometown News Site

What happens to make-believe when the safeguards put in place to maintain it suddenly stop working? WESTWORLD begins with luxury and the idea that anything is possible, and then steadily takes each of those things away, to the point where the very idea of being in control starts to seem like an illusion. Michael Crichton’s first time directing a film doesn’t spend any time preparing the audience. Delos is shown as a place for rich people to play, a place where harm has supposedly been done away with. Visitors can drink, kill, have sex, boss people around, or act out fantasies without any trouble, as the robot ‘hosts’ are made to take the harm and just reset. The offer is deliberately appealing, and Crichton knows the film will only work if people first accept the attraction. WESTWORLD doesn’t warn you right away; it invites you to come in.

What does redemption cost when the person you’d need to be forgiven by has every reason not to forgive you? UNDERCARD isn’t interested in handing out simple answers, and it’s this refusal which, in the end, gives the film its strongest moments. The basic idea is one we’ve seen before, with a former boxing champion, now a trainer, and in recovery from alcoholism, goes back into her grown-up son’s life after time away. He’s skilled, but doesn’t apply himself, and is with people who want to make something of his ability, people who’ll take advantage. She thinks this is one final chance, not just to make someone a fighter, but to fix what she broke. But UNDERCARD isn’t, first and foremost, a sports story about someone making a comeback. It’s a story about facing up to what you’ve done, which just happens to be set in and around a boxing gym. This is how the film keeps itself from being a one-dimensional copy of a redemption story.

What happens when a house doesn’t only have memories, but instead takes part in them? TURN OFF THE LIGHT is built around that idea, and then slowly but surely turns the screws on you until the very walls seem to be in on it. Jacquie Walters is back after her first novel, with something much more ambitious in terms of how it’s put together. This isn’t a typical haunted-house story told across time; it’s a meeting of generations and a look at fear, belief, and how women survive. In the 1600s, on Virginia’s Eastern Shore, Edith is a healer, someone her community depends on, but also someone they worry about. In the present, Claire returns to the house where she grew up to look after her father as his health declines, bringing her little girl along, and the place she once called home seems strangely aware of the situation. The link between the two women is the land the house stands on, but Walters wants to explore something beyond where things happen: she’s thinking about what people leave behind.

When a movie won’t explain itself, not in an attempt to be mysterious, but because it simply has too much going on, then what happens? THE VISITOR begins as if it assumes we already know how their world works, though those rules seem to be made up as it goes along. The film cares less about a focused story than about keeping us disoriented, and this dedication is at once its best quality and its biggest problem.

What happens when an action movie stops trying to make sense? KNOCK OFF decides to dive into the shallow end and challenge you to either give in to the craziness or just scratch your head and wonder what you’re watching, This isn’t a film that wants to let anyone get comfortable and acclimate to its world; it goes quickly, is loud, and piles on the absurdity with the confidence of a director who figures you’ll keep up or be left behind.