BeyondFest returned to Los Angeles once again this year, and as the highest-attended genre film festival in the country, it once again served up plenty of diverse features, lots of Q&As, and plenty of gore. This year, I managed to see my share of the new releases that were screened while stepping away from some of the fantastic retrospective screenings such as Speed (featuring a post-Q&A with Reeves, Bullock, and DeBont) or the Sam Raimi marathon, with the Evil Dead creator himself in attendance. With that said, I was able to attend the West Coast premiere of Terrifier 3 and watched Anora, wildly different features, but both featured at BeyondFest, nonetheless. The following, however, is a summation of my thoughts on a collection of genre flicks ranging from dark comedies with a sci-fi twist to social commentaries to anthology films.
Let’s start off with that anthology film. V/H/S/Beyond is the seventh entry in the ongoing franchise. It is built to last, allowing the framing narrative to be singular to each entry since the films began stepping into different decades. This time around, the found footage flick is aiming toward a more science fiction-themed series of shorts, but as usual, the shorts are hit-or-miss. As a reminder, I hold V/H/S/2 as the high water mark for this series, featuring the most consistent collection.
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That said, I still had a pretty good time with what directors Jordan Downey, Christian Long, Justin Long, Justin Martinez, Viral Pal, Jay Cheel, and Kate Siegel had to offer. One entry plays like a survival horror video game with lots of action. Another is set in the world of Bollywood, of all places. My favorite short is a skydiving-themed birthday celebration interrupted by aliens. If anything, my gripe may be how disappointed I was with both the final segment and the conclusion of the wraparounds, as it didn’t leave me on the high I usually walk away from with these films. All that said, there’s fun to be had with this format and plenty of creativity on display to keep me coming back each year with these.
Next is Hold Your Breath, a psychological horror film set in 1930s Oklahoma. Margaret (Sarah Paulson) lives as a single mother who has recently lost her youngest daughter due to illness and puts a lot of effort into working alongside her teenage daughter and caring for another, who has become deaf and mute due to scarlet fever. As it soon becomes clear, Margaret is not well. Between the chaos caused by the Dust Bowl and her own grief and stress, we are watching a woman’s mental health slowly deteriorate, resulting in violent misunderstandings.
Directors Karrie Crouse and Will Joines get points for making the dustiest film of the year, and Paulson knows how to commit to a role. All that said, as a slow-burn horror film, Hold Your Breath lacks more excitement in its narrative to take it beyond feeling familiar in its story’s trajectory. Some eerie moments play on the strength of the performances and sound design, but overall, it’s not as cohesive as I would have liked. As a note, following a Q&A with Paulson, BeyondFest showed 2011’s Martha Marcy May Marlene, which co-starred Paulson. There’s a psychological thriller that knew how to do something unique and dig into one’s paranoia effectively.
By far, the most enjoyable film I saw at BeyondFest was It’s What’s Inside. Having heard the regard this film received from its premiere at the Sundance Film Festival while leaning into the secrecy of the premise for good reason, I was annoyed that Netflix decided to place their big guns on the table and lay out the most money for it, given how the movie clearly benefits from playing in front of a large crowd. With that in mind, without delving too far into detail, I’ll just note that writer/director Greg Jardin has assembled a dark comedy about a pre-wedding party for a groom-to-be. Things take a turn when an estranged friend arrives with a suitcase that will take things to a new level for the group.
As a body horror movie of sorts, the only real buy-in surrounds the acceptance of these characters, who all share history with one another, making them messy and aggressive in various ways. That said, the film gets plenty of credit for being fast-paced, clever, funny, and creative in its visual choices. Given what takes place, how Jardin deploys some specific visual color-coding allows for a lot of ingenuity on display to both mess with the audience and help them follow along. And it all builds towards a tense and wild finale. This movie is a blast, and it’s on Netflix now.
An admittedly neat premise made me curious about what Rumours had to offer. Coming from directors Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson, I knew many weird sensibilities would be in place, and that’s about what I took away from this film. It features Cate Blanchett, Charles Dance, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and others as various world leaders who meet at the G7 but get lost in the woods while composing a joint statement on some vague global crisis. From there, the leaders are menaced by all sorts of horrible sights, including a giant brain.
Much like It’s What’s Inside, the established relationships worsen a tricky situation, allowing for various forms of hijinks, impassioned or otherwise. In terms of satire, perhaps I was hoping for a different sort of tone. Still, I wasn’t exactly feeling the riotous attitude the movie seemed to be aiming for. There are solid performances on display, but perhaps others may have more of a read on the film’s sense of humor.
The Platform 2 is the first of two films I saw from director Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia, and the lesser of them. Working as a prequel to The Platform, a film that briefly broke out on Netflix during the initial lockdown phase of the pandemic, there’s not much to the story that audiences didn’t already see the first time. Sure, the dynamics are slightly different, but many of the same beats play out. As entertainment, there’s fun to be had in some of this, as it is compelling to see unfold. However, much like the first film, it runs out of steam in its third act, abandoning the obvious visual metaphors and simply leaving it all out there to be absorbed and thrown away.
On a more positive note, Bring Them Down was very much the least genre-infused feature, as it plays out as more of an arthouse character study about the tolls a rivalry and deep-seated guilt can have. In this Chris Andrews-directed film, Christopher Abbot stars as Michael, an Irish sheepherder who ostensibly lives independently, caring for his elderly father (Colm Meaney) and watching the farm. For various reasons, Michael develops issues with some from the neighboring areas, including Barry Keoghan as Jack, the son of his ex-girlfriend (Nora-Jane Noone).
As another slow-burn thriller that feels like a modern Banshees of Inisherin, minus the inherent fun that comes from that film’s character dynamics and dialogue, this film is all about the escalating tension and observations that come from its Rashomon-style of storytelling (albeit with less divisive takes on what occurred). One could say there’s some dark humor to be found in just how bleak things get. That said, it’s also important to take note of the violence visited upon farm animals, which is not taken lightly in an otherwise compelling movie.
Finally, we come to Rich Flu, the other film by director Gaztelu-Urrutia, which poses this concept – the wealthiest people in the world are being targeted by a lethal virus, forcing them to give away their assets to avoid death. Mary Elizabeth Winstead stars as a Hollywood exec looking to move upward before realizing she has to do all she can to get rid of all she knows and keep her family safe in the process. The film plays like a comedic satire at first before taking shape as a disaster drama.
Rich Flu is not subtle in depicting wealthy people suddenly finding themselves in the same position as political refugees. Through all this, we see actions ranging from punishingly affecting to over-the-top and ridiculous. Outside of the features I enjoyed purely on an entertainment level, I can at least say Rich Flu left me with the most to consider. It has a level of scale I appreciated, and solid performances from all involved, with Winstead doing a lot to throw away her vanity in the face of all this craziness. An interesting film with plenty going on.
***
