Father Malone's Weekly Roundup - The Gorge, Heart Eyes

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now onto the monsters. You're a monster. I'm a romantic hopelessly so. A couple of episodes ago, I bemoaned the lack of quality action romance, mainly because romance and nearly any genre mashup is a delicaterick to pull off. Guess where it's the hardest. That's right, horror. So what a fucking delight? Our picks are for the week? One of them is in theaters right now. I have new orders that require me to go dark for at least a year, maybe more.

Hell and we're standing guard at the gate. Show JESU, what's the truth about this place?

The Gorge is a fucking hoot. Mostly, I'd say, with some minor quibbles. The first half of this movie it's nearly a solid two hour movie. And I checked my watch when I knew we'd gone too far astray. It was at an hour twenty, which is better than most. The first half of the movie is rock solid, engaging, mysterious, romantic, and fun. Miles Teller, whose appearance on the recent SNL fiftieth now makes sense. You know, Miles, the bad mister

fantastic in Top Gun Maverick. Why wasn't his call sign gossling?

it's somewhere in the Balkans. The tower overlooks a massive fissure in the earth that drops down god knows how far, Thanks to a constant swirling mist that obscures all view. He's meant to be there a full year, maintaining perimeter defenses and keeping constant watch for anything that tries to escape the gorge. Facing him, on the gorge's opposite rim stands another tower manned by a similar sniper, with whom all contact is forbidden. That's a fucking intriguing premise. It

had me sold instantly. Now this may be owing to another bit of fiction I've been enjoying for years, but we'll get to that. I found the premise so exciting that I kind of came into the movie completely cold. I knew the stars, I knew the setup, and then

I stopped watching the trailer about a minute in. So not only was nothing beyond the setup spoiled, and now having watched the trailer, I realized that it didn't actually give anything away, it also meant I had no idea who the creative team was, which is an experience I wish i'd have more often. I wonder how many hardcore fans of a director would respond to one of their films if they had no knowledge of their involvement and were just blindly shown it. It's an instructive experience because,

above all, this is an incredibly well made movie. I know they all should be for this price tag, but let me tell you something. I've been in the horror anthology TV trenches for many years now, so when everything looks at this good and the direction is this assured, you tend to take notice. I was in no way surprised to find that this movie was made by Scott Derrickson. However, he made Sinister and the Black Phone, so you know

the horror bona fides are there. I like both those movies a tremendous amount, and he made Doctor Strange so he can do action. Incidentally, Erickson was on board for the Multiverse of Madness sequel to Doctor Strange and then left, from what I understand, because Marvel pulled away from the

initial concept, which was full on horror. Obviously, some of that remained, with Strange puppeteering his own corpse with a cape made of writhing demons, and I think I'm one of the few that actually enjoyed Multiverse of Madness After seeing the Gorge. It kind of makes me wonder what that film could have been because Derekson does really impressive work here. There are moments throughout where I began to think, well, this is just becoming a standard action scene, and then

it would defy expectation. One more word about that guy. I don't know who said it, but it was remarked that no matter how interesting or thoughtful an action movie might be, it always ends with the hero and villain punching each other. And since I've heard that, I am consistently let down by the lack of innovation in our filmmakers. That's why Doctor Strange knocked me out. Yeah, it was a lot of the finale destruction you'd get in any

superhero flick. You even have a face off between the hero and the villain, but the bargaining man frustrating your villain to defeat is pretty fucking unique. That alone will get me to show up at a Scott Derekson flick. In the Opposite Tower keeping watch for the Eastern Forces is Dasha, a KGB sniper who takes the job knowing her father will not live through the year she'll be away. This bit pays off later in the film, though not

in the way it could have. Dasha is played by non human Anya Taylor joy Is She simultaneously the most beautiful woman in the weirdest alien creature on Earth. Like Miles Taylor's Levi, she is in allowed contact with the Opposite Tower. This mandate doesn't last and forms the bulk of the film, at least the first half. I guess I'm gonna be saying that a lot. It isn't long before the two are sharing communication by handwritten signs and charades, and it's all very charming. How could it not be

with these two leads? Okay, there is one bit that is inexcusable. They're going stir crazy. That's understandable. So they engage in shared activities like chess, also understandable, and putting together a makeshift drum kit of barrels and pots and pants and having a drum off. This is done in a getting to know you montage now, putting aside the connections to the Queen's gambit for her and whiplash for him. It's really trying too hard. It took me out immediately.

At that point, we've already seen what's trying to escape the gorge and we're still totally on board with the film, And then the drumming you'll see. Tell me what you think of it. Am I making too much out of it? Because it's really the only flaw in the first half, And I know it was in the script before they hired these actors, but drums right after the chess, right after the gambit, right after the whiplash, It was a

bit much. The second half. On the other hand, once the film becomes interested in the why of the gorge, it stumbles, not face plant. How am I going to retain any dignity as I peel myself from the pavement? Stumbles but still not quite the measured and thoughtful film we had been getting. Yes, there are twists a plenty in this film, and I'm struggling mightily not to reveal any of those two. However, the trailer plainly shows that at a certain point our heroes end up at the

bottom of that gorge. So let's talk about the place our hero is warned is the doorway to Hell. There have been untold numbers of attempts to depict a hellscape on screen, starting with Lenferno back in nineteen eleven Part My French, and then clumsily throughout the decades. Yes, if you've got some red lights and some skeletal trees, you've got hell.

silent Hill, the first one creepy as shit. Love those nurses, though, but let's face it, nothing will top the depiction of hell as featured in Bill and Ted's bogus Journey. Is it hell proper than our star cross Lovers find themselves in?

is Rick Heinrix. Rick Heinrix was the production designer for Sleepy Hollow and the visual consultant on Nightmare Before Christmas. Shut my mouth. The score here is by Atticus Ross and Trent Rensner. Who knew that guy was going to be a soundtrack powerhouse. Oh everyone who listened to the music right, The score is fantastic. So good. I happily sat through the credits as it was trying to advertise other Apple shows at me incessantly. This movie is a

really good time with some especially troubling imagery. But I wouldn't be me if I didn't quibble some. There would be more and more if I wasn't being spoiler phobic. But the basic premise is that the East and West have built towers at the gorge, manned with snipers to keep the residents from the gorge escaping. Over the years, they've completely high tacked the entire areas, so the gorge

is ringed with sensors and automatic miniguns. The attendant is effectively there to reload the miniguns and replace light bulbs in electronic gear as it burns out. They also aid the miniguns during the attack, but they use their own minigun, So why do they need snipers? Highly trained top of

their game, world renowned snipers. Put a Blackhawk door gunner on there, someone who knows that falling from a great height is something to avoid at all costs, and wouldn't you know, find themselves at the bottom of the gorge they were meant to watch over just a thought also Miles Teller's Levi is an aspiring poet. His poems are terrible. She collapsed the night, Get the fuck out of here.

Mentioned at the top that I responded as positively as I did because the film echoes another bit of entertainment I've been enjoying over the years. Write this name down podcast lovers. Tower four that's an audio drama produced over at seven Lamb Productions. The whole shebang is written and directed by Robert Lamb, and he's doing the lord's work. Tower four is about a guy at a crossroads in his life who takes a job as a fire watcher in the Wyoming Wilderness. He's manning one of four towers

with his only contact a woman in another tower. What follows is lost level spookiness and enough conspiracy to make Moulder blush. The voice cast is top notch, especially Gina Coyle as Amber. She pulled off that neatest of tricks, making me hate her and then love her. Parallel thinking here with the gorge, what with the watchtowers and the mysterious creatures. But Tower four avoids every stumble in three seasons that the Gorge drops precipitously to in two hours.

Don't get me wrong, The gorge is fun. You should definitely see it. But when you're ready to really get into the ideas hinted at in the film The Isolation, the questioning of one's own sanity check out tower, for you're supposed to be in your tower. You ran out of silver reserve. I got the white truffle. Mama, HP, get us out of here, K, thank you, HP. This show's so good it ought to be televised. Hey have

you seen Heart Eyes, Heart Eyes? Heart Eyes? Have you heard of Hard Eyes? Yeah? I had an either good choice, rip you said it. I feel like the horror community dropped the ball on this one. Probably too busy, still jizzing over No Sparatu, which is a drag because that flick doesn't have one iota of the romance going on in this film. It's still in theaters. You can see it right now. This is Hard Eyes.

you wouldn't have missed it in that film. Trust me. Those are likable characters played by charismatic actors being put through the paces by a master filmmaker. No, the second thing Scream actually accomplished was it operated as a kind of cultural pressure valve. You know, all those gross movies with maniacs stabbing people that were generally poop pooed in the previous decade, Well, we actually loved them, and we're kind of tired of pretending horror is a lower form

of entertainment. What followed was a deluge of ain't we so clever slasher clones that were sub part of the films that they were trying to parody and or emulate. Since then, horror has done what it does best, mutate into a dozen different variations, all to greater success. So every time I hear there's a new slasher film coming down the pike, I get wary. Which way are they going? Is it all going to be winking? We're all in on the joke here affair. If so, I'm not laughing anymore.

Hang lanterns on every inch of space. It doesn't absolve you from lazy storytelling. If you don't know. Hanging a lantern is a writer's term for addressing a problem to the audience before they figure it out. The most obvious and over used one these days is I can't get any reception out here. Oh my phone's almost dead. When I hear about your hatchets, you're behind the masks. I go in skeptical and I come out not disappointed because

they're bad. Hey, everyone's least favorite movie is someone's favorite. I dig that. I love that there are people out there still slaving away, keeping the knives, sharpen, the masks masky. But I'm over meta commentary, including that reboot of Scream and all of its self seriousness. Jesus Christ. Up, it's a movie about a guy in a ghost mask stabbing people. It has no more weight than that, even the movies

that aren't overtly winking. And I know a lot of you love this flick, but with Terrifier, I can appreciate the love and attention on screen, but it isn't really saying anything other than these are kind of great movies and don't you love a charismatic villain. Basically, we miss Nightmare on Elm Street. I think way more successful was in a Violent Nature from last year, where they re envisioned the slasher film from the killer's perspective. That one's

pretty great. And of course all the streaming channels are choked with indie flicks made by anyone with a knife and an iPhone, and they're all kind of doing the same thing. You know what recent slasher film I prize above all the rest. Happy Death Day. That film from twenty seventeen managed the seemingly impossible feat of being knowing without winking, real characters in outrageous situations where the comedy

is funny and the horror is genuine. Christopher Landon, the director of that film and writer along with Michael Kennedy of The Spiritual Freaky with Vince Vaughan. Another really good take on the slasher genre. Are the writers here on Hard Eyes. I'm laying a lot of praise in their direction.

The script is genuinely funny without becoming twee. This being a romantic comedy trapped in a slasher flick, they managed to put our couple through every goddamn rom com trope you can think of, and they do it with just enough subversion to keep things lively. And though the movie is a two hander with Mason Gooding and Olivia Holt in the leads, every character that wanders into frame seems fully realized and not just ciphers for exposition. Everyone gets

a moment here. It's kind of remarkable. Also, putting Mikaela Watkins in anything as a smart move, even with the worst material, so she fucking shines here the conceit is that a mass killer great mask by the way, with red heart panels for goggles, has been every year on Valentine's Day, murdering couples in different cities, so Boston and New York and now Seattle, where our leads are rival copywriters at an ad agency handling a Valentine's Day jewelry campaign.

So we get a killer who prays on couples on Valentine's Day, mistaking our leads for a couple as they are spotted leaving a restaurant after what was a contentious business meeting and targeting them for death. That's great. And then yes, over the course of the film, maybe it's trauma bonding, but these two fall in love and it feels fucking genuine. Doing no small part to those two leads I mentioned, Olivia Holt completely won me over. I don't know her from anything, so she was a total surprise.

Mason Gooding, on the other hand, will be known to anyone who's endured those recent scream legacy, whatever the hell they are now. He played the appropriately named cheeks in the first two films in that reboot, and he is so fucking charming, not just good looking and can hold his own. But there are moments over and over again where he managed to keep things grounded even as the film is spiraling out of control. I mean that in a good way. This script never loses focus, and I

just found out that he is Cuba Gooding son. There you go, Cuba Gooding Junior did do something of worth after that, Oscar Win. Other cast members include Devin Sawa. He's lost all of his boyish features and now looks like the guy who would show up at your Avengers themed party as Hawkeye. He and Jordana Brewster from The Fast and the Furious Movies stars detectives Hobbes and Shaw might be the only joke that doesn't work. Jordana Brewster has always given frightened emu that just emerged from a

tanning bed vibes. But I've really enjoyed your performance here as a cop who knows all too well how rough Valentine's Day can be for a single person. We get a pretty spectacular kill at the outset of the film, but then given that this killer targets certain couples, and he does so with our leads early on, I kept wondering how they were going to give us the goods. This is more Terminator th Jason Vorhees. But fear not, there was a couple's event going on in town, just

waiting for a highly polished blade to descend. Do any of you remember Isn't It Romantic? That was the Rebel Wilson meta romantic comedy that came out the same year as Happy Death Day twenty seventeen. It was a character who wakes up in a romantic comedy and has to play along with all of the expected conventions. Not one laugh in a ninety minute movie designed for nothing else.

I laughed a lot during Hard Eyes at all of the same targets they had in that previous film, and it didn't even have hippies getting impaled by lugnut wrenches at the drive in spoilers. Olivia Holt's next film is called The Jingle Bell Heist, a mashup of romantic comedies and crime thrillers. I am down due to her participation. Hopefully it has one tenth of the wit of Hard Eyes.

And that's the roundup. Ripley two positive reviews. See that we're doing our part in the new dystopian hellscape we're all living in frankly, I prefer the one in the Gorge. At least you know where you stand. Anyway, I did all the find us and subscribe stuff at the top. Tune in Friday for anthologies Attack HP from Noise Junkies. This show's composer is dropping by to talk about the

trial of the Incredible Hulk. That's the first appearance of Matt Murdock's Daredevil in any media except the comic books, and that appearance on Spider Man is Amazing Friends in the early eighties, but that was animated. Anyway, tuned into that hit the likes, give us all the stars and give us the reviews, the good ones. We will catch you on the flippityflop. Here's that poem from Miles Teller in the Gorge. It's certainly not gorge. Jesus Christ, I'm old you.