Film Shorts // April 14-20, 2021
Vanquish (R) This thriller stars Ruby Rose as a former mob drug courier who becomes the target of extortion after a retired cop (Morgan Freeman) kidnaps her daughter. Also with Patrick Muldoon, Nick Vallelonga, Ekaterina Baker, and Julie Lott. (Opens Friday)
Photo courtesy of YouTube.com
OPENING
Jakob’s Wife (NR) The latest horror film by Travis Stevens (
Girl on the Third Floor) stars Barbara Crampton as a small-town minister’s wife who rediscovers her youth when she’s bitten by a vampire. Also with Larry Fessenden, Bonnie Aarons, Nyisha Bell, Sarah Lind, Mark Kelly, and CM Punk. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Ever since
The Invisible Man, the upper-class wife whose luxury real estate becomes an overbearing metaphor for her isolating marriage seems to have become a go-to set-up for indie filmmakers. Last year we had
Swallow and
The Nest, and this year that plot gets a straight-up genre treatment in
Held. The perennially pained-looking Emma (Jill Awbrey, who also wrote the script) is clearly over her square-jawed husband Henry (Bart Johnson), but they’re giving it one more try by escaping to a secluded, automated smart house vacation rental. Naturally, the property’s version of Alexa has other plans drugging them and forcing them into chivalrous machinations straight out of a 1950s marriage manual. Held doesn’t hold back, skimping on character development, rushing into the concept and mainly using the first act to set things up to pay off later. Basic druggy montages, a visually uninteresting set and an even more uninspired baddie sap
What’s new on VOD and streaming this weekend: April 9-11
Including Nomadland, Sugar Daddy, The Nevers, Held and Exterminate All The Brutes By Kevin Ritchie and Norman Wilner
Apr 9, 2021
N
OW critics pick what’s new to streaming and VOD for the weekend of April 9. Plus: Everything new to VOD and streaming platforms.
Sugar Daddy
(Wendy Morgan)
NOW named Kelly McCormack one of Canada’s rising screen stars in 2019. Watch Sugar Daddy and you’ll see why: Morgan’s slightly stylized, emotionally charged drama stars the Letterkenny and Killjoys scene-stealer – most recently seen as an unwelcome guest in Ginny & Georgia – as a struggling musician who joins an agency that provides “paid dinner companions” to older men who don’t want emotional attachments, or anything further. Naturally, the reality of it turns out to be a little more complicated. McCormack wrote and produced the film, and does her own singing, but Sugar Daddy’s not just a showcase for her
Film Shorts // April 7-13, 2021
The Man Who Sold His Skin (NR) Nominated for the Oscar for Best International Film, this Tunisian drama is about a Syrian refugee (Yahya Mahyani) who becomes a living art exhibit in a museum. Also with Dea Liane, Koen de Bouw, Saad Lostan, Christian Vadim, Darina al-Joundi, and Monica Bellucci. (Opens Friday in Dallas)
Photo courtesy of YouTube.com.
OPENING
Held (NR) Jill Awbrey and Bart Johnson star in this horror film as a couple trying to repair their marriage when a disembodied voice at their vacation house takes control. Also with Rez Kempton, Zack Gold, Jener Dasilva, and Tessa Munro. (Opens Friday)
4/9/2021
Couples therapy takes a sadistic twist in the new thriller by Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff, directors of The Gallows.
A married couple endure a particularly horrific form of relationship therapy in the new thriller directed by Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff, the team responsible for the surprise low-budget horror hit
The Gallows. Cannily exploiting #MeToo themes and the opportunities for cinematic mayhem provided by technology-driven smart homes,
Held proves an uncommonly thoughtful and provocative suspenser.
The story begins with Emma (Jill Awbrey, who also wrote the screenplay) being transported to a luxuriously modernistic, gated rental house by a chatty ride-hailing driver (Rez Kempton). After enjoying the home s pleasures, including a swimming pool, in solitary fashion, she s soon joined by her husband Henry (Bart Johnson, here working in far different territory from his recurring role in Disney s