Resident Evil

Austin Abrams 

Zach Cregger's Resident Evil is a deserved hit with both the critics and the public. The youngsters and gamers seem to like it. My ticket taker gushed that "it was by far the best in the series even if it didn't have Mila." The audience was young and entranced by the sheer gallop of this genre exercise par excellence. I was worried after the polyphonic breakthrough of Weapons that Resident Evil would be monophonic in its adherence to the project's gaming heritage, but it is more than a rollercoaster ride. It is agitatedly, but rewardingly monophonic in following the adventures of dispatch delivery agent Bryan (Austin Abrams) as he encounters carnivorous alien creatures while he tries to deliver the film's MacGuffin to a lab. It does not end happily, but the film's themes are suited to the rat in a maze structure. Cregger leavens the material with sick humor which the cast delivers sublimely.

Some have objected to the prevalent visual schema of slime, often toxic, that fills the screen during the last act. This is silly because the film's sense of horror is that of human putrefaction. The hero, a modern Ichabod Crane, is trying desperately to outrun the onslaught of mortality. The unease of COVID and whatever the heck happened in Russia pervades the air. What mysterious strain will cause us to putrefy? Thankfully, Austin Abrams gives a sly, visually elastic performance that brings out the absurdity of Bryan's plight. The supporting players whizz by before getting slimed. I was most amused by the efforts of Paul Walter Hauser and Zach Cherry. 

I was reminded of a similar genre exercise that traded off then current fears, Spielberg's Duel. The villain stalking Dennis Weaver is a kin to the good old boys that shot up Captain America and Billy in Easy Rider. The villain of Resident Evil is harder to pin down, something more mysterious in the air. Guns and rifles of many varieties do seem easy to find in this film's version of America. It posits that if life is a First-person shooter game then, soon, we will all be dead.

This is for Carla, a horror aficionado and connoisseur of onscreen putrefaction.

The Devil's Bride

Groovy!

Arunas Zebriunas' dotty film The Devil's Bride is a Lithuanian rock opera released in 1974. Mr Zebrunas was assisted in constructing this slice of counterculture kitsch by composer Vyacheslav Ganelin and poet Sigitas Geda who penned the libretto. The plot is loosely based on the folklore fantasy novel Whitehorn's Windmill by Kazys Boruta. The good people at Deaf Crocodile have released this film on a beautiful disc which contains a host of extras in addition to the 76 minute feature. Ten minutes into this picture, you'll feel as if someone has given you a few shots of mead and a dark rye crust with ergot clusters. 

An agent of the dark lord spreads mischief amongst the inhabitants of a lakeside village. Men sell their souls and brides are left waiting at the altar. The thorough composed score drives the frenetic, cartoon like action. The film hurtles along. If you don't like one tune, here comes another. The tone is akin that of Ken Russell in this period, if Mr. Russell had liked people. The invocation of national myth, Catholic imagery, and pagan folklore stands as a finger in the eye of staid, godless Communism.

As with most rock operas, the score for The Devil's Bride is not rock and roll, but a listenable mishmash. Because of his background in jazz, I'd group Mr. Ganelin with jazz composers who went all in on baroque pop when the commercial opportunity arose, like John Barry, Quincy Jones, and Burt Bacharach. Ganelin injects some fuzz-tone guitar whenever Satan's minions cut loose with orgiastic impishness, but he can't compose around an electric guitar like Morricone. The Devil's Bride is much more engaging than such visual atrocities as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell. And don't get me started about the 1973 Lost Horizon, an all time turkey that put the kibosh to the Bacharach/ David partnership. It was a bad era for musicals, rock opera or not, The Devil's Bride is colorful and kooky fun. The flick is currently streaming on Tubi.

The Love That Remains

Saga Garoarsdóttir

Hlynur Pálmason's The Love That Remains strikes me as one of the more original and impressive pictures I've seen this year. The film repeats the man as a single grain of sand vibe explored in Godland, but adds a depth of characterization that lifts this work to a higher plateau. The film is ostensibly focused on the ongoing separation between artist Anna (Saga Garoarsdóttir) and her mismatched mate, Magnús (Sverrir Guonason). The pair share a teenage daughter named Ida and a set of ten year old twins. Magnús has not quite processed that Anna has given him the heave-ho. He slinks into his former household like a wary sheepdog and is usually graced a meal or a beer. However, he cannot reignite a spark with Anna who is clearly bored and irritated by her more simplistic spouse.

Magnús works on a fishing trawler. He is gone for weeks at a time as it is herring season and is bored and down in the dumps. The fish harvesting sequences alone would make this worth seeing, but The Love That Remains contains multiple strains and themes. Anna is an artist who weathers her work. Not in a random way, but deliberately so that it is infused with the elements of Iceland. The film traces the arc of the seasons from spring to winter. The fractured family joins together to pick wild berries and forage mushrooms. Among Ann's art pieces left out in the open is a Joan of Arc figure affixed to a stake. Her children use the figure for archery target practice, but the figure also stands in contrast to the ever changing face of natural Iceland. Ann's work grounds her to her land. In contrast, Magnús ends the film, literally, at sea.

Pálmason punctuates his narrative with surrealistic asides that amplify the film's themes. Some of these are dropped matter of factly. Some with flashy effects like split screens and whip pans. However, Pálmason never allows his film to be overcome with effects and uses them judiciously. Most of the surreal moments display an aptly unconscious tug. The exception is Magnús' dream of himself being menaced by a giant rooster. This is in response to his having killed a misbehaving cock at Ann's request. The dream is a too literal illustration of guilt, but it pays off when Ida tells off Magnús because of this foul deed and his subservience to his ex. The killing was played for laughs, at Magnús' ineptitude, but it hinges on one of the film's central themes: Are we instinctual beasts preying upon each other or can we deny or self-interest for the common good? The film's humor is predicated on the unease with which we regard out ambivalent state. There are no easy answers or good guys or bad guys in the film.

Ida's animal rights stance and the children's overall attitude towards sex and violence signals another of the film's themes: shifts in generational perspectives. The arrows into Joan of Arc and the recovery of World War 2 mines show that violence is an ever present reality even in peaceable Iceland. Ambivalence, the hallmark of maturity, is in evidence even in the film's appreciation of ugliness and beauty. Even the spectre and reality of death has its strange beauty in The Love That Remains. Brilliantly acted and memorably filmed, this is surely one of the best features released in the US in 2026.