Quick Takes, November 2022

Lee Purcell in Summer of Fear

Wes Craven's Summer of Fear, a TV movie from 1978, was his first true Hollywood effort. He seems to be learning the ropes and there are only a few uncanny moments. Craven neutered for televised consumption. Lois Duncan's source novel provides possibilities, but the cast is generally woeful as are the costumes and hair. This was the last of a slew of exploitive TV films that starred Linda Blair in the wake of The Exorcist. Fortunately, the plum role of the witch who bedevils Blair and her family is in the capable hands of Lee Purcell. MacDonald Carey is well utilized and Fran Drescher shows she had her schtick down pat at this early stage. For Craven completists and lovers of 70s cheese.

Kevin Smith's Yoga Hosers, from 2016, is as funny as a crutch. Despite an impressive cast (Johnny Depp, Lily-Rose Depp, Vanessa Paradis, Natasha Lyonne, Justin Long, Austin Butler, Haley Joel Osment), the results are dire. 

Li Yuhe's Absurd Accident, his debut film from 2017, is, yes, an absurdist black comedy set in the hinterlands of northern China. The film takes leaps back and forth in time as it tells the tale of ten intersecting characters. Li has a solid sense of place and knows where to plant his camera. The tone is similar to the yahoo comedies of the Cohen brothers. Like their lesser comedies, the humor is more of the peculiar rather than laugh out loud funny. If anything, Li tries to cram too much in one feature: the black and white sequences which mimic speeded up silent films are an egregious example. Still, Mr. Li shows promise. Streaming on Amazon Prime. 

Tsui Hark's The Taking of Tiger Mountain, from 2014, is an old fashioned action film, at once pleasing and anonymous. Hark has churned out fifty or so of these and reminds me of Henry Hathaway; competent, yet relatively colorless. The film has a rich feel to it: the set decoration, costuming, and hair styling are all eye popping. Initially, a historical novel, then a Maoist opera, this is, at least, the second film adaptation of the yarn. The film has a cobbled together feel with bits of The Seven Samurai and Mad Max attached to it.

Peter Strickland's Flux Gourmet is a wigged out satire of the art world. With a narrative that defies description, Flux Gourmet once again displays Strickland's gift for arch humor and Bunuelian satire. As in his recent In Fabric, Strickland shows sighs of artistic growth, particularly in his ability to create three dimensional characters. In this he is greatly helped by a fine cast, especially Asa Butterfield and Strickland regular, Fatma Mohamed.

Chloe Okuno's Watcher is an underwhelming woman in peril film set in Bucharest. Okuno gets a sense of menace out of the apartment corridors and streets of Romania, but the characters of this thriller are wan and underdrawn. Part of the problem are the nondescript leads. Based on the interesting bits and pieces in Watcher, Slut, and her short in the anthology V/H/S, Ms. Okuno seems a talent to watch for the future. 

Fatma Mohamed in Flux Gourmet