Monthly Archives: December 2024

Movie Review: Heretic

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Heretic: a person who differs in opinion from established religious dogma. (Merriam-Webster)

Released by A24 Heretic is a horror film that falls more broadly in the genre of psychological horror than traditional horror thought elements at the films conclusion can be interpreted to move the movie into a supernatural realm.

A24 studios

As depicted in the films trailer, two Mormon missionaries, Sister Paxton (Chloe East) and Sister Barnes (Sophie Thatcher) have come to the home of Mr. Reed (Hugh Grant) because he has expressed an interest in learning more about the Mormon church. Deceiving the pair into believing his wife is at home he traps them in the house and begins a cruel psychological cat-and-mouse game with the young women.

First off let me state just how much I am loving Hugh Grant in is villain era of acting. From a corrupt English politician in A Very English Scandal, thru his campy and quite enjoyable rogue in Dungeons & Dragon: Honor Among Thieves to this controlled and chilling performance I have enjoyed Grant so much more than in his good looking rom-com days.

Written and Directed by Scott Beck & Bryan Woods, Heretic is a thoughtful film that doesn’t treat any of its characters as cheap and as strawmen. It poses interesting and challenging questions about the nature of faith, belief, and organized religion without presenting any particular answer as ‘truth’ but only as truth seen through flawed human perception.

The three central performers are all operating at what looks like the top of their games, giving detail and subtle performances that illuminate character without broad exposition. Reed’s worldview is internally consistent but like any not without fault or logical fallacy. The Sisters are presented neither as caricatures of their faith nor as unblemished adherents.

Cinematographer Chung Chung-hoon makes use of unsettling and unconventional close-ups that allow the audience of share in Paxton and Barnes growing terror as their situation becomes frightening clear.

Heretic at time reminded me of Barbarian but without that movies disbelief shattering descent into superhuman silliness. Save for a single event near the films climax Heretic keeps itself firmly grounded in conventional reality and even the event in question is open to various interpretations.

I thoroughly enjoyed this film, and I am thrilled that I managed to make time to see it in the theater before it run closed.

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Return to Twin Peaks, not Twin Peaks: The Return

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During spooky season I posted that my sweetie-wife and I were doing a rewatch of the 90’s television series Twin Peaks.

I had some exposure to the uniqueness of David Lynch prior to the series. As part of a double feature at a rep theater I had seen Eraserhead, and it never made sense to me. Then I saw his adaptation of Dune, a flawed but visually stunning film that to me is the least David Lynch he ever made. However, I fell in love with Blue Velvet a surreal neo-noir that was both crime melodrama and an exploration of the twisted darkness that hides in all of us.

When Twin Peaks hit the air my very first thought was ‘Oh, this is Blue Velvet for television.’ I had no conception of just how strange, cosmic, and beyond rational the series would delve.

ABC Television

Our rewatch has reached the second of half of season two and it has been quite a ride. At times the series is a less than middling nighttime soap opera, with poorly executed noir styled plots that quickly fizzle out, at other times it’s a bizarre comedy with such questionable material as a middle-aged woman delusionally going to high school and using her inhuman muscular strength to sexually hares teenage boys. And yet it always retains those elements that are pure horror, of worlds beyond our own intruding with sadistic demons and entrapping human souls not only in depravity but with elements of furniture.

As we swing into the final episodes air back in the 90’s and the terrifying nature of the Black Lodge, the possessing demons, and a cliff hanger that went unresolved for 25 years I can’t help, despite all its flaws, to salute the inventions of the series.

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A Murder in Mid-Town

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Yesterday morning in New York City, the Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealthcare was slain in what seems to be an obviously preplanned assassination. Leaving his hotel, Brian Thompson was shot multiple times from behind by an assailant who took precautions to mask his identity and fled on foot and on electric bicycle and remains uncaptured.

Following the killing a lot of dark, nasty, and cruel comments began appearing on social media, much of which utilized the for-profit Health Care industries verbiage utilized when denying coverage for medication, procedures, or care.

I know nothing of Brian Thompson as a person or as a CEO. He may have been a man who wanted to bring more care to patients under UHC’s coverage. He may have been the sort of CEO who demanded that every department met ‘quotas’ for rejected claims to protect profits. He may have been a kind and empathetic employer, or he may have been the sort that demands you return to work and leave friends and loved ones stranded. Whatever the case for Thompson as a person murder is murder and the assassin needs to be brought to justice.

The hot and fierce feelings of those people making their online comments is utterly understandable. My job previous to my current one was working for a medical access company. Doctors would send over to us proposed treatments for patients and our company dealt with the byzantine bureaucracy of the for-profit insurers to obtain the approval. UHC was one of the worst to deal with. For some treatments it seemed that every single request was denied forcing us to launch an appeal on the patient & providers behalf. In my opinion that denied knowing that some people wouldn’t know to appeal to avoid that expense for the company. When politicians, nearly always Republicans, scream that you don’t want bureaucrats between you and your doctor it infuriates me. They are there already and making it more expensive and complicated than it needs to be.

Perhaps the murder in mid-town was because someone’s healthcare was delayed or denied and for someone this broke them in a violent manner. It has been reported that shell cases at the scene had the words ‘deny, defend, & depose’ written on them and that support this possible motivation but until the killer is captured, we will not know the truth.

I have not made the biting, cynical, cruel comments that others have but man oh man I understand the hurt and the rage that motivates them.

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