movies Archives – CULTURE MIX

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and Mexico, the dramatic film “On the Rocks” features a cast of white and African American characters (and a few Asians) representing the upper-middle-class and middle class.

Culture Clash: A married mother of two young daughters begins to believe her philandering father’s suspicions that her husband is cheating on her.

Culture Audience: “On the Rocks” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching movies about “privileged people’s problems.”

Marlon Wayans, Rashida Jones, Alexandra Reimer and Liyanna Muscat in “On the Rocks” (Photo courtesy of Apple TV+)

“On the Rocks,” written and directed by Sofia Coppola, is the type of movie that Woody Allen has made for most of his career, but “On the Rocks” is told from a female director’s perspective. It’s a story about an upper-middle-class woman in New York City who spends almost the entire movie worrying about whether or not her husband is cheating on her. And there are several scenes with conversations about the differences between how men and women handle romance and a committed relationship.

In order for the film not to be too talkative and have some action, “On the Rocks” throws in a plot development of “I’m going to spy on my husband,” so that viewers get to see different angles of her privileged lifestyle, where she can have cocktails at exclusive lounges in the middle of the day and jet off to Mexico whenever she wants. And did we mention that this woman has daddy issues? Because that’s what’s propelling her to feel so insecure about her marriage.

“On the Rocks” telegraphs those daddy issues from the film’s opening scene, which features a dark screen with a voiceover of an unseen man telling his unseen daughter, who is presumably underage at the time this conversation is taking place: “And remember, don’t give your heart to any boys until you’re married. And then you’re still mine.”

The movie then cuts to the lavish wedding of Laura (played by Rashida Jones) and Dean (played by Marlon Wayans), who are blissfully happy on this big day in their relationship. The wedding reception is in one of those European-styled ballroom halls that includes a romantically lit swimming pool on the property. When they are alone at the reception, Laura and Dean are seen impulsively stripped down to their underwear and frolicking in the swimming pool.

The movie then fast-forwards several years later. Laura and Dean are now parents to two daughters: Maya (played by Liyanna Muscat), who’s about 9 or 10 years old, and Theo (played by identical twins Alexandra Reimer and Anna Reimer), who’s about 3 or 4 years old. Maya and Theo are both adorable and obedient kids. Dean is a busy executive at a company whose industry is not named, but it’s the type of company that revolves around getting clients from all over the world. Therefore, Dean does a lot of traveling.

Laura, who’s 39 and soon about to turn 40, is a writer who’s working on a novel called “Amici e Conoscenti,” which is Italian for “Friends and Acquaintances.” The movie has a brief flash of the book cover, and it looks as pretentious as it sounds. Laura and Dean live in the type of spacious New York City apartment that’s for people who can afford a home that’s worth at least $3 million. However, they don’t have servants, and Laura’s casual style of dressing indicates that she tries to be as “down-to-earth” as possible.

One thing that Laura is very uptight about though is her current situation of having writer’s block. She moans to Dean that she shouldn’t have sold her book before writing it. Laura, who works from home, also complains that it’s hard for her to adjust to writing during the day when she’s accustomed to writing at night. In other words, Laura has privileged people’s problems.

And soon, there’s another problem that will preoccupy Laura’s thoughts. One night, when Laura and Dean are in bed, he starts kissing her while he’s half-asleep, but then he suddenly stops when he hears Laura’s voice. Laura doesn’t really know what to think about this interrupted amorous moment, so she asks two people in separate phone conversations. And she gets two completely different answers.

The first person she asks is an unidentified female friend, who tells Laura that she shouldn’t worry about it because Dean is a wonderful and loving husband who wouldn’t cheat on her. The other person Laura talks to about it is her father Felix (played by Bill Murray), who immediately tells Laura that Dean is probably cheating on her. Laura gives Dean the benefit of the doubt and tries to put the incident out of her mind.

But then, one day, while she’s unpacking Dean’s luggage, she sees a woman’s toiletry bag in his suitcase. She opens the bag and sees body oil. She takes the bag out and leaves it on the dresser. Her suspicions begin to percolate, but she doesn’t say anything to Dean about it right away. Some of the passion has gone out of their marriage, but Laura thinks it’s because they’ve been busy with their separate careers.

Soon after finding this mystery toiletry bag, Laura and Dean attend a work party that Dean’s company is having at the office. At the party, she meets for the first time a woman named Fiona (played by Jessica Henwick), a fairly new account manager who works closely with Dean and usually goes on the same business trips with Dean and some of their other colleagues. Fiona is outgoing, effusive, and seems very happy to meet Laura.

Fiona then introduces Laura to two other work colleagues: Jenna (played by Zoe Bullock) and Chase (played by Chase Sui Wonders), who aren’t as friendly as Fiona. In fact, they seem slightly uncomfortable talking to Laura, so the conversation is brief and awkward. At this point, viewers are probably thinking what Laura is probably thinking: “Are any of these women having an affair with Dean?”

On the ride back home, Laura casually mentions the toiletry bag that she found in Dean’s suitcase. He tells her that the bag belongs to Fiona, who asked him to carry it for her in his suitcase because it the toiletry bag couldn’t fit into her carry-on luggage. He says he’ll return the bag to Fiona. Dean’s response seems open and honest, without hesitation, surprise or guilt. And so, Laura accepts that explanation and doesn’t make a big issue out of it.

However, Laura’s father Felix won’t let it go, and he plants seeds of doubt in Laura’s mind about Dean’s marital fidelity when he starts interrogating Laura about Dean’s activities when Dean is away on business trips. Felix, who is a semi-retired art dealer who used to own an art gallery, even gives an analysis of the type of hotels that Dean stays at, by commenting on which hotels are more discreet than others if someone wants to have an affair. Felix is also an incessant name dropper who loves to brag about all the people around the world he knows, including hotel concierges, who can do favors for him.

How does Felix know all of about the mind of a cheater? Because he’s a longtime philanderer, and it’s the reason why Felix and Laura’s mother Diane (played by Alva Chinn) got divorced years ago. Felix left Diane for his mistress, a woman named Robin, but that relationship didn’t work out either.

It’s not clearly stated when Felix and Diane got divorced, but it’s implied that it happened when Laura and her younger sister Amanda (played by Juliana Canfield) were still children and living at home. It’s clear as the story goes on that the devastation of the divorce and Felix’s perpetual selfishness have caused Amanda to become estranged from her father. And the pent-up resentment that Laura has about Felix’s role in the divorce comes out later in the movie’s best scene.

Felix is addicted to being a playboy, because everywhere he goes, he flirts with women who are almost always young enough to be his daughter. He also has an outdated, very sexist attitude toward life that is a mix of Neanderthal and elitist. In the beginning of the movie, Felix is only heard on the phone because he’s away on a trip in Paris. When he arrives back in New York City to see Laura, his insufferable personality is on full display.

Felix loves to spout self-righteous platitudes where he thinks he’s always right in his mindset that men always have to be dominant and superior to women. His ramblings are a mishmash of garbled anthropology and philosophy to justify why he has such a sexist attitude toward women. It’s really all just Felix’s egomaniacal way of denying that he’s a crass boor who doesn’t want to admit that a lot of men have evolved from the old days when women were treated like property.

For example, in one scene, Felix explains to Laura that in ancient times, women’s breasts reminded men of when humans used to walk on their haunches. The rounder the breasts, the more desirable the woman, according to Felix. Felix also says that men are attracted to adolescent females because adolescent females are easier to catch and therefore easier to mate with in man’s instinctual need to spread his seed. What’s creepy about this comment about adolescent females is that Felix thinks that what applied to ancient times—when human life expectancy was much shorter than it is now and having kids at age 14 was considered normal—applies to society today.

Adding to the “creep” level of Felix, he’s weirdly flattered when he and Laura are out in public together and people assume that Laura is his girlfriend. He mentions it any chance he gets to Laura, who is understandably uncomfortable with this semi-incestuous implication. It’s pathetic insecurity on Felix’s part, but there’s not much Laura thinks she can do about it because he’s her father and he’s set in his ways. Occasionally, she scolds him by saying things like, “Can you just be normal around women?”

And it comes as no surprise that Felix thinks that men aren’t wired to be monogamous. It’s an incredibly narrow-minded viewpoint that doesn’t take into account that not everyone is the same when it comes to love and committed relationships. It’s an example of how Felix, as he does throughout the entire story, believes that his way of thinking is always the correct way, even if it’s “politically incorrect” by today’s standards.

As annoying as Felix might be to some people watching this movie, there are many men with money and privilege who think the exact same way. They might not share these thoughts with everyone, but they will talk about it with people whom they feel comfortable with, and this backwards mindset is reflected in how they live their lives. (These are the type of men who hate the #MeToo movement.) Some people might think that the Felix character is over-the-top and unrealistic, but it’s a very accurate depiction of how some people in certain social circles really think and act in life.

And so, it comes as no surprise, considering Felix’s history of infidelity, that he’s quick to assume that Dean is cheating on Laura. Felix keeps nagging Laura to do something about it and even takes it upon himself to hire a private detective to spy on Dean. Felix keeps telling Laura that Dean is probably having an affair with Fiona.

At first, Laura is appalled by Felix’s assumptions, but eventually she gets sucked into Felix’s suspicions and gives in to the idea that she should start spying on Dean too. Felix is happy to egg her on, and he spearheads arrangements so that Laura can go with him on these spying excursions.

There are several scenes where Felix shows up at Laura’s home or calls her and expects her to drop everything to have Laura accompany him for drinks at this swanky hotel or that upscale lounge. Over cocktails and at stuffy parties, they commiserate over Dean’s possible infidelity, as well as talk about Felix’s point of view that it’s harder for men to be faithful spouses than it is for women.

At one point in the movie, Laura wails to Felix and asks him if it’s possible for women to keep their love partner’s interest and if it’s possible for men to still be attracted women once they reach past a certain age. (Felix believes a woman reaches her attractiveness “expiration date” around the age of 40.) Felix says that it’s possible for a woman to hold a man’s interest in a long-term relationship if she still has confidence that she’s attractive.

Even though Felix is the last person to lecture about successful, monogamous relationships, he does have a good point about self-confidence that Laura completely misses because she’s become too caught up in her own misery and insecurities in thinking that she might not be good enough for Dean anymore. An objective observer would also be able to see that Felix seems way too invested and too eager to find out if Dean is a lying, cheating husband. It’s as if Felix wants confirmation that there are more men than not who are cheaters, even if it means that his daughter will be emotionally hurt in the process.

The dynamics between Laura and the women in her family have subtle clues about how race and class play a role in their family’s hierarchy. There’s a scene where Laura, her sister Amanda, and their multiracial mother Diane are having an outdoor luncheon with Felix’s mother (played by Barbara Bain), who’s called Gran in the movie, at Gran’s grand estate. Gran immediately expresses disapproval to Laura about how Laura is dressed (Laura tends to wear blazers, jeans and flat shoes), while Diane nips this criticism in the bud by telling Laura that she looks great.

The topic inevitably turns to Felix, who is clearly a troublemaker in the family, and Gran makes excuses for him by saying he was rebellious even as a child. Amanda tells Laura that she doesn’t know how she can still put up with their father, while Diane (who’s been through enough with Felix to last a lifetime), tries not to say anything negative about Felix in front of his mother. This scene explains a lot about Felix’s upbringing and why he turned out the way that he did. (Felix’s father is not seen or mentioned in the movie, but it’s implied that Felix’s mother is a widow.)

In one of Felix and Laura’s spying excursions, Felix shows his elitist attitude when he scoffs that Dean and some colleagues are going to be hanging out at Soho House (a members-only social club in Manhattan’s SoHo neighborhood), which Felix considers to be a “downmarket” place because it’s apparently not upscale enough for Felix. For this spying trip, Felix picks up Laura in his red Alfa Romeo, as you do when you’re spying on someone and you want to show off your car instead of being truly incognito.

When Dean and Fiona get in a taxi together, it leads to a not-very-subtle car chase with Felix speeding to try catch up to the taxi. Felix gets pulled over for speeding by two cop partners, but he charms his way out of getting a ticket because Felix happens to know the father and grandfather of one of the cops. The cop’s demeanor changes from stern to friendly.

As Felix and Laura drive off, Laura says to him, “It must be great to be you.” And Felix agrees. The words “white privilege” aren’t said in this scene, but this scene shows how someone like Felix can get away with certain things, while someone of a different color or race who’s pulled over by police for the same reason probably wouldn’t be let off as easily.

The subplot about Laura’s writer’s block is important because it provides some context for why Laura wastes time and goes along with Felix’s schemes. She’s avoiding working on her book to go off to wherever Felix thinks they should go on a moment’s notice. She’s running away from a problem (finishing her book) by distracting herself with another potential problem (her possibly crumbling marriage).

Nowhere is this avoidance more evident than when Felix convinces Laura that they should go to Mexico to spy on Dean while he’s on a business trip there with Fiona. In the movie’s most unrealistic contrivance, Felix just happens to know someone who owns a condo that’s right next to the resort in Mexico where Dean is staying. And so, Laura hastily arranges for her mother to watch the kids while she flies off to Mexico with Felix for a few days. This trip leads to a reckoning that gives clarity to Laura on her relationship with her father and on her marriage.

Because the movie is more about Laura’s relationship with Felix than it is about Laura’s relationship with Dean, this father and daughter are the two characters who get the most screen time. Dean seems like an overall good guy, but there’s not enough shown of him and the other supporting characters to give any insight into their personalities. Jenny Slate has a recurring role as a single mother named Vanessa, whose son goes to the same school as Laura’s daughter Maya. Vanessa’s only purpose in the movie is to give neurotic, rambling monologues about her love life to Laura while they’re waiting somewhere at the school, and Laura has to find an excuse to get away from Vanessa.

Jones is the cast member who shines the most in the emotional scenes between her and Murray, who portrays Felix as jaded and desperately trying not to show his insecurities. For all of Felix’s macho attitude toward women, he’s still very much alone and doesn’t have a romantic partner in his life who truly loves him and vice versa. There’s a world-weary sadness that Murray brings to the role that’s nuanced among Felix’s ego posturing.

The movie is also a subtle commentary on how people who seemingly “have it all” can still find ways to create problems in their lives, often out of sheer boredom. Because really, the average person does not have time to gallivant around cocktail lounges during the day and fly to resorts in other countries with their father on short notice, in order to spy on a spouse.

However, amid all of these shenanigans, what this movie shows is that Laura and Felix, in their own ways, are haunted by how infidelity and divorce had an effect on their family. Laura doesn’t want to go through what her mother Diane experienced (having her husband leave her for another woman), while Felix is determined to show Laura that it could happen to her because he’s convinced that Dean is cheating on Laura.

Rashida Jones, who is the daughter of Grammy-winning legend Quincy Jones, co-directed the 2018 documentary “Quincy” about her father’s life. This documentary, which had Quincy Jones’ participation, shows that Rashida also has a close but complicated relationship with her divorced father, who has publicly admitted that he’s incapable of extended monogamy. That’s probably why there’s an authenticity to how Rashida Jones plays the role of Laura in expressing both loyalty and exasperation when she’s with her father.

“On the Rocks” isn’t Coppola’s best film, but it’s not her worst either. The performances of Rashida Jones and Murray are the best parts of what could have been a very pedestrian movie. “On the Rocks” might be compared to Coppola’s 2003 Oscar-winning movie “Lost in Translation,” because that film also had Murray as an older man in a complicated relationship with a younger woman (played by Scarlett Johansson). However, “On the Rocks” is very much in the mold of a Woody Allen film, except that Allen doesn’t cast African Americans as stars of his movies. But just like Allen’s films, “On the Rocks” avoids showing racial issues in a racially diverse big city like New York because the movie wants to be about how privileged neurotics need love too.

Apple TV+ released “On the Rocks” in select U.S. cinemas October 9, 2020. Apple TV+ premiered “On the Rocks” on October 23, 2020.

2020 Horror Movie Hub

There’s no doubt about it: Horror movies are hot right now. Here’s a list of horror flicks with releases in 2020. They’re all here, whether they are movies with theatrical releases, films that went directly to video, or movies that are only available on streaming services or TV networks. Movies that were reviewed on Culture Mix get a featured spotlight, while all the rest of the movies are listed below.

For the purposes of this list, “horror movies” are defined as movies that are intended to be scary, which are often different from crime movies. For example, “Halloween” is a horror movie. “Scarface” is not. As a helpful guide, the movies on this list are identified by the subgenres in horror.

NOTE: This list is only for movies released in the United States. The availability of a movie on this list might vary outside the U.S.

Horror Movies of 2020: Culture Mix Reviews

**1BR** (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Films)

**Algorithm: Bliss** (Photo courtesy of Green Apple Entertainment)

**Amulet** (Photo by Rob Baker Ashton/Magnet Releasing)

**Behind You** (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

**Beneath Us** (Photo courtesy of New Mainstream Entertainment)

**Blumhouse’s Fantasy island** (Photo by Christopher Moss)

**Body Cam** (Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures)

**Brahms: The Boy II** (Photo courtesy of STX)

**The Clearing** (Photo courtesy of Crackle)

**Color Out of Space** (Photo courtesy of RLJE Films)

**Come to Daddy** (Photo by Jamie Leigh Gianopoulos)

**A Deadly Legend** (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

**The Deeper You Dig** (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Films)

**Game of Death** (Photo courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment)

**Get Gone** (Photo courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment)

**The Grudge** (Photo by Allen Fraser/Sony Pictures)

**The Host** (Photo by Ashley Paton Photography/Pearl Pictures Productions)

**The Hunt** (Photo by Patti Perret/Universal Pictures)

**The Invisible Man** (Photo by Mark Rogers/Universal Pictures)

**Killer Therapy** (Photo courtesy of 4Digital Media)

**La Llorona** (Photo courtesy of Shudder)

**Luz: The Flower of Evil** (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Films/MPI Media)

**Relic** (Photo courtesy of IFC Midnight)

**The Rental** (Photo courtesy of IFC Films)

**Rent-A-Pal** (Photo courtesy of IFC Films/IFC Midnight)

**Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street** (Photo courtesy of New Line Cinema)

**Skin Walker** (Photo courtesy of Cleopatra Entertainment)

**The Sonata** (Photo courtesy of Screen Media Films)

**Sputnik** (Photo courtesy of IFC Films/IFC Midnight)

**The Turning** (Photo by Patrick Redmond/Universal Pictures and DreamWorks Pictures)

**Uncaged** (Photo courtesy of 4Digital Media)

**Underwater** (Photo by Alan Markfield)

**The Wretched** (Photo courtesy of IFC Midnight)

**You Should Have Left** (Photo by Nick Wall/Universal Pictures)

**Zombi Child** (Photo courtesy of Film Movement)

Complete List of Horror Movies Released in 2020

sci-fi horror = futuristic science or outer-space aliens
slasher horror = killer humans or wild animals
supernatural horror = evil spirits
vampire horror = killer vampires
zombie horror = killer zombies

0.0MHz — supernatural horror

1BR — supernatural horror

8 Graves — supernatural horror

12 Hour Shift — slasher horror

Abominable (2020) — supernatural horror

Agony (2020) — supernatural horror

Algorithm: Bliss — sci-fi horror

Alien Outbreak — sci fi horror

#Alive — zombie horror

Alone (2020) (starring Jules Willcox) — slasher horror

Alone (2020) (starring Tyler Posey) — zombie horror

Amulet — supernatural horror

Antebellum — slasher horror

The Assent— supernatural horror

Attack of the Unknown — sci-fi horror

Attraction 2: Invasion — sci-fi horror

A Babysitter’s Guide to Monster Hunting — supernatural horror

The Babysitter: Killer Queen — supernatural horror

Bad Hair — supernatural horror

The Beach House — supernatural horror

Becky — slasher horror

Before the Fire — sci-fi horror

Behind You — supernatural horror

Beneath Us — slasher horror

Black Box (2020) — sci-fi horror

The Blackout: Invasion Earth — sci-fi horror

Black Water: Abyss — slasher horror

Blood Clots — zombie/supernatural horror

Blood From Stone — vampire horror

Blood Quantum — zombie horror

The Blood Thins — supernatural horror

Blood Vessel — vampire horror

Blumhouse’s Fantasy Island — supernatural horror

Body Cam — supernatural horror

Books of Blood — supernatural horror

The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula: Resurrection — documentary horror

Brahms: The Boy II — supernatural horror

Chop Chop — slasher horror

The Clearing (2020) — zombie horror

The Cleansing Hour — supernatural horror

Color Out of Space — sci-fi horror

Coma (2020) — sci-fi horror

Come Play — supernatural horror

Come to Daddy — slasher horror

Coven of Evil — supernatural horror

Crawlers — sci-fi horror

Cruel Peter — supernatural horror

The Current Occupant — sci-fi horror

The Curse of Audrey Earnshaw — supernatural horror

Cut Off — slasher horror

The Dark and the Wicked — supernatural horror

Dark Encounter — sci-fi horror

Darkness Falls (2020) — slasher horror

A Dark Path — supernatural horror

The Dark Red — supernatural horror

Dead by Dawn — slasher horror

A Deadly Legend — supernatural horror

Dead Sound (2020) — slasher horror

Death of Me — supernatural horror

The Deeper You Dig — supernatural horror

Delivered — slasher horror

Doctor Death — slasher horror

Dogs Don’t Wear Pants — slasher horror

Do Not Reply — slasher horror

Don’t Look Back (2020) — supernatural horror

Dreamkatcher — supernatural horror

The Empty Man — supernatural horror

Evil Eye (2020) — supernatural horror

Evil Little Things — supernatural horror

Exorcism at 60,000 Feet — supernatural horror

Extra Ordinary — supernatural horror

Freaky — sci-fi horror

Game of Death (2020) — supernatural horror

Get Gone — slasher horror

Good Boy — slasher horror

The Grudge (2020) — supernatural horror

Halloween Party (2020) — supernatural horror

Holland Road Massacre: The Legend of Pigman — slasher horror

Home With a View of the Monster — supernatural horror

The Honeymoon Phase — sci-fi horror

Host (2020) — supernatural horror

The Host (2020) — slasher horror

Hosts — slasher horror

Hubie Halloween — supernatural horror

The Hunt — slasher horror

Impetigore — supernatural horror

Infection (2020) — zombie horror

In the Trap — supernatural horror

The Invisible Man (2020) — sci-fi horror

It Cuts Deep — slasher horror

Jessica Forever — sci-fi horror

Killer Therapy — slasher horror

Lake of Death — supernatural horror

La Llorona — supernatural horror

Lingering — supernatural horror

The Lodge — supernatural horror

Love and Monsters — sci-fi horror

Luz: The Flower of Evil — slasher horror

The Marshes — supernatural horror

May the Devil Take You Too — supernatural horror

Metamorphosis (2020) — supernatural horror

Monstrum — supernatural horror

The Mortuary Collection — supernatural horror

Mrs. Serial Killer — slasher horror

Murder in the Woods (2020) — slasher horror

My Valentine — slasher horror

Nocturne (2020) — supernatural horror

A Nun’s Curse — supernatural horror

The Occupant — slasher horror

The Pale Door — slasher horror

The Platform — sci-fi horror

Pooka Lives! — sci-fi horror

Possessor Uncut — sci-fi horror

Psychosynthesis — sci-fi horror

Random Acts of Violence — slasher horror

Relic — supernatural horror

The Rental (2020) — slasher horror

Rent-A-Pal — slasher horror

Return to Splatter Farm — slasher horror

Roald Dahl’s The Witches — supernatural horror

Save Yourselves! — sci-fi horror comedy

Scare Me — supernatural horror

Scare Package — supernatural horror

Scream, Queen! My Nightmare on Elm Street — documentary horror

Shortcut — supernatural horror

Skin Walker — supernatural horror

The Sonata — supernatural horror

Spell — supernatural horror

Spiral — supernatural horror

Spontaneous — sci-fi horror

Sputnik — sci-fi horror

Synchronic — supernatural horror

Tar — supernatural horror

Ten Minutes to Midnight — vampire horror

Triggered — slasher horror

The Turning (2020) — supernatural horror

Uncaged (also titled Prey) – slasher horror

Uncle Peckerhead — supernatural horror

Underwater — sci-fi horror

Vampires vs. The Bronx — vampire horror

Warning: Do Not Play — supernatural horror

We Summon the Darkness — slasher horror

The Wolf of Snow Hollow — slasher horror

The Wretched — supernatural horror

You Die — supernatural horror

You Should Have Left — supernatural horror

Yummy — zombie horror

Z — supernatural horror

Zombi Child — zombie horror

Review: ‘Roald Dahl’s The Witches,’ starring Anne Hathaway, Octavia Spencer and Stanley Tucci

October 22, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Roald Dahl’s The Witches”

Directed by Robert Zemeckis

Culture Representation: Taking place primarily in Demopolis, Alabama, in 1978, the family-friendly horror/fantasy film “Roald Dahl’s The Witches” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A widowed grandmother and her orphaned grandson encounter evil witches who want to turn children into mice.

Culture Audience: “Roald Dahl’s The Witches” will appeal primarily to people looking for lightweight, fantasy entertainment about good versus evil that has the same formula as many other family-oriented films about wicked witches who don’t like children.

Jahzir Bruno, Octavia Spencer and Stanley Tucci in “Roald Dahl’s The Witches” (Photo by Daniel Smith/HBO Max)

“Roald Dahl’s Witches” should’ve been named “Anne Hathaway Hamming It Up as a Witch,” because that’s really the main attraction for this duller-than-it-should-be movie. Hathaway’s Grand High Witch character—who is the leader of a coven that’s flocked to Demopolis, Alabama, in 1978—is the only one in the coven who has a distinct personality. The rest of the witches are essentially backdrops to Hathaway’s over-the-top performance in a very formulaic and unimaginative movie. Considering all of the Oscar winners who were involved in making this movie, “Roald Dahl’s Witches” isn’t horrible, but it’s a big disappointment from people who can do and have done much better work.

Directed and co-written by Oscar-winning “Forrest Gump” director Robert Zemeckis, “Roald Dahl’s Witches” (adapted from Dahl’s 1983 novel “The Witches”) is the second movie version of the book. The first movie version was 1990’s “The Witches,” directed by Nicolas Roeg and starring Anjelica Huston. The 2020 movie version changed the story’s location from Europe to the United States, and made the witch-hunting grandmother and grandson African American.

It’s a change that is significant only in that the movie briefly makes some subtle references to racism, and the grandmother listens to a lot of 1960s and 1970s R&B music. Other than that, the premise of the movie remains the same: The grandmother (played by Octavia Spencer) and her orphaned grandson (played by Jahzir Bruno), who do not have names in the movie, go on a mission to hunt down and stop a coven of witches who plan to turn children into mice, in the hopes that the mice will be killed as rodent pests.

Hathaway and Spencer are both Oscar winners. Zemeckis co-wrote the screenplay to this movie with “The Shape of Water” Oscar-winning filmmaker Guillermo del Toro and “Black-ish” creator Kenya Barris. The movie’s cast also includes Oscar nominee Stanley Tucci. On paper, it sounds like a winning combination to make a spectacular, award-worthy classic movie. The reality is that “Roald Dahl’s Witches” is frustratingly average and at times a boringly repetitive film.

We’ve seen many movies already with an over-the-top evil witch, animated animals that interact with live-action humans (in this movie’s case, the animated animals are mice and one obligatory witch’s black cat), and one big race against time to stop the chief villain from doing what the villain plans to do. Nothing in this movie is award-worthy.

That’s not to say “Roald Dahl’s Witches” doesn’t have entertaining moments. But they are arrive in between long stretches where not much happens except the grandmother and her hero son talk about and plan what they need to do to stop the witches. The boy, whose parents died in a car accident, has been living with his grandmother since becoming an orphan. (Chris Rock does voiceover narration as the hero boy as an adult.) His grandmother is slowly able to lift him out his depression over his parents’ death, and she buys him a pet female mouse that he names Daisy.

And it’s around this time that the hero boy encounters a witch with a snake coming out of her sleeve while he and his grandmother are in a hardware store. The witch’s name is Zelda (played by Josette Simon), and it turns out that she used to be the grandmother’s best friend when they were children. Zelda was turned into a witch by the Grand High Witch and has been in the coven ever since. The grandmother figures out that her grandson encountered Zelda, based on her grandson’s frightened description of the witch he saw in the hardware store.

The witches in this story have several distinctive features, which the grandmother tells her grandson about when she teaches him how to spot a witch: The witches, who are demons disguised as humans, always wear long gloves because they have claws, not hands. The witches always wear wigs, because they are actually bald. The witches have unusually long corners of their mouths, which they cover with heavy makeup. The witches have feet without toes and have oversized nostrils that become more pronounced when they can catch the scent of children.

The witches hate kids and want to get rid of all the children in the world. The witches offer candy (such as taffy) to children entice them. And witches are repulsed by clean children because these children smell like defecation to the witches. The cleaner the children are, the more they stink to the witches.

After the grandson’s scary encounter with Zelda, the grandmother and grandson check into a swanky hotel called the Grand Imperial Island Hotel, which they are able to do because of a favor from a hotel employee whom the grandmother knows. The grandmother says that she figures that her grandson will be safe to hide there because “ain’t nothin’ but rich white folks” at the hotel and “witches prey on the poor, the overlooked, the kids they think nobody’s going to make a fuss about if they go missing.”

The movie’s other reference to racism and social-class disparities in America is when the grandmother and the grandson check into the hotel and the hotel manager R. J. Stringer III (played by Tucci) looks surprised to see them there. R.J. makes a comment to the grandson that the hotel normally doesn’t get a kid like him as a guest. It’s a racially tinged, condescending remark that the grandmother picks up on right away, and she lets this stuck-up manager know that she and her grandson will be treated with the same amount of respect that the other hotel guests get.

And speaking of the other hotel guests, there’s a snobbish British couple named Mr. Jenkins (played by Charles Edwards) and Mrs. Jenkins (played by Morgana Robinson) who are at the hotel with their insecure son Bruno Jenkins (played by Codie-Lei Eastick). Bruno tries to make friends with the grandson, but Bruno’s domineering mother won’t let him. And there’s a convention going on at the hotel for a group calling itself the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, whose members are all women who wear long gloves. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out who these women really are.

“Roald Dahl’s The Witches” is a by-the-numbers story that hits all the familiar beats of similar movies, and it culminates in a showdown that goes exactly how you would expect it to go. There’s nothing wrong with the acting from the cast, but it’s just so predictable and generic. (Spencer plays yet another matronly woman who gets sassy when she has to be.) Children under the age of 14 will probably enjoy this film the most. But for people who’ve got more life experience and have seen enough movies like this already, “Roald Dahl’s The Witches” is just too cookie-cutter to really have much substance and make a lasting impact on viewers.

HBO Max premiered “Roald Dahl’s The Witches” on October 22, 2020.

Review: ‘Halloween Party’ (2020), starring Amy Groening and T. Thomason

October 21, 2020

by Carla Hay

T. Thomason and Amy Groening in “Halloween Party” (Photo courtesy of Red Hound Films)

“Halloween Party” (2020)

Directed by Jay Dahl

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed Canadian city, the horror flick “Halloween Party” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans and Asians) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two college students find out that a computer meme has unleashed some vengeful spirits.

Culture Audience: “Halloween Party” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind seeing sloppily made horror films with subpar acting.

A scene from “Halloween Party” (Photo courtesy of Red Hound Films)

“Halloween Party” is a horror movie that bit off more than it could chew. It clumsily handles two concepts, when there really only should have been one concept. Most of the movie’s acting is so bad, it’s more cringe-inducing than the movie’s intended scares.

Written and directed by Jay Dahl, “Halloween Party” starts out fairly promising, even though there are no original ideas in the movie at all. At first, it looks like the movie will be about a deadly computer meme, but then “Halloween Party” throws in an added concept about how the Canadian university campus where this story takes place used to be the site of a hospital filled with infected mutant children. Neither concept is executed well in this movie.

Movies like 2002’s “FeardotCom,” 2014’s “Unfriended,” 2018’s “Unfriended: Dark Web” and 2019’s “Countdown” are examples of movies that have already done the concept of computer online activity leading to mysterious and violent deaths. As for dangerous mutant children, there are plenty of movies that have this concept, such as 1979’s “The Brood” and 2008’s “The Children.” Unfortunately, “Halloween Party” is a shoddily made film that won’t even get cult status because much of the movie is so boring.

In “Halloween Party,” which takes place in an unnamed Canadian city, college roommates Grace (played by Amy Groening) and Zoe (played by Marietta Laan) come across a computer meme called Halloween Party that invites someone by name to a Halloween party. The catch is that the invited person has to type in his or her biggest fear within 30 seconds (there’s a countdown clock in the meme) or else that fear will come true.

This entire concept is flimsy from the start because it assumes that the meme knows how to read minds. If someone types in a joke or something that doesn’t sound like a real fear, the meme rejects it. Grace types that her biggest fear is “vagina spiders.” Zoe types in that her biggest fear is “pigs.”

Zoe then teases Grace by fabricating a childhood story about living near a farm where a famer was eaten by his pigs. When Grace falls for the story, Zoe laughs and tells Grace that she made it all up. And at this point, you know is going to die and there’s going to be some pig imagery involved.

Later in the story, it’s revealed that Grace’s fear of “vagina spiders” are because when she was a child, she had a stomach ache, and her older sister lied to her and said it was because spiders had crawled up her vagina and laid eggs there. It’s the type of bizarre story that would lend itself well to a horror movie with an offbeat or campy sense of humor. But the only attempt at humor in “Halloween Party” is some awkward banter between some of the characters.

Sure enough, when Zoe is shown at night at her job at a clothing retail store in a deserted shopping mall, she’s killed by a mystery intruder who’s been hiding in a back stock room. And he’s wearing a pig mask. The store was closed for the night, and the killer also murdered one of Zoe’s co-workers. And why couldn’t Zoe escape? Someone locked the front door so that everyone would be trapped inside. How convenient.

Grace is devastated by Zoe’s murder, and she wonders if the computer meme had something to do with it. And so, three weeks after the murder, Grace visits the campus computer tech club, where she meets Spencer (played by T. Thomason), who’s nicknamed Special, and has all the stereotypes of being a computer nerd. It doesn’t take long for Spencer to confirm that something sinister is definitely going on with that computer meme. Spencer and Grace don’t go to the police because they know what they believe will make them look crazy.

Grace and Spencer than discover secrets of the university campus and what went on in that hospital that did medical exams on the mutant children who lived there. The mutants were victims of a chemical leak in the 1980s from a placed called the Harton Hills Chemical Plant. The chemical leak affected newborns, which caused extra flesh to grow out of their bodies and other deformities. Because this movie isn’t very imaginative, it’s easy to figure out why there might be vengeful spirits lurking about on campus and elsewhere.

Much of the movie is about Grace and Spencer playing private detectives in trying to get to the bottom of the mysteries of the computer meme and the hospital that used to be on campus. During their investigation, a few more people die. And because Grace and Spencer spend so much time together, the movie’s tone rests largely on how Grace and Spencer’s relationship is depicted.

Groening has more acting talent than Thomason, but the scenes with both of them together aren’t very compelling, especially when the pace drags toward the middle of the film. Spencer makes little jokes to show that he’s attracted to Grace, but she definitely has him in the “friend zone.” Their banter is supposed to be mostly friendly, but with some underlying sexual tension because Spencer is attracted to Grace and doesn’t have any experiencing dating a girl.

There’s a meta moment where Spencer and Grace talk about being fans of 1980s “nerd” movies. Spencer says that he thinks of these films (such as any ’80s teen movie by John Hughes) as “will they fuck” movies, because there’s always a nerd who’s pining after an attractive girl. Spencer tells Grace that if they were in a movie, they could have that moment.

Grace and Spencer’s investigation eventually leads them to the home of two retired and married doctors who used to work at the hospital: Dr. Barbara Macail (played by Shelley Thompson) and Dr. Arthur Macail (played by Jeremy Akerman). This scene has some of the worst acting in the movie, particularly when Arthur, who’s an invalid hooked up to a respiratory machine with a speaking valve, has a seizure. Another badly acted scene is when Spencer is briefly at a daytime Halloween party, and he freaks out when he sees someone wearing a mask with a skull.

And, of course, it seems as if every movie that’s set in a college or high school has a student who acts like an arrogant big shot. In “Halloween Party,” that blowhard is Court (played by Scott Bailey), who has the obligatory sidekicks who follow his lead. The wingmen include Mike, nicknamed Fartparty (played by Zack Faye), and Darren “Bubbles” Danowsky (played by Taylor Olson). Just to make sure there are enough fart references for these guys, writer/director Dahl let’s it be known in the movie that Bubbles got his nickname because when he was a kid, he liked to fart when taking baths. The world can now sleep better knowing this information.

The movie also some out-of-place montage editing in “Halloween Party” that’s supposed to look scary but it just looks like a choppy psychedelic trip, with quick-cut imagery of the “evil spirits” and “flashbacks to evil spirits.” There are parts of “Halloween Party” that have some fairly good cinematography, but other parts that look like something from a sloppy student film.

And let’s not talk about the disappointing and dumb ending. Anyone who watches “Halloween Party” and makes it that far will have to slog through a lot of tangents that this very disjointed movie makes. The computer meme concept was all this movie really needed, but to throw in a retro mutant concept just makes the story unnecessarily overstuffed. If you think this movie will have a big, frightful Halloween party scene, forget it. There is no such scene. The characters are too busy getting buried by a nonsensical plot in this bloated mess of a movie.

Red Hound Films released “Halloween Party” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on October 2, 2020.

Review: ‘Do Not Reply,’ starring Amanda Arcuri and Jackson Rathbone

October 21, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Do Not Reply”

Directed by Daniel Woltosz and Walter Woltosz

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror flick “Do Not Reply” has a predominantly white cast (with one African American) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A 17-year-old girl is seduced online into meeting a stranger, who kidnaps her and holds her captive with other teenage girls.

Culture Audience: “Do Not Reply” will appeal primarily to people who like watching bottom-of-the-barrel exploitation horror films.

Jackson Rathbone in “Do Not Reply” (Photo courtesy of Gravitas Ventures)

The filmmakers of “Do Not Reply” must think that Lifetime hasn’t made enough “women in peril” movies where the killer has a thing for targeting cheerleaders. “Do Not Reply” has taken this cliché concept and has sunk it to new levels of badly filmed exploitation. And making things worse is that the pacing of this movie becomes so slow during much of the film that “Do Not Reply” is not only dreadful but it’s also excruciatingly dull. “Do Not Reply” has nudity and cursing in its attempt to be “edgier” than a Lifetime movie, but it uses the same template of any Lifetime movie about a psycho who wants cheerleaders to die.

Lazily written and directed by Walter Woltosz and his son Daniel Woltosz in their feature-film debut, “Do Not Reply” also rips off the same premise of any movie about a teenage girl who’s lured into a dangerous situation by a stranger online. The main character who’s the kidnapping victim in this story is a 17-year-old student in high school named Chelsea (played by Amanda Arcuri), who fits the predictable “good girl” virginal stereotype in horror movies like this one. Chelsea has been chatting online with a guy with the screen name VRCowboy, who claims to also be 17 years old, but anyone with a brain can see that he’s a much older man.

Chelsea has a friend named Mia (played by Ivon Millan), who’s exchanged nude photos of herself with a guy she wants to date named Dylan (played by Curran Walters), who’s also in high school and is a typical pretty boy who’s accustomed to girls having crushes on him. Chelsea is mildly horrified that Mia is so cavalier about sending nude photos to a guy who’s not even her boyfriend.

Chelsea asks Mia if she’s worried about Dylan showing Mia’s nude pics to his friends, and Mia shrugs it off and says she’s thought about it, but she naïvely thinks that Dylan wouldn’t do that. Meanwhile, Mia asks Chelsea if she wants to see the nude photo of Dylan’s penis that he sent to her, and Chelsea immediately says no. And with that, this movie checks off another cliché in stories about a virginal teenage female victim: She has a close friend who’s more “boy crazy” than she is.

Dylan has a close friend named Seth (played by Christian Hutcherson), who’s attracted to Chelsea. When Dylan invites Mia over to his place for a “party” at his house, Mia uses it as an excuse to bring Chelsea along to try and manipulate this situation into a “double date.” The “party” is really just Dylan, Mia, Chelsea and Seth, who all sit on a couch together.

It isn’t long before Dylan and Mia leave the room to go into a bedroom, thereby leaving Chelsea and the Seth together on the couch. Seth makes a pass at Chelsea, who rebuffs his advances. The next day, when Chelsea tells Mia that Seth wanted Chelsea to give him oral sex, Mia’s response is that Chelsea should’ve done it. That tells viewers all they need to know about what kind of “friend” Mia is.

Meanwhile, Chelsea continues to chat with VRCowboy online, and they eventually get to talking on the phone. He tells her that his name is Brad (played by Jackson Rathbone) and they do some heavy flirting. Chelsea lies and tells Brad that she’s a cheerleader, so he asks her to send him a photo of herself in her cheerleader uniform. It just so happens that Chelsea’s snooty older sister Kristina (played by Savannah Kennick) is a cheerleader, who isn’t home at the time, so Chelsea borrows Kristina’s cheerleader uniform and poses for some flirty selfie photos that she sends to Brad.

As for Brad, he never sends her any photos of himself. And apparently, Chelsea never bothers to ask where she can find him on social media. It seems that he contacted her randomly by text and that’s how they “met” online. When Chelsea and Brad start doing video chats, his face is obscured and blurred-out on screen. His excuse is that the camera got damaged when he accidentally dropped his phone, and he hasn’t bothered to get it fixed.

Despite all of these red flags that Brad is a con artist, Chelsea becomes infatuated with Brad, because he says all of the right things to her. Based on the brief interactions that the movie shows Chelsea having with people close to her, it’s easy to see that she feels overshadowed by her popular sister Kristine, and Chelsea wants to experience dating the way that her friend Mia is experiencing dating. Instead of being comfortable with herself, Chelsea wants to be more like them.

These are the type of insecurities that sexual predators pounce on, and Chelsea is the type of victim who does everything that a predator hopes a victim will do. Brad makes arrangements to meet Chelsea in person. At first, he wants her to come over to his house alone, but she’s at least smart enough to say no. However, Chelsea doesn’t agree to go to Brad’s house mostly because she doesn’t drive and she thinks he lives too far away.

Instead, Brad and Chelsea agree to meet at a Halloween party that’s happening at an abandoned warehouse. Chelsea, who doesn’t tell anyone where she’s going, decides to go to the party dressed as a zombie cheerleader, while Brad goes as a zombie football player. This movie is so dumb that when Brad meets Chelsea at the party, he keeps his helmet on the entire time, and not once does she think it’s strange that he won’t show his face, nor does she ask him to take his helmet off. If Chelsea could see Brad’s face, she’d see that he’s definitely not 17. He’s actually in his 30s.

And then, when Brad gives her some fruity alcohol in a bottle, it’s very easy to know what’s going to happen next. The drink is drugged, of course, making it easy for Brad to put Chelsea in his car. Witnesses at the party who see Brad putting Chelsea in his car assume that she’s his drunk date, and he’s being a gentleman who’s giving her a ride.

Chelsea wakes up to find herself kidnapped and locked inside Brad’s house. And she’s got company: Three other girls who are around her age are there for the same reason: to satisfy Brad’s sick fetish for torturing and raping cheerleaders. It turns out that he has a twisted sexual obsession for someone in his past named Sadie, a blonde cheerleader who rejected him.

There are flashbacks to Brad’s encounters with Sadie (played by Nikki Leigh), who was close to Brad for a reason: Sadie was his sister. It’s not really a spoiler to reveal this information, because the only spoiler information for this utterly predictable movie is to reveal who survives and who doesn’t.

Brad has a computer room where he does his online predator activity. The room has a lot of technology, including video monitors for the surveillance cameras that are all over his house. Brad also has a virtual-reality system that comes with an elaborate headset where he watches videos of himself torturing his victims. Brad wants all of his victims to have blonde hair and wear cheerleader outfits, and he forces all of them to be called Sadie.

In addition to Chelsea, the three other kidnapping victims in the house are Meagan (played by Kerri Medders), who is the most brainwashed of the group because she’s convinced that she and Brad are in love; Heather (played by Elise Luthman), who tries to help Chelsea while pretending to obey Brad; and Tina (played by Ashlee Füss), who wants to escape too, but she’s severely injured from a leg wound and is confined to her bed.

Chelsea tries to escape soon after she gains consciousness, but Meagan stops her. Meagan wants to be Brad’s “favorite” so she’s immediately jealous of Chelsea as the “newcomer,” because she sees Chelsea as a potential threat for Brad’s “affections.” Meagan acts like a watchdog for Brad to make sure that the other kidnapping victims don’t try to escape.

Chelsea is a natural brunette, so one of the first things that Meagan tells Chelsea is that she has to dye her hair blonde. “Do Not Reply” is so badly made that instead of a dye job, an obvious, cheap-looking blonde wig is used for Chelsea. Why bother with mentioning a dye job when an unconvincing-looking wig is used instead? Why not just have a blonde wig in Brad’s house as an explanation and be done with it? It’s an example of how this movie insults viewers’ intelligence.

Another thing about the movie that doesn’t make sense is that later in the movie, Chelsea has access to a bottle of prescription medication in Brad’s house. Chelsea and Meagan are in charge of preparing the meals that everyone eats. Chelsea could’ve drugged Brad and Meagan with all that medication, and then found a way to escape by stealing Brad’s keys to the front door. It’s a huge plot hole that’s too big to ignore.

The movie takes a bizarre and dark turn when Chelsea commits a heinous act to impress Brad, in order to convince him that she’s fallen in love with him. It’s in this scene that “Do Not Reply” takes the point of no return, from being semi-suspenseful trash to being just trash. All of the acting is mediocre at best and downright embarrassing at worst. The only cast member who does a consistently adequate performance is Füss as Tina, but Tina is bedridden and doesn’t have much screen time in this horrible film that was obviously made to have young women running around looking terrified in cheerleader costumes.

“Do Not Reply” attempts to make itself look scarier than it really is, by having tacky-looking red lighting in the “torture room,” but it just looks like the back room of a low-rent strip club. And the movie tries to make Brad look like the VR headset version of “Halloween” villain Michael Myers. But because the “Do Not Reply” story is flimsy to begin with, the movie drags out in too many places.

Rathbone’s portrayal of Brad as a psycho villain isn’t convincing enough. Brad doesn’t look very menacing most of the time. Brad just looks constipated.

And at the end of the movie, there’s a statistic from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that states: “The average age of online enticement is 15 years old.” It’s as if the filmmakers tacked on this public-service announcement warning at the end of the movie to try to erase all the female exploitation in the movie. Too late. “Do Not Reply” is irredeemable garbage, and no PSA message at the end of the movie is going to get rid of the stink.

Gravitas Ventures released “Do Not Reply” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on October 2, 2020.

True Crime Entertainment: What’s New This Week

The following content is generally available worldwide, except where otherwise noted. All TV shows listed are for networks and streaming services based in the United States. All movies listed are those released in U.S. cinemas. This schedule is for content and events premiering this week and does not include content that has already been made available.

Monday, October 19 – Sunday, October 25

TV/Streaming Services

All times listed are Eastern Time/Pacific Time, unless otherwise noted.

Netflix’s docuseries “Unsolved Mysteries” (Volume 2) premieres on Monday, October 19 at 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT.

Monday, October 19

“Unsolved Mysteries”
(Episodes 101-106) **Season Premiere**
Monday, October 19, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Netflix

“Last Looks”
(Episode 108)
Monday, October 19, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Murder Unboxed”
(Episodes 101) **Series Premiere**
Monday, October 19, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“World’s Most Evil Killers”
“Monster of Marcinelle”
Monday, October 19, 9 a.m., Reelz

“World’s Most Evil Killers”
“Barber of Potenza”
Monday, October 19, 10 a.m., Reelz

“World’s Most Evil Killers”
“Trick Driver Killers”
Monday, October 19, 11 a.m., Reelz

“Fatal Attraction”
“When a Killer Goes Free” (Audrey Scott) (Episode 1012)
Monday, October 19, 9 p.m., TV One

“The Missing”
“Missing Teens” (Episode 105)
Monday, October 19, 9 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“The Missing”
“Night Out Gone Wrong” (Episode 106) **Season Finale**
Monday, October 19, 9:30 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“Killer Carnies”
“The Sideshow Murders” (Episode 101) **Series Premiere**
Monday, October 19, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery

Tuesday, October 20

“Last Looks”
(Episode 109)
Tuesday, October 20, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Murder Unboxed”
(Episodes 102)
Tuesday, October 20, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Homicide City”
“Deadly Circle of Friends” (Episode 306)
Tuesday, October 20, 9 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“Dead Silent”
“Quiet the Dog” (Episode 401) **Season Premiere**
Tuesday, October 20, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery

Wednesday, October 21

“Last Looks”
(Episode 110)
Wednesday, October 21, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Murder Unboxed”
(Episodes 103)
Wednesday, October 21, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Crimes Gone Viral”
“No You Don’t!” (Episode 113)
Wednesday, October 21, 9 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“Crimes Gone Viral”
“Out of Control” (Episode 114)
Wednesday, October 21, 9:30 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“Chaos in Court”
“Enough Is Enough (Episode 106)
Wednesday, October 21, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“The Con”
“The Heiress Con” (Episode 102)
Wednesday, October 24, 10 p.m., ABC

Thursday, October 22

“Last Looks”
(Episode 111)
Monday, October 19, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Murder Unboxed”
(Episodes 104)
Thursday, October 22, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Buried in the Backyard”
“Buried in the Woods: Girl in the Grave” (Episode 308)
Thursday, October 22, 8 p.m., Oxygen

“Injustice With Nancy Grace”
“Friend or Foe?” (Episode 203)
Thursday, October 22, 9 p.m., Oxygen

“Suspicious Minds”
“Who Killed the Councilman” (Episode 103)
Thursday, October 22, 9 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“The Killer Beside Me”
“Schooled in Murder” (Episode 306) **Series Premiere**
Thursday, October 22, 10 p.m., Investigation Discovery

Friday, October 23

“Last Looks”
(Episode 112)
Friday, October 23, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Murder Unboxed”
(Episodes 105)
Friday, October 23, 3 a.m. ET/12 a.m. PT, Quibi

“Dateline: Secrets Uncovered”
“The Unusual Suspect”
Friday, October 23, 8 p.m., Oxygen

“20/20”
Friday, October 23, 10 p.m., ABC

“Dateline”
Friday, October 23, 10 p.m., NBC

“American Greed: Bonus Edition”
“Operation Crook, Line and Sinker”
Friday, October 23, 10 p.m., CNBC

Saturday, October 24

“License to Kill”
“Nursing Home Nightmares” (Episode 212)
Saturday, October 24, 6 p.m., Oxygen

Sunday, October 25

“Snapped”
“Nancy Siegel” (Episode 2808)
Sunday, October 25, 6 p.m., Oxygen

“Judgment With Ashleigh Banfield”
(Episode 107)
Sunday, October 25, 8 p.m., Court TV

“Evil Lives Here”
“The Found Them in Storage” (Episode 808) **Season Finale**
Sunday, October 25, 9 p.m., Investigation Discovery

“Seduced: Inside the NXIVM Cult”
“Indoctrinated” (Episode 102)
Sunday, October 25, 9 p.m., Starz

Movies in Theaters or on Home Video

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, numerous movie theaters in the U.S. are closed until further notice. Some independent movie theaters that are physically closed are showing movies online, as part of a “virtual cinema” program.

“The State of Texas Vs. Melissa”

Directed by Sabrina Van Tassel

Release date: October 20, 2020 on digital and VOD

“The State of Texas vs. Melissa” explores the life journey of Melissa Lucio, the first Hispanic woman to be sentenced to death in the state of Texas. For 10 years, she has been awaiting her fate—and she now faces her last appeal.

Radio/Podcasts

No true-crime podcast series debuting this week.

Events

Events listed here are not considered endorsements by this website. All ticket buyers with questions or concerns about the event should contact the event promoter or ticket seller directly.

All start times listed are local time, unless otherwise noted.

Due to the coronavirus pandemic, most in-person events in the U.S. have been cancelled or postponed if the event was expecting at least 50 people in the year 2020.

No true-crime events this week.

Review: ‘Luz: The Flower of Evil,’ starring Yuri Vargas, Conrado Osorio, Andrea Esquivel, Sharon Guzman, Johan Camacho and Jim Muñoz

October 18, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Luz: The Flower of Evil”

Directed by Juan Diego Escobar Alzate

Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed rural area of Colombia, the horror film “Luz: The Flower of Evil” features an all-Latino cast of characters representing the working-class and poor.

Culture Clash: A madman believes that he and other local villagers will have salvations and a tree where his dead wife is buried will blossom if he finds the Messiah, so he kidnaps teenage boys until he finds the one whom he thinks is the real Messiah.

Culture Audience: “Luz: The Flower of Evil” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching artsy horror films that have disturbing images.

Conrado Osorio in “Luz: The Flower of Evil” (Photo courtesy of Dark Sky Films/MPI Media)

“Luz: The Flower of Evil” (written and directed by Juan Diego Escobar Alzate) takes viewers down a deranged path into the mind of a madman who has a cult-leader type of hold on his small group of followers. The movie takes place in an unnamed, isolated rural area in Colombia where no automobiles are seen anywhere and the villagers dress in a way that doesn’t indicate that they are aware of the latest fashion trends. However, it seems as if the period of time of this story is likely set in the 1980s, because there’s a 1980s-styled portable cassette player that plays an important role throughout the movie.

In the beginning of “Luz: The Flower of Evil,” a woman in her early 20s named Laila (played by Andrea Esquivel) is being scolded by her father El Señor (played by Conrado Osorio), because she found a portable cassette player in the woods. El Señor is convinced that the cassette player is evil, which is the first indication that he’s crazy and out of touch with reality.

El Señor lectures Laila about this cassette player, after he briefly plays a tape in it: “It’s impossible that you found this in the woods. The devil doesn’t live in the woods. This may be one of his tricks. What we just heard is the devil’s chant. His music. He acts in the most beautiful ways. No one knows the devil more than I do. And I cannot tolerate this.”

As El Señor is rambling on about this cassette player, Laila secretly hides a cassette behind her back. Will she play it later? Of course she will. Later in the story, she goes out in the woods and plays the cassette, which is a recording of instrumental music with a flute. She hears the music and becomes fascinated by it, as if she’s never heard this music before in her life.

Meanwhile, it becomes apparent very quickly that El Señor has an oppressive rule of his household. The other residents of this ramshackle wood house are Laila and two younger women who are not related to Laila and El Señor, but were taken in by El Señor’s late wife and treated like members of the family. It’s not clear when the wife died, but El Señor tells the three women as they all hold hands over the dining table: “She is part of you. She never said goodbye.”

These two other young women have been raised as sisters to Laila. They are Uma (played by Yuri Vargas), who looks like she’s in her mid-20s, and Zion (played by Sharon Guzman), who looks like she’s in her late teens. Zion is the most obedient and religious of the three, Uma is the most skeptical and rebellious, while Laila is somewhere in between. However, Laila fears her father so much that she’s more likely than not to blindly obey his orders.

One thing that Laila secretly disagrees with her father about is that cassette tape. She tells Uma and Zion about the tape and says, “I think there’s an angel trapped inside of this.” Laila also shares a ballerina music box with Uma and Zion. The music box was a gift from Laila’s mother.

How mentally unstable is El Señor? He believes that the tree where his late wife is buried will blossom if he can find the Messiah, who El Señor says will save them all. How does El Señor go about finding the Messiah? He has kidnapped a blonde-haired, blue-eyed boy (played by Johan Camacho), who looks about 13 or 14 years old. The boy is kept chained by his neck in the pig pen in the family’s front yard.

Viewers of this movie know that the boy has been kidnapped because El Señor brutally rapes the boy’s mother who has come to the home to rescue him, and then he orders her to never come back to the house again. Even as El Señor’s three daughters witness this horrible crime taking place from inside the house, they stand by and do nothing because they are convinced that El Señor knows what he’s doing is an act of God. It’s a very twisted mindset that shows how much El Señor has brainwashed the people close to him.

The boy, whom El Señor has given the name Messiah or Jesús, remains mute and expressionless throughout the entire story, even when he sees his mother being raped. Later in story, it’s revealed that he hasn’t eaten/refused food during the entire time he’s been held captive, which El Señor and his little cult believe is a sign that this boy must be the Messiah.

One day, when Laila goes to talk to this boy, it’s revealed that El Señor has kidnapped other boys before, all because he thinks they might be the Messiah. And when it because obvious that these other boys were not divine creatures but were human, El Señor got angry and said that these boys were imposter Messiahs who “tricked” him. It’s not stated what he did with these other boys, but it’s easy to assume what happened, since they are nowhere to be found. Laila says that one of the previous boys was was shivering from the cold, which indicated that he was human, because El Señor said that the real Messiah doesn’t get cold.

El Señor’s madness has also infected the thinking of some of the local villagers who believe everything he says, as if he’s a prophet. El Señor has told the villagers that his three daughters are angels, and he invites the local residents to see this new “Messiah” who is being held captive in the front yard. Two of those gullible villagers are Elias (played by Daniel Páez) and his son Adán (played by Jim Muñoz), who is in his mid-to-late 20s. Adán is a Peeping Tom who likes to watch Laila, Uma and Zion bathe underneath a waterfall, with the women being unaware that he watches.

One day, while Adán is being a voyeur watching the three women bathe, Elias happens to be with him. Adán remarks to Elias that women are better than angels because women have bodies. Out of the three women, Adán is also attracted to Uma the most. And the feeling might be mutual. Therefore, it comes as no surprise when Adán and Uma happen to be out in the woods together at night, something happens between them that sets off a chain of events that leads to more shocking and despicable acts.

“Luz: The Flower of Evil” is not an easy film to watch and should be avoided by sensitive viewers. The violence in the film isn’t gratuitous but it is realistic in showing how one person’s insanity can have horrendously toxic effects on others. Although all the actors do well in their roles, the ones that are the most compelling to watch are Osorio as El Señor and Vargas as Uma, because their characters are often in an unspoken power struggle. At times, the movie is slow-paced, but Alzate permeates the story with a tone of impending doom that never lets viewers forget that these people are under the evil psychological grip of El Señor.

It’s an invisible suffocation of their souls that they aren’t even aware that El Señor is inflicting on them until it might be too late. And that killing of the human spirit, in many ways, is a lot more terrifying than if a random murderer was on the loose. A strange outsider is more likely to be resisted rather than someone who’s considered a trusted leader. “Luz: the Flower of Evil” is the type of horror movie that skillfully and disturbingly shows how blind trust can be used as one of the worst weapons to get people to commit heinous acts.

Dark Sky Films and MPI Media released “Luz: The Flower of Evil” on digital, VOD and DVD on September 15, 2020.

Review: ‘Killer Therapy,’ starring Michael Qeliqi, Elizabeth Keener, Thom Mathews, Jonathan Tysor, Angelique Maurnae, Emma Mumford and P.J. Soles

October 18, 2020

by Carla Hay

“Killer Therapy”

Directed by Barry Jay

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed U.S. city, the horror flick “Killer Therapy” features a predominantly white cast (with a few African Americans) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A troubled boy becomes a serial killer who targets people he thinks have done him wrong.

Culture Audience: “Killer Therapy” will appeal primarily to people who have a high tolerance for cheesy, low-budget horror films.

Elizabeth Keener and Jonathan Tysor in “Killer Therapy” (Photo courtesy of 4Digital Media)

Taking a very well-worn horror concept (a “bad seed” child becomes a serial killer), “Killer Therapy” is a sometimes entertaining but mostly cringeworthy horror movie that is so tacky and badly filmed that it verges on being campy. It doesn’t help that the cast members’ experience levels of acting are reflected in their performances (the ones who are least experienced tend to be the worst actors in this movie), which gives “Killer Therapy” an uneven tone in this already off-kilter movie.

Directed by Barry Jay (who co-wrote the “Killer Therapy” screenplay with Andrew Krop), “Killer Therapy” shows three phases in the life of the movie’s serial killer: as a child, as a teenager and as an adult in his mid-20s. And he murders people in all three phases. His name is Brian Langston (played by Jonathan Tysor as a child and Michael Qeliqi as a teenager and adult), who is shown from the beginning to be a sociopath who doesn’t hesitate to murder or injure someone who angers him.

When Brian is 12 years old, his parents John Langston (played by Thom Mathews) and Debbie Langston (played by Elizabeth Keener) adopt a sweet-natured daughter named Aubrey, who’s about four years younger than Brian. Ivy George plays Aubrey as a child, while Emma Mumford plays Aubrey as a teenager and an adult.

The first third of the movie is slow-paced and repetitive, as it establishes that Brian hates Aubrey even before she comes to live in the family home. Brian is also worried that his parents will love Aubrey more than they love him. Brian’s mother Debbie reassures Brian that she won’t love Aubrey more than she loves Brian, but Debbie has to repeatedly implore Brian to accept Aubrey as part of the family.

Debbie is a lot more patient with Brian than John is, probably because Debbie is a child therapist. However, Debbie is also the parent who is the worse enabler when Brian’s lashing out in anger becomes too vicious to ignore. Debbie is in constant denial over how bad Brian is.

Brian spends a lot of time giving Aubrey evil-eyed stares and saying mean-spirited comments to her like, “Get your own mommy.” He also upsets Aubrey by doing things such as tearing off a leg of a stuffed pig that’s one of her toys. When Aubrey tries to take back the stuffed animal from Brian, he bites Aubrey on the wrist so hard that she bleeds.

Brian’s parents take him to a therapist named Dr. Keller (played by Michael Dempsey), who insists that Brian be alone with him in their first session together. A child therapist like Debbie should know better than to allow that, because the parents need that first session to explain to the therapist what’s going on with Brian before Brian’s treatment can start. But Brian’s parents foolishly leave him alone with Dr. Keller. And (most viewers can see this coming a mile away), Dr. Keller sexually abuses Brian and orders him not to tell anyone.

During Brian’s sparsely attended 13th birthday party that’s held outside in a park area, Brian throws a drink at Debbie’s friend Gloria (played by Lola Davidson) when she takes a picture of him. Debbie makes excuses for Brian’s horrible behavior by telling Gloria that Brian doesn’t like to have his picture taken. The only people at this party are Brian, Aubrey, Gloria, Gloria’s son Nathan (played by Aidan Lewis) and Debbie. John isn’t at the party because he’s working, but Brian will hold a grudge for years against John because John wasn’t at the party.

Nathan, who’s sitting in a tree during the party, bullies Aubrey by using a slingshot on her. Brian than goes after Nathan, not because of what Nathan did to Aubrey but because Nathan starts taunting Brian by calling him a “weirdo vampire freak.” Brian angrily climbs up the tree, and the next thing you know, Nathan is dead on the ground. It’s obvious to viewers that it wasn’t an accident.

Gloria immediately thinks that Brian pushed Nathan out of the tree because the two boys’ argument was seen by people at the party. However, conveniently for Brian, he is the only living witness to this murder, and he insists that Nathan fell by accident on his own. Brian is given the benefit of the doubt by his parents and authorities. However, because of his violent tendencies, Brian is still placed in a court-ordered psychiatric institution, where he stays for six years until he’s let out and allowed to go back home.

During his stay in the institution, Brian is treated by a psychiatrist named Dr. Emily Lewis (played by P.J. Soles), who tells Brian’s parents that he’s been diagnosed with bipolar disorder with sociopathic tendencies: “In Brian’s mind, there is no alternative to violence. He lacks basic human empathy to differentiate from right and wrong.”

Aubrey is now a teenager too, and she hates that Brian is coming back home to possibly disrupt their family life again. Even though he’s supposed to be 19 years old, Brian enrolls in the same high school as Aubrey, because he wasn’t in the type of institution that gives out high school diplomas. As part of Brian’s therapy when he enrolls in high school, a teacher named Mrs. Perkins (played by Adrienne King), who knows about Brian’s psychiatric problems, encourages Brian to write down his thoughts in a journal.

Aubrey keeps her distance as much as possible from Brian, but the tables have turned in their relationship. Aubrey is now the one who’s openly hostile to Brian, while he tries not to do anything that would trigger her to get angry at him. Aubrey makes it clear that she despises Brian, whom she thinks is a murderer.

But Brian’s mental problems and inclination to murder haven’t gone away. After getting out of the institution, he commits another murder, which is sloppily handled in the movie. Brian strangles this person and tries to make it look like the cause of death was by a car crash. But any medical examiner would be able determine the real cause of death.

Something such as a medical examiner investigation is conveniently overlooked in this badly written screenplay. Brian commits murders and leaves plenty of evidence behind (such as his fingerprints and DNA), but he isn’t caught. Police investigations into these murders are never shown, even though it’s obvious that Brian would be a person of interest because he was either the last person seen alive with the murder victim and/or he had a well-known grudge against the victim. The closest thing to an interrogation that Brian faces is when he’s called into the principal’s office after a fellow student is found dead.

Brian becomes infatuated with one of Aubrey’s friends named Liz (played by Angelique Maurnae), who has a very protective boyfriend named Blake Corbin (played by Daeg Faerch), who are all students at the same school. One day, while Liz, Blake and Aubrey are eating together in the school cafeteria, Blake immediately picks a fight with Brian when he sees Brian staring at Liz.

Brian’s obsession with Liz takes a creepy turn when he hides behind a tree and starts filming her with his phone. Blake catches him in the act and takes Brian’s journal as revenge. This theft of his journal sets Brian off in ways that are very predictable.

Meanwhile, Brian hasn’t forgotten about the bad therapists he encounters during his eventual descent into total madness. There’s Dr. Keller, who sexually abused Brian. There’s another therapist named Dr. Hyland (played by Javon Johnson), who sadistically administers electroshock therapy to Brian. And Brian eventually begins to hate Dr. Lewis and Mrs. Perkins for giving him therapy advice that obviously didn’t work.

One of the biggest problems with “Killer Therapy” is the inconsistent tone in the actors’ performances. Keener (as Brian’s deluded mother Debbie) and Maurnae (as Brian’s crush Liz) are actually among the better actors in this movie, but they perform like they’re in a serious drama. Faerch, as Brian’s enemy Blake, hams it up way too much and gives this movie a campy feel to it.

As the teenage and adult Brian, Qeliqi alternates between playing someone who seem to have a dead, emotionless soul, someone who acts like a wounded puppy, and someone who’s exploding with rage. And the movie’s direction is fairly sloppy, with a lot of quick-cut editing that doesn’t work that well, especially toward the end of the movie when Brian goes on a rampage. He has a beard in parts of the montage edits and doesn’t have a beard in other parts that are supposed to take place on the same night. He also puts on some makeup that makes him look like a demented descendant of Dr. Frank N. Furter from “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.”

“Killer Therapy” should be given credit for not being a completely boring film, and there are moments that are unintentionally funny. But there are so many things that are just poorly done in this movie that “Killer Therapy” can’t be recommended for anyone who wants to watch a quality horror film. There are already too many substandard horror movies like “Killer Therapy” that are amateurish and forgettable. Even die-hard horror fans who will watch any horror movie will find “Killer Therapy” hard to take.

4Digital Media released “Killer Therapy” on digital, VOD and DVD on September 15, 2020.

Review: ‘2 Hearts,’ starring Jacob Elordi, Tiera Skovbye, Adan Canto and Radha Mitchell

October 18, 2020

by Carla Hay

“2 Hearts”

Directed by Lance Hool

Culture Representation: Taking place in various parts of North America, the romantic drama “2 Hearts” has a predominantly white cast (with some Latinos, African Americans and Asians) representing the middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Two couples from two different generations experience health problems that have far-reaching effects on them and other people.

Culture Audience: “2 Hearts” will appeal primarily to people who like very sappy tearjerkers.

Adan Canto and Radha Mitchell in “2 Hearts” (Photo courtesy of Freestyle Digital Media)

Even though the romantic drama “2 Hearts” is based on a true story, there’s a cloying sheen to the movie that makes the people look too glossy to be authentic. The entire movie looks like actors trying their best to re-enact what they think the real people actually went through, instead of giving naturalistic performances that transform these actors into believable people on screen. It doesn’t help that much of the dialogue sounds like it’s from a TV soap opera or a Hallmark TV movie. “2 Hearts” certainly has an inspiring message. It’s just unfortunate that it’s delivered in a very uninspired and trite manner by a very corny screenplay and some awkward acting.

According to the production notes for “2 Hearts” (a movie that takes place in various parts of North America over five decades), the movie originally had what director Lance Hool says was “a very long and accurate screenplay” that went through several rewrites and was eventually rejected. Lance Hool’s daughter Veronica Hool and Robin U. Russin ended up writing the screenplay that was used for the movie. And it’s that screenplay which is the movie’s weakest link.

Lance Hool produced “2 Hearts” with his brother Conrad Hool, and they both run the movie’s production company Silver Lion Films. Conrad’s daughter Carla Hool was the casting director for “2 Hearts.” It’s unknown if having all of these family members involved in making “2 Hearts” could have clouded their objectivity in critiquing another family member’s work on the screenplay. But somewhere along the line, the producers didn’t have enough fortitude to take a good, hard look at the screenplay written by Veronica Hool and Russin and ask for major improvements before this film got made.

The entire movie has major tonal problems, by trying to be a screwball romantic comedy in some scenes, and yet in other scenes, it’s a weepy medical drama. “2 Hearts” is mostly a drama, but its attempts at comedy fall very hard and very flat. The decision to have one of the characters narrate the film in an irritating way is an example of how it’s sometimes better for movies to “show, not tell.”

And there’s a “twist” in the movie that is completely unnecessary. At best, this twist looks like the screenwriters needed more scenes to fill up the movie and make it closer to a typical feature length of 90 to 120 minutes. At worst, this twist is smarmy emotional manipulation, just for the sake of shocking an audience and making sensitive viewers cry. By the time the twist is revealed in the last third of the movie, astute viewers have already figured out how the two couples who are the movie’s four main characters are connected to each other.

“2 Hearts” switches back and forth in telling the stories of these two couples, but the movie is narrated by Chris Gregory (played by Jacob Elordi), the male partner from the younger couple. Chris is a tall, good-looking, athletic guy who’s 18 or 19 years old, with a goofy personality and a “puppy dog” type of enthusiasm toward life. At the beginning of the movie, Chris is seen being rushed into an emergency room. His girlfriend Samantha, nicknamed Sam (played by Tiera Skovbye) and Chris’ older brother Colin (played by Jordan Burtchett) are frantically running next to the gurney that’s carrying Chris into an examination room, until Sam and Colin aren’t allowed to go any further into the room.

What caused this medical emergency? And what were the results after Chris got medical treatment at the hospital? Those answers don’t come until the last third of the movie, but from then on, the movie has already telegraphed that Chris is not as healthy as he first appears to be in the first two-thirds of the film.

And then, when the movie introduces viewers to the other couple in the story, and it’s shown that the male partner in that couple also has health problems, it’s very easy to see where this movie is going to go. Perhaps if “2 Hearts” didn’t show Chris’ medical crisis so early in the story, the connection between the couples wouldn’t be so obvious.

Until then, it’s an often-tedious march to that inevitable “reveal,” which is not the same as the manipulative “twist” in the story. The “reveal” is obvious and necessary. The “twist” is not obvious and is very unnecessary. Until the “twist” and the reveal” happen, the majority of “2 Hearts” is about showing how these two couples, who don’t know each other, met and fell in love with their respective partners.

Chris and Sam, the couple from the emergency-room scene, met because they’re students at Loyola University, a Jesuit college in New Orleans, not to be confused with Loyola University Maryland in Baltimore, which is Chris’ hometown. When Chris and Sam meet in 2007, he is a freshman, and she is a senior at the university. They both come from loving, middle-class families.

The other two lovebirds are Jorge Bolivar (played by Adan Canto) and Leslie Folk (played by Radha Mitchell), who met on a Pan Am flight in the 1970s, when Leslie was a flight attendant and Jorge was a passenger. Jorge comes from a wealthy Cuban family that owns a mega-successful rum company. (The Jorge character is based on the real-life Jorge Bacardi.)

Jorge and Leslie, who were both in their 30s when they met, have a “meet cute” moment when Jorge asks Leslie to hold his hand during takeoff because he pretends to be nervous about flying. After some hesitation, she grants his request. And it’s clear from the way that they look at each other that it won’t take them long to get together.

When the subject of drinking alcohol comes up during the flight (since Jorge is supposedly nervous about flying), Leslie tells Jorge that her favorite brand of rum is Bolivar, and he gives her his business card. That’s how she finds out that he comes from the wealthy family that owns the Bolivar rum company. Who really knows if that happened in real life? But it’s one of those moments that looks like it was created for the movie.

Although Jorge and Leslie are both based in Miami, they have a long-distance courtship because they both travel a lot for their jobs. As soon as they begin dating, Jorge often shows up unannounced at destinations where Leslie will be, and he expects her to drop any plans she had so that she can spend all of her free time hanging out with him. While many people would be creeped-out by this presumptive and stalker-ish behavior, Leslie finds it charming and romantic. It probably doesn’t hurt that Jorge is handsome and rich.

And Jorge doesn’t tell Leslie his medical secret until long after they start dating. He’s had a serious lung disease since childhood. His lung problem is so serious that doctors had told his parents that Jorge wouldn’t live past the age of 12. Jorge has had numerous surgeries, and parts of his lungs were removed when he was an undergraduate student at Stanford University. After Jorge and Leslie get married, they have problems conceiving children. (In real life, Jorge was diagnosed with primary ciliary dyskinesia when he was in his 50s, but prior to that, he was misdiagnosed as having cystic fibrosis.)

Chris and Sam’s romance is more carefree than Jorge and Leslie’s. That is, until Chris ends up in the hospital. Chris and Sam’s “meet cute” moment happens as he accidentally bumps into her while he’s leaving a classroom and as she’s entering the same room. Chris makes a profuse apology, which she accepts, and he looks at her as if it’s “love at first sight,” as she makes her way to a seat.

It’s a scene that’s sure to induce eyerolls because it’s so mawkish, as Chris literally stops in front of the class to stare at her. He’s so entranced that the teacher asks Chris if he is staying or leaving. Sam notices that Chris is staring at her, and she smiles in the way that women do when they know that someone is immediately infatuated with them.

The next time Chris and Sam see each other, he literally bumps into her again. This time, it’s in a hallway, where Sam is putting up flyers for a fledgling student group she’s started called Safety Patrol. It’s a volunteer rideshare service for the university’s students to call if they need a safe ride somewhere. Chris gives Sam a mild critique of the Safety Patrol flyers that she’s put up on a bulletin board, by telling her that the flyers should be less intimidating and more welcoming.

It’s his way of flirting with Sam, who already can tell that Chris is very attracted to her. Chris ends up being the first volunteer to join the Safety Patrol. It also motivates Chris to get his driver’s license. And through their Safety Patrol activities, Sam and Chris get closer to each other and fall in love.

When Chris and Sam first met, she was casually dating someone named Brad, who is never seen or heard in the movie. Sam and Brad didn’t have a serious-enough relationship where they were committed to each other. Brad is mentioned a few times in the movie, and then he’s never mentioned again.

Sam also opens up to Chris about why the Safety Patrol program is important to her. Two years before, Sam’s mother was in a serious car accident that left her in a coma. Sam prayed that if her mother got out of the coma and recovered, Sam would do everything possible to help other people. Her mother came out of the coma and recovered, and Sam came up with the Safety Patrol idea as a way to keep her promise to God.

Chris and Sam’s relationship provides most of the movie’s comic relief, but Chris is written as a character who tries too hard to be funny, so his personality can become grating after a while. There’s a scene where Chris and Sam tell each other what kind of music they have on their iPods, and they alternate between teasing and praising each other about some of their musical choices. It’s meant to be cute and humorous, but it just comes across as very contrived and awkward.

There’s also an extensive Safety Patrol scene where Sam and Chris pick up three different passengers at different times on the same night. All three passengers are eventually crammed into the back of the car: a drunk sorority girl (played by Georgia Bradner), who inevitably vomits; a stoner surfer dude (played by Neil Webb); and an uptight nerd (played by Doralynn Mui), who refuses to let anyone touch the suitcase she has. This is where the movie tries to be a screwball comedy, but it doesn’t fit the tone of the rest of the story.

Chris’ often-annoying narration constantly interjects in scenes and disrupts the flow of the movie. It’s the equivalent of someone sitting near you and making constant, unsolicited comments while you’re trying to watch a movie. And because Chris is written as a goofball, a lot of his corny humor doesn’t work well for the more serious scenes that he narrates. It’s not the actor’s fault. It’s the fault of how this substandard screenplay was written.

In addition to their health problems that reach a crisis level, Chris and Jorge have something else in common: They both have tense relationships with their demanding fathers. Chris’ father Eric (played by Tahmoh Penikett) is the type of parent who, instead of comforting Chris when Chris found out that he didn’t get accepted into his first-choice university, tells Chris: “Maybe you should’ve worked harder at it.” Jorge’s father Jose (played by Steve Bacic) expects Jorge to go on strenuous business trips that aren’t necessarily good for Jorge’s health.

Jose also doesn’t really approve of Leslie because she isn’t Hispanic. And when Leslie and Jorge get married, Jorge’s parents aren’t at the wedding. It’s not stated if Jorge’s parents refused an invitation or simply weren’t invited, but it’s clear that his parents didn’t approve of the marriage. Jorge’s mother, who is barely seen in the movie, appears briefly in a hospital scene when Jorge had his lung surgery while he was a Stanford student.

Chris is the youngest of three sons. He and his older brother Colin (the middle child) both attend Loyola University, which was not Chris’ first choice. Eldest son John (played by Anthony Konechny) is the “golden child” who attends an unnamed university that’s considered more prestigious, and this university was Chris’ first choice.

Chris had high hopes of going to the same university as John, who is clearly the favorite child of their father. Chris’ mother Grace (played by Kari Matchett) is the type of parent who is compassionate and tries not treat one child as being “better” than the other. Not surprisingly, Chris is closer to his mother than he is to his father. Despite this family tension, Chris’ family is still tight-knit and supportive of each other.

The acting in “2 Hearts” is mediocre at best, although Canto does try very hard to show range as someone who is stricken with a very serious illness. However, the way that many lines are written in this movie just reek of something that could have been in a TV soap opera. There’s a scene where Jorge says that Leslie reminds him of a peanut, so he calls her “my peanut” as a term of endearment. Try not to retch.

To its credit, the movie makes great use of showing romantic locations. There are many scenes that take place on gorgeous beaches (such as in Hawaii) or luxurious resort getaways, thanks to all the traveling that Jorge and Leslie and do and Jorge’s ability to stay at top-tier hotels. But these are superficial visuals that can’t quite make up for all the ways that “2 Hearts” is lacking in doing justice to this inspiring story.

The most problematic part of the “2 Hearts” screenplay is that unnecessary “twist.” It cheapens the movie’s message, and it’s borderline insulting to the real life-or-death situations that were experienced by the people on whom this story is based. And ultimately, it sinks what could have been a much better movie if it had a quality screenplay and a more talented cast.

Freestyle Digital Media released “2 Hearts” in U.S. cinemas on October 16, 2020.