Tag: New York

Review: ‘Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer,’ starring Melissa Cann, Amanda Funderberg, Robert Kolker, Jaclyn Gallucci, Steve Bellone, Ray Tierney and Dave Schaller

April 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

An archival photo of Maureen Brainard-Barnes in “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Klller” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer”

Directed by Liz Garbus

Culture Representation: The three-episode documentary series “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” features a predominantly white group of people (with a few African Americans) discussing the case of the Long Island Serial Killer (also known as the Gilgo Beach Killer), whose known victims (all young female sex workers) were murdered in New York state from the 1990s to the 2010s.

Culture Clash: Rex Heuermann—who had his own small architectural company in New York City, and who lived on New York’s Long Island, where the bodies were found—was arrested for several of these murders, and pleaded not guilty.

Culture Audience: “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching true crime documentaries about high-profile murder cases and serial killers.

A 2023 mugshot of Rex Heuermann in “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Klller” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” is an efficiently made docuseries about the investigation into these notorious murders. Some information is missing, but the series is a fairly good summary of what happened before Rex Heuermann went on trial. At the time this documentary was released in March 2025, Heuermann had been charged with the murders of seven women. The victims were all female sex workers in their 20s who were murdered from 1993 to 2010. Heuermann (a Long Island native who was born on September 12, 1963) was arrested in July 2023 and pleaded not guilty. A trial date had not yet been set at the time this documentary was released.

Directed by Liz Garbus, “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” interviews family members and friends of some of the murder victims; journalists; law enforcement officials; and various people who knew Heuermann. In some scenes, the documentary has typical true crime re-enactments by actors and actresses. Garbus directed the 2020 Netflix drama film “Lost Girls,” which was told from the perspectives of family members of some of the murder victims. At the time “Lost Girls” was filmed and released, Heuermann wasn’t on law enforcement’s radar at all, but other men were believed to be persons of interest.

Because the Long Island Serial Killer murders have gotten a lot of media attention, it’s already a well-known fact that Heuermann was arrested for these murders for a number of reasons. These reasons included his DNA being found on the murdered bodies and crime scenes. When he was being investigated, Heuermann was under secret surveillance by law enforcement. His DNA was obtained when he discarded a pizza box with some unfinished pizza he had been eating. Heuermann had thrown the pizza in a garbage can on a public street, which was why it was legal for law enforcement to get this DNA without Heuermann’s knowledge or permission.

There was also proof that he owned the burner phones that were used by the killer to make contact with some of the murder victims and to harass family members of a few of the murder victims. Police also found computer records from Heuermann that had detailed plans of the murders, which included sadistic torture. These computer records were obtained through computer forensics that were able to uncover many files that were deleted but still stored on a hard drive.

Heuermann and his dark green first-generation Chevrolet Avalanche truck matched the descriptions of the man and the car who reportedly attacked sex worker Amber Costello in her home during a prostitution job in September 2010. Phone records later proved that Heuermann had made contact with Costello the following day, which was the day she disappeared. Costello was later found murdered in the same vicinity as other murder victims of the Long Island Serial Killer.

The three episodes of “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” are edited in a cohesive way. The first episode, titled “Part One,” details the cases of the so-called Gilgo Four: the four women whose murdered bodies were found at Gilgo Beach on New York’s Long Island, and which were the first indications that there was a serial killer responsible for all four murders and possibly more. The second episode, titled “Part Two,” examines the corruption in the Suffolk County Police Department and Suffolk County District Attorney’s Office that hindered the investigation and led to the conviction and imprisonment of two high-ranking law enforcement officials on corruption charges. The third episode, titled “Part Three,” chronicles the breakthroughs in the case that led to the arrest of Heuermann.

“Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” has a very good variety of people who are interviewed, but the documentary filmmakers don’t uncover anything new from their own original reporting. The documentary relies a lot on the reporting of journalist Robert Kolker, who covered these cases extensively for New York magazine. Kolker, who is interviewed in the documentary, provides clips of audio recordings of interviews that he did with some people who are not interviewed for this documentary. Kolker is the author of the 2013 non-fiction book “Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery,” which was updated in 2024 and the title changed to “Lost Girls: An American Mystery.”

Part One begins with audio excepts from 911 calls made by Shannan Gilbert, a sex worker who disappeared from the Long Island city of Oak Beach in the early-morning hours of May 1, 2010. In the calls, she can be heard frantically asking for help because she said that people were trying to kill her, but she couldn’t coherently describe where she was located or who was trying to kill her. She also went to a few houses in Oak Beach and banged on doors and shouted that she needed help because people were trying to kill her.

Gilbert lived in New Jersey and had gone to Oak Beach for a job to service a client named Joseph Brewster. For protection, Gilbert employed a driver named Michael Pak, who was waiting for her in his parked car outside of Brewster’s house until Gilbert was ready to leave. According to interviews that Kolker did with Brewster and Pak (snippets of the interviews are heard in the “Gone Girls” documentary), Gilbert had “freaked out” while in Brewster’s home and refused to leave.

Brewster then went out to where Pak was sitting in his car and asked for Pak’s help in getting Gilbert to leave. Gilbert then reportedly burst out of the house and ran away. Pak ran after her and tried to find her, but he lost her in the darkness. She wasn’t answering her phone, so he gave up trying to look for her and left because he assumed she would find another way home.

People in the neighborhood, including Gus Coletti (who is interviewed in the “Gone Girls” documentary), saw or heard Gilbert calling for help but were too afraid to let her into their homes. Some of these neighbors called 911. By the time police arrived, they couldn’t find Gilbert, and Pak had already left. After Gilbert was reported as a missing person, police questioned Pak and Brewster and ruled out Pak and Brewster as suspects.

Shannan Gilbert was reported missing by her mother Mari Gilbert the day after she disappeared because Shannan did not show up as planned for a family get-together. In the movie “Lost Girls,” Mari is portrayed by actress Amy Ryan and is the main character in the movie. In December 2011, Shannan’s skeletal remains were found in an Oak Beach marsh, 19 months after her disappearance. Her death has officially been ruled as accidental, although many people believe that she was a victim of the Long Island Serial Killer, including Mari Gilbert’s attorney John Ray, who is interviewed in the “Gone Girls” documentary. There has been no evidence linking Heuermann to the death of Shannan Gilbert.

What is indisputable is that after Shannan’s disappearance, Mari went on a crusade and media blitz to try to find out what happened. She put pressure on police to look for Shannan, which led to the December 2010 discovery of four murdered women in close proximity to each other near Gilgo Beach. These four women, just like Shannan, were sex workers in their 20s who advertised their services on Craigslist:

  • Maureen Brainard-Barnes, who went missing in 2007
  • Melissa Barthelemy, who went missing in 2009
  • Amber Costello, who went missing in 2010
  • Megan Waterman, who went missing in 2010

Heuermann has been charged with murdering these four women, who are often described in the media as the Gilgo Four. Heuermann has also been charged with murdering these three women:

  • Sandra Costilla, who went missing in 1993
  • Valerie Mack, who went missing in 2000
  • Jessica Taylor, who went missing in 2003

Mack and Taylor had both been dismembered, and their body parts were found several miles apart from each other. Several other murdered people have been found in the same stretch of area on Long Island where these women were found, but those murders remained unsolved at the time this documentary was released. Most of the murder victims were women, but the other murder victims were one unidentified baby girl (the daughter of one of the unidentified victims) and one unidentified man dressed in women’s clothes.*

Costello is the only murder victim who was actually seen being attacked by Heuermann, according to Dave Schaller and Bear Brodsky, who were two of Costello’s housemates at the time. The “Gone Girls” documentary has interviews with Schaller and Brodsky, who say that in September 2010, a man whom they identify as Heuermann, was in their house because he hired Costello for sex work.

Schaller says in the documentary he was not at home when Costello frantically called him to say she had locked herself in the bathroom and to come home immediately because she was hiding from a customer who assaulted her. Schaller and Brodsky say when they arrived at the house, Heuermann was there and tried to put up a fight and wouldn’t leave. They eventually got him to leave, but Schaller remembers how intensely the customer looked at Costello, like “a predator.”

Schaller and Brodsky say that they reported this assault incident to police, but this evidence was forgotten or ignored until 2022, when the investigation had new leaders. Costello went missing the day after she was attacked by this customer. Her body was found three months later near Gilgo Beach in December 2010.

Schaller, who describes Costello as being goofy and generous, believes that Heuermann was able to lure Costello into a trap by offering her much more money than she usually charged. Schaller says that Costello usually charged $200 per sex session. According to Schaller, the customer who hired her on the last day that Costello was seen had offered her $2,500 and convinced her not to bring her cell phone with her.

Unfortunately, the “Gone Girls” documentary does not mention that Schaller has changed his story and given different versions of what happened in other interviews. The only thing that has remained consistent in his story is his description of the attacker and the attacker’s truck in the incident where Costello was allegedly attacked by a customer. If a police report hadn’t been filed about this incident, Schaller’s story wouldn’t hold much weight in this case.

“Gone Girls” is also inconsistent in giving background information on the women whom Heuermann is accused of murdering. There’s quite a bit of personal history about Brainard-Barnes but not much personal history is given about the other victims. Brainard-Barnes’ sister Melissa Cann and Brainard-Barnes’ former sex-worker best friend Sara Karnes are both interviewed. Cann, who is two years younger than Brainard-Barnes, didn’t find out that her sister was a sex worker until after Brainard-Barnes disappeared. Brainard-Barnes had told her family that she went to New York City for modeling jobs when her trips were really for sex work.

Karnes actually gives more incisive details than Cann about what was going on in Brainard-Barnes’ life that led to her tragic murder. Brainard-Barnes and Karnes both lived in Connecticut but would go frequently to New York City for sex work. Karnes describes their friendship this way: “We were the escort version of Thelma and Louise, except we ain’t driving no car off a cliff.” Karnes says that they looked out for each other when they were doing sex jobs but admits that the only weapon they might have carried for protection was a pocket knife.

During the weekend that Brainard-Barnes disappeared, she was desperate for money. According to Karnes, Brainard-Barnes had an upcoming court hearing that Tuesday because she was in a custody battle with the father of her daughter. Brainard-Barnes was also close to getting evicted from her apartment, which meant that she would most likely not be awarded custody. Karnes says that Brainard-Barnes needed about $3,000 to take care of all of these problems. And she believes that the person who murdered Brainard-Barnes was a customer who enticed Brainard-Barnes with that amount of money or more.

Karnes gets tearful when she mentions she has only one regret about her experiences as a sex worker: She didn’t stay in New York City with Brainard-Barnes, who said she had to stay in New York City longer than expected because of a customer who was going to pay her the money that she needed. Karnes says that after Brainard-Barnes disappeared, an unidentified man called her from a blocked phone number and told her that he saw Brainard-Barnes at a New York City brothel. She asked the man to call her back with an unblocked number so she could pass the number along to the police. He never called back.

Also interviewed in the documentary is Amanda Funderberg, the younger sister of murder victim Barthelemy. Barthelemy was a cosmetics school graduate. Funderberg says that after Barthelemy disappeared and before she was found murdered, Funderberg got harassing phone calls from the killer, who blocked his phone number during these calls. The caller abruptly stopped because Funderberg thinks he began to suspect that she reported the calls to police.

Waterman was also a single mother. Her daughter Liliana “Lily” Waterman was 3 years old when her mother Megan died. Lily is shown briefly in the documentary in a scene where she is having a get-together at a restaurant with Funderberg, Cann, an unidentified man and Megan Waterman’s aunt Elizabeth Meserve. Lily is not interviewed in the documentary, but Meserve is interviewed.

Megan Waterman’s mother Lorraine Ela, who was a tireless activist for justice for the Long Island murder victims, died in 2022, at the age of 55. Her cause of death has not been made public. Ela’s death is briefly mentioned in the documentary, which has some archival news footage of Ela with other loved ones of the murder victims of the Long Island Serial Killer. Mari Gilbert led a support group for these loved ones. The support group still exists.

The “Gone Girls” girls documentary mentions that Mari Gilbert died in 2016 (she was 52), but doesn’t mention the tragic way that she died. Mari was stabbed to death by one of her daughters, Sarra Gilbert, who has schizophrenia. In 2017, Sarra Gilbert received a prison sentence of 25 years to life for second-degree murder. Even though Shannan Gilbert is not officially considered a murder victim, she will forever be linked to the Long Island Serial Killer case because of how her disappearance led to police discovering the murdered bodies near Gilgo Beach.

The episode that details the corruption in Suffolk County law enforcement mainly focuses on Thomas Spota (who was Suffolk County’s district attorney from 2001 to 2017) and James “Jim” Burke (who was chief of the Suffolk County Police Department from 2012 to 2016). Spota and Burke left their positions in disgrace when they were eventually convicted of corruption crimes in cases unrelated to the Long Island serial killer. Spota was convicted of obstruction, witness tampering and conspiracy charges; he was in prison from 2021 to 2024. Burke was convicted of assault and obstruction of justice; he was in prison from 2017 to 2019.

From the beginning of the Gilgo Beach murder cases in December 2010 and continuing in 2011, Spota clashed with Richard Dormer, who at the time was police commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department. Dormer told the media that the murders of the Gilgo Four indicated that the murders were done by the same person. Spota vehemently contradicted that theory and told the media that the murders were most likely committed by more than one person. Dormer was police commissioner of the Suffolk County Police Department from 2004 to 2011, the year that he retired. He died from cancer in 2019, when he was 79.

Spota and Burke had a long history together, going back to 1979, when Burke was a key witness for the prosecution in a trial for the murder of a 13-year-old boy named John Pius. Two bothers—Michael Quartararo and Peter Quartararo, who were teenagers at the time—were convicted of the murder. Spota was the lead prosecutor for the case. There has been speculation over whether or not Burke lied and was coached in his witness statements and trial testimony. Burke has maintained that he told the truth and was not coached.

Over the next several years, Spota became Burke’s mentor and helped Burke’s police department career tremendously, even when Burke was the subject of numerous internal investigations and complaints. Steve Bellone, who was Suffolk County executive from 2012 to 2023, is interviewed in the documentary and seems very embarrassed that he gave Burke a huge promotion in 2012, when Burke went from chief inspector to chief of the entire Suffolk County Police Department. Bellone sheepishly says his only excuse is that Spota highly recommended Burke for the job. In hindsight, Bellone knows it was a big mistake.

The documentary mentions that in the early years of the Long Island Serial Killer case, Spota and Burke prevented other law enforcement agencies (including the FBI) from collaborating or helping with the case. The reasons for this exclusion aren’t explicitly stated. But considering that Burke was accused of being a frequent customer of sex workers, it’s easy to speculate that because the Long Island Serial Killer case would require many sex workers to be interviewed, perhaps Burke didn’t want certain information exposed about his own alleged activities with sex workers. Whatever the reasons, Spota went out of his way to protect and elevate Burke, and that corruption would lead to both of their downfalls.

Burke declined to be interviewed for the documentary and denied speculation that he was involved with prostitution and was somehow responsible for committing the Long Island Serial Killer murders. Spota did not respond to requests to be interviewed for the documentary. What the documentary doesn’t mention is that in August 2023, Burke was arrested in Selden, New York, for public lewdness, indecent exposure, offering a sex act and criminal solicitation of an undercover male police officer who was posing as a sex worker. Two of the charges were dropped, and Burke was ultimately charged with public lewdness and indecent exposure. In September 2023, he pleaded not guilty.

After the downfalls of Spota and Burke, new people took over the Long Island Serial Killer cases, including Rodney Harrison (who was Suffolk County Police Department’s police commissioner from 2021 to 2023) and Ray Tierney, who became district attorney of Suffolk County in 2022. Tierney is interviewed in the documentary. Harrison is heard giving a brief quote by audio only, but it’s unclear if this was commentary he made for the documentary or for another interview.

Other people interviewed for the documentary are Geraldine Hart, a senior agent of the Long Island FBI from 2018 to 2021; Stuart Cameron, inspector for the Suffolk County Police Department; Kim Overstreet, sister of murder victim Costello; Long Island Press journalist Jaclyn Gallucci; Newsday reporter Gus Garcia-Roberts; former Long Island sex worker Nikkie Brass; John Parisi, a childhood friend of Heuermann’s; Etienne De Villiers, a former neighbor of Heuermann’s; Muriel Henriquez, a former right-hand” co-worker of Heuermann’s; Lisa Marcoccia of the Legal Aid Society; and Suffolk County Police Department detectives Rob Trotta and John Oliva.

A few people interviewed in the documentary are not identified by their full names. For example, a woman named Margaret (whose last name is not revealed in the documentary) says she’s the wife of one of Heuermann’s cousins. She says that Heuermann was the chief organizer of their family reunions, and she was shocked to hear that he’s an accused serial killer.

Margaret says that Heuermann’s father Theodore was very abusive. Childhood friend Parisi says that he witnessed Theodore Heuermann’s raging temper when Theodore would yell and scram at Rex. Heuermann’s mother is briefly mentioned only by Margaret, who says that Rex’s mother “for whatever reason couldn’t leave this abusive man that everyone was traumatized by.” Theodore Heuermann died in 1975, when Rex Heuermann was 11 or 12 years old. The cause of death of Rex Heuermann’s father can be made public in 2025, per New York state law.

Rex Heuermann did not have a criminal record prior to his 2023 arrest for these murders. In fact, people say that Heuermann had a reputation for being a “gentle giant” (he’s 6’4″ and about 250 pounds) who was an introverted loner. One of the people in the documentary who describes Heuermann as very introverted is his childhood friend Parisi, who is two yeras younger than Heuermann. Parisi was Heuermann’s schoolmate for several years, beginning when Parisi was in the second grade.

Parisi describes Heuermann’s personality this way: “He was very, very quiet. Almost too quiet.” Parisi remembers a childhood incident where he saw Heuermann getting beaten up on a playground by about three or four boys. The boys who were attacking Heuermann were much smaller than Heuermann, but Heuermann didn’t fight back.

Another woman identified only as Taylor says she saw another side of Heuermann when she had a harrowing encounter with him in Philadelphia, in October 2010. At the time, she was 18 and working at a strip club, where she sold alcohol shots. She was also a part-time drug dealer who did much of her business through people she met at the strip club. Taylor says that someone she knew at the strip club arranged for her to do a cocaine deal, where she had to go to a house to make the sale to a customer. According to Taylor, Heuermann (whom she says used the first name John) was the customer, but she didn’t know his real name until after he was arrested for the Long Island murders.

Taylor says she met Heuermann at the strip club, and he drove her back to the townhouse where the cocaine deal was going to take place. Taylor says that during this car ride, he immediately made her uncomfortable because he seemed to be interested in having sex with her, and he talked about his pedophilia fantasies of having sex with girls and boys. According to Taylor, this customer asked her about her friends and wanted to know their ages, which gave her the impression that he was trying to see if Taylor could arrange for him to have sex with any of her friends. She remembers consciously avoiding touching him because she didn’t want to have any sexual contact with him.

Taylor says they went to a barely furnished town house that had a small pile of unopened mail on the floor and a TV in the living room that was playing a porn video on repeat. Taylor describes doing cocaine with the customer. At one point, he went upstairs, and she heard strange noises, such as thumping and furniture being moved around. She suspected that he was assaulting someone who was being held captive upstairs.

In the documentary interview, Taylor comments: “It felt like something out of a horror movie. Whatever it was, it freaked me out.” Taylor says she never saw anyone else but Heuermann in the house, but these suspicious noises led her to believe that there was someone else in the house with them. Taylor says hearing these noises was enough for her to want to leave the house as quickly as possible because she felt that her life was in danger.

According to Taylor’s story, Heuermann suddenly came running down the stairs and tried to prevent her from leaving. She says she had to use a taser on Heuermann’s neck to escape. It’s unknown how well the documentary’s filmmakers verified this story. Because she was involved in illegal drug activity, Taylor didn’t report this incident to police or other law enforcement at the time she said this incident happened.

Taylor admits she feels some guilt about not reporting the incident to police because she thinks lives might have been saved if she had come forward sooner. However, at the time, she didn’t know that the man who tried to kidnap her would be accused of being a serial killer. In the documentary, Taylor says she has been researching the cases of missing or murdered women who might have been in contact with Heuermann. She believes Heuermann has many more victims that the public and law enforcement don’t know about yet.

As for Heuermann, the “Gone Girls” documentary does not uncover anything new about him. It’s already been widely reported that he lived in the same home where he was raised as a child in Massapequa Park, New York. Heuermann owned a small architectural company called RH Consulting and Associates, which he launched in 1994 and had an office in New York City’s Manhattan borough.

The documentary includes a clip of the only known video interview that Heuermann did before his arrest: In 2022, he did an interview for the YouTube channel Bonjour Realty, where he gave a tour of his small and cluttered office. Heuermann describes himself as an architecht and architecht consultant who is a lifelong resident of Long Island.

According to reports, most of the architechtural work that Heuermann did was consulting rather than designing buildings. In the Bonjour Realty interview, he appears to be friendly and welcoming. But based on the prosecution’s case against him, Heuermann had a very dark side of his personality that he did not show to most people.

The strangest thing that neighbors said they saw about Heuermann was he kept his house very run-down, without any repairs or upgrades for decades. “He just kept it like a capsule of time of his childhood,” his cousin-in-law Margaret comments. Margaret never went to the house. However, she says her husband visited the house and described it as dark and creepy.

Heuermann’s former employee Henriquez says in a documentary interview that she had an interior designer friend who was hired to possibly do an interior design job for the Heuermann house. When this interior designer went to the house to do room measurements, Heuermann wouldn’t allow her to go into the house’s basement and told the interior designer that he had guns in the basement. Henriquez says, “That’s the one room she never got to measure.”

Heuermann lived in the house with three other people: his wife Asa Ellerup, an Iceland native whom he married in 1996; their daughter Victoria Heuermann; and his stepson Christopher Sheridan, who was from Ellerup’s previous marriage. Police found nearly 300 guns at the house when they did a search raid. According to law enforcement and evidence found at the house, it’s believed that an unknown number of victims of the Long Island Serial Killer were tortured and murdered at the house.

Police say that based on phone records and other evidence, Heuermann committed murders while his wife and kids were away on vacations. Heuermann’s family members have not been charged with anything related to the murders. Not long after Heuermann’s arrest, Ellerup released a statement saying that she and her kids had nothing to do with the murders and had a hard time believing that he was guilty. She has since filed for divorce from Heuermann.

A few tidbits of information are missing from the “Gone Girls” documentary about the disappearance and death of Shannan Gilbert. First, her incoherence and paranoia shortly before she disappeared might make people wonder if she had been under the influence of drugs. According to several news reports, an autopsy revealed that she had no drugs in her system. However, what remained of Shannan’s body when she was found were skeletal remains, and you can’t do a full toxicology report from decomposed bone matter only.

During her cries for help, Shannan did not name the people she said were trying to kill her. Was this murder plan in her imagination or was it real? We’ll never know. The people who witnessed Shannan running away said that they didn’t see anyone chasing after her. Did she have some kind of psychotic break with reality? We’ll never know.

“Gone Girls” also doesn’t mention that before Heuermann was accused of being the Long Island Serial Killer, someone else was under a cloud of suspicion: Dr. Charles Peter Hackett, also known as Dr. Peter Hackett. Mari Gilbert reported that before she knew Shannan was missing on May 1, 2010, she received a strange phone call that day from an unnamed man who identified himself only as a doctor who operated a home for wayward women. Mari’s phone apparently did not have caller ID.

This doctor said that he was looking for Shannan because he had been helping her, but Mari said she didn’t know where Shannan was. Hours later, when Mari figured out that Shannan was missing, she remembered the phone call, but had no way of knowing who called her. She later found out that Dr. Hackett’s backyard led to the marsh where Shannan’s body and other murdered women were found. Dr. Hackett denied making the phone call to Mari, but phone records showed that he did. In 2012, Dr. Hackett moved to Florida and has stayed out of the public eye.

Another person who received intense speculation that he was the Long Island Serial Killer is John Bittrolff, who was convicted in 2017 of the murders of sex workers Rita Tangedi and Colleen McNamee, who were both found murdered on Long Island. Bittrolff, who was suspected but never charged with Costilla’s murder, has maintained that he is not guilty of all three murders. After the arrest of Heuerman, who has been charged with Costilla’s murder, the Suffolk County district attorney has declined to reopen or retry Bittrolff’s murder cases.

“Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” won’t be considered a comprehensive documentary about the case because it was released before Heuermann went on trial. This docuseries could have done a better job at independent research instead of relying so heavily on other people’s reporting. The documentary’s interviews are with many of same people who’ve told their stories in other documentaries and news reports. However, it’s a good-enough documentary that gives an overview of the most important facts, even if there are some interesting details left out and the documentary doesn’t give a full story of the women who are said to be Heuermann’s murder victims.

*April 24, 2025 UPDATE: The unidentified murdered mother and baby daughter have now been identified as 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran Tanya Denise Jackson and her daughter Tatiana Dykes.

Netflix premiered “Gone Girls: The Long Island Serial Killer” on March 31, 2025.

Review: ‘The Friend’ (2025), starring Naomi Watts and Bill Murray

March 26, 2025

by Carla Hay

Naomi Watts (pictured at right) and Bing in “The Friend” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“The Friend” (2025)

Directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state the dramatic film “The Friend” (based on the novel of the same name) features a predominantly white group of people (with a few black people and Latin people) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: After her best friend dies by suicide, a writer reluctantly takes care of his beloved Great Dane, even though her apartment building doesn’t allow residents to have dogs.

Culture Audience: “The Friend” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in reliably predictable dramas about emotional bonds that can form between humans and pet animals.

Bill Murray and Naomi Watts in “The Friend” (Photo courtesy of Bleecker Street)

“The Friend” has its charms, but the slow pacing of this movie drags it down. It’s a predictable and competently acted drama about a writer who takes care of a Great Dane while grieving over her best friend’s death. You know how this movie ends. The ending is different from the ending of Sigrid Nunez’s 2018 novel “The Friend,” on which the movie is based, because it’s obvious that the filmmakers wanted to make the safest choice possible on how to conclude the film.

Written and directed by Scott McGehee and David Siegel, “The Friend” had its world premiere at the 2024 Telluride Festival. It then made the rounds at other film festivals in 2024, including the Toronto International Film Festival and the New York Film Festival. The movie takes place in New York state, where “The Friend” was filmed on location.

“The Friend” jumps back and forth in time but begins with a voiceover of protagonist Iris (played by Naomi Watts) talking aloud to the person who was her best friend but who is now deceased: a creative writing professor/author named Walter (played by Bill Murray), who used to be Iris’ teacher and remained her mentor for the rest of his life. (Murray is playing yet another sarcastic, self-absorbed character in this movie.) It’s soon revealed that Walter committed suicide without warning.

Iris muses in her narration that she thinks that the biggest thing that Walter probably worried about in the aftermath if his death: “What’s going to happen to the dog?” That dog is a 150-pound Great Dane named Apollo (played by Bing), who was Walter’s closest non-human companion. After the funeral, Walter’s widow/third wife Barbara (played by Noma Dumezweni) summons Iris to her home to confess that she doesn’t like dogs and doesn’t want to keep Apollo. Barbara doesn’t want to put Apollo in an animal shelter or kennel.

Barbara says the only logical solution would be to give Apollo to Iris because Iris was Walter’s best friend and would’ve wanted it that way. Barbara mentions that all the other people she knows can’t take Apollo because they don’t have the time or the room to have a Great Dane in their lives. Barbara also impolitely assumes that because Iris is a bachelorette with no children, then Iris must have more time than other people to take care of this dog.

Iris doesn’t want to keep the dog either. She explains to Barbara that she prefers cats. And the New York City building where Iris lives does not allow its residents to have dogs as pets. Iris, who teaches a creative writing workshop as a part-time job, also says she’ll be very busy working on the last book that Walter was working on before he died: his memoir, based on journals and letters that Walter left behind. A non-fiction book would have been a departure for Walter, who up until this point had only written novels.

You already know how this story is going to play out, as shown in the movie’s trailer. Iris takes ownership of the dog, which she thinks will be a temporary situation. Her plan is to give Apollo to an animal rescue group that can take Great Danes, but the closest animal rescue group that fits that description doesn’t have room for Apollo and puts Iris on a waiting list.

Iris lives in a fairly small one-bedroom apartment in New York City’s Manhattan borough. It’s a rent-controlled apartment that she inherited from her deceased father. Iris doesn’t want to move because her rent is extremely low and can’t be raised, due to New York City’s rent control laws. The first night that Apollo stays in the apartment, he takes over her bed. Iris is too passive to move the dog to make him sleep somewhere else in the apartment.

You can almost do a countdown to the scenes where Apollo makes a mess of the apartment when Iris is away (due to his separation anxiety) and Iris’ continuing struggle to handle a dog of this size when she takes Apollo for walks or gives baths to Apollo. Iris can barely tolerate Apollo. She gives him food, water and shelter, but doesn’t show him much affection during the first week or two that she’s responsible for taking care of him.

Over time, Iris begins to see that Apollo is also grieving over the loss of Walter. It’s how she starts bonding with this dog. Iris also struggles with the roller coaster of emotions of a loved one left behind by someone who committed suicide. And she starts to wonder if she really wants to give up Apollo after all. You know where all of this is going, of course.

And what about the apartment building rule that forbids residents from having dogs? The building superintendent Hektor Cepeda (played by Felix Solis) knows that Iris is taking care of Apollo and reminds her that the dog isn’t allowed. Iris keeps promising Hektor that Apollo is with her temporarily and she’s working on finding him a new home. The movie shows whether or not the building’s management finds out about this forbidden dog.

Iris is a loner, so the movie doesn’t have scenes where Iris’ friends or family members react to Iris’ new living situation. Therefore, “The Friend” has a lot of screen time spent on flashbacks to happier times when Walter was alive. Even then, Iris’ relationship with Walter was somewhat complicated because of Walter’s very messy personal life.

Walter had a long history of getting sexually involved with his adult female students, regardless of whether or not he was married at the time. In the conversation that Iris and Barbara have about Iris taking Apollo, Barbara hints that Walter left teaching because his affairs resulted in #MeToo complaints against him. “All that misconduct nonsense,” Barbara says in an irritated voice, as she mentions that Walter thought it was a mistake for him to stop teaching.

It’s not too surprising (and not spoiler information) to reveal that Iris was one of his affairs about 30 years ago, when she was in her 20s. Walter and Iris ended their sexual relationship on good terms and decided they were better as platonic friends. However, the movie drops big hints that Iris was probably still a little bit in love with Walter but didn’t want to admit it. In the last year of his life, Iris and been helping Walter with his memoir by keeping his records organized and giving him feedback on his work.

Supporting characters come and go in the movie, which is mostly about Iris adjusting to having Apollo in her life. These supporting characters include:

  • Val Douglas (played by Sarah Pidgeon), Walter’s estranged adult daughter whom Walter wanted to collaborate with Iris on Walter’s memoir.
  • Elaine (played by Carla Gugino), Walter’s cynical second ex-wife, who didn’t even know that Val existed until she saw Val at Walter’s funeral.
  • Marjorie (played by Ann Dowd), Iris’ building neighbor who is friendly to Iris and knows about Apollo.
  • Carter (played by Owen Teague), one of Iris’ students, who wants to write erotic science fiction but is frustrated by classmate criticism that his work is misogynistic.
  • Tuesday Cheng (played by Constance Wu), a pretentious former student of Walter’s who has an unspoken rivalry with Iris.

“The Friend” moves along at a pace that might be too leisurely for some viewers. The acting performances are perfectly fine, and there are some poignant moments that have to do with the effects of grief. The biggest letdown of the movie is that Iris is just so relentlessly boring. “The Friend” is a movie where the dog is often the most interesting thing about many of the scenes. If you’re inclined to like dogs, then “The Friend” is very watchable. Otherwise, “The Friend” might test your patience as it saunters along to a very Hollywood-styled sentimental ending.

Bleecker Street will release “The Friend” in select U.S. cinemas on March 28, 2025, with an expansion to more U.S. cinemas on April 4, 2025.

Review: ‘The Alto Knights,’ starring Robert De Niro, Debra Messing, Cosmo Jarvis, Kathrine Narducci and Michael Rispoli

March 21, 2025

by Carla Hay

Robert De Niro and Robert De Niro in “The Alto Knights” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

“The Alto Knights”

Directed by Barry Levinson

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, from 1957 to the early 1970s, the dramatic film “The Alto Knights” (based on real events) features an all-white group of people representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: Frank Costello and Vito Genovese are former best friends who become rivals for power in New York’s Mafia community.

Culture Audience: “The Alto Knights” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners and Mafia movies and don’t mind watching a derivative Mafia movie that overloads on tedious clichés.

Debra Messing in “The Alto Knights” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Robert De Niro portraying Mafia bosses Frank Costello and Vito Genovese is a gimmick in “The Alto Knights” that quickly gets old. The mindless screenplay and bad editing make this botched drama seem like a dull parody. “The Alto Knights” is the Mafia movie equivalent of a past-his-prime Elvis Presley impersonator struggling to look entertaining in a tacky lounge where hardly anyone cares to show up.

Directed by Barry Levinson and written by Nicholas Pileggi, “The Alto Knights” had the potential to be a much better movie than the boring slog it turned out to be. In addition to having a talented cast, “The Alto Knights” has the filmmakers who’ve made some mobster movie classics. Levinson directed 1991’s “Bugsy” about Bugsy Siegel. Pileggi wrote 1990’s “Goodfellas” and 1995’s “Casino,” which both starred De Niro. Both those past glories don’t always guarantee that every movie they make will be just as good or better.

In “The Alto Knights” (which takes place mostly in New York state, from 1957 to the early 1970s), the story is told from the perspective of elderly Frank Costello, who narrates the movie as he looks back on his life. Costello died in 1973, at the age of 82. (For the purposes of this review, the real people are referred to by their last names, while the characters in the movie are referred to by their first names.)

When Frank looks back on his life in “Alto Knights,” he literally looks back on his life. He looks at old photos in a slide show. It’s supposed to make him look adorably quaint. But the story’s jumbled narrative just makes Frank look like a rambling codger.

“The Alto Knights” begins in 1957, when Frank gets shot in an elevator of his Central Park West apartment in Manhattan. The shooter is a nervous Mafia lunkhead named Vincent Gigante (played by Cosmo Jarvis), a 35-year-old “enforcer,” who spends most his screen time getting berated for bungling the jobs that he’s assigned. “The Alto Knights” goes on a repeat loop of the same types of arguments and conflicts happening, like terrible movies do when they want to fill up time and don’t have anything interesting or clever to show or say.

In an example of the movie’s corny dialogue, Vincent utters this line as he shoots Frank in the head: “This one’s for you, Frank.” Vincent and Frank are the only two people in the elevator during the shooting, so it’s more than ridiculous for Vincent to state the obvious about where he wants his bullet to go. And keep in mind: This is supposed to be a brutal Mafia assassination. The assassin shouldn’t be saying something that sounds like a song dedication in some sort of Rat Pack sing-along with Frank Sinatra.

Frank is shot in the head and is quickly taken to a hospital, where his loyal wife Bobbie Costello (played by Debra Messing) rushes to be by Frank’s side. Bobbie is a stereotypical “don’t ask, don’t tell” shallow Mafia wife who mostly cares about having enough money to spend on the affluent lifestyle that she wants, rather than caring about all the crimes her husband commits to get this money. Bobbie has some of the worst scenes in the movie.

Luckily for Frank, Vincent’s bullet only grazed Frank’s scalp and curved around the back of Frank’s head. It doesn’t take long before Frank finds out that his former best friend/current worst enemy Vito Genovese ordered this murder hit on Frank. In the movie, Frank gives a disjointed explanation for how and why it all went wrong between him and Vito. In flashback scenes and photos of their youth, Luke Stanton Eddy plays Frank in his 20s, and Antonio Cipriano plays Vito in his 20s.

Frank and Vito were working-class best friends who came up in the Mafia crime scene together on the tough streets of New York City. Frank is calm and logical. Vito is bad-tempered and unstable. Frank cares about being accepted into the elite upper crust of society. Vito doesn’t have those ambitions. It’s very much an “opposites attract” friendship.

As for De Niro playing these two characters, “The Alto Knights” (especially in scenes where Frank and Vito are talking to each other) can only highlight that De Niro just does only slightly different versions of Mafia characters he’s played in many other films. De Niro gives bespectacled Vito more manic energy and a slightly higher voice than Frank, but De Niro slips back into familiar mannerisms that he’s done many times before in movies like “Goodfellas,” “Casino” or 2019’s “The Irishman.” The makeup in “The Alto Knights” is adequate and won’t be nominated for major awards.

Vito and Frank worked with the Luciano crime family (founded by Lucky Luciano) and made a fortune in bootlegging alcohol during the Prohibition era. They liked to hang out at a social club called The Alto Knights, which is not prominently featured in the movie, even though the movie is named after this place. Vito eventually became the boss of the Luciano family.

But when Vito left the United States to hide out in Italy, World War II happened, and Vito was stuck in Italy for several years. During his absence, Frank was named the head of the Luciano family. Frank brags in hindsight, “Suddenly, I was the boss of bosses.” In 1945, the year that World War II ended, Vito returned to the United States and wanted his former job back as boss of the Luciano family.

However, Frank doesn’t want to give up this power. In the narration, Frank says that Vito is too volatile to be an effective crime boss. But, as Frank says in the movie, another big reason why Frank doesn’t want to hand over control to Vito is because Frank has gotten accustomed to the money, power and attention that he gets for being the boss of the Luciano family. You can easily guess how else this movie is going to go with this back-and-forth power struggle.

“The Alto Knights” becomes bloated with pointless scenes and cringeworthy Mafia stereotypes. In other Mafia movies, the bosses are usually portrayed as cunning and ruthless enough to evade capture for years. In “The Alto Knights,” the bosses evade capture simply through bribery or dumb luck.

Scenes that take place at a congressional hearing or at a courtroom trial should’ve crackled with edgy intensity and tension. Instead, these scenes lumber along and have all the suspense of someone reading a phone book. These scenes are just excuses for De Niro to mug for the camera while delivering mundane lines.

One of the movie’s many cringeworthy scenes is when several Mafia members gather for a barbecue somewhere in the rural Appalachian region of New York state, and they find out that they’re being spied on by New York State Police. Frank says in an observational voiceover that Mafia people run as soon as they hear the word “cop.” And right on cue, the Mafia guys are seen running like scattered cockroaches to their cars to leave, even though there’s nowhere they can really escape to in this remote area that has a road with one lane in each direction.

And sure enough, the Mafia guys are stopped on the road, rounded up by police, and questioned by police on the road. A key Mafia member (who won’t be named in this review) narrowly misses this roundup because he was late to the barbecue. When he and his driver drive past the ruckus on the road, they see many of their colleagues being questioned by police. Even though it’s obvious that a major raid is taking place, the dimwit driver repeatedly wonders out loud what’s going on, as his boss is slow to figure it out too.

In other words, the stupidity in “The Alto Knights” knows no bounds. In 1957, when Mafia heavyweight Albert Anastasia (played by Michael Rispoli) is gunned down and murdered in a barber shop, Bobbie absurdly expresses shock that Mafia people can get killed during the day in public. At the funeral, Bobbie comments to Albert’s widow Elsa Anastasia (played by Jean Zarzour) about Albert’s murder: “Who would’ve thought in broad daylight? In a barber shop! You’ve got to be brave. Be brave!”

Vito’s wife Anna Genovese (played by Kathrine Narducci) doesn’t have enough of a personality to make a difference to this awful movie. Other characters come and go. A better-written film would’ve told the movie from the perspectives of the feuding Vito and Frank. Instead, “The Alto Knights” is just a one-sided, droning narrative from Frank, whose reminiscing about his ferocious Mafia heyday is less likely to terrify and more likely to put people to sleep.

Warner Bros. Pictures released “The Alto Knights” in U.S. cinemas on March 21, 2025.

Review: ‘Lake George’ (2025), starring Hamid Antonio Castro, Rio Thake, Cindy Kimberly, Sheck Wes, Caroline Jayna Kempczynski and Mike Markoff

February 5, 2025

by Carla Hay

Hamid Antonio Castro in “Lake George” (Photo courtesy of This Is New York Pictures)

“Lake George” (2025)

Directed by Hamid Antonio Castro

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the dramatic film “Lake George” features a racially diverse cast of characters (Latin, white, Asian and African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A fitness trainer and his recently paroled cousin lie, cheat and steal so that they can get $100,000 to pay for extortion from a prison gang threatening to kill the fitness trainer’s incarcerated father.

Culture Audience: “Lake George” will appeal mainly to people who are fans of crime thrillers, but the movie’s plot becomes too incoherent and badly staged to enjoy.

Rio Thake and Caroline Jayna Kempczynski in “Lake George” (Photo courtesy of This Is New York Pictures)

“Lake George” is a stylish-looking, low-budget crime thriller that turns into a mind-numbing mess. It’s supposed to be based on real experiences from writer/director/star Hamid Antonio Castro, but the plot is mishandled with too many unrealistic scenes. The acting is uneven, but the screenplay is by far the weakest link of the movie.

Castro makes his feature-film debut with “Lake George,” in which he plays a character of the same name. The movie takes place in New York City and in Lake George, New York. It’s unclear how much is fact and how much is fiction.

However, “Lake George” doesn’t make Castro look good as a person or as a filmmaker. The character he plays in the movie is a selfish traitor and not very smart. And the film has a lot of problems, such as plot holes and cringeworthy dialogue that veers between cliché and unrealistic.

Hamid, whose nickname is Psych, lives in New York City and works as a personal fitness trainer with wealthy clients. Psych has a reputation for being a tough trainer who gets great results. He’s well-known enough that Thrillist had a feature profile of him where the headline was a quote from Psych bragging that he gets $600,000 a year for “torturing” his clients.

Psych has this article proudly hanging on a wall in the apartment that he shares with his girlfriend Katherine (played by Cindy Kimberly), who finds out early on in the story that she’s pregnant. Katherine and Psych are both excited about becoming first-time parents. Psych has a criminal past that Katherine seems to know about, but she accepts it because Psych has seemingly turned his life around.

The couple’s domestic bliss is shattered when Psych gets a phone call from the prison where his drug dealer father Antonio (played by Antonio Castro), nicknamed Tony, is incarcerated. Tony tells Psych that a prison gang is threatening to kill Tony unless Psych can come up with $100,000 to pay off the gang in two days. (Hip-hop artist Sheck Wes has a small speaking role as one of the extortionists.) The prison gang has an outside accomplice named Juanito (played by Julio Diaz), who owns a bodega and is the contact person who’s supposed to receive the money.

Psych only has $25,000. And so, Psych enlists the help of his recently paroled younger cousin Raymond (played by Rio Thake), nicknamed Rame, which sets them on a crime spree to get the rest of the money. Psych and Rame, who have been close friends since childhood, have a complicated history because Rame went to prison for four years for a robbery that Rame and Psych committed but only Rame got caught and punished for it. Rame has now been paroled for this robbery.

A flashback shows what happened to cause Rame to get arrested. One night, Psych and Rame (both wearing Statue of Liberty masks and armed with guns) went inside an art gallery during an event. Psych and Rame pointed guns at people, stole two paintings, and then fled on foot.

Anyone watching this scene might immediately give it a side eye for how idiotic it looks. First, if you’re going to steal presumably valuable paintings, why risk doing it in front of a bunch of people during a gallery event when so many things could go wrong? Second, why flee on foot when the paintings could be hidden better in a vehicle that’s a faster getaway?

Don’t expect the movie to answer those questions. All this flashback scene proves is that the crime was very stupid and horribly planned. There’s a reason why a reality show called “America’s Dumbest Criminals” existed: There’s no shortage of people who could be on the show.

Psych and Rame are soon being hunted by police on the streets. It doesn’t take long for Rame to be caught (considering he was still carrying one of the stolen paintings), but Psych ditches the painting he had and manages to hide from the police while Psych is still outside. Obviously, Rame didn’t snitch on Psych, but the movie never explains why a police investigation couldn’t find out that Psych was the accomplice, when so many witnesses saw that there were two robbers.

Whatever the reason, Rame was the one who got punished for the crime and was sentenced to prison. Meanwhile, Psych went on with his life and “went straight” by starting his own personal fitness business. Psych expresses some guilt over letting Rame take all the blame for their crime, but he doesn’t seem to have much guilt about it, which tells you what kind of character Psych is.

Another flashback in the movie goes back to Psych’s childhood. The scene shows Psych at about 9 or 10 years old (played by Ibrahim Elouahabi) witnessing his father Tony get arrested for drug dealing. It’s later mentioned that Tony has spent so much time in prison, he was mostly an absentee father to Psych when Psych was growing up.

At first, Psych tries to legally get the remaining $75,000 that he needs. It just so happens that night, Psych has been invited to the 40th birthday party of a rich client named Damian (played by Mike Markoff), who is a hard-partying playboy. Psych brings Rame to this party.

The plan is for Psych to ask Damian to borrow the money. But things don’t turn out the way that Psych planned. The rest of the movie has some elements of slapstick comedy that don’t really fit the movie’s intended gritty tone.

One of the worst parts in the film is how Psych and Rame end up going on their misadventure with a flaky acquaintance named Carla (played by Caroline Jayna Kempczynski), who’s an annoying party girl. She calls Psych to ask for a ride, so he and Rame pick her up at a gas station. When Psych and Rame arrive at the gas station, they find out that Carla is in the middle of robbing the gas station with two male accomplices.

Carla called because she wanted to double-cross her robber cronies by ditching them, taking the money, and getting a ride on her own. And because Psych and Rame showed up during the robbery and left with Carla, now Psych and Rame are considered accomplices to this robbery. This robbery scene looks very fake and depends entirely on you believing that Carla knew that Psych and Rame would show up at the precise moment that she needed a getaway ride.

The movie is named “Lake George” because part of the crime spree involves Psych and Rame going to a remote house in the town of Lake George, New York. With Carla along for the ride, Psych and Rame travel by car to go to Lake George because they want to visit a guy named Amazing (played by Amir Kolenovic) in the quest to get the money that Psych needs. Things go wrong during this visit.

“Lake George” has all the visual elements to be better than what it turns out to be. The movie’s dialogue and scenarios become increasingly ridiculous, leading to a “twist” reveal and an underwhelming ending. In a pivotal scene where someone gets shot, one of the witness characters starts rapping a poem in response. Yes, it’s as bad as it sounds.

This movie has a problematic way of depicting women, who are either presented as sex partners or ditzes. Kimberly and the movie’s other women with speaking roles all wear low-cut tops, and the camera is placed to show leering closeups of their cleavage. Kimberly might as well be a blow-up doll because the movie makes her only purpose in the story to bring sex appeal.

Despite all the flaws and ludicrous scenes in “Lake George,” the movie has some assets. The cinematography by Guillermo Cameo is at its best when capturing the frenetic energy of a crime caper film. The music score by Kate Konn is also very good and creating the right moods for each scene. Konn has a small speaking role in the film as Kaeta, one of the guests at Damian’s party.

As for the principal cast members’ performances, Castro does an adequate job, but Thake gives the best performance, in terms of looking authentic. Thake has a magnetic and natural quality to his acting that makes many of the other cast members look like “trying too hard” amateurs. Unfortunately, one standout performance cannot save this movie from sinking into a cesspool of terribly staged scenes and questionable ideas.

The unimpressive ending of “Lake George” will make viewers wonder why writer/director/star Castro chose his alter ego to be so unlikable and what was the point of this movie. One particular character is blamed for everything, but this blame seems like a sleazy cop-out from people who were willing participants in the same crimes. And it makes “Lake George” look like a misguided film that was made as an excuse for morally bankrupt life choices.

This Is New York Pictures released “Lake George” in New York City for a limited engagement on January 31 and February 1, 2025.

Review: ‘Crumb Catcher,’ starring Rigo Garay, Ella Rae Peck, Lorraine Farris and John Speredakos

July 25, 2024

by Carla Hay


John Speredakos in “Crumb Catcher” (Photo courtesy of Doppelgänger Releasing)

“Crumb Catcher”

Directed by Chris Skotchdopole

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the horror film “Crumb Catcher” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with one Latino) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Two newlyweds experience blackmail and terror from another couple who were server employees at the wedding. 

Culture Audience: “Crumb Catcher” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching “slow burn” horror movies about situations that could happen in real life.

Rigo Garay and Ella Rae Peck in “Crumb Catcher” (Photo courtesy of Doppelgänger Releasing)

“Crumb Catcher” takes a while to become the horror movie that it appears to be, but once the terror scenes start, they don’t let up. It’s an effective and convincing thriller about two newlyweds whose honeymoon descends into chaos caused by another couple. The ending of “Crumb Catcher” might not be defined enough for some viewers. However, if viewers can appreciate movies whose conclusions are open to intepretation, then the ending of “Crumb Catcher” is more likely to have people thinking about the movie, long after it’s over.

Written and directed by Chris Skotchdopole, “Crumb Catcher” is his feature-film debut and shows he has talent for making anxiety-filled scenes. The movie was filmed on location in upstate New York. The beginning of the film shows newlywed couple Shane Castillo (played by Rigo Garay) and Leah (played by Ella Rae Peck) at their wedding reception, They are posing for couple photos for a talkative photographer named Garry (played by David Macke), who asks Shane and Leah a lot of questions about their relationship, such as how they met, as Garry directs the couple on which poses he wants for the photos.

Through this conversation and other conversations that happen in the movie, viewers eventually find out this information about Shane and Leah, who both live in New York City: Shane is a writer who has recently completed his first novel that is about to be published. The novel is about a father-son relationship that is based on the troubled relationship that Shane has with his own father.

Leah works at the unnamed book publishing company that is publishing Shane’s novel. Because he is a first-time, unproven novelist, Shane got a very small advance for the novel (only $5,000), but Leah is expecting the novel to be a hit. She has already made arrangements for Shane to have a few interviews at high-profile media oulets.

Leah is a lot more concerned than Shane about his book becoming a bestseller. She feels personally invested because (as she reminds Shane in an argument they have later), she helped him get this book deal because of her connections in her job. Leah’s boss, who is an executive vice president at the company, has generously let Leah and Shane use her spacious and upscale home as the place where Leah and Shane will be staying for their honeymoon. And because “Crumb Catcher” is a horror movie, it should come as no surprise that this house is in a remote wooded area.

Leah’s mother Joanie (played by Rebecca Watson) paid for the wedding, which is a typical middle-class wedding that doesn’t look too extravangant. At the wedding reception, there is tension between Leah and Shane. Leah has to tell Shane to thank Joanie for paying for the wedding. Shane seems irritated because he acts like Leah is being a neurotic nag. At one point, Shane walks away from Leah in a huff.

Shane’s unnamed father was not invited to the wedding. There’s a scene later in the movie where Shane listens to a voice mail message from his father (voiced by Eddie Castillo), who sounds drunk when he congratulates Shane on the wedding. It’s implied that Shane’s father has alcoholism. Leah says to Shane about not inviting Shane’s father to the wedding: “It’s not that we’re embarrassed. It would’ve been too stressful.”

Taking all of this information into account, it’s very easy to see what’s going on in the Shane/Leah relationship. This marriage is going to have some major problems that have to do with Shane feeling inadequate or emasculated by domineering and opinionated Leah. She obviously makes more money than he does and is more ambitious than Shane. At one point, when Shane tells Lisa he’s having doubts about wanting his book to be published, she gets angry because she thinks if Shane backs out of his book deal, it will make her look bad at her job.

There’s no mention of Shane’s mother (it would be easy to assume that she’s deceased), and the only parent whom Shane has is debilitated by alcholism. Even at the wedding reception, which is only in the first 10 minutes of the movie, all the relatives who are there seem to be from Lisa’s family. In other words, Shane has all the makings of someone who is close to having an identity crisis.

Something strange happens to Shane at the wedding reception, which apparently took place in a hotel. Shane wakes up in a bedroom feeling groggy and not knowing how he got there. Because he had been drinking alcohol at the reception, he assumes that the alcohol was stronger than he thought. This blackout is later explained in the movie.

The company that catered this wedding is called Crystal View. After the wedding reception, when Shane and Leah are about to leave together, a Crystal View waiter named John Spinellie (played by John Speredakos), a flustered-looking middle-aged man, rushes up to them and makes a profuse apology. John tells Shane and Leah something went wrong with the wedding cake topping, which won’t be available as a souvenir. Instead, John gives Shane and Leah a free bottle of champagne to make amends.

Shane and Leah plan to drive to the honeymoon getaway house in a 1978 Oldsmobile Cutlass that has the words “Just Married” written on the back window. This back window later is used to great effect in a suspenseful car chase scene that happens at night. The drive to the house is fairly relaxed and uneventful.

When Shane and Leah get to the house, there are more signs that Leah and Shane are on different wavelengths. He’s eager for some honeymoon sex, but she makes him wait in the bedroom while she awkwardly puts on some lingerie with a garter belt in a nearby bathroom. When she emerges from the bathroom, she goes underneath the bed covers and seems very self-conscious of showing Shane what she looks like in this sexy outfit.

“Crumb Catcher” has a deliberate buildup to the real horror of the story. It’s the movie’s way of showing how people can be caught off guard and led into very dangerous situations. Leah notices almost immediately that there’s a car in the driveway that she’s never seen before.

Wthout going into too many details, it’s enough to say that John somehow found out where Shane and Leah are staying for the honeymoon because he shows up at their house’s front door unexpectedly at night. John initially says he found the wedding cake topping and wants to give it to them, along with a bottle of liquor as a gift. Leah is automatically suspicious and asks John how he found out the address of the house where Leah and Shane are staying.

John quickly mumbles something about how Leah’s uncle Leo mentioned it in a Facebook group. John is very chatty and doesn’t want to leave. He wants to show Leah and Shane his “revolutionary” invention called the Crumb Catcher. Eventually, the real motive for John’s surprise visit is revealed. And it’s motive that is as offbeat as it is sinister.

John has an accomplice: His fidgety wife Rose Spinellie (played by Lorraine Farris), who worked as a bartender at the wedding reception. Part of their plan involves blackmailing someone in this newlywed couple. Considering the chain of events that happen in the movie, it’s easy to assume that John and Rose have done the same thing to other victims by using their jobs at Crystal View to look for potential targets.

“Crumb Catcher” is at its absolute best in the last third of the movie when all hell breaks loose. Shane, Leah, John and Rose are the four people who get the vast majority of the movie screen time. These two couples end up battling each other in more ways than one.

There’s a nerve-wracking sequence where one of these four people has consumed a lot of alcohol in a short period of time and is driving very fast on a dark, deserted road. The cinematography (by Adam Carboni) is excellent in immersing viewers in these scenes, which are filmed from the drunk person’s perspective. It leads to some truly “edge of your seat” moments to see that will happen next.

All four of the principal “Crumb Catcher” cast members stand out for different reasons. Peck gives a very authentic-looking performance because Leah’s reactions (especially to unpredictable villain John) are very realistic. Garay gives a very watchable performance, considering Shane is a character who doesn’t open up easily, and there are a lot of unanswered questions about Shane’s life before he met Leah. Unlike Leah, Shane is someone who keeps a lot of his emotions inside and is reluctant to talk about things that are bothering him.

Speredakos makes John the type of creep who is unsettling but also who shows enough vulnerable insecurity that can make people wonder if they would be too harsh if they told John to go away. At one point, Shane and Leah wonder if John is really a menace or if John is harmless. Leah and Shane speculate that John could be on the autism spectrum or might have a personality disorder.

Farris’ tense performance as Rose is the yin to John’s yang in their co-dependent relationship. Rose appears to be shrewder than unhinged John, but John is more skilled at getting the upper hand in situations where he wants control. “Crumb Catcher” does not reinvent the horror stereotype of terror in a remote wooded area. However, because of a very memorable main villain and a weird invention, along with great suspense, “Crumb Catcher” is a uniquely frightful movie that will catch many viewers off guard by how quickly danger escalates.

Doppelgänger Releasing released “Crumb Catcher” in select U.S. cinemas on July 19, 2024. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on August 20, 2024.

Review: ‘Leave the World Behind’ (2023), starring Julia Roberts, Ethan Hawke, Myha’la, Kevin Bacon, Farrah Mackenzie and Charlie Evans

December 24, 2023

by Carla Hay

Mahershala Ali, Myha’la, Julia Roberts and Ethan Hawke in “Leave the World Behind” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“Leave the World Behind” (2023)

Directed by Sam Esmail

Some language in Spanish with no subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state, the sci-fi/dramatic film “Leave the World Behind” (based on the 2020 novel of the same name) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some African Americans, one Latina and one Asian person) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A group of people in a quiet Long Island neighborhood have different reactions when they find out that they are experiencing some kind of apocalypse. 

Culture Audience: “Leave the World Behind” will appeal primarily to fans of the movie’s headliners and apocalyptic dramas that leave room for elements of mystery.

Charlie Evans and Farrah Mackenzie in “Leave the World Behind” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

The apocalyptic drama “Leave the World Behind” isn’t really about any faraway, unknown enemies responsible for the attack. It’s more about how people respond to a crisis when they think enemies are closer to home. The movie’s story might frustrate viewers who want a more definitive ending, but “Leave the World Behind” is supposed to be an observational commentary on how people can have very different reactions if they think they are experiencing an apocalypse.

Written and directed by Sam Esmail, “Leave the World Behind” is based on Rumaan Alam’s 2020 novel of the same name. It’s a mostly suspenseful movie that occasionally drags and gets repetitive in some areas when it becomes obvious that certain characters are stuck being where they are during a massive cyberattack that sends things into chaos. Viewers will get more satisfaction from watching “Leave the World Behind” if they don’t expect the movie to answer the question of how the cyberattack happened. It’s more important to see “Leave the World Behind” for what it is: an exploration of why the characters say and do the things they do during this attack.

“Leave the World Behind” begins by introducing the four-person family whose weekend vacation is disrupted by this mysterious catastrophe. Upper-middle-class spouses Amanda Sandford (played by Julia Roberts) and Clay Sandford (played by Ethan Hawke) live in New York City with their two children: 16-year-old Archie Sandford (played by Charlie Evans) and Rose Evans (played by Farrah Mackenzie), who’s about 12 or 13 years old. Clay wakes up one morning to find out that Amanda has spontaneously rented a luxury vacation home on New York’s Long Island for the family to have a getaway weekend.

Amanda, who is an ad agency executive, is domineering and has a prickly personality. Early on the movie, she tells Clay one of the main reasons why she wants to have this getaway trip: “I hate people.” Clay, who is a book author, is friendly and easygoing. Amanda tends to think the worst of people, while Clay is much more open-minded and optimistic.

Archie and Rose are generally well-behaved adolescents, but they have their occasional bratty or rebellious moments. Archie spends a lot of time playing video games, while Rose is currently obsessed with watching all of the episodes of the sitcom “Friends” in chronological order. Rose is generally more curious than Archie is, but she is also more high-strung and more likely to get agitated.

When the Sandfords arrive at the house, which is near a beach, things seem to be going very well. Amanda does some grocery shopping at a nearby store and notices a man in the parking lot. He’s stocking his truck with a lot of water and canned goods, as if he’s preparing for an emergency. Viewers later find out that this man is a contractor named Danny (played by Kevin Bacon), who is indeed a “doomsday prepper.”

It isn’t long before bizarre thngs start to happen. The Sandfords are at a beach that is fairly crowded when an oil tanker slowly heads toward the beach and then crashes on the beach. Luckily, no one on the beach gets hurt, but it appears to be a ship that got there on its own, since no one is inside the ship. The beach patrol employees have no answer for this weird incident.

Later, when the Sandfords are back at the house, Amanda notices that there is no longer any WiFi service and phone service in the house. Clay and Amanda also notice a mother deer and her kid in the house’s backyard. As already shown in the trailers for “Leave the World Behind” the Sandfords will be seeing a lot more deer in the near future. Observant viewers will notice that the appearances of groups of animals are supposed to be connected to the high-pitched noises that the people in the movie end up hearing.

Later that night, sometime after midnight, the Sandfords get some unexpected visitors, who knock at the front door. The kids are asleep, so Amanda and Clay open the door and find two strangers who are dressed like they just came from a formal event: George “G.H.” Scott (played by Mahershala Ali) politely introduces himself and his daughter Ruth (played by Myha’la, also known as Myha’la Herrold), who’s about 18 or 19 years old. (In the “Leave the World Behind” book,” Ruth is G.H.’s wife.)

G.H. says he’s sorry for showing up unannounced so late at night, but he explains that he’s the owner of the house. G.H. also explains that he and Ruth were attending a symphony concert in New York City, which is experiencing a sudden blackout. They live in a 14th-floor apartment, but G.H. has a bad knee and would have to walk up a flight up stairs to get to the apartment, since the building’s elevator isn’t working during the blackout. Instead, they decided to drive to their Long Island home and spend the night there.

Amanda knows that she communicated by email with the house’s owner, but she never saw a photo of him before she rented the place. Her immediate reaction is to be suspicious. She expresses doubt and surprise that G.H. owns the house. G.H. later mentions that he’s a financial manager and that he’s owned the house for the past 20 years,.

Amanda’s reaction has racial undertones, since Amanda is white, and the Scotts are African American. Amanda doesn’t say it out loud, but she finds it hard to believe that black people could own this house. She’s reluctant to let them into the house, but Clay is much more trusting and gracious and lets G.H. and Ruth inside to continue the conversation.

Amanda gets even more suspicious when she asks G.H. to show his photo ID to prove who he says he is, but G.H. says he left his photo ID in the jacket he was wearing at the symphony. In the chaos of the blackout, he left the jacket behind at the venue. To prove that he at least knows the house, G.H. uses keys to open a drawer, where he takes out an envelope of cash.

G.H. and Ruth offer to stay in the basement during this unexpected visit. As an apology and to make up for the inconvenience, G.H. offers to give Clay and Amanda $1,000 in cash, which is half of the cost that Amanda and Clay paid for the weekend rental. Amanda still doesn’t trust G.H. and Ruth, but Clay convinces her to accept this deal.

In a private conversation that Amanda has with Clay, she says that G.H. and Ruth could be servants of the house’s owner, and this unexpected visit could be a set-up for a robbery. Clay thinks she’s being too paranoid. Because there is no WiFi and no phone service in the house, the Sandfords have no way of verifying what G.H. is saying.

There’s a period of time, early on in “Leave the World Behind,” when the movie keeps viewers guessing if there will be some kind of confrontation between Amanda and the Scotts. Ruth has immediately picked up on Amanda’s hostility, which can easily be interpreted as racial hostility. In response, Ruth is abrupt and sarcastic in communicating with Amanda.

There’s also apprehension behind Ruth’s demeanor. G.H.’s wife/Ruth’s mother is an art dealer who is away on a trip to Morocco. G.H. have been unable to reach her because of the blackout. And now, they’ve found out that there’s no communication services in their Long Island home.

However, the WiFi service briefly comes back when Amanda gets news alerts on her phone that say there are cyberattacks happening. But the alerts soon disappear, and she wonders if she imagined what she saw. Electricity still works in the house, and the TV news is showing that the United States is under a cyberattack from unknown sources. It isn’t long before the house loses electricity too.

Meanwhile, more strange things keep happening, some of which are revealed in the trailers for “Leave the World Behind.” Some of the movie’s visual effects look credible, while other visual effects look too much like the computer-generated imagery that it is. The Scotts and the Sandfords soon find out that the cyberattack has caused planes to crash. Although there are external forces that are causing the widespread disaster, the movie takes a very intimate look at how the some of the story’s main characters cause their own types of internal disarray through mistrust and fear.

“Leave the World Behind” also poses a familiar question that’s often found in stories where people are in life-or-death situations: “Will someone help strangers in need, or will someone only be concerned with helping loved ones?” The movie also shows how people might see life differently when faced with the possibility of death.

The cast members’ performances aren’t award-worthy, but they are competent and believable. “Leave the World Behind” doesn’t follow the usual formula of having a warm-hearted mother for a family in crisis. Amanda is downright unpleasant and isn’t afraid to admit it. However, there are a few moments when some cracks appear in Amanda’s hard shell of a personality. These moments are among the best in “Leave the World Behind,” which isn’t about strong heroics during a crisis but what happens when people during a crisis feel they are their most vulnerable.

Netflix released “Leave the World Behind” in select U.S. cinemas on November 22, 2023. The movie premiered on Netflix on December 8, 2023.

Review: ‘No Hard Feelings’ (2023), starring Jennifer Lawrence

June 17, 2023

by Carla Hay

Jennifer Lawrence and Andrew Barth Feldman in “No Hard Feelings” (Photo by Macall Polay/Columbia Pictures)

“No Hard Feelings” (2023)

Directed by Gene Stupnitsky

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York state’s Montauk, Long Island, the comedy film “No Hard Feelings” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and Asians and one Native American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A 32-year-old Uber driver/restaurant worker is in danger of losing her house due to unpaid tax bills, so she desperately agrees to be paid to take the virginity of a lonely and socially awkward 19-year-old man, who comes from a wealthy family. 

Culture Audience: “No Hard Feelings” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in watching cringeworthy sex comedies that have very outdated comedy gimmicks involving older women and younger men.

Matthew Broderick and Laura Benanti in “No Hard Feelings” (Photo by Macall Polay/Columbia Pictures)

“No Hard Feelings” is a cringeworthy sex comedy in all the wrong ways. It has few laugh-out-loud moments and mostly recycles crude clichés from 1980s comedies about nerds losing their virginities. Jennifer Lawrence’s full-frontal nude scene reeks of desperation. It’s obvious that Lawrence wants to toss aside her “prestige actress” image for her starring role in “No Hard Feelings” (she’s also one of the producers of this train wreck), but there’s something kind of pathetic about how hard she’s trying to be “edgy,” when this outdated movie is as edgy as a used condom from 1984.

Directed by Gene Stupnitsky (who co-wrote the “No Hard Feelings” screenplay with John Phillips), “No Hard Feelings” has a very “male gaze” to it because it’s a sex comedy where the only full-frontal nudity is from the female gender. Even though there are men in sex scenes too, these men are never shown fully naked in the movie. (Lawrence’s full-frontal nude scene isn’t a sex scene, but it’s a scene that’s meant to be provocative.) It all looks like wish-fulfillment fantasies from sexist filmmakers who want to see women fully naked in their movies but not men fully naked in the same movies.

Everything about this dreck looks like it was written and directed by people who think female empowerment should mean being an obnoxious sex worker who doesn’t want to admit to being a sex worker. Let’s call it what it is: “No Hard Feelings” is about sex work, prostitution, or whatever term you want to use for anyone who has sex in exchange for cash or something of monetary value.

“No Hard Feelings” is being marketed on the concept that a 32-year-old woman named Maddie Barker (played by Lawrence) is desperate for money. And so, she answers an ad placed by two wealthy parents, who are offering a Buick to a young woman who can take the virginity of their reclusive 19-year-old son. The domineering parents have such control over their son’s life, they’ve put a GPS tracker on his phone.

Maddie is a lifelong resident of the beach hamlet Montauk, Long Island, in New York state. It’s an area where many affluent residents of New York City have homes that they often go to for the summer. The year-long residents of Montauk are usually working-class people who are in service jobs where they have to interact with upper-middle-class and wealthy people who are Montauk’s part-time residents. Maddie has a major attitude problem about not being as educated or wealthy as these part-time Montauk residents who can afford to have more than one home.

Later, it’s explained why she has this prejudice: Her biological father is rich, married and a New York City resident who has another home in Montauk. He had an affair with Maddie’s mother, who is now deceased. Maddie was the result of this extramarital affair, and she was raised by her single mother. Her biological father is still alive, he has another family with his wife, and he wants nothing to do with Maddie.

Maddie has two part-time jobs: one as an Uber driver and the other as a restaurant employee at a casual eatery named Charters. She lives in the house that she inherited from her mother. The house was paid for by Maddie’s biological father. Maddie has gotten behind on her real-estate taxes, so there’s a lien on her house, which she’s in danger of losing soon if she doesn’t come up with the money to pay the taxes.

Adding to her financial woes, Maddie hasn’t been making her car payments either. The movie’s opening scene (which is partially shown in the movie’s trailer) has her car being repossessed by a tow-truck driver named Gary (played by Ebon Moss-Bachrach), a sad sack who happens to be Maddie’s most recent ex-boyfriend. Maddie dumped Gary by abruptly cutting off communication with him, and he’s very hurt about it.

Maddie tries to flirt with and charm Gary so he won’t repossess her car. She leads him to believe that she might be interested in getting back together with him. This deception might have worked if Maddie’s latest fling (played by Christian Galvis), a hunky Italian guy, hadn’t come out of the house and made it clear that Maddie has definitely moved on from Gary. None of this is spoiler information, since it’s in the “No Hard Feelings” trailer.

Maddie no longer has the car that she needs to work as an Uber driver. There’s some not-very-amusing scenes of Maddie using roller blades as a means of transportation. It’s just an excuse for the movie to show some slapstick comedy of Maddie trying not to fall down when she goes to certain places on these roller blades. She also tries and fails to steal back her car from Gary—while she’s on roller blades. It all looks so corny and fake.

A frustrated Maddie soon sees an unusual ad that she thinks will be the solution to her financial problems: Two wealthy parents named Laird Becker (played by Matthew Broderick) and Allison Becker (played by Laura Benanti) are looking for a woman in her early-to-mid-20s to “date” their virginal 19-year-old son Percy Becker (played by Andrew Barth Feldman), in exchange for the woman getting a brand new Buick. The parents are worried because Percy is a socially awkward loner, and they want him to be more socially experienced before he enrolls in Princeton University as a freshman student.

This flimsy premise has so many problems. First, losing one’s virginity does not automatically give someone social skills. Second, it would have been a lot easier for Maddie to find a job that pays fast cash instead of going to the trouble of finding another car and then having to wait to get Uber customer requests for low-paying rides. Anyone who knows anything about Uber drivers (and all the non-union employee issues that Uber drivers have) knows that people do not get loads of money from being an Uber driver. Uber drivers also have to pay for their own car expenses, thereby reducing any wages they make as an Uber driver.

Third, who really believes that someone can pay off tax debts large enough for a house lien by being an Uber driver for a few weeks? “No Hard Feelings” expects viewers to believe this nonsense. And let’s not forget that the area where Maddie lives (the New York City metropolitan area) has among of the highest costs of living in the United States. Fourth, although Maddie sneers a few times about how “stupid” Percy is because he’s sheltered and lacking in street smarts, Maddie isn’t very intelligent herself. She wastes a lot of time hoping to get a Buick out of this “dating deal,” when she could’ve spent the time making real money.

But the witless plot of “No Hard Feelings” wouldn’t exist if it actually treated the female protagonist with some respect and had some unique cleverness. Instead, what viewers will see is a lot of Maddie acting entitled and combative to almost everyone she meets, but the filmmakers are trying to make this awfulness look like “female empowerment.” No one is expecting Maddie to be completely likeable, but there’s not much reason for viewers to root for this idiotic character.

And there’s more of Maddie’s stupidity on display. Maddie answers the ad by meeting Laird and Allison in person. Maddie arrives at the Becker house on roller blades. Laird and Allison ask Maddie to come up the high outdoor stairs into the house. Instead of taking off her roller blades, which is what any sensible person would do, Maddie clumsily tries to move up the stairs while on roller blades. It’s a sight gag that’s very stale.

In the meeting with these two creepy parents, it’s made clear that they expect Maddie to take Percy’s virginity, in order for her to get paid by getting the Buick. Maddie agrees to the parents’ demand to keep this deal a secret from Percy. This is sex work, but Maddie denies it by saying to the parents: “I’m not a sex worker.” Yes, Maddie, you are a sex worker, even if it’s just for a one-time deal. Admit it, own it, and move on.

Maddie tells the parents her real age, but she’s able to convince them that she’s a better candidate for the job than women in their early-to-mid-20s, whom Maddie thinks are too emotionally immature. It’s ironic, because Maddie is by far the most emotionally immature person in the movie. Percy is sheltered but he has a much better sense of respect for himself and other people than Maddie has.

And therein lies much of the problem with “No Hard Feelings”: It tries very hard to make Maddie look like a “free spirit” (she’s actually very mean-spirited) who wants to be perceived as a “liberated woman,” but the entire movie is about her actually being at the financial mercy of two wealthy manipulators who have hired her to be a sex worker. Maddie wants to be “tough” (she gets into physical fights with people), but she doesn’t want to be labeled a “sex worker,” because in her mind, being a sex worker makes her a bad person.

This is the mentality of filmmakers who have a madonna/whore complex in how women are portrayed in their movies: The women are either “virtuous” (not shown having sex in the movie) or “sinful” (shown having sex in the movie), with no realistic in-between. It’s a very backwards and misogynistic mindset often found in teenage sex comedies of the 1980s, where the geeky guys are the sympathetic heroes, and the (usually older) women they want to have sex with are hot-tempered and horny seductresses.

The Maddie character is the embodiment of this very tired and over-used stereotype. Expect to hear repetitive and not-very-funny jokes about the age gap between Maddie and Percy. Maddie is constantly mortified that, at 32 years old, she is often perceived as “old” by Percy’s peers. How about this, Maddie? Instead of worrying about being considered “old,” you should be worrying that your life has come down to having sex for a Buick. And let’s not forget that this Buick is not a guarantee that it will help Maddie make enough Uber money to pay off her tax debts.

Of course, “No Hard Feelings” throws in the “abandoned child” storyline to make Maddie look like she needs to be pitied. But make no mistake: “No Hard Feelings” is all about making Percy the real hero of the story. He is the only one who’s presented as having a pure heart. He is lied to and unfairly manipulated by a greedy egomaniac and two very twisted parents, who are let off the hook way too easily in this stagnant and putrid film.

The supporting characters in “No Hard Feelings” are mostly sounding boards for Maddie’s insecurities. Her only two friends are a couple of co-workers at Charters: Jim (played by Scott MacArthur) and his pregnant wife Sara (played by Natalie Morales) are having their own financial problems because they can’t afford their own place and are living with Jim’s parents. Jim and Sara know about Maddie’s “sex for a Buick” deal.

The so-called jokes in “No Hard Feelings” mostly fall flat. Early on in the movie, Maddie mentions that she’s gotten offers to sell her house to wealthy New York City residents, but she doesn’t want to sell her house to them because she’s biased against these types of people. Hasan Minhaj has a quick cameo as a smarmy real-estate agent named Doug Kahn, a former classmate of Maddie’s. The movie’s “joke” about Doug is that when he was an underage teen, he had a sex scandal with a teacher that was similar to the real-life scandal of Mary Kay Letourneau and Vili Fualaau.

After Maddie gets arrested for trying to steal back her repossessed car, she whines to her unnamed lawyer (played by Zahn McClarnon), who happens to be Native American, that she doesn’t want to give up her home to the people who want to take over her land. “Do you have any idea what that feels like?” she asks.

And then, she catches herself when she remembers she’s talking to a Native American, whose people experienced genocide and land stealing from white colonizers. “Of course, you do,” Maddie adds hastily. This lawyer is seen briefly again in one other inconsequential scene, which means he was only in the movie to be a setup for a joke about his Native American heritage.

Percy’s former nanny Jody (played by Kyle Mooney) is a supporting character who is shown briefly in the movie for no other reason but to be the target of homophobic-tinged jokes about gay men. Even though Jody is no longer Percy’s nanny, he’s still very concerned about Percy’s well-being. Because Maddie is relentlessly crass and rude, she has to make a snide comment implying that Jody, as a male nanny, might be involved in pedophilia and might be sexually attracted to Percy.

Percy is an aspiring musician, who spends a lot of time alone practicing on his electronic keyboards and playing video games. He also volunteers at an animal shelter, where Maddie goes to meet an unsuspecting Percy, under the ruse of wanting to adopt a dog. There’s a dour manager at the animal shelter named Crispin (played by Jordan Mendoza), who has some mildly amusing scenes, but Crispin is one of many supporting characters in “No Hard Feelings” that have no depth.

Lawrence has skilled comedic timing in many of her scenes. The problem is that her dialogue and the movie’s scenarios are so horrible or formulaic, it doesn’t matter how good her acting is in the movie (and her acting isn’t that great), it’s all cancelled out by this barrage of mind-numbing and often dull comedy. There’s a really good scene where Maddie and Percy have dinner together at a restaurant, and she pressures him to spontaneously start playing a piano that’s in the room. But that type of scene is few and far in between in this tacky and unimaginative movie that is ultimately a big step down and a total embarrassment for Oscar winner Lawrence.

Columbia Pictures will release “No Hard Feelings” in U.S. cinemas on June 23, 2023. A sneak preview of the movie was held in select U.S. cinemas on June 17, 2023.

Review: ‘Summoning Sylvia,’ starring Travis Coles, Frankie Grande, Troy Iwata, Noah J. Ricketts, Nicholas Logan, Veanne Cox and Michael Urie

April 23, 2023

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left to right: Troy Iwata, Frankie Grande, Travis Coles and Noah J. Ricketts in “Summoning Sylvia” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Collective)

“Summoning Sylvia”

Directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in upstate New York, the horror comedy film “Summoning Sylvia” features a cast of predominantly white characters (with two African Americans and one Asian) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: Four gay male friends go to a remote house in the woods for a bachelor party, and they end up holding a séance to summon the spirit of the house’s original owner, who was accused of murdering her son in the early 20th century. 

Culture Audience: “Summoning Sylvia” will appeal primarily to people who like watching horror comedies that skillfully blend campiness with raunchiness.

Troy Iwata, Noah J. Ricketts, Travis Coles and Frankie Grande in “Summoning Sylvia” (Photo courtesy of The Horror Collective)

“Summoning Sylvia” is a sassy and hilarious séance comedy, told from a gay male perspective. Travis Coles and Frankie Grande are scene-stealing delights. The unpredictable jokes and gags make this film appealing to people who like comedy made for adults. And at a brisk total running time of 75 minutes, “Summoning Sylvia” is just the right length to prevent the movie from getting stale and repetitive.

Written and directed by Wesley Taylor and Alex Wyse, “Summoning Sylvia” takes place in an unnamed city in upstate New York. (The movie was actually filmed in New Jersey.) Four gay male friends in their mid-to-late 30s have gathered for what they hope will be a fun-filled bachelor party at a remote house in the woods. Of course, since this a horror comedy, the house has a sinister history that will cause some terror for these visitors.

The house is owned by someone named Frank (voiced by Wyse), who is never seen but who is heard over the phone. Frank has rented out house for the weekend to Reggie (played by Troy Iwata), the person in the group who has organized this party. Reggie is very meticulous and gets very uptight if things don’t go according to his plans. The bachelor party is a surprise for the grooms-to-be who are expected at the party.

The first groom-to-be to arrive at this gathering is Larry (played by Coles), who is a high-strung people pleaser. When his friends start bickering with each other, Larry is the one who nervously tries to keep the peace. Larry’s fiancé Jamie (played by Michael Urie) is about five or six years older than Larry. Jamie was supposed to be there at the same time as the rest of the group, but he calls Larry from his car to say he is running late because work obligations prevented him from leaving sooner.

Nico (played by Grande) is the most flamboyant and outspoken friend in the group. His fashion choices range from dressing like a grungy club kid to wearing bold makeup and androgynous clothes. Out of all these friends, Nico is the most superstitious and the one who’s most likely to believe in ghosts. He is also very confrontational with anyone he thinks is homophobic.

Kevin (played by Noah J. Ricketts) is the most laid-back of the friends. Reggie and Kevin have a crush on each other and don’t really know how to handle it. Kevin keeps hinting that they should be more than friends, but Reggie awkwardly avoids talking about it. Reggie is a bit of a control freak and probably wants to plan out any relationship that he might have instead of letting it happen naturally. If anything sexual is going to happen between Kevin and Reggie, then Kevin is more likely to make the first move.

During the phone conversation between engaged couple Jamie and Larry, an awkward topic comes up: Jamie has a brother named Harrison (played by Nicholas Logan), a military veteran who recently spent time in Kuwait. Harrison has briefly met Larry before, but Jamie thinks Larry and Harrison should get to know each other better before the wedding. Larry doesn’t feel comfortable around Harrison, but he wants to please Jamie. And so, Larry tells Jamie that Harrison can go to the party.

It’s an invitation that Larry immediately regrets. When Harrison arrives (wearing military camouflage gear), he’s stereotypically macho and homophobic. At first, Nico and Kevin think that Harrison might be a surprise stripper. Reggie is annoyed about this unannounced visit from Harrison. Reggie quips about Harrison, “The crew cut. The camo. What is he? A lesbian?”

There’s another concern that these friends have besides Harrison. Shortly before Harrison’s arrival, Reggie told the other pals that the house they’re staying at has a reputation for being haunted. Back in the early 20th century, the house’s original owner was a woman named Sylvia Lawrence. According to a local legend, Sylvia driven insane and murdered he son Phillip Lawrence (her only child) and buried his body somewhere on the estate.

After some snooping around the house, the four pals find some of Sylvia’s possessions, including items and clothing and photographs. Throughout the movie, there are visions of Sylvia (played by Leanne Voss) and Phillip (played by Camden Garcia) that might or might not be real. These visions eventually reveal what happened between Sylvia and Phillip that resulted in her being accused of killing her son Phillip.

It doesn’t take long for Nico to come up with the idea to have a séance to try to contact Sylvia and ask her what really happened the night she supposedly murdered her Phillip. Reggie is very skeptical about this idea and is reluctant to go through with the séance. Nico snaps at Reggie: “Bitch, do you know how many times I’ve seen ‘Wicked’? Fourteen times! So, do not question my devotion to the dak arts!”

Harrison shows up after the séance has begun. Many hijinks ensue. Nico and Harrison immediately clash with each other the most. However, people with enough life experience can see that Harrison might be homophobic on the outside, but Harrison might be secretly attracted to Nico, whom he sometimes misgenders as “she” and “her.” Harrison tries to act like he’s disgusted by being around these gay men, but he also seems fascinated with them.

“Summoning Sylvia” has plenty of snappy banter and amusing slapstick comedy that enliven the film. However, this comedy also has some social commentary about the divides that can exist between homophobes and the LGBTQ people who are the targets of homophobic hate. “Summoning Sylvia” ultimately triumphs because it’s not a movie that makes gay people the “victims.” It’s a memorable movie that makes gay people the heroes of their own stories.

The Horror Collective released “Summoning Sylvia” in select U.S. cinemas on March 31, 2023. The movie was released on digital and VOD on April 7, 2023.

Review: ‘The Tutor’ (2023), starring Garrett Hedlund, Noah Schnapp and Victoria Justice

April 3, 2023

by Carla Hay

Noah Schnapp and Garrett Hedlund in “The Tutor” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

“The Tutor” (2023)

Directed by Jordan Ross

Culture Representation: Taking place in New York City and on New York state’s Long Island, the dramatic film “The Tutor” features a nearly all-white cast of characters (with a few people of Asian heritage) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A financially desperate tutor is hired by a mysterious billionaire to tutor the billionaire’s 17-year-old son, who becomes obsessed with the tutor, and dark secrets emerge that could be deadly. 

Culture Audience: “The Tutor” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching low-quality mystery thrillers that have muddled and disjointed stories.

Victoria Justice in “The Tutor” (Photo courtesy of Vertical)

After watching “The Tutor,” it’s obvious that the filmmakers need lessons on how to make a good movie. This flimsy drama about a tutor stalked by a student ends up falling apart with avoidable plot holes and a stupid ending. It looks like a movie that started out with a fairly good concept, but the filmmakers decided to just throw in a bunch of ludicrous ideas, and then tack on a very lazy ending that leaves many questions unanswered.

Directed by Jordan Ross and written by Ryan King, “The Tutor” could have had many clever and interesting things to say about the abuse of power and privilege from ultra-wealthy people. Instead, the movie rehashes many of the same storylines found in third-rate stalker thrillers that are throwaway, forgettable movies on TV. There are a few surprises in “The Tutor,” but they are badly mishandled and further damage what little credibility that “The Tutor” had.

In “The Tutor,” Garrett Hedlund portrays a tutor named Ethan, who works for an agency in New York City called Tutornym, which has many wealthy clients who hire the tutors to teach the clients’ underage children. (“The Tutor” was actually filmed in Alabama, mostly in the Birmingham area.) A montage in the beginning of the film shows that Ethan is a tutor to a variety of rich teenagers at their lavish homes. “The Tutor” immediately looks phony and outdated, because these kids aren’t shown doing any schoolwork on a computer. The movie makes it looks like Ethan mainly teaches his students by using flash cards to quiz them.

Ethan and his pregnant live-in girlfriend Annie (played by Victoria Justice) are expecting their first child together. Later in the movie, they find out the baby’s gender from a medical exam. It’s also mentioned in “The Tutor” that Annie and Ethan have been a couple for five years. They have some trust issues because Ethan apparently cheated on Annie in the past.

For now, Ethan’s tutoring salary is the couple’s only income. And they’re a little worried about how they’re going to be able to afford the expenses of raising a child. One day, Ethan gets a call at the Tutornym office from his hard-partying boss Chris (played by Joseph Castillo-Midyett), who is rarely at the office and spends a lot of time getting drunk in nightclubs. Chris tells Ethan about a summer job offer that has a salary that Ethan thinks is too high to refuse: a billionaire (whose name Chris refuses to tell Ethan) wants to hire Ethan to tutor the billionaire’s 17-year-old son for $2,500 a day.

Chris tells Ethan that the payments will be made “under the table” (not reported to the Internal Revenue Service) and that Ethan has to live at the family’s property on Long Island, for a one-week trial period. After that first week, the family will decide if they will hire Ethan for the rest of the summer. Ethan might be “book smart,” but time and time again, he shows that he’s not “street smart.”

But you don’t have to be “street smart” to have the common sense to know that a shady deal like this sounds too good to be true. The obvious red flags are that the employer doesn’t want Ethan to know his name and wants to secretly pay Ethan. (This deal also makes Chris corrupt too.) Ethan eagerly takes the job because he and Annie need the money. When he tells Annie about this new job, she doesn’t question the warning signs either, which is basically the movie’s way of showing that Annie is less-than-smart too.

When Ethan arrives at the Long Island estate for this new tutoring job, he is dazzled by all the first-class service he gets and the wealth on display at this estate. He is driven to the property by a chauffeur (played by Escalante Lundy), and he is given a private tour of some of the property by a butler (played by Kamran Shaikh), who are both polite and professional. How rich is this family? An awestruck Ethan tells Annie in a phone conversation that he saw 50 motorcycles on the property. Ethan also seems very impressed that his guest lodging has its own pool table.

The father who hired Ethan is nowhere to be seen during Ethan’s first few days on the job. Ethan has been hired to tutor Jackson (played by Noah Schnapp), who is highly intelligent but socially awkward. Jackson is apparently prepping to go to whatever elite university he is expected to attend. However, when Ethan asks Jackson what his SAT scores are, Jackson says he doesn’t know. Jackson tells Ethan, “I’ll have my dad’s assistant forward them.”

One of the many ways that “The Tutor” looks very fake is that this huge property has very few employees. It’s understandable that a low-budget independent film isn’t going to have a large number of people in its principal cast. However, it wouldn’t be that hard or expensive to get some background extras to portray a realistic number of servants that would be needed for the upkeep of this estate.

Ethan gives Jackson some initial tests in math and English. He finds that Jackson has perfect scores on these tests. The question somewhat crosses Ethan’s mind about why he’s even needed as a tutor, because apparently this kid is smarter than Ethan. However, Ethan (who’s mostly thinking about the money he’s getting paid for this job) tells Annie that he was probably hired to keep Jackson company. Ethan says to Annie that he suspects that Jackson is somewhere on the autism spectrum.

During Ethan’s first day on the job, he also meets Jackson’s creepy cousin Gavin (played by Jonny Weston) and his smirking girlfriend Jenny (played by Kabby Borders), who are both in their late 20s. Gavin and Jenny apparently don’t do anything but lounge around and party. Later, it’s explained to Ethan that Gavin doesn’t live there, but Gavin usually visits Jackson every summer.

One day, Ethan ends up riding in a car with Gavin as the driver, and the other passengers are Jenny and an attractive woman in her 20s named Teddi (played by Ekaterina Baker), who is a friend of Gavin and Jenny. Gavin makes a strange comment to Ethan that Ethan can have Teddi whenever he wants, as if Teddi is merely a plaything to be passed around. Ethan declines the offer and says he already has a girlfriend. It’s another red flag that Ethan doesn’t seem to notice or doesn’t care to notice. Another red flag that Ethan chooses to brush aside is how he gets conflicting information about why Jackson has an absentee mother.

The rest of “The Tutor” goes through the expected motions in showing Jackson’s obsession with Ethan, as well as the escalating danger involved. Hedlund and Schnapp try very hard to be convincing in their roles, but many of their melodramatic scenes are downright cringeworthy because of all of the over-acting. In other scenes, their acting is listless and hollow. All of the other cast members play two-dimensional characters and give unremarkable performances.

As more ominous things start happening to Ethan, viewers will be wondering why Ethan doesn’t do what most people would do in his situation: Find out exactly who hired him to tutor Jackson. He has a lot of information at his disposal, starting with the address of the mansion. But no, this dimwit doesn’t do any common-sense research, because there would be no idiotic “plot twists” in “The Tutor” if he found out this information earlier. Instead, Ethan wastes a lot of time whining to Annie and some other people about how he’s teaching a mentally ill student who’s become obsessed with him.

The plot twists in the “The Tutor” just further tangle this mess of a story. The movie has some atrocious film editing choices that add to the sloppy filmmaking. It’s ironic that one of the main characters of “The Tutor” is supposed to be highly intelligent, but the movie spends almost all of its time relentlessly insulting the intelligence of viewers.

Vertical released “The Tutor” in select U.S. cinemas on March 24, 2023.

Review: ‘The Pale Blue Eye,’ starring Christian Bale, Harry Melling, Gillian Anderson, Lucy Boynton and Robert Duvall

December 22, 2022

by Carla Hay

Robert Duvall, Christian Bale and Harry Melling in “The Pale Blue Eye” (Photo by Scott Garfield/Netflix)

“The Pale Blue Eye”

Directed by Scott Cooper

Culture Representation: Taking place in 1830, in New York state’s Hudson Valley, the dramatic film “The Pale Blue Eye” features an all-white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A widowed constable, who is grieving over the loss of wife and his teenage daughter, is hired to solve the grisly murder of a cadet at the United States Military Academy (also known as West Point Academy), where he teams up to solve the mystery with a cadet named Edgar Allan Poe. 

Culture Audience: “The Pale Blue Eye” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the book on which the movie is based; the stars of the movie; and well-acted and suspenseful thrillers.

Lucy Boynton, Fred Hechinger, Harry Melling, Toby Jones, Harry Lawtey (pictured in the back) and Gillian Anderson in “The Pale Blue Eye” (Photo by Scott Garfield/Netflix)

“The Pale Blue Eye” is an engaging and stylish murder mystery with a talented cast that can keep people interested when the movie’s pacing sometimes drags. A “reveal” scene looks clumsy, but the movie is an overall worthy version of Louis Bayard’s 2003 novel of the same name that is the basis of the movie. Yes, it’s another Christian Bale movie where he plays a brooding loner, but the acting is done well enough that it doesn’t feel like a rehash of his other movie roles.

Written and directed by Scott Cooper, “The Pale Blue Eye” is Bale’s third movie collaboration with Cooper. Bale and Cooper previously worked together on 2013’s “Out of the Furnace” and 2017’s “Hostiles.” In “The Pale Blue Eye” (which takes place in 1830 in New York’s Hudson Valley), Bale is protagonist Augustus Landor, a retired constable/detective who is recruited to solve an unusual murder case and finds himself investigating a possible serial killer.

Augustus, who lives alone in a remote cottage, is a widower whose wife died in 1827. He is also grieving over the more recent loss of his teenage daughter Mathilda, also known as Mattie (played by Hadley Robinson), who is shown in brief flashbacks. Augustus tells people that he hasn’t seen Mattie since she ran away with a boyfriend whom August briefly met. To cope with his grief, August has become a habitual drinker of alcohol. It’s not very clear if he’s a full-blown alcoholic, but his drinking habits have negatively affected his career and his reputation.

It’s under these circumstances that Augustus is visited in the movie’s opening scene by Captain Ethan Hitchcock (played by Simon McBurney), a no-nonsense and stern official from the United States Military Academy, also known as West Point Academy, because of its location in West Point, New York. Captain Hitchcock doesn’t waste any time in saying why he is visiting Augustus: A second-year cadet at the academy has been murdered, his body was found on the school’s campus, and the academy wants Augustus to solve the crime before it becomes a major scandal.

The murder victim, whose name was Leroy Fry (played by Steven Maier), was found hanging from a tree, with his feet touching the ground, indicating that it wasn’t a suicide. His heart was removed with the precision of someone with surgical knowledge to make a straight and orderly incision. This gruesome mutilation is something that the academy’s officials don’t want to be widely known when people find out about the murder. They also want to work with Augustus to keep the investigation as private as possible, instead of going to the local police department. Despite his drinking problem, August is considered one of the best detectives in the area.

At first, August seems hesitant to take the case, but he soon agrees to investigate the crime. Captain Hitchcock gives Augustus a ride to the academy, where August meets Superintendent Thayer (played by Timothy Spall), who isn’t as emotionally aloof as Captain Hitchcock, but he conducts himself with an air of impatient authority. Superintendent Thayer tells Augustus soon after meeting him: “I’m asking you to save the honor of the United States Military Academy.”

Augustus immediately begins by interviewing possible witnesses, as well as the academy’s doctor performing the autopsy. Dr. Daniel Marquis (played by Toby Jones) is wealthy and very good at his job, but he has the type of arrogance where he lets people know that he thinks he’s the smartst person in the room. In the medical exam room, Dr. Marquis tells Augustus that the murderer isn’t necessarily someone who’s a doctor but someone who needed good light and knew where to cut, in order to remove the heart without cutting or damaging the lungs.

While examining the body, Augustus finds a very important clue: The murder victim had a torn piece of paper clutched inside one of his hands. The paper is a hand-written note with most of the words missing. Augustus eventually gets some help in deciphering what the note says.

During the early part of this investigation, meets an eccentric cadet named Edgar Allan Poe (played by Harry Melling), who cryptically tells Augustus that the murderer is probably a poet. Another cadet tells Augustus that he saw a suspicious-looking man lurking near the crime scene. But the only description that this witness can give is that the man looked like he was wearing an officer’s jacket with the bars removed from the jacket arm.

Augustus finds out that Leroy and his roommate Cadet Loughborough (played by Charlie Tahan) came to dislike each other. Cadet Loughborough says in his interview with Augustus: “I wouldn’t call it a ‘falling out.’ It’s a matter of diverging paths. He fell in with a bad bunch.” However, Cadet Loughborough says he doesn’t know any details about any of Leroy’s new friends.

Captain Hitchcock has been tasked with putting pressure on Augustus to solve the crime as soon as possible and overseeing Augustus’ investigation. And so, Captain Hitchcock does some hovering during the investigation and sometimes shows up unexpectedly in places, in order to catch Augustus and other people off guard. Augustus is more of a freewheeling individual who doesn’t see life in such a rigid way. And you can easily predict what that means: Captain Hitchcock and August are going to clash with each other.

Captain Hitchcock has a low tolerance for people who don’t take things as seriously has he does. He sets three ground rules for Augustus that he says can’t be broken: (1) Report all findings to Captain Hitchcock; (2) Don’t tell anyone outside the academy about the investigation; and (3) No drinking alcohol during the course of the investigation.

What does Augustus do in reaction to these rules? He goes to a local pub to get drunk. As he says in a toast to the bartender, “Here’s to rules.” The pub is also where Augustus meets a bar maid named Pasty (played by Charlotte Gainsbourg), a friendly and soft-spoken employee who observes a great deal of what goes on in the pub. Quicker than you can say “lonely widower,” Augustus and Charlotte end up in bed together for a casual fling.

The pub is also where many of the cadets hang out in their free time. It’s here that Augustus sees Edgar, a highly intelligent oddball who is a social misfit at the academy. Augustus and Edgar strike up a conversation, where Augustus asks Edgar what he meant by the murderer being a poet.

Edgar explains that the heart is more than a body organ: It’s a symbol. Edgar says, “To remove a man’s heart is to traffic in symbol.” “The Pale Blue Eye” has several references to hearts removed from bodies. Of course, it’s a nod to the real Edgar Allan Poe, who became a famous horror/mystery novelist, with one of his most well-known works being the short story “The Tell-Tale Heart,” about a killer haunted by the sound of a murder victim’s beating heart.

“The Pale Blue Eye” is a fictional story, but it cleverly implies that if the real Edgar Allan Poe actually existed in this story, “The Tell-Tale Heart” would have been influenced by his experience working on this murder case. Later in the movie, Edgar recites a line from the real “Tell-Tale Heart,” which includes a description about the murderer being annoyed by his victim having an eye cataract: a “pale blue eye.”

Augustus is impressed enough by Edgar to secretly hire Edgar to assist Augustus in the investigation. Augustus tells Edgar that it’s a non-paying job, but Edgar doesn’t seem to mind, because he’s eager to be involved in helping solve a mystery. One of the first things that Augustus asks Edgar to do is help decipher the torn note that was found in Leroy’s hand. Augustus says he doesn’t like to read many books and isn’t as well-read as Edgar. But at the same time, Augustus doesn’t want Edgar to completely upstage him in this investigation.

It should come as no surprise that Leroy isn’t the only one who ends up dead in this story. Another cadet is killed in a similar manner. And it sends the academy officials into a panic that the killer is specifically targeting cadets at the academy. If so, why? It leads to even more pressure on Augustus to find the murderer.

Along the way, other people are introduced who might or might not have clues that could help solve this mystery. There is suspicion that the murderer is cutting out hearts as part of an occult ritual. And so, Augustus and Edgar meet with Professor Jean Pepe (played by Robert Duvall), an expert in symbols, rituals and the occult. Duvall’s screen time in the movie is less than 15 minutes, but his wise and jaded Jean Pepe character plays a pivotal role in the movie.

During the investigation, Augustus and Edgar also meet Dr. Marquis’ wife Julia Marquis (played by Gillian Anderson), who is very sensitive and high-strung. Dr. and Mrs. Marquis have two children: Artemus Marquis (played by Harry Lawtey), who is a popular cadet at the academy, and Lea Marquis (played by Lucy Boynton), who is a sought-after bachelorette with a talent for playing the piano. Artemus and Lea both sometimes act a little spoiled and entitled, but they look out for each other and have a strong family bond.

Edgar becomes smitten with Lea, and they start casually dating. Lea wants Edgar to be her platonic friend, but he is hoping that their relationship will develop into a romance. On one of their dates, Edgar is alarmed when Lea goes into a seizure but just as quickly recovers. Meanwhile, a cadet named Randolph “Randy” Ballinger (played by Fred Hechinger) also has a romantic interest in Lea, and he gets jealous of Edgar. Of course this would-be love triangle leads to problems.

“The Pale Blue Eye” has many of its best moments in showing the rapport between Augustus and Edgar, who are from different generations and have different personalities, but both characters have moments of emotional vulnerability. Their relationship is sometimes compatible and sometimes uneasy while working together in this very stressful murder investigation. Bale and Melling adeptly handle their respective roles, with Melling tending to be a little more melodramatic in portraying socially awkward Edgar. Augustus and Edgar (who became an orphan in his childhood) don’t have much in common, but they both sense that they are alone in the world and have an unspoken camaraderie of feeling like maverick outsiders.

“The Pale Blue Eye” takes place in an unnamed winter month with snow outside, so the cinematography by Masanobu Takayanagi is a gorgeous palette of icy blue in exterior scenes and gold/brown for interior scenes. The movie’s production design and costume design are also well-done. And the musical score by Howard Shore is very effective in how it builds the story’s tension.

Where “The Pale Blue Eye” falters is in how the movie’s tone and pacing can occasionally get a little dull. There’s also a crucial scene involving a blazing fire that doesn’t look completely genuine. Without giving away too many details, it’s enough to say that in real life, people would be running away from this fire a lot quicker than what’s shown in the movie. However, “The Pale Blue Eye” does not disappoint when it comes to the acting performances. Viewers who might be the most disappointed in the movie will be those expecting “The Pale Blue Eye” to be more of an action film.

For people who don’t know how the story is going to end, “The Pale Blue Eye” is a somber and thoughtful mystery that will keep viewers guessing about what will happen next. Just when it looks like the movie can end one way, there are more revelations. Because of a surprise twist which is handled a lot better than an earlier plot twist, “The Pale Blue” does not go down a predictable path and should satisfy fans of murder mysteries that don’t completely follow the usual formulas.

Netflix will release “The Pale Blue Eye” in select U.S. cinemas on December 23, 2022. The movie will premiere on Netflix on January 6, 2023.

Copyright 2017-2025 Culture Mix
CULTURE MIX