Winona Ryder Archives – CULTURE MIX

Review: ‘Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,’ starring Michael Keaton, Winona Ryder, Catherine O’Hara, Justin Theroux, Monica Bellucci, Jenna Ortega and Willem Dafoe

September 5, 2024

by Carla Hay

Winona Ryder and Michael Keaton in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures)

Directed by Tim Burton

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut, the fantasy film “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (a sequel to the 1988 movie “Beetlejuice”) features a predominantly white cast of characters (with a few Latinos and some African Americans) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: Troublemaking and wisecracking demon Beetlejuice returns from captivity to stop the wedding of his would-be bride Lydia Deetz, a psychic who can see ghosts, while Lydia tries to repair her strained relationship with her daughter, and Beetlejuice is being hunted by his vengeful former bride.

Culture Audience: “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the the first “Beetlejuice” movie, the movie’s headliners, director Tim Burton, and anyone who likes watching high-energy movies that are comedic supernatural stories.

Catherine O’Hara, Jenna Ortega, Winona Ryder and Justin Theroux in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” (Photo by Parisa Taghizadeh/Warner Bros. Pictures)

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” comes very close to being overstuffed with subplots, but they all tie together in the end. This flawed but energetic sequel to 1988’s “Beetlejuice” has enough supernatural fun to charm new fans and existing fans. Do viewers need to see the first “Beetlejuice” movie to understand “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice”? No, but it certainly helps, especially in noticing many of the references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie that are in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” These references (also known as Easter eggs) can be considered shameless fan servicing, but most sequels of hit movies are guilty of pandering to die-hard fans.

Directed by Tim Burton, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was written by Alfred Gough and Miles Millar, who are both collaborators with Burton on Netflix’s “Addams Family” spinoff series “Wednesday.” Michael McDowell and Warren Skaaren wrote the first “Beetlejuice” movie, which was directed by Burton. Neither movie is perfect, but both movies have appeal to people who like movies that combine Gothic sensibilities with goofy comedy. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has many more characters (almost too many) compared to the first “Beetlejuice” movie, but the visual effects in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” are a vast improvement over the cringeworthy and tacky visual effects in “Beetlejuice.” The makeup in Beetlejuice” was superb though, which is why the movie won an Oscar for Best Makeup.

The original “Beetlejuice” movie has a simple plot: The ghosts of a married couple named Adam Maitland (played by Alec Baldwin) and Barbara Maitland (played by Geena Davis) try to get rid of the wealthy new family who have moved into and renovated the Maitlands’ former house in the fictional city of Winter River, Connecticut. The house’s new residents are former real estate developer Charles Deetz (played by Jeffrey Jones); his pretentious sculptor/conceptual artist wife Delia Deetz; and their Goth psychic teenage daughter Lydia Deetz (played by Winona Ryder), who is the only one in the family who can see ghosts.

The house is isolated and sits on a hilltop, which is why there are no neighbors who notice the strange activity taking place in the house. The Maitlands reluctantly enlist a troublemaking and wisecracking ghost demon named Betelgeuse (played by Michael Keaton) to try to get rid of the Deetz family. Betelgeuse becomes enamored with Lydia and wants to marry her. Betelgeuse (who lived and died as a human sometime in the 1300s) appears when his name is said three times in a row. There’s an entirely different discussion that could be had about how inappropriate it is for Betelgeuse to marry an underage teen, but it underscores how much of a creep Betelgeuse is and how he comes from an era when it was considered normal to marry someone who is 15 or 16 years old.

In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Lydia (also played by Ryder) is now a single mother who is the famous host of TV series called “Ghost House With Lydia Deetz,” where she helps people who say they have haunted houses. It’s mentioned that Lydia has been a professional psychic for the past 15 years. Lydia is a pill-popping neurotic who has been dating her manager Rory (played by Justin Theroux), who is an obviously slimy manipulator pretending to be sensitive and caring. Rory not only enables Lydia’s drug abuse, but he also encourages it.

Lydia uses pills to cope with her personal life being a mess. She barely speaks to her parents. Lydia also doesn’t have much of a relationship with her teenage daughter Astrid (played by Jenna Ortega, star of “Wednesday”), who is bitter because Astrid thinks Lydia cares more about her career than Lydia cares about Astrid. Lydia was separated from Astrid’s father Richard (played by Santiago Cabrera) when Richard died in a drowning accident.

Astrid, who is about 16 or 17, is a student at a boarding school, where Astrid is a loner who is treated like an outsider freak because of what Lydia does for a living. There’s a scene where some “mean girls” have vandalized Astrid’s room by putting up a paper ghost in the room that says “Boo.” Astrid is highly intellgent and well-read, but she has a lot of anger toward Lydia. Astrid thinks Lydia is a fraud because Lydia cannot see the ghost of Astrid’s father Richard.

One day, Lydia gets a frantic phone call from her mother Delia, who tells her to come to Winter River immediately. That’s how Lydia finds out that her father Charles died. His plane crashed over the South Pacific, and he was killed by a shark. In real life, “Beetlejuice” co-star Jones, who played Charles, got arrested in 2002 for child porn. Jones is now a registered sex offender, which is probably why he wasn’t asked to be in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which uses animation, visual effects and archival footage of Jones to depict Charles in the movie.

Lydia feels uncomfortable with returning to Winter River, because it brings back bad memories of Betelgeuse, whose name is now spelled Beetlejuice in this sequel. (“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” was actually filmed in the United Kingdom, Vermont and Massachusetts.) Astrid and Rory also go to Winter River to attend Charles’ funeral. Delia and Astrid don’t really know each other but they do have one thing in common: They both despise Rory.

To the horror of Delia and Astrid, Rory uses Charles’ memorial service to propose marriage to Lydia—and he wants to get married in Winter River on Halloween, which is two days after this marriage proposal. Father Damien (played by Burn Gorman), the priest to led the funeral service, has been enlisted to officiate at the wedding. Lydia wants more time to think about Rory’s marriage proposal. However, Rory makes her feel guilty, so she reluctantly agrees to this hasty wedding. Lydia is also seeing some indications that Beetlejuice might be coming back into her life.

Meanwhile, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” explains from the beginning that Beetlejuice has been trapped in an afterlife purgatory. In his previous life (when he was alive), he was a grave robber who married a femme fatale named Delores (played by Monica Bellucci), the leader of a soul-sucking cult. Beetlejuice left Delores, but the ghost of Delores wants to get back together with Beetlejuice by any means necessary to marry him. An early scene in the movie shows Delores putting her sliced body back together, with her restored body in stitches.

Beetlejuice has several mute minions with shrunken heads who wear the same type of striped suit that he does. His most loyal and rusted minion is named Bob. “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has a lot of scenes with these minions that might remind people of how the “Despicable Me” animated movies use their own minion characters for anti-hero/supervillain Gru.

One of the biggest comedic gags in the “Beetlejuice” movies is an afterlife waiting room, where recently deceased people wait to get checked in to travel to heaven, hell or somewhere in between. The ghosts appear exactly as how they looked when they died, which means many of these ghosts are mutilated or deformed if they died gruesome deaths. Near the beginning of “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Danny DeVito has a quick cameo as an unnamed janitor in this afterlife waiting area.

It’s in this waiting area, there’s an Afterlife Crimes Unit led by a pompous ghost named Wolf Jackson (played by Willem Dafoe), who was an actor when he was alive. Wolf was an actor who was best known for playing a police detective named Frank Hardballed. As a ghost, Wolf still likes to pretend that he’s a real cop. He takes it upon himself to lead team that is looking for Delores, the chief suspect in a spree of murders where people’s souls have been sucked out of them.

And there’s even more going on in this plot: After Lydia accepts Rory’s marriage proposal, a disgusted Astrid storms off on her bicycle. Astrid accidentally crashes through a fence and tumbles into a backyard tree. The tree has a treehouse, where teenage Jeremy Frazier (played by Arthur Conti) happens to be when Astrid has her bike accident.

You know what happens next: Jeremy and Astrid, who are both about the same age and are intellectual loners, have an immediate attraction to each other. But what will happen to their relationship if Astrid is only going to be in Winter River for a few days? There are some twists and turns in “Beetlejuice” which have some surprises that are more unpredictable than others.

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” has some nostalgic references to the first “Beetlejuice” movie. The Handbook for the Recently Deceased is once again a pivotal part of the plot. Miss Shannon’s School for Girls, which was seen at the end of “Beetlejuice,” has a much more prominent role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Little Jane Butterfield (played by Rachel Mittelman), the pre-teen daughter of nosy real-estate agent Jane Butterfield (played by Annie McEnroe) in “Beetlejuice,” is now all grown up in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” The adult Jane Butterfield Jr. (played by Amy Nuttall) is also a real-estate agent.

Music also plays a big role in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” which has “Beetlejuice” composer Danny Elfman returning for the franchise’s jaunty score music. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” there’s a soul train where people in the waiting area dance like they’re in a “Soul Train” episode from the 1970s. There are mostly African American people (many with Afro hairstyles) in these soul train scenes, which might or might not be taken a certain way depending on how much viewers know about “Soul Train” in the 1970s.

Songs from Harry Belafonte’s 1956 “Calypso” album—most notably the hit tune “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)”—are prominently featured in the original “Beetlejuice” and can be heard again in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” But the song that gets its big moment in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” is “MacArthur Park,” which was a hit (separately) for Richard Harris in 1968 and Donna Summer in 1978. Also look for a comedic moment featuring Richard Marx’s 1989 hit “Right Here Waiting.”

Keaton, Ryder and O’Hara all give very good performances in reprising their “Beetlejuice” roles. In “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” Ryder has the most challenging task of the three original “Beetlejuice” stars because her Lydia character has changed the most from the original “Beetlejuice” movie. Lydia is now a complicated adult with more emotional baggage than what the teenage Lydia character had. Much of the movie relies on Lydia’s reactions to a lot of the mayhem that takes place. Ryder’s performance as Lydia (who gets the most screen time in the movie) could be annoying to some or entertaining to others, but she is always compelling to watch in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.” Keaton’s Beetlejuice is essentially the same, while O’Hara’s Delia is even more cartoonish than in the original “Beetlejuice” movie.

Ortega and Theroux are perfectly fine in their roles, but they’re both doing versions of other characters that they’ve already done on screen: the pouting teen character for Ortega, the two-faced liar character for Theroux. The “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” filmmakers made the right decision to have Delores say as little as possible because Bellucci has a limited acting range compared to other stars in the “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” cast, although she looks fabulous as Delores, who could pass for an evil cousin of Morticia Addams. Dafoe hams it up as the buffoonish Wolf, who is the most unnecessary new character in “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

“Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” at times seems a little too self-satisfied with all of the different subplots that are sometimes left to dangle and are left hanging while another subplot comes along as a distraction. The mischievious rogue Beetlejuice is also not in the movie as much as some viewers might expect from a film named after this character. Overall, if viewers have any curiosity about “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice,” it’s best to see the original “Beetlejuice” movie first and then enjoy the somewhat wild and bumpy ride that is “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.”

Warner Bros. Pictures will release “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” in U.S. cinemas on September 6, 2024. The movie was released in several countries outside the U.S. and had sneak preview screenings in U.S. cinemas on September 4, 2024.

Review: ‘Haunted Mansion’ (2023), starring LaKeith Stanfield, Tiffany Haddish, Owen Wilson, Danny DeVito, Rosario Dawson, Jamie Lee Curtis and Jared Leto

July 25, 2023

by Carla Hay

“Haunted Mansion”

Directed by Justin Simien

Culture Representation: Taking place in New Orleans, the comedy horror film “Haunted Mansion” (based on the Disney amusement park ride) features an African American and white cast of characters representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A single mother and her son move into a haunted mansion and enlist several people (including a ghost tour guide, a history professor, a priest and a medium) to help get rid of the evil spirit haunting the house.

Culture Audience: “Haunted Mansion” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of the movie’s headliners, the Disney amusement park ride on which the movie is based, and mildly interesting but underwhelming horror comedies.

Jamie Lee Curtis in “Haunted Mansion” (Photo by Jalen Marlowe/Disney Enterprises, Inc.)

As a horror comedy, “Haunted Mansion” is built on a sinkhole of mishandled opportunities. The jokes are weak. The action is underwhelming. This stale reboot isn’t a complete waste of time, but it’s disappointing, considering the talented people involved. But it’s not too surprising, considering there’s nothing much that’s truly innovative in this lazy “Haunted Mansion” retread that has a lot of annoying product placement mentions incorporated into the mediocre dialogue.

Directed by Justin Simien and written by Katie Dippold, “Haunted Mansion” is a reboot of the 2003 comedy film “The Haunted Mansion” (starring Eddie Murphy), which was also a not-very-funny movie version of Disney’s iconic Haunted Mansion amusement park ride. The 2023 “Haunted Mansion” movie could have done so many unique and fantastic things for the story, but instead took the most obvious and boring route possible: A family moves into a haunted mansion, experiences terror from an evil spirit, and then must find an artifact previously owned by the ghost, in order to cast the spell that will permanently send the evil spirit away.

It takes an awfully long time for “Haunted Mansion” (which clocks in at a little more than two hours) for the characters to get to the revelation of how to get rid of the ghost. The “adventure” part of the story doesn’t really start until the movie is more than halfway over. Until then, “Haunted Mansion” is just a series of scenes where characters are introduced, and then they babble and argue about different ways to find out the secret of this haunted mansion. Just because certain characters get a lot of screen time, doesn’t mean that viewers will really learn a lot about these characters during the course of the movie.

“Haunted Mansion” was filmed on location in New Orleans, where the story takes place. Although the 2023 “Haunted Mansion” movie has an ensemble cast, the story’s chief protagonist is a former astrophysicist named Ben Matthias (played by LaKeith Stanfield), who now works as a “ghost tour” guide in New Orleans. Ben’s wife Alyssa (played by Charity Jordan), who died in a car accident, used to have this job. Near the beginning of the movie, a flashback shows that Alyssa and Ben met at a New Year’s Eve party. During their flirtatious conversation, Alyssa told him that she was a ghost tour guide, and she invited him on a tour, even though Ben says he doesn’t believe in ghosts.

Ben and Alyssa’s marriage is never shown in the movie, except for a few fleeting and superficial scenes of them cuddling as spouses. The problem with this void in the story is that a huge part of the plot hinges on Ben’s grief over Alyssa’s death. Viewers only get a quick “drive-by” version of the marriage. And therefore, there’s not much context given for Ben’s grief, since he barely talks about the marriage in the movie. Stanfield’s performance as Ben is perfectly adequate (Ben has a big emotional scene toward the end of the movie), but Stanfield also looks bored for a great deal of the movie.

Ben gets mixed up in the haunted house hijinks when he gets a visit from a wisecracking priest named Father Kent (played by Owen Wilson), who tells Ben that someone wants to hire Ben for a paranormal investigation of a mansion that is believed to be haunted. Ben immediately says no, but Ben changes his mind when he finds out that he’ll be paid $1,000. Ben takes the job because he desperately needs the money. Ben also has a “paranormal” camera that he invented because he thinks this camera can take photos of ghosts.

The person whose mansion needs to be investigated for paranormal activity is a doctor named Gabbie (played by Rosario Dawson, in a capable but bland performance), who has moved from New York to New Orleans with her 9-year-old son Travis (played by Chase W. Dillon), who is intelligent, sensitive and a bit nerdy. Gabbie’s deceased mother used to own this mansion, which Gabbie and Travis found out was haunted on the first night that they both stayed there as residents. And where is Travis’ father? That information is revealed later in the story.

To Ben’s surprise, his paranormal camera works and takes a photo of the ghost at the mansion. An investigation reveals that the mansion, which was built in 1888, used to be owned by a wealthy man named William Gracey (played by J.R. Adduci), who bought the house for his ailing wife Eleanor Gracey (played by Erika Coleman). A psychic medium named Madame Leota (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and an affluent real-estate heir named Alistair Crump (played by Jared Leto), who both lived in New Orleans during that era, also factor into the story.

Alistair’s story is an obvious spoof commentary of Donald Trump’s story. It should come as no surprise to many viewers which character is the story’s villain. Leto appears in “Haunted Mansion” as a CGI ghost that looks like a tuxedo-wearing version of the Cryptkeeper from “Tales from the Crypt.” The Madame Leota character is trapped in a crystal ball, so only Madame Leota’s talking head is shown for most of Madame Leota’s screen time. It’s all very ho-hum horror.

Joining the investigation are a loudmouthed psychic/medium named Harriet (played by Tiffany Haddish) and a cranky professor of history named Bruce Davis (played by Danny DeVito), who is the most oddly placed character in the movie. Due to sloppy film editing and a jumbled screenplay, Bruce randomly shows up here and there and doesn’t do much but say things that often offend the other characters. There’s a scene where Bruce spends the night at the haunted mansion, with no good explanation for why he’s sleeping there.

“Haunted Mansion” is very deficient in character development. Almost all of the characters don’t have fully formed personalities, but are only playing “types.” Harriet sure likes to talk a lot (she’s the character with the most “product placement” lines), but by the end of the movie, there’s nothing interesting that has been revealed about Harriet. Travis is supposedly treated like an outcast by his student peers at school, based on what he tells people, but the movie never shows Travis in school. Father Kent has a secret that is so obvious and not surprising at all when it’s revealed. Ben is the only “Haunted Mansion” character who has something resembling a backstory, but it’s shown in fleeting clips.

As an example of how much the 2023 “Haunted Mansion” movie squanders the chance to bring some memorable flair to the story, the movie severely under-uses a sassy character named Vic (played by Dan Levy), who is a tour guide for the Crump mansion, which has been declared a historic landmark. Vic is in the movie for less than 10 minutes. There’s a scene where Vic is entertaining guests at the Crump mansion with a sing-along, but everything is only heard (not seen) in another room, for a brief moment that last less than 30 seconds.

It’s incredibly mind-boggling and foolish to waste the talents of Emmy-winning “Schitt’s Creek” star Levy by barely featuring him in the movie. The “Haunted Mansion” audience is teased with the fact that Levy’s Vic character is a music performer, but the movie never shows Vic actually being a music performer. Also very under-used is Winona Ryder, who has a quick cameo as another Crump mansion tour guide named Pat. Ryder’s screen time in “Haunted Mansion” is less than three minutes of uttering forgettable dialogue.

The blame for these bad decisions lies mostly with director Simien, whose previous films “Dear White People” and “Bad Hair” (he wrote and directed both movies) had elements of sharp satire that are absent from “Haunted Mansion,” which is admittedly a family-oriented movie. But even if “Haunted Mansion” is supposed to be a tame horror comedy that shouldn’t be too scary or too edgy for underage kids, Simien seems to have been worn down by the Disney corporate machine, to the point where “Haunted Mansion” has no spark or creative vision. Simien’s real-life amusing personality does not shine through in this generically directed movie. And that’s a shame, because the 2023 “Haunted Mansion” movie had the opportunity to be an instant classic.

Compared to the 2003 “Haunted Mansion” movie, the 2023 “Haunted Mansion” mansion movie benefits from better technology for more advanced visual effects. However, in the 20 years between the releases of the two “Haunted Mansion” movies, Disney has not offered a reboot with a better story than its predecessor. The 2023 “Haunted Mansion” film exists as a hollow promotional tool for the Disney amusement park ride and the companies that paid for the movie’s awkward and shameless product placements.

Walt Disney Pictures will released “Haunted Mansion” in U.S. cinemas on July 28, 2023.

Review: ‘Gone in the Night’ (2022), starring Winona Ryder

August 15, 2022

by Carla Hay

John Gallagher Jr. and Winona Ryder in “Gone in the Night” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Gone in the Night” (2022)

Directed by Eli Horowitz

Culture Representation: Taking place in Sonoma County, California, the dramatic film “Gone in the Night” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians and one African American) representing the working-class and middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman’s boyfriend abruptly disappears after they’ve rented a vacation cabin in a remote wooded area, and she tries to solve the mystery of what happened to him.

Culture Audience: “Gone in the Night” will appeal primarily to people who are fans of star Winona Ryder and don’t mind watching a dull, convoluted and insipid mystery.

Dermot Mulroney in “Gone in the Night” (Photo courtesy of Vertical Entertainment)

“Gone in the Night” is supposed to be a mystery thriller. But the only baffling mystery is how anyone involved in this tepid and messy dud of a movie thought that it was worth getting made. Winona Ryder fans, you’ve been warned. “Gone in the Night” is one of the worst movies she’s ever done. Not only is Ryder’s talent completely misused and squandered in this wasteland of a film, but all of the cast members are also stuck portraying hollow characters in a sluggish story with a moronic ending.

Directed by Eli Horowitz (who co-wrote the terrible “Gone in the Night” screenplay with Matthew Derby), “Gone in the Night” (originally titled “The Cow”) had its world premiere at the 2022 SXSW Film Festival in Austin, Texas. The change in the movie’s title is the only improvement made to this creatively bankrupt slog of a film, which has barely enough of a story to fill a short film. The reason why the original title was “The Cow” is explained in the last 15 minutes of the movie.

“Gone in the Night” is not a horror movie, although it might try to fool people that it is if you’ve seen some of the movie’s publicity images of Ryder in character, looking terrified with blood spatter on her face. The first third of the film takes place in that constant horror cliché: a house in an isolated wooded area. But don’t expect anything scary to happen in this cabin in the woods.

The monotony of “Gone in the Night” begins with an unmarried couple driving at night to said cabin in the woods, which is located in an unnamed city in Sonoma County, California. (“Gone in the Night” was filmed on location in Sonoma County.) Kath (played by Ryder) is introverted and cautious. Max (played by John Gallagher Jr.) is extroverted and a risk-taker. Their contrasting personalities are on display when they encounter a problem after arriving during the night at their rental cabin, which they got through an unnamed service that sounds like Airbnb.

Kath and Max find out that another couple got booked for the same cabin at the same time. And neither couple wants to leave. At first, Kath wants to leave, since she’s the only one in this couple who has a driver’s license. But then, Kath changes her mind because Max wants to stay, and Kath doesn’t want to drive at night.

The other couple at this cabin are Al (played by Owen Teague) and Greta (played by Brianne Tju), who are both in their 20s. Kath is in her early 50s, while Max is in his late 30s. Kath and Max have been dating each other for about one year, which is the same period of time that Al and Greta have been a couple. It’s mentioned later in the story that Kath (a continuing education teacher) met Max when he was a student in her hydroponics class.

Right from the beginning, it’s obvious that something is off-kilter about Al and Greta, who both wear matching green rain ponchos. Al is a little hostile about the booking mixup, but Greta convinces Al it would be okay to let Kath and Max temporarily stay in a spare room for the night. This is the part of the movie where things could get intriguing. Instead, “Gone in the Night” fizzles and never recovers.

“Gone in the Night” is so shoddily written, not much else is revealed about these two couples during the time that they spend together and have boring conversations. At one point, it’s mentioned that Al and Greta are in an unconventional relationship. Kath mentions that she tried being married once but she didn’t like it. The two couples find a board game called Pillow Talkers, which is supposed to encourage intimacy. Players of the game read cards that dare them to do something semi-erotic.

All it results in is a not-very-interesting scene where a card is read saying, “The elbow is an erogenous zone. Prove it.” And then, Greta licks and kisses Max’s elbow. Kath and Al watch with some discomfort, as Greta and Max mildly flirt and laugh with each other for the rest of the game. Kath eventually has enough and announces that she’s going to go to sleep.

The next day, Kath finds a distressed-looking Al in the woods. Al tells Kath, “They’re gone. Your fucking dude was groping my girlfriend … And they ran off.” And this is where “Gone in the Night” slides further into idiocy. Instead of looking for Max to find out for herself what’s going on with him, Kath goes back to the cabin and assumes that Max’s disappearance is his way of dumping her. She’s very nonchalant (and ignorant) about not caring to find out if what Al said is true.

Instead of finding out what happened, Kath just goes home and complains to her friend Laurel (played by Yvonne Senat Jones) that she’s better off without Max. “It felt like effort,” Kath says of dating Max. “I’m done with effort.” That also describes the “Gone in the Night” filmmakers’ attitude toward crafting a good story for this movie.

After not hearing from Max for a number of days, Kath finally gets an inkling that maybe something is really wrong with Max’s disappearance. Instead of using common sense and contacting Max’s family members and/or friends to find out where he is, Kath calls the owner of the cabin—57-year-old Nicholas Levi Barlow (played by Dermot Mulroney—to try and find out Greta’s address. It’s a dimwitted decision because there’s no guarantee that Max is with Greta at Greta’s address.

Kath’s lie is that Greta left a book behind in the cabin, and Kath wants to return the book to Greta. Its a badly thought-out-fabrication because Nicholas says he doesn’t want to violate Greta’s privacy by giving out her home address, so he offers to give the book to Greta if Kath will give the book to him. Caught in this lie, Kath then admits she wants Greta’s address because she heard that Greta and Max ran off together.

The movie gets even more ludicrous when Nicholas offers to help Kath play detective to find Greta and Max. The rest of “Gone in the Night” consists of embarrassingly dimwitted and tedious scenes of Nicholas and Kath snooping around and acting like stalkers until the full truth is revealed of what happened to Max and Greta. During this investigation, Nicholas crosses paths with a former business partner named Ramon (played by Alain Uy), who worked with Nicholas in a biotech start-up company.

There’s nothing remarkable about anything in “Gone in the Night,” which drags on and on until the movie’s witless ending. The last 15 minutes of the movie give the impression that screenwriters Horowitz and Derby weren’t quite sure how to end the story and rushed through some sloppy thoughts because they wanted to finish the screenplay by a certain time. All of the cast members look like they’re going through the motions. The only motions that viewers will feel compelled to take while watching “Gone in the Night” are falling asleep, or finding ways to endure watching this slow-moving train wreck until the bitter end.

Vertical Entertainment released “Gone in the Night” in select U.S. cinemas on July 15, 2022. The movie was released on digital and VOD on August 2, 2022.