The Harder They Fall Gave us something we’ve been in dire need of in Black Filmmaking.

I want to start with a quote from a 2014 interview with Chris Rock from The Hollywood Reporter ; “I think they’ve been better in the last few years, too — a little more daring, a little funnier. But look, most movies suck. Absolutely suck. They just do. Most TV shows suck. Most books suck. If most things were good, I’d make $15 an hour. I don’t live the way I live because most things are even remotely good. But when you have a system where you probably only see three movies with African-American leads in them a year, they’re going to be judged more harshly, and you’re really rooting for them to be good a little more so than the 140 movies starring white people every year.”. I start with this quote because it shaped my feelings around the latest Netflix offering from newcomer Jeymes Samuel “The Harder They Fall”. For about maybe the first fifteen minutes of the movie I found myself grading it by the standard of its peers, “Moonlight”, “Get Out”, “Widows” , “Miss Juneteenth” …Thing is those movies arent this movies peers. Its peers are films like Tombstone, The Quick and the Dead, and Posse, and Django Unchained. I bring this up because I believe its important that black movies be free of the shackles of having to be great. That they be allowed to be irreverent, experimental, and anything from pretty good to only decent to just dumb fun. The Harder They Fall, wasn’t about much, it featured some elements about black capitalistic behavior that could be easily construed as critique. There is a bit more potent conversation about generational trauma, the fruits of past sins, and true accountability, but none of those are strong enough, last long enough or are repeated enough to stick. What does stick when it comes to Jeymes Samuel's western are its images, it's music, it's performances, it's stylized action. The point of this movie is not necessarily in any political thrust, it's in the ability of its imagery in and of itself to conjure a certain power that revels in its blackness and the love of its predecessors in a genre that could use a good comeback into the mainstream, and this is what people who lean towards needing some sense of poignancy or political ideology, always end up tending not to like in certain directors, this stylized emptiness for them is too much, and that particular lack of connection to these kinds of stores I understand . I also do think there are certain kinds of movies that don't in any way seem to connect with him to any particular aspect or philosophical principle in any fully realized way, that still maintain a primal and visceral power in their constant and consistent use of imagery and language that appears on the surface to be superficial but finds a rather deep power in the beauty of “Cool”….See Tarantino.

Two movies immediately shot to my mind or rather one immediately sprang forth and the other one came more as an after thought. The first is of course 1993's “Tombstone”. George P. Cosmotos violent re-telling of the events that led up to and came after the Shootout of OK Corral, had as its kickstand a story of deep friendship and some interesting revisions around classical ideas of good and evil and righteousness, but Much like “The Harder They Fall, this isn't why you think of that movie, this isn't why we love that movie, that mostly extends from its ability to be a riveting, visually powerful yarn about the good guys and the bad guys, and that done through potent characterization and acting. The thing you connect with most in both of these movies is not story but character. It’s Ike Clanton ( Stephen Lang) Johnny Ringo (a bit of a wonderful departure for Michael Biehn) its Trudy Smith ( Regina King ) and Bass Reeves, (Delroy Lindo) these characters and the actors who breathe life into them are the driving force of the story along with its visual language. There are some very interesting parallels here as well, they are not one for one but they are nonetheless pieces of unconscious connections and bits that make you feel like one movie stood as a sort of antecedent for the other. There is not only the fact that between the sides the most interesting characters, the deepest bench per se comes from the bad guys ..That's somewhat par the course, but there's also how these bad guys act, and what they represent. Though Idris Elba's Rufus Buck has a lot more of a motivational impetus then Powers Boothe's William Brocious who is much more of a sort of agent of chaos flying by the seat of his pants - both of them bring a similar sort of sly charisma to some extremely dark deeds that calls back again other people that preceeded even them like Jack Palance in “Shane”. The gun slinging rivalry between RJ Cyler's Jim Beckworth and LaKeith Stansfield's Cherokee Bill bares some commonalities with that of Doc Holiday and Johnny Ringo. Though executed differently there is for instance a similar sort of setup and method for both Beckworth and Ringo in the not necessarily non confrontational, but non combative reaction they get from their rival upon first meeting. Ringo in the infamous “tin-cup” scene, Beckworth in the middle of town, when Cherokee Bill walks away. Though tombstone was obviously more factual in that it does stick to and keep to the events as they unfolded, it does take a lot of dramatic license and plays a little fast and loose with the facts. Buy, it was the usage of real historical figures to non historical ends that reminded me so much of Tarantino's “Inglorious Bastards” . It's not only the use of an incredible dramatic license to unjail the story of real players in history, from their actual history and push it to a more satisfying bloody and wildly violent end, There were stories and visual parallels there. For instance you have the marking of the forehead, and inversion of the normally accepted connotation of the symbology. In this case the swastika becomes righteous, the cross vile. Story-wise you have two stories that begin with a childhood trauma, both openings a bit of a slow burn before we get to wanton violence, which set up a tale of revenge. The build up of certain moments whether in the opening, or later on with the “bear jew” or Rufus Bucks town beating of Wiley Escoe (Deon Cole) show similar taste for for power of anticipation and stern faced violence. Ultimately though, what stands out on all these movies is the way they make style substance. Still images hold power, they commute messages, and speak to us unconsciously. So too for moving images, and great performances, they hold power, commute messages, and speak to us unconsciously, and it’s perfectly okay for those images to be smuggled in a vehicle that is more than anything else a good time.

This is my main take away from the film. In an era and especially a year now where we have seen in multiple films featuring mainly if not all black cast the failure and in some cases catastrophic ( Two Distant Strangers anyone?) of some of these films to get across what they wanted to get across because of an insistence on a thrust especially in this particular time and Zeitgeist - of messaging towards racial politics from Queen and Slim to the most recent re-telling of Candyman, I think it's important to acknowledge a feeling and experience that “The Harder They Fall has given us exactly what we've been asking for and needed in this time as these stories have worn and grated on us with consequences I think beyond just disappointment. The Harder They Fall is a welcome reprieve from that, it's ultimately more than anything else a popcorn movie where we can sit back and just watch a bunch of talented people from the director to the musicians involved in some of the music, to the actors, spin us a good old fashioned yarn involving some historical figures that many of us knew very little about but not tied to telling that deep dark and sometimes difficult history. Rather, just taking them and giving us a wild good time. Its allowing us to enjoy that freedom of just seeing great black characters on screen interacting with each other on screen for no other reason then propel a tried and true story about good and evil, the guys in the white hats and the guys and the black hats, in one of the most popular and in recent years underused genres of film. We may very well be in our 4th iteration of a sort of black Renaissance on film, and hopefully this is one that actually sticks, but something that its frequently lost in these Renaissance's most especially from a historical perspective is all of the movies that were made in these times that were just meant to be a good time that we're just meant to be potent forms of entertainment not lazily constructed bits of profiteering, but good times. Sure there was “Coolie High” and “The Learning Tree” in Blaxploitation, but there was also “Let’s do it Again” and “Three the Hard Way”. Sure there was “Menace to Society” and “Boyz in the Hood”, but there was also “The Inkwell” and “Friday”. Black people could use a “Neverending Story” or “The Goonies”, every bit as much as a “Daughters of the Dust” or “To Sleep with Anger” . It's not important we all like these movies but it is important that we don't get into the trap of value hierarchy's and creating genre ghettos, where certain types of films that provide certain experiences are dismissed off hand in favor of others. That to me is the importance of the harder they fall and subsequently the importance of so far the good cheer and love the film has received from our community. It leads me back to the Chris Rock quote. it's very important that we continue to make space for those movies even even if we don't necessarily celebrate them all. That we allow and continue to push Hollywood to believe that there are wider spaces for black entertainment than just that that relies upon our socio realities and it is for that, that I’m grateful to see a film like Jeymes Samuel's and hope it’s a beacon for others to create experiences similar to it.

Ava DuVernay's "When They See Us" is a Masterclass in How to Depict Racists On Screen.

Historically, racism as a subject matter in film and Television has been handled poorly, mostly because racism in our country has been handled so poorly. I think most films on the subject are rote, basic, overly simplistic in their discourse, and in their perspective regarding the large scale implications, and harm, the practice does to a nation and a people as well as to the individual. This is largely because they disconnect the personal from the systemic. What Ava has done so well in her latest addition to Netflix is create a deeply moving, engaging narrative string theory that connects the personal directly to the systemic in a way that doesn't devolve either. By doing so she avoids the caricaturization of racism and its proponents common in film and television of this nature made by other creators (mostly white folk). These efforts by other directors like the Farrelly brother's “The Green Book” whittle down the insidiousness of white supremacy to the work of a couple or a few choice villains rather than a collective effort by a vast spectrum of personalities with varying motivations. This reduction so popular in history books films or series written, helmed and created by white folk commits two sins: it A. allows the actual full breadth and harm of white supremacy to crawl under the legs of these manufactured cartoons and out the back door, and B. Creates poor boring characters ( I SWEAR I BARELY even recall Sam Rockwell’s character in “Three Billboards” for this exact reason, he’s a very well drawn character…for a cartoon). The effect? It creates no call to action, and saves white people from embarrassment and accountability. In a cartoon if a boulder falls on said villain Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner is safe until the next time his death is plotted by Wile E, who has no rhyme no reason to his desire for harm other than the simplified explanation that it is simply in his nature to be so. we gain nothing from this other than the entertainment. In a fashion this has been the way our very real pain, trauma, harm, and hurt has been historically portrayed on screen by whites. A garish cartoon where we watch oppression play out in a variety of schemes by one perpetrator, who is eventually quelled, until the next episode, purely for our entertainment. …

What really stood out to me upon doing or taking an inventory of what moved me so much about the story being told in “When They See Us” was not only Ava's execution in showing micro and macro cause and effect in systemic oppression, but her understanding of these functions and expressions as more than just racism as a motivation in and of itself. It is a body to head one two punch that knocks the audience off its feet and into recovery mode well after the credits run. The character that best embodies just how well and deeply Ava understands these processes and the people in them is Linda Fairstein. Now in order to properly frame what Ava is doing, and how much better it's done, both from a filmmaking and philosophical standpoint I feel I have to show someone who doesn't do it well..the aforementioned Sam Rockwell characterJason Dixon in Martin Mcdonagh's “The Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri".

Now On Digital: http://bit.ly/ThreeBillboardsDigitial Now On Blu-ray & DVD: http://bit.ly/Get3Billboards THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comedic drama from Academy Award® winner Martin McDonagh (IN BRUGES).

I think it's important to note the difference in the introductions of each of these characters and how they align to show the differences in approach. Rockwell's character in the three billboards is alone when we first meet him and his racism is made evident from the very beginning. Two things are being established here 1 he is alone in his racism, which in turn reinforces the childish, (But safe for white people) idea that racism is an individual problem. 2. That this is the beginning of his arc because it is where he starts, so that we are being set up for him to either grow or get his, the former rather insidious because it not only seeks to have us empathize or rather understand his motivations, but to identify with them. Not only that, but from the very beginning the light in which his racism is shown is not taken tonally serious at all. It is again an example of racism played for laughs that completely ignores the widespread ramifications of this mans cruelty, it's not funny. I'm not one of those that thinks that you can't make fun of, or have a laugh at the expense of racist or racism (sometimes its all you can do) but I think that that line is very fine and that the jokes have to come as offerings of levity from a stance that makes clear its depravity systemically as well as interpersonally. For a better example of this kind of line being drawn one can look to the 1999 film “Life” starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence....

Clip from "Life" starring Eddie Murphy and Martin Lawrence

The scene from Life is clearly from the perspective of those offended, this is in essence what they see. Throughout the movie it makes clear not only the harm to these two men, but black men all over (Interestingly enough both Life and When they see us are about a cruel and injust system that railroads black bodies into dehumanizing life in prison) and the result is a movie that both makes us laugh and cry at the injustice we have endured and prevailed over in our long suffering here on this most desperate island of eternal hope and damnation. Meanwhile back over at the three billboards, when black people are there, and in the vicinity of Rockwell’s or anyone else’s racism the scene is seen from the perspective of the offender, and is drawn to connect us with his point of view. The presence of its black citizens are barely made known, much less any examination of what the effects of a clearly racist police force has had on it's denizen’s. In concert with the centralization of the arc of its very racist cop, it serves the doubly troublesome effect of humanizing (not necessarily harmful in and of itself ) its racist character, and dehumanizing his victims.

Its really hard to find a scene in “The Three Billboards of Ebbing Missouri” that reckons with race in a meaningful way, because its pretty hard to find black people in it from whose point of view we can see it.

Having seen what a bad introduction to a character looks like, what a poorly emphasized arc to a bad character looks like, and subsequently what a poor political stance on a character looks like, we can now see what it looks like when it's done right in Ava's “When They See Us”. The introduction to Linda Fairstein for starters, whom bares a light but superficial resemblance to Rockwell’s Jason Dixon, yet, as vile as Fairstein is, her racism is not cartoonish nor two dimensional. It does not function on auto pilot, or unilaterally without consultation with her ambitions and her sense of justice which acts as a front man for her gross prejudices.

Ava and co writers go beyond platitudes, to create a character whose evil is propelled by layered and multi-dimensional motivations and objectives. It is made implicitly clear if not at time explicitly that in her own mind she is merely seeking justice, and yes maybe she is ambitious an what is wrong with that?” is something she may ask herself when she feels morally compromised. The answer is of course racism . The strength of this depiction lies in the the abilities of Felicity Huffman, and in the storytelling that allows for the cohabitation of her motivations, objectives, and desires along with racism without absolution. Objective, and the selective being seen, being made visible. The first of these objectives is made clear when she finds she body, and subsequently when she doubles down after finding out the timeline doesn't match. As our into is being made this is a woman on the trail of justice, for the bodily, and psychological harm done to another woman. The other quality turned vice (ambition) is in previewed in a scene that declares her rivalry as a prosecutor with another woman. What can be easily implied from that scene alone are the stakes, for her career, what this win means for her outside the context of her prejudice and hate. The racism does not spring from these it meets with them, takes them out to dinner, connects with and then deploys them. When compared to Three Billboard’s Dixon, her arc is inverted. We see at the beginning that she has some semblance remaining humanity, but unlike Dixon the arc does not go upward to then redeem her, and politely sermonize its audience. As the series moves along her humanity is devolving, and the facade of decency crumbling. Fairstein, unlike Dixon is also not alone. She has dozens of people working in concert with her to put these children away. Soldiers in a war on black people and children, and the generational effect of this war is evident in characters like Bobby McCray played with crushing vulnerability by Michael K Williams in a gut wrenching scene between father and son.

Uploaded by SCENE Tv SERIES on 2019-05-31.

The complexity of the tangled web woven by racism trickles right down in the portrayal of even minor characters. Each and every character’s mistake is not simply in service to a plot, and if there is a plot the plot is racism. When they See Us has the facts of the case and yet it still doesn’t move its characters along like chess pieces towards a inevitable destination. Ava as a storyteller gives us the feeling they’re walking there all on their own. The antagonist in her story are not alone, they are legion. They do not simply act and behave as racist because the script tells them to, they have undergirding motives, which makes the racism all that much more real, thicker, heavier in a way that sticks to your bones. When District Attorney Elizabeth Lederer continues along with these convictions there is tension, there is anxiety, and subsequently choice. The purpose of showing Lederer’s tension about the decision in a lesser directors hands would’ve been either to exonerate her or to convict her in the minds of the audience. It is neither here in Ava hands, it is part of the moral complexity of the roles of Individual inaction, self delusion, ambition, and ultimately choice in a racist system. Thusly the overall point being made here is racism as something that eats away at humanity, and individually at our humanity, so that it cannot be eradicated simply by wagging a finger at the Fairstein’s of the world. Ava makes the most reasoned of arguments for either systemic reform or abolishment of the entire enterprise of prison and policing, not by presenting just the facts in a male oriented fashion , but by emotional straight talk that indicts the idea any of it involves reason or logic at all. Almost every decision both the pure and the corrupt , can be broken down to the emotional, and the personal, and thus acts as the driver for systemic. I just don’t think there are many folk behind the camera who could do with this what Ava did, and the ones who have are black (McQueen 12 years a Slave”, Rees “Mudbound”) so let’s take that in for a moment… and please by all means possible watch “When they see us”. It informs us , educates us, indicts others, holds us accountable, exhausts, and hurts us in its narrative integrity, and power.. all the ways in which racism should.

YOU....It's Complicated.

If I were to describe my feelings while watching Lifetime’s “YOU”, (now on Netflix) I would say it's complicated.  Which I think would be fitting as a description for the narrative of this show,  as well as a description of the show as a whole.  Not since my days of watching soap operas have so many feelings and emotions been stirred up about characters, plot lines, and cliffhangers. Rightfully so, the show about an imbalanced,  murderous stalker,  who believes he's found the love of his life, slowly unravels over its episodes - truths about our main character, the woman at the center of his current affection, (Beck, as played by Elizabeth Lail) and the people in her life, in much of the same way as a soap opera. Using many of the same devices, just with additional depth.   Introducing us - quite cleverly - to a world where nothing is as it seems.  Complexity wrapped in aesthetic pleasure is one of the show's strong suits. If there's a weak point or week points to this show, it's in its favoring of a good reveal to great storytelling and in that very complexity of storytelling.  Much of which lies within our antagonist Penn Badgley because you are walking a fine line creating a character who is attractive, sexy, charming, intelligent and caring while at the same time being completely manipulative, violent and dangerous.  I personally consider walking the fine line between portraying evil and danger as glaringly obvious, and full of distinctive qualities we associate with our own societal phobias and able-ism - and glorifying it - one of the most difficult tight rope walks in narrative. Much of that difficulty lies in the sway charm and attractiveness holds over most of us in society. I for one can ignore an awful lot when there is a pretty face attached to it, if that face is also backed by charm and magnetism well then it’s very hard to be objective about what may be right in front of my face. In a glass half full, glass half empty dichotomy, attractive qualities have the ability to swing the pendulum towards half full on a regular basis so that whatever rain may appear on the horizon is sure to have a rainbow. Joe is the epitome of this, and when “YOU” is at its best and its worst, it’s when Joe is in peak form. Joe like any good devil , does not just deal in lies, and he is not simply a liar, or an abuser, or an stalker and a creep. The Devil does not make up your wants and needs and give them to you, although that can also be so, he takes advantage of your real ones. He doesn’t come to you pitchfork in hand, teeth bared, tail sweeping at the floor, he comes bearing gifts, and words of encouragement , stroking at your ego. Joe’s affection for Beck in my mind is a product of his narcissism which allows him to conflate obsession with love, his desire to have a human pet, with Beck’s need of him - but he accurately assesses Beck’s issues, and he is good at playing the role of caretaker. This is a fine line, but I think indicative of a harsh reality of human interaction. That being that being a monster is firmly within the spectrum of humanity. YOU’s depiction of Joe mostly does this astonishingly well.

  The show muddy’s the line even further by making Beck such an unsympathetic character. Beck is messy, she is needy, narcissistic herself and can gaslight with the best of them. Which leads to another another harsh reality…not everybody that dies or is murdered is sympathetic as a person. I recall multiple occasions upon which while watching some true crime television show like “Dateline mysteries,” conversations in my family assessing whether or not the victims were truly an “angel” in real life, because it was so oft- said. A morbid fascination that soon led me to wonder why it was necessary to say. Are our views of right and wrong so fragile that merely hearing that a person was a dick in life makes them less sympathetic as a victim of such heinous crimes? If our judicial system is any indication the answer is yes. This I believe is somewhere along the spectrum of platitudes like “Don't speak ill of the dead” except with the misplaced concern in reverse. One overly concerned with the victim in life, the other usually overly concerned with murderers and abusers in death. But here's the tea, sometimes complete assholes are murdered too, sometimes minutes before someone is cut from the fabric of existence, they are mid stroke into being an unconscionable idiot, or mean, or cruel. It's sympathetic that they died because no one deserves to die because they're an asshole, or because they're not a nice person, or because they are messy as fuck.  But that does not mean that they were nice or good or angelic while they were alive.  Beck shouldn't have to be a perfect girl, for us to sympathize with her over a petty, self congratulating murderer, but here we are.

The point for me when the show (Im guessing the book also) crosses the line is when it made narrative punch decisions like having Beck’s friend Peach Salinger (yes.. Peach Salinger) be a stalker in her own right. It’s not necessary. Never mind that both Peach Salinger and subsequently Shay Mitchell’s performance as Peach is one of the best parts of the show, but narratively it teeters a complex, but fun drama too much towards fun, and in the doing puts too many psycho’s in Beck’s kitchen, while ethically softening the blow of Joe’s toxicity, narratively backing his claim as protector. This when the story would have been better served by having Peach be manipulative, and cruel, but not wiling to kill, or a obsessive, making Joe’s claims just what they would be in most any real life case, exaggerated proclamations meant to bolster his own idea of self, as well a his role in Beck’s life.

Since the advent of social media, that particular mode of human interaction has played an increasingly large role in our dating and friendship circles for better and for worse.  The ways that YOU connects them at all these interesting intersections without taking away from the narrative, in effect, adding punch to the narrative is astounding.  It’s ability to capture, but not preach the fragility of friendship as contextualized in the modern age is magnificent. To acutely arrive where social media leaves us all feeling less than is handled masterfully in the arc of Peach Salinger. Peach acting as an avatar, quietly providing us with a twinge of jealousy for our friends successes, and a pinch of happiness in their failures. Beck’s friend Annika as the more obvious commentary on the nature of the surrogate self that we project into society through the avatars we use in social media, represented in her vile racism uncovered through the very same medium she used to disguise it. And finally the ways that social media can help us find connection or make us targets, or allow us to target others in ways previously not available. It’s ability to help us find the truth or make it even all the more illusive. The distorted reality of Peach Salinger, the covert racism of Annika - which Joe uses to manipulate Beck, the ways in which social media drove Joe crazy about Beck, but also allowed Beck to gaslight Joe. The ways in which it enables Joe and to isolate Beck, (typical of behavior for abusers) and in which Peach uses it to manipulate just about all of her friends. The show did this in a myriad of ways , both subversively and true to form.

“YOU” is a very complicated show about male toxicity, that doesn’t make it simple for the anyone else. It complicates its relationships, and leaves just about everyone from Beck to even a young abused boy as some version of complicit in its devilry. Just about everyone is a mess, and just about everyone is harboring ugly secrets, that they are willing to harm others to hide. If there is any person on this show remotely innocent, it is Karen, the only person in a non toxic relationship, being exactly who she is, confident in who she is with a keen moral compass. Outside of her, just about everybody in the show is at one time or another somewhere on the spectrum of messy to evil.  Joe being at the very top of the list, on the very far wrong side of the spectrum.  Overall, I admire “YOU” for being a show, willing to dive and tap into these grey areas of relationships and the complications involved. Brilliant because it dares to take the risk of walking some very fine lines to point a mirror in the audiences direction. To make us look at our own obsession with aesthetics. With what things look like rather than what they are. I didn't always agree with the narrative choices, and I'm still not sure about making a killer THAT charming, but do think its too easy to lay all the blame at the feat of the narrative for our own willingness to overlook Joe’s murderous machinations because he’s good looking charming, and like a dead clock every once in awhile lands on the right thing to do. I think the show is convenient scapegoat for our own falibility in the value we place around these aesthetics which is more responsible than anything for social media’s own peculiar but understandable reaction to Joe as a sympathetic character. I prefer making a killer charming, to the overdone trope of the killer who everyone recognizes is a killer, because that's not the way it works in real life either.  There are very few predators in this world that function by letting everyone know that they are predator. In the animal kingdom, a great deal of them have various and very distinct ways of fooling their prey or placing them in a state of ease so that they are unprepared for the attack.  With human interaction and all of the complex variables that come with it, I think it's important in any narrative medium, whether it be TV, literature, or film to discuss these topics and these interactions with exactly the amount of complication that is involved with their reality in as much as any of those mediums can. With “YOU”, I think we have as excellent a show as can be in laying bare those lines (considering that it's also meant to be entertaining) and that is always going to dirty or muddy the water just a little bit. What you does so well, so brilliantly is make clear to us that when it comes to finding the right one,  or avoiding the wrong ones...in general …it's complicated.  

THE HAUNTING OF HILL HOUSE: HEART, SCARES, AND THE TRAUMA OF NOT BEING HEARD.

The experience of watching Netflix’s latest – an adaptation of Shirley jackson’s legendary Gothic horror classic The haunting of hill house –  beyond being a wonderful horror series that anchors itself in emotional pull just as much as it does terror – is also one of a fantastic exploration into the terrifying nature and experience of not being heard.  One I have directly experienced, and one many of and especially especially those of us who live within the margins have experienced first hand.  That fear and that terror that took up residence in my being over that very lonely couple of weeks some time ago,  where literally nothing I said mattered,  where no one listened, and because no one was listening,  that maybe it didn’t matter,  or that maybe I didn’t matter.  The blackness it descends one into,  the trauma that extends from that particular kind of invisibility,  the loss of hope,  and of confidence.  The residual damage that follows from person after person either gas lighting you, condescending to you,  or infantilizing you. This was the power of Hill House to me.   Repeatedly we are shown characters doing one or two or all three of these things to another in order to pacify them,  or to deny a truth they themselves don’t want to face. We see the subsequent effects of it,  the reopening of old wounds,  emotional lockdowns,  or breakdowns,  and ultimately the eventual loss in some cases. And we are reminded of our experiences and it’s both enraging and terrifying.

Using ghost and ghouls as avatars The Haunting of Hill House paints a very clear picture of the weight of shame,  guilt,  and the secrets and lies that spring forth from them as protections from facing what we fear most,  what on some level we don’t think we’re prepared to see,  or from disrupting what we think we know.  It’s a constant and oft repeated theme in the show from one siblings refusal to acknowledge another’s preternatural or supernatural abilities,  to another’s denial of the inciting incident of the entire series.  It’s in a pivotal sequence where one sibling hears but doesn’t listen to a young girl who tries to explain to her a horrifying secret which she misses because she’s too busy trying to explain it away instead of really listening.  The holes these things leave,  the continued abuse it might allow,  the harm it causes to the Crain family –  who are just as decrepit, in disrepair, and disintegrating every bit as much as the house they once occupied –  makes for maybe this shows most frequently disturbing images which is saying a lot because there is a plethora of terrifying and disturbing images in this show.

The Haunting of Hill House is not one of those shows or films that can be described as not particularly scary,  but packing a wallop when it comes to it’s intensity,  and suspense.  No…This is an old fashioned ghost story, the kind that puts your head on a swivel in the dark,  the kind that asks you to take a small break and allow your eyes to imbibe something flowery and light after, the kind where you’re sitting by the camp fire and a chill begins to sink into your bones, despite the fact that you are sitting next to fire.  Your fear so laser focused that the heat from it now boils your nerves, and the storyteller now instinctively realizing that your focus is now singularly narrow (and thus properly prepared)  that they can literally make any form of misdirection,  or movement and cause you the audience to pop and instantaneously move from out of your seat.  It’s a fear rooted in identifying and relating to these expertly drawn characters.  Seeing so much of ourselves within them that we begin to see their journey as our own.  So that when they are scared, we are scared,  and when they jump,  we jump.  This in particular is not atypical to the genre –  especially if it’s a well done member of the genre – what is atpical though, is the level of execution.  Whether on TV or film, as is the case in almost any genre, but especially ( I believe) in horror, there’s always some character who is not as well drawn as the others someone who seems two dimensional,  who is difficult to understand,  whose motivations may be paper thin.  For example, in hereditary (one of my favourite films of this year) Gabriel Byrne’s character I never quite figured out (which admittedly could just mean it flew over my head)  I understood his preliminary motivations sure, and to some small extent what drive his insipid silence,  but beyond that he seemed to be much less deep, much more superficial than Toni Collete’s beleaguered Annie Graham, or Alex Wolff’s moody Peter Graham,   and that household was just three members deep.  Hill house has no such issues. Every single member of the Crain family is so well drawn out,  so well defined, so crystal clear in both their conscious and unconscious motivations. that it hands this show a depth and weight I don’t know that i’ve really ever seen in the genre – especially again in a show that is this jam packed with actual frights and scares.   I don’t claim to be a horror expert, and while I’ve watched a lot of horror films, I don’t think of myself as necessarily academic in the field.   So I can’t claim the kind of confidence to make this feeling to be in stone, but out of the number of horror films that I have laid my eyes upon, (Which is quite a number)  this is unlike any other.

Flanagan and the writers have really kind of set the bar for the genre, especially as it pertains to TV and long form television in particular.  Through these family members, and their stories – each told with a level of understanding into not only what motivates,  and drives them, but a gift or unique skill for storytelling even amongst actors by actors like Gugino, Hutton, Gish, and Siegel, – we explore trauma and memories and the way they shift and distort our perspective.  Twisting and gnarling it so. that we can’t even see even what is directly in front of our eyes.  It’s a show that finds heart in horror,  terror to make us lose heart, and horror to find heart again.  A masterpiece of television now on Netflix.

On October 12th, you're expected. The Haunting of Hill House is a modern reimagining of the iconic novel, about 5 siblings who grew up in the most famous haunted house in America.

APOSTLE: NETFLIX'S LATEST REALLY HOLDS THE DARK.

You ever just know a movie is for you?  You watch a few images flash before your eyes and all but know for a scientific fact you're gonna love this film or television show?  This was pretty much the case from the first trailer for Netflix's "Apostle".   I was sold that this movie was going to be one that would engrave itself into my psyche, and it didn't disappoint.  An unnerving, spellbinding, violent,  knot turning in your stomach kind of suspense horror thriller,  that doesn't let go once it gas you in its grip - the film is as unforgiving as it is visually arresting.  Our story begins with the troubled Richardson family and more specifically a brother Thomas (Dan Stevens)  sent off to rescue and bring back his kidnapped  sister from a cult holding her for ransom.  What ensues from there on is the tale of a man who will slowly become reinvigorated with the idea of connecting back with the one tie he has to this world,  and thusly back to the world and eventually his faith but only after confronting the darkness corroding the town from within.  Though the film comes off at first as an attack on faith and religion on the whole rather than fanaticism it is not.  There are very clear signs that this is in fact a film about faith, and maintaining it when surrounded by men and women who have either forgotten, or perverted it's central tenets.  But those are not central to the experience of Apostle as much as they are subtext.   What anyone going into this movie needs to know is that it taxes the hell out of the  senses - through imagery, gore and suspense.  Medieval torture devices,  camera angles,  and brutal depictions of torture and murder are deployed to maximum effect for mood and tone corroborating with the greater themes of the film.  And it can be exhausting though never gratuitous,  and plenty exhilarating while also grating the nerves.

 What tells me that I love this movie is not the fact that I ignored many of its possible flaws, but that I just didn't notice them at all, at least not in this first viewing.  One thing I don't want to lose as a movie viewer, and even as a critic, is that ability to want to enjoy a movie and not necessarily to approach the experience from a sort of clinical position where I am simply looking for what it isn't doing, or how well it adheres to film theory.  I want to first just enjoy it on the level of being a person that enjoys movies,  as a patron who just wants to be taken on a ride.  For me, that is exactly what I got from Gareth Evans dark grisly fable.  I was thrilled,  put on the edge of my seat,  treated to white knuckle tension, gifted characters that I could relate to on some level, but more importantly, characters driven by marvelously committed actors that I didn't have to like to want them to win, or to root for them or hate them.   By the end, when the final events started to unfold, I noticed my shoulders dropping,  the air leaving my chest, the tension held for what seemed like nearly the entirety of the film being relieved, and I noticed how invested I was in the action unfolding before me because of the way my legs shifted,  fidgeting about.  The way my heart dropped in certain parts of the movie where it seemed that the cruelty was unrelenting informed me, I was immersed,  told me I was being engrossed,  and enthralled.

In these dark times I'm not one of these people that wants to be treated to something that makes me feel better, that assures me of my safety, and reminds me of good, I think I naturally have that buffer within.  I like being reminded of just how bad it can get, just how unjust the world can be, how unflinching.   A movie like the apostle is a great reminder, because it keeps a person with my natural temperament  vigilant,  sharp.   I don't think I have to recommend it for everybody but I do recommend it for those that always leaned a bit towards the dark side of themselves, who enjoy the tension and release horror gives maybe even on some masochistic level,  if only but to keep the guard there and keep the dark at bay.

The promise of the divine is but an illusion. From Gareth Evans, writer and director of The Raid franchise, comes Apostle. A Netflix film starring Dan Stevens and Michael Sheen - premieres October 12.