Sunday, December 31, 2023

Top Ten Films of 2023

2023 - a tumultuous year that will likely be remembered as an oasis of calm once we get into the sheer hell a presidential election brings. Seriously, if someone came up with a system to cast an absentee ballot now and then sleep for the next twelve months, they would make a fortune. But there will be plenty of time to talk about next year when it's over, assuming any of us are still alive. In the meantime, it's time to talk about this year's movies.

Hollywood's in a bit of a catastrophic mood thanks to a combination of a few high-profile labor strikes and quite a few high profile box office bombs. I can't blame them for being upset about the former, but the lessons from the latter are pretty clear. It's true that the superhero genre is on the verge of total burnout, but all that means is that it just becomes one of many genres instead of the dominant one. They won't make a fortune simply by existing anymore, but the great ones will still bring in the crowds (see no. 4). The "Barbenheimer" phenomenon was about as clear a demonstration you could ask for that people are eager for something they haven't seen before. Barbie was the highest-grossing movie of the year, while Oppenheimer made way more money than your typical three hour biopic about a famous scientist. It also helps that unlike your typical bloated Marvel movie, those films didn't need to make the equivalent of a small country's GDP in order to break even (but they did anyway!).

There are a lot of other smaller successes out there when you start looking for them. But box office isn't a qualification to get on this list, so let's get to the favorites.

10. Oppenheimer
Oh, speak of the devil. That may have multiple meanings depending on how you feel about the sweeping, larger than life story of Robert Oppenheimer (Cillian Murphy), the physicist who led the project that developed the first atomic bomb. Upon hearing that the Nazis are working on an atomic weapon, Oppenheimer is recruited and whole town is built from the ground up in New Mexico to accommodate the massive endeavor. Germany is defeated before the bomb is ready, but the United States government decides to use it on Japan instead, in what may be history’s most lethal example of the sunk cost fallacy. Upon realizing that the military will keep pushing for bigger and more destructive weapons, Oppenheimer ruffles feathers by speaking against the Cold War arms race and his reputation comes under siege during the Red Scare. 

It’s a huge movie with a lot of material to grapple with, although despite the gravitas it feels unwilling to confront the true horror of what the bombs did to Japan. Oppenheimer surely knows full well, but his true feelings about it all are difficult to parse. His inner conflict and contradictions are also those of America, and both have to face the truth about their role in advancing science that could destroy humanity. Nolan uses a non-linear structure (like the dream layers in Inception) but retains impressive clarity, cutting between the story of the bomb’s creation, Oppenheimer’s ordeal while questioned about his loyalty to America, and a Senate hearing in the late 1950s where the whole affair would be re-litigated. Robert Downey, Jr gives one of his best performances as the vindictive bureaucrat Lewis Strauss and Matt Damon steals scenes as General Leslie Groves, but most of the enormous ensemble cast gets a chance to shine, including Emily Blunt as Kitty Oppenheimer, Florence Pugh as Jean Tatlock, David Krumholtz as Isidor Rabi, Rami Malek as David Hill, Tom Conti as Albert Einstein, Gary Oldman as President Harry Truman, and many more.

9. Anatomy of a Fall
The courtroom drama of this film is really just a backdrop for an intense story about marriage and family. The popular writer Sandra Voyter (a complex performance from Sandra Huller) becomes the prime suspect when her husband (Samuel Theis) suddenly falls to his death. The police can’t rule out foul play and the only witness is the couple’s blind son (Milo Graner), who is put through an emotional wringer by the trial. Every ugly detail of Sandra’s marriage is publicized and dissected, including the centerpiece of the film - an escalating ten minute argument that was surreptitiously recorded. It’s one of those movies that feels intellectual and distant at first until you get to the third act and realize that you’re totally wrapped up in it thanks to the superb acting all around (even the dog gives a great performance) and memorable details. Just before his death, the husband was listening to a reggae instrumental cover of 50 Cent’s “P.I.M.P.”

8. The Boy and the Heron
This was an astounding year for animation, maybe the best in all the years I've been making these lists. It was so good that the beautiful Hayao Miyazaki movie was somehow only my third-favorite animated film of the year. It's said to be the last film from the world’s most renowned animator, although one could be forgiven for skepticism given how many times Miyazaki announced his retirement only to be drawn back to the craft he has so thoroughly mastered. 

A young boy named Mahito loses his mother during a World War II bombing and moves to the countryside with his father and his aunt Natsuko. The home is in proximity to a mysterious tower housing a strange alternate world, and when Natsuko vanishes, Mahito forms a contentious partnership with a rude talking heron. The artistry is magnificent, with impossibly beautiful animation and another gorgeous musical score from longtime collaborator Joe Hisaishi, but the surreal storyline is all a vehicle for Miyazaki to make a deeply personal statement about aging, the value of creation, and putting your faith in the next generation. The original Japanese title, “How Do You Live?” is a better match for the themes.

7. May December
Julianne Moore plays Gracie, a character inspired by Mary Kay Letourneau, a woman who was jailed for an affair with a middle-school student only to marry him after her release. Gracie’s story has inspired a movie, so the actress Elizabeth Berry (Natalie Portman) decides to spend some time with her and her husband (Charles Melton) for the sake of her performance. At first glance it seems like a typical suburban household but there is a lot of regret and denial under the surface and the fragile dynamic is upset by the presence of someone new. Moore and Portman are very good, but the standout performance is given by Melton, who becomes the poster child for stolen innocence. There’s a lot going on with this movie - Todd Haynes mines maximum discomfort out of this lightning rod subject matter while also adding some amusing commentary on how tawdry a lot of these “ripped from the headlines” films are despite the high-minded claims of the cast and crew. It’s a movie for movie buffs, in other words, but gripping enough for anyone.

6. When Evil Lurks
Demian Rugna, the director of the knockout horror movie Terrified (not to be confused with the Terrifier films) returned with a relentless, gorgeous, incredibly grim horror film with the most original take on demonic possession in decades. Deep in rural Argentina, two brothers (Ezequiel Rodriguez and Demian Salomon) learn that one of their neighbors has become a “rotten,” a person used as an incubator for some demonic figure. They try to deal with the issue themselves without using the proper rites of exorcism and almost immediately, an evil force spreads mercilessly like a contagion. 

The first half is disorienting as the film is slow to reveal details about its quietly post-apocalyptic setting as the viewers are hit with one brutal setpiece after another, all rendered with terrific gore effects. While the supernatural plotline stands on its own, there’s something real and disquieting about how appropriate it feels for its era. You will feel intense frustration at how these characters act impulsively and make catastrophic decisions, ignoring the advice of experts, in a way that is all too reminiscent of the various traumas of the 2020s.

5. Killers of the Flower Moon
A complex, gargantuan retelling of a shameful episode in American history. In the early 1900s, the native Osage people of Oklahoma discovered oil on their land and became some of the wealthiest people on Earth (although an insulting government bureaucracy controlled access to the money). Years later, the dim-witted Ernest Burkhart (Leonardo DiCaprio) returns from World War I to work for his uncle William “King” Hale (Robert DeNiro), who pretends to be a friend of the Osage but actually has a heinous plot to steal their wealth. At the suggestion of his uncle, Ernest marries Mollie Kyle (a breakout performance by Lily Gladstone) while plotting against her family and participating in Hale’s scheme of embezzlement, fraud, and mass murder. It often feels like a classic Scorsese crime epic - what’s damning is just how easily that template can be used for a story about the relationship between the United States and its indigenous people. 

The Native reaction to the film was conflicted, but there were numerous Osage people involved with the film. Their input is said to have changed everything from wardrobe and setting details to moving the entire focus of the storyline away from the FBI (which was at the center of David Grann’s book) to the marriage between Ernest and Lily. There was also much discussion of its massive 3.5 hour length. While never boring thanks to Thelma Schoonmaker’s editing, it’s an awfully long time to sit with such a devastating portrait of greed at a level that should be incomprehensible…but in the times that we live in, is all too comprehensible.

4. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
With this masterful sequel, this series of animated films continues to shame its live-action counterparts in terms of offering an exhilarating viewing experience. While saving the multiverse at the end of the last movie, Miles Morales (voiced by Shameik Moore) inadvertently caused the creation of The Spot (Jason Schwartzman), an insecure dimension-hopping supervillain who threatens all the different realities. The society of Spider-people finds itself at odds over how to deal with them, offering a clever commentary on the worst of nerd culture. There are some memorable additions to the cast - the futuristic Spider-Man Miguel O’Hara (Oscar Isaac), the British punk rock Spider-Man Hobie Brown (Daniel Kaluuya), the pregnant Spider-Woman Jessica Drew (Issa Rae), and the Indian Spider-Man Pavitr Prabhakar (Karan Soni), among others. As the 140 minute epic (currently the longest animated film ever made in America) catapults from one show-stopping action scene to the next, you can almost feel the art of animation being pushed beyond its limits. The animators themselves certainly felt it - hopefully they will be treated better next time.

3. Godzilla Minus One
Overwhelmingly positive word of mouth helped this instant Japanese classic become an unlikely box office success, even beating the Disney animated film Wish. This outstanding take on the definitive kaiju returns Godzilla to the post-WWII setting of the original film. Once again, American nuclear testing in the Pacific awakens and enrages the gigantic creature and Big G takes out his anger on the already desperate Japanese people. Given that the country is still rebuilding after the war, it is in no shape to deal with a threat like this, which is the basis for the movie’s odd title - Japan is at “zero” following their defeat, so Godzilla is about to take them to “minus one.” 

It’s been understood for decades that Godzilla is the star of these movies and the humans are inconsequential, but this film has arguably the most compelling human characters in the entire series - the survivor’s guilt-ridden pilot Koichi (Ryunosuke Kamiki) and his surrogate family Noriko (Minami Hamabe) and little Akiko (Sae Nagatani). The spectacle side of the equation is just as strong, with monster mayhem that looks like it cost a fortune but was apparently only $15 million (some receipts might be necessary in order to believe that). It’s about as perfect a giant monster movie as anyone could hope for.

2. How to Blow Up A Pipeline
A fictional distillation of the themes of a nonfiction book that examined the history of radical environmentalist movements, particularly those who believe that destroying the infrastructure of industries that pollute the Earth is defensible given the stakes involved. A group of people from all walks of life coordinate a plan to blow up a pipeline deep in the Texan wilderness. The film alternates between their meticulous preparation and flashbacks about how each of them got involved, making for a compelling illustration of the various ways that pollution destroys lives. It’s tense, exciting, and goes further than most movies would dare when it comes to capturing the frustrated rage of this era.

It pissed off all the right people, who predictably miss the point and whine about "glorifying" an act of terrorism. It's not about whether or not it's the "right" thing to do, the point of the movie is that a growing amount of young people feel like it's their only hope...and can you blame them? The activists themselves are not always sympathetic (a couple of them are irritating, which tends to be the case in real life as well), but the cause is another matter. After decades of governments bending to the whims of polluters and ignoring the huge movement advocating for environmental justice, should anyone be surprised when people start to think that there’s no legal solution to this problem?

1. Suzume
This is a Makoto Shinkai film, which means that there will be big emotions, gorgeous colorful skies, and people rushing through city streets. There's definitely a formula by now, but I'll be damned if it doesn't still bring the house down. Suzume is a teenage girl who has spent most of her life living on the island of Kyushu with her aunt since the death of her mother. After encountering the mysterious Souta, she unwittingly releases a dangerous natural force and must travel across Japan to set things right.

The marketing did this movie a bit of a disservice by trying to sell it to the West as a young adult love story. There's some of that, but this is primarily a story about the long shadow of the devastating March 2011 earthquake and tsunami...and the children who had to grow up without loved ones because of it. Haunting piles of debris are a frequent sight during Suzume's journey, which becomes almost unbearably emotional by the ending. Seriously, I'm quite relieved that nobody in the theater had a camera pointed at me during the last twenty minutes of this movie because it was not pretty. I admit it, I'm biased towards movies that that reduce a crowd to a collective sobbing wreck because it's not an easy thing to do. A truly beautiful film in every sense of the word.

Honorable Mentions
11. Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret
12. Nimona
13. Evil Dead Rise
15. Dumb Money
16. Huesera: The Bone Woman
17. Poor Things

18. Lonely Castle in the Mirror
19. Bottoms
20. Unicorn Wars

I can't shake the feeling that 2024 is going to be absolutely miserable, but maybe I'll be wrong? Good luck, everyone.

Sunday, October 1, 2023

Horror Around the World - Part III

By the time I was finished with this exercise last year, I was convinced this couldn't be done again. But in the end, I couldn't resist trying. All it took was a few surprising discoveries and I was right back down the rabbit hole. If you want a refresher, here's the first year and this was the second year.

Now that I've finished another list, the question returns - could I ever pull this off again? I spoke too soon last time so I hesitate to say no, but it wouldn't be easy. We've covered a total of 93 different countries at this point. I had leads on movies from Saudi Arabia, El Salvador, Mongolia, Sri Lanka, Libya, Trinidad and Tobago and some others, but I just couldn't find anywhere to watch them. I may yet track them down but another 31? It's hard to imagine right now. 

It also might require loosening my criteria. For example, I was excited for a movie that seemed to be about ghosts stalking people in the Algerian desert, only to learn that the movie in question was a French/Moroccan production and filmed entirely in Morocco (if you recall, we covered Morocco last year). Even though it might be nominally about Algeria, it didn't strike me as a true Algerian film. Situations like that come up pretty often. Co-productions aren't disqualifying by any stretch (there have been a lot so far) but they need to be shot at least partially in the country in question and/or involve a native cast and crew. 

The well may be getting dry, but that's only for now. I've seen a difference even since I started this. Two years ago, I had a bit of a tough time finding an Indian horror film. Now, probably due to the unexpected success of the action epic RRR, you can find a trove of them on Netflix. I hope more countries take advantage of internet streaming and low budget ingenuity until every nation has had its chance to scare the world. 

I've compiled a list on Letterboxd of all the movies that have been part of this activity (you might have to click on "read notes" to see which country each one is from). I won't do another post like this until I have 31 more, but I'll update that list as I find other movies. 

1. United Arab Emirates - Djinn (2013)
For the first Emirati horror film, the producers hired none other than Tobe Hooper, the man who made one of the most revered movies of this genre - The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Hooper had never quite been able to replicate the success of that movie and this was his last feature before his death in 2017, which some critics described as an inauspicious end for such an influential director. On the other hand, the UAE has so much money that they probably could have hired anyone they wanted, so it speaks well of Hooper's legacy decades later that they chose to approach him.

The movie is about a native couple who return home after an extended stay in the United States only to find that their new home was built on a site that was once home to evil spirits. It's a detail quite similar to Hooper's own Poltergeist and a malevolent djinn begins to cause similar chaos. The story falls apart as it nears the end and it's clear that the director didn't have a huge budget to work with, but its unique pedigree makes it interesting to watch regardless. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out to be very popular in the UAE - even the royal family criticized it.

2. Myanmar - A Mhya A Mhya (2019)
Good lord, this was challenging to find. I learned pretty quickly that this country (also known as Burma) does produce a fair amount of movies but they almost never get released in the western world. This particular film is not listed on IMDB or Letterboxd. Those sites are often seen as infallible but they do have their blind spots, which is a pain because I like to corroborate these movies before I list them here. The screenshot up there? I took it myself because nothing turns up on Google (you mostly get a different movie called Mya Mya, which looks interesting but I couldn't find it).Thankfully, there is a very basic Wikipedia page for this one and I was able to find it with subtitles on a website that was all kinds of shady, like some collector wandering a dangerous marketplace in a faraway land searching for treasure. The things I do for you folks.

Anyhow, let's talk about the actual movie. The title refers to a Buddhist chant about spreading good deeds. A young girl named Snow White (seriously) is contacted by a ghost claiming to be her real mother. This ends up exposing her family’s complicated and very melodramatic past, but they still try to make it work despite everything. However, “May May” is determined to get her daughter back. There’s a charming homemade quality to the production but the subtle handling of the ghost’s appearances works pretty well. Unlike many of the movies I've covered, the ghost doesn't seem to bear any connection to the traumatic history of Burma/Myanmar. By the surprising ending, it has become a somewhat harsh admonishment for parents to treat their children well.

3. Georgia - 247° F (2011)
The country, not the state. I've done a lot of second guessing about the eligibility of this one because it was financed by an American studio and features many American actors. However, it takes place in Georgia and was filmed there by a Georgian director and crew. It's also in English, which is a fairly common marketing decision for a lot of these movies regardless of whether or not an English-speaking country was involved in the production. The collaboration feels significant in this case given Georgia's history - it was one of many regions that established itself as an independent nation after the fall of the Soviet Union and after the nonviolent Rose Revolution in 2003, worked to form closer ties with NATO and the western world. Russia retaliated by invading in 2008, peeling off territory in a manner very similar to what's happening in Ukraine now.

Supposedly based on an actual incident in Georgia, this is a movie about four young people who are vacationing there and accidentally get locked inside a sauna. It's one of those situations that's unnerving to even think about and the fact that it's nothing nefarious and just the result of a simple accident makes it feel way more plausible. It can feel grueling and not always in a good way since three of the four main characters are obnoxious even by horror movie standards. There's also a certain "bro" energy that I could have done without but was pretty typical in the early 2010s.

4. Uruguay - Virus: 32 (2022)
This tense, well-made zombie film opens with an impressive ten minute tracking shot that introduces several characters in the same Montevideo apartment complex just before the mysterious outbreak begins. As Iris and her daughter Tata try to elude the zombies inside an empty athletic facility, they realize that after expending a certain amount of energy, the zombies are inactive for a short period of time (32 seconds, in fact). There’s no explanation given for this quirk, but it’s the kind of unique touch that helps when you’re working in such a crowded subgenre.

Like a few other South American countries, Uruguay was ruled by a military dictatorship for much of the Cold War era. It has bounced back strongly in the decades since but it's no secret why zombies would resonate with them - the loss of free will among those infected is a big reason why the idea endures so much. There are a few scenes, including a harrowing sequence involving a newborn baby, that go beyond typical zombie violence and feel informed by real atrocities. It's hard to articulate exactly why, but at the same time it feels unmistakable. 

5. Senegal - Saloum (2022)
I'm surprised it took me three years to get Senegal on the master list. It's the country that led Africa into the world of film production in the 1950s and 60s, home of Ousmane Sembene, who is often called "the father of African cinema." Sembene made mostly realistic social dramas rather than horror, but I suspected there must have been something produced in that area that could qualify. Their film scene has slowed down as the country's economic fortune worsened, but movies still occasionally get made there. 

This is a genre-bending movie that begins as a Tarantino-esque caper rooted in recent African history. A trio of elite mercenaries escape the September 2003 military coup in Guinea-Bissau and end up in Saloum, a remote region of Senegal. Their scheming goes awry when deadly ancestral spirits descend on the small village they’re hiding out in. The story is quite matter of fact about the supernatural elements but it feels like two movies back to back rather than one cohesive whole. It’s still well worth watching thanks to strong acting, impressive cinematography and its unique vision.

6. Kazakhstan - Sweetie, You Won't Believe It (2021)
The former Soviet countries (along with Russia itself) aren't known for being especially funny. Movies from this part of the world tend to be very bleak and most of the horror I've seen from these places bears that out. That's why this goofy Kazakh farce was such a surprise. Perhaps after being famously befuddled by the mockery of the Borat movies, they decided to lighten up a little.

Dastan is a stressed, cash-strapped guy whose nagging wife Zhanna is pregnant. Desperate for a break, he leaves with two friends for a fishing trip only to run afoul of a gang of criminals and a disfigured lunatic on a murder spree. But none of that frightens him as much as what might happen if Zhanna gives birth and he’s not there. It’s very funny, if occasionally incoherent, and effectively blends splattery violence with “Three Stooges”-esque pratfalls.

7. Latvia - Spider (1991)
Vita is a young Catholic woman recruited by a local artist to be a model for his painting of the Virgin Mary. When she gets a look at the artist’s hedonistic lifestyle, something awakens within her and she starts having visions of being attacked by spiders and other creepy crawlies. She also may have a real demonic stalker. This film was released not long after Latvia gained independence from Russia and it seems they watched a lot of 1970s giallo while they were waiting. Vita is quite similar to the female protagonists of those movies who would be tormented by lust and repression (and usually played by Edwige Fenech). Also like those movies, this is mostly a collection of set pieces with little in the way of plot or character arcs. With some beautiful cinematography and impressive creature effects, it’s the best looking movie in this year's list.

8. Jamaica - Nefarious (2020)
Although it's a small island nation, Jamaica has had a huge cultural impact on the rest of the world. Their unique dialect, a mixture of English and Creole, is instantly recognizable. This bloody film angrily pushes back on the tourist-friendly stereotypes. There’s no dreadlocks or reggae, just a grim story unfolding mostly at night in a neighborhood devastated by crime and violence. An insecure loutish guy named Mark tries to impress his new girlfriend’s brother only to find that the guy is in league with some kind of monstrous entity. There are a lot of regional folk elements that weave in and out of the storyline, which can make it hard to follow for those unfamiliar. Don’t underestimate it just because of its obviously low budget, it’s got some disturbing gore and a truly hideous monster. It’s hard to imagine the cruise ship companies are fans.

9. Nepal - Kagbeni (2008)
This adaptation of “The Monkey’s Paw” was seen as a landmark film for Nepal due to the sophistication of the cinematography and production design, to the point where the phrase "post-Kagbeni" is sometimes used to describe Nepali movies that have come out the years since. A young brewer named Ramesh is unable to propose to the girl of his dreams Tara because of her father’s disapproval. One night, he and a friend offer shelter to a mysterious old traveler who rewards them with a monkey’s paw that can grant wishes. Ramesh only half-seriously wishes for a chance to marry Tara but sets in motion a gradual series of unintended consequences that could destroy his life.

While the movie takes place in the present day, the village the main characters live in feels extremely provincial. The women don't have any say in who they end up with and there's one scene where a boy is beaten with a stick by his teacher for not doing homework. The script doesn't endorse or condemn this stuff, it's just treated as the way things are...which makes sense, if you think about it. European countries probably feel the same way when they see American movies about people who can't afford to see a doctor. The horror of the original "Monkey's Paw" story is rooted in good intentions gone terribly wrong, which is a very universal fear. It just means that we get to see beautiful shots of the Himalayas during this retelling. If I was filming a movie near the world's highest mountains, I would do the same.

10. Malta - Machination (2022)
Malta is a small island country in the Mediterranean Sea whose economy depends in large part on tourism. The whole world was terrorized by the COVID-19 plague, but countries that rely on attracting visitors were hit with another layer of pressure when everyone was afraid to fly anywhere.  Most of the horror movies inspired by Covid used the catastrophe as an interesting backdrop for a ghost story or some other supernatural tale. This film goes straight for the horror of isolation and mental illness, transporting its audience to a time we would all prefer to forget. Maria is an extreme germophobe afraid to set foot outside after the onset of Covid, leaving her alone in a small house with her demons. It’s far too realistic for comfort as Steffi Thake’s intense performance can convince a viewer that they are really watching someone lose their mind. In one highly relatable scene, Maria smashes her phone after getting sick of hearing from her annoying boss and conspiracy theorist brother.

11. Bolivia - Blood Red Ox (2021)
This disturbing and personal film begins when Amir returns home with his boyfriend Amat to visit his friend Amancaya. While driving to the rainforest, they see an injured ox on the side of the road and Amancaya decides to end its misery with a shot to the head. Shortly afterward, Amat begins having bloody hallucinations. Amir is worried, but something’s not quite right with him either. There’s a lot going on here in terms of themes - environmental destruction, Incan mythology and ritual, and especially mental illness, which is about the only thing the audience has left to cling to after the movie piles on a tiring series of twists and rug pulls. There are still a lot of beautifully filmed scenes, with one involving shadows and car headlights being particularly striking.

I doubt this will be the last LBGT-themed horror film out of Bolivia given that it's been a major issue there in recent years. The government passed some very progressive legislation protecting their rights, but the population is still very divided. People in that community are murdered there with alarming regularity and the police often decline to investigate these incidents. Similar to other parts of the world, younger people are more committed to justice for everyone and will likely carry the day in time.

12. Bahrain - Dead Sands (2013)
A messy, goofy, but charming zombie movie that follows an ensemble cast of characters out on the town for an evening when an undead outbreak begins. They alternate between speaking Arabic and English to each other, which is interesting even if some of the actors have a tough time selling the dialogue in what's obviously a second language. The movie aims for the Romero approach to zombie stories, even moving the characters to a mall for the final act, that highlight human selfishness in the midst of a deadly threat. The depiction of societal unwillingness to take the deadly contagion seriously, as well as the numerous scenes of characters letting petty grievances endanger everyone else, turned out to be quite prescient given what we've all lived through in the past few years.

13. Kyrgyzstan - Albarsty (2017)
I don't think I'll ever be able to spell the name of this country without checking a map first, but I was pretty impressed by the first movie I'd seen from there, horror or otherwise. It opens with a heartbreaking scene of the pregnant Ainura losing her baby. Afterwards, she and her husband Tamir adopt a quiet little boy named Ulan and the house is targeted by the “albarsty,” an evil spirit with origins in Central Asian folklore. At first it seems like we’re dealing with the tired trope of parents taking home an evil orphan, but that’s not quite what’s going on. In the midst of an increasingly muddled storyline, it helps to know that the albarsty was typically considered a manifestation of guilt. This is primarily a story about the horror of miscarriage, trauma that doesn’t necessarily heal after an adoption or another pregnancy. The entity rarely appears on screen, but it’s rendered with effects that are simple yet very effective.

14. Zimbabwe - Nevanji (2021)
A low-budget film about two parents, Lillian and Terrance, struggling to care for their son Nashe with a mysterious illness. While babysitting, the boy’s aunt brings in a shamanic healer against the wishes of the parents. Nashe seems to be getting better but he’s also been possessed by the spirit of a malevolent ancestor. There’s the common theme of tradition versus modernity, but this film doesn’t especially side with one or the other, it’s more interested in making the point that either can be compromised by human deception and error. The acting is a little spotty, but most people will be able to identify with how fearful and stressed the parents are at their son’s condition. Some things are just universal.

I might be the first person to ever log this movie on Letterboxd, although it's hard to be certain. I was a little surprised by that, since you can rent it on Amazon Prime (as of this writing) and much of it is in English. Zimbabwe was once part of the British colony of Rhodesia so many people there speak the language. In this case, it's similar to Nefarious given that the characters speak a dialect that mixes English with the native Shona language.

15. Portugal - Tombs of the Blind Dead (1972)
Zombie movies from this era are really interesting because although Night of the Living Dead had already changed the horror genre forever, the familiar tropes associated with the walking dead hadn't been totally established yet. This leads to interesting variations on the idea, like in this film about two old friends who reunite unexpectedly while on vacation. The relationship between the two women is actually quite interesting, but the proper story begins when they encounter the reanimated corpses of heretics executed in medieval times. While hanging on the gallows, their eyes were pecked out by crows, which means they have to hunt by sound. 

The combination of the gorgeous shooting locations and the unique design of the zombies is often striking. It has its excesses, including what seems like a very inefficient method of ritual sacrifice, but the slow motion shots of hooded figures riding horses through the night remained unique and effective even as hundreds of other zombie movies have been released in the decades since. At the time of its release, it was subjected to intense censorship, including by American distributors who inexplicably wanted to re-edit it into a “Planet of the Apes” film.

16. Ecuador - The Swamp of the Ravens (1974)
A distinctly 1970s take on Dr. Frankenstein that follows the evil Dr. Frosta, who believes he can restore the dead to life. Expelled by his colleagues, he continues his research in a shack deep in the swamps of Ecuador. His procedure only works within 8 minutes of death, but Frosta has no problem resorting to extremely unethical means of getting fresh corpses. The swamp is actually full of buzzards, but “ravens” must have sounded more menacing. This film has some notoriety in bad movie circles (Rifftrax even took a pass at it), which is likely due to the hammy English dub and a bizarre scene where the whole thing stops so one character can sing about being in love with a robot. That may set the wrong kind of expectations - it’s crude and poorly written, but it’s not a Troll 2 or a Plan 9 From Outer Space.

17. Slovakia - Nightsiren (2022)
A lot of the scariest things I've seen in horror movies are things that could really happen, and the shocking first scene of this movie definitely applies. Sarlota runs away from her abusive mother but causes a terrible accident in the process. She returns as an adult (never a good idea) and learns that the disappearance of her and her sister was blamed on a reclusive woman accused of witchcraft. It isn't long before she runs afoul of the intolerable men who run the village through intimidation. The place feels so primitive in its mindset that the occasional glimpse of modernity, like a TV set or a cell phone, feels totally out of place. But that's the point. The primitive superstitions about women and witchcraft are being compared to the more modern "witch hunts" of this era. It's reluctant to fully embrace its folk horror elements, but it does get very surreal and weird by the end.

18. Slovenia - Killbillies (2015)
I put these two countries together to hopefully avoid confusion. They are in fact two separate places. The original title of this movie was Idyll until some savvy distributor changed the name to Killbillies. The poster also reads "The hills are alive with the sound of SLAUGHTER," which is delightful. The main character is Zina, a model doing a fashion shoot in the wilderness with a photographer and a younger model that she can barely tolerate. The glamour gets rudely interrupted when the group is attacked by crazed yokels. It borrows heavily from backwoods horror like Deliverance or Wrong Turn, but the premise of leaving a big city to encounter raw savagery in the country is quite effective when you're talking about a developed country with a high quality of life. Most of these movies make the viewer want to stay far away from wherever they were filmed, but the climactic chase through a mountain forest might have you looking up tickets to Slovenia...although you will probably avoid any homemade liquor.

19. Azerbaijan - Aporia (2019)
This was marketed as a zombie movie but is actually about the terror of survivor’s guilt and living under oppression. The residents of a small village are abducted by a military organization, injected with mysterious drugs, and then executed en masse. The only two survivors are stuck in a muddy pit alongside some of the corpses. The majority of the movie is a survival story with the brief zombie elements showing up near the end, and horror fans are likely to feel cheated by the bait and switch. There is still a bitterness, unmistakably a product of real-life trauma, that leaves a mark and the ending is just plain mean. The unnamed military group likely represents the authoritarian regime of the Aliyev family, who have ruled Azerbaijan since the 1990s.

Unfortunately, the only version of this movie I could find had a terrible English dub attached to it. I didn't even think this sort of thing happened anymore - I'd expect it for a 70s film like The Swamp of the Ravens, but not for a film less than five years old. I tried my best not to hold that against the movie - I'm sure this dialogue sounded a lot better in its intended language.

20. Venezuela - Infection (2019)
A zombie film that was swiftly banned in its home country. An outbreak begins as a result of a contaminated heroin needle and soon the walking dead (the fast variant) are rampaging across the nation. Atypically for this subgenre, the human characters are mostly on their best behavior and cooperate with one another. Other than that, it’s a very straightforward 2000s zombie film, although the story behind it could make for an interesting movie on its own. 

It was suppressed not for violence, but for subtle and allegorical shots at Hugo Chavez and his adherents that didn’t go unnoticed. As one example, there's a brief shot where blood splatters on a television that happens to be running a propaganda piece about the success of the Bolivarian Revolution that put Chavez and later Nicolas Maduro in power. The filmmakers defied the ban in early 2020 and showed the film in several Venezuelan cities. I couldn't find any information on what happened afterwards but given the timing, the onset of Covid probably rendered the issue irrelevant. It's original release was around the time that the Zika virus broke out in Venezuela and with Covid following shortly after, there were several added layers of topicality.

21. San Marino - The Last Days of Earth (2017)
This is the smallest country I've covered so far, so it makes sense that it comes with the smallest movie. There have been a lot of low budget movies as part of this activity, but this is a whole other level - an experimental film done in the style of the silent era, shot in muddy black and white and featuring only one actor. The English translation of the intertitles is riddled with grammatical errors, which reminded me of the infamous movie Ax 'Em....but don't worry, it's much better than that one. It lifts the premise of the Lars Von Trier movie Melancholia about another planet about to collide with Earth and wipe out all life (the planet is even named “Melancholia” in both films). One unnamed man struggles to cope with the reality and imagines what might come afterwards. That’s about all there is to it but it generally works. If anything, it’s a demonstration of the power of music - the droning, moody, almost industrial score adds tons of atmosphere to footage of cityscapes and amusement parks that would otherwise be boring.

22. Barbados - The Barbados Project (2022)
The title could describe both the storyline of this found footage film as well as the work that went into making it. A local news crew investigates reports of a large creature prowling the island and learns that it has some connection to a mysterious government organization called “Building Six.” There’s a very homemade feel to it but the filmmakers have good instincts, using analog and digital filters to make the CGI look more convincing. The story also goes into unexpected places, leaving the central characters behind for the third act, which features archive footage from the 1980s and a Tiktok-style video from the year 2030. The ambition behind this is off the charts and it’s hard not to be impressed. 

Like a lot of countries in the Caribbean, Barbados was once a British colony. In 2021, they rewrote their constitution and became a fully independent republic, no longer considering the Queen of England as their head of state. Not even Canada has done that yet. Between that and making basically a kaiju film with very limited resources, this is a nation eager to prove itself. Seems to be going pretty well.

23. Lithuania - Anarchy Parlor (2015)
This bloody movie arrived to the torture party several years too late. It's about a group of young Americans who party recklessly until they end up in the clutches of an affably evil tattoo artist. Most of the plot is lifted wholesale from Hostel, but I suppose they figured if people are making money off depicting Eastern Europe as a savage land of strip clubs and torture chambers, it might as well be the Eastern Europeans themselves. The dialogue is often laughably bad and Robert LaSardo as the villain is the only cast member who gives a credible performance.

24. SwitzerlandSennentuntschi (2010)
There are many European horror films out there that were financed with Swiss money, but it's a little harder to find one that's an authentic product of Switzerland. This is a feminist film inspired by an old folk tale of a woman made out of rags and straw who comes to life. A young girl discovers a skeleton buried in the woods and the movie flashes back to 1975, when a mysterious mute woman wanders into an Alpine village. The story then flashes back again to a few days earlier at a remote cabin occupied by three men who believe she is the incarnation of the doll they made. It’s probably longer and more complicated than it needed to be, but this movie has a lot of ambition. 

We've gone through a lot of folk horror in the process of compiling this list, and most of them have reverence for the tales of olden times. This one ultimately wants to discredit them as products of religious hysteria and men blaming women for their own moral failings. So it’s actually a little bit funny that the beautiful mountain scenery gives the film such a fairy tale quality.

25. Ghana - Diabolo (1992)
Ghana has one of the most prolific film industries in Africa, but their films are tough to find in the western world. This one is a pretty goofy story about an evil man who lures women into his clutches only to turn into a snake and attack them. I had plenty of deja vu for the Nigerian movie Karishika during this - the same muddy VHS footage and upbeat music that's very much at odds with the subject matter, but this one is a good deal more entertaining. There's very little dialogue and a good sense of visual storytelling, with the scenes featuring the real-life snake being particularly well-staged. The cast must have nerves of steel.

26. Croatia - The Rat Savior (1977)
Like Leptirica last year, this was a Yugoslavian film that is now claimed by the region it was made in. Croatia cites this twist on Invasion of the Body Snatchers as one of the greatest films in their country’s history. The homeless Ivan searches for shelter underground only to stumble on a group of wealthy humanoid rats that can pass themselves off as regular people. Now he has to try and figure out what’s happening while slowly going mad from paranoia about how many of them are nearby at any given time. 

Invasion of the Body Snatchers was deeply rooted in American political anxieties of the 1950s - this is a commentary on class that is more broadly applicable but was especially potent in the 1970s as Yugoslavia dealt with a severe economic crisis. Despite the low budget, the rat makeup is quite effective in its subtlety.

27. Cyprus - The Ghosts of Monday (2022)
Despite the title, this film is less about ghosts and more about a cult, with a touch of cosmic horror thrown in. A film crew has arrived to shoot a pilot for a new paranormal reality show in the storied Grand Hotel Gula and most of the first half is arguments about creative direction between the showrunner Eric and the host Bruce, who also happens to be his father in law. The horror elements come very suddenly and while it’s not exactly what you might call graceful, there is some creativity - one scene inside a glass elevator looks like something Dario Argento might have done. It also has the distinction of being one of the final roles of Julian Sands before he disappeared into the mountains of Southern California.

If I've counted correctly, this is the sixth movie since I started this project to have a cast of primarily English-speaking characters despite the setting. At least it has some thematic sense this time - the supernatural occurrences are placed in the context of the UK's acrimonious history with Cyprus, from the invasion of Richard the Lionhearted during the crusades to the occupation by the British Empire after World War I. Naturally the one native Cypriot in the cast is the one most attuned to it.

28. Hungary - Post-Mortem (2020)
Speaking of World War I, the role it played in shaping horror films can't be overstated. I've mentioned this before, while discussing Germany in the first year of this exercise, and the impact was quite similar in Hungary - apocalyptic death and destruction, nearly an entire generation wiped out, the fall of an empire, and decades of violence and unrest afterwards. 

The main character in this film is Tomas, a young man still traumatized by his near death experience in the Great War. He now works in the realm of post mortem photography, the art of taking pictures of the recently deceased for the sake of their surviving long ones. This was very much a real thing back then and the scenes of him arranging the corpses for their close-ups are just as disturbing as anything else in the movie. While working in a small village devastated by both the war and the deadly 1918 flu, Tomas and a sweet little girl realize that a shadowy figure is appearing in all of the photos (it periodically feels like an old-timey prequel to Shutter). It can sometimes feel like two mismatched films trying to co-exist, a quietly arresting drama about national trauma and a swing for the fences horror story where people get dragged around as thundering music blares. Messy as it can be, it mostly works thanks to the thematic strength of its setting - a village in mourning overrun by ghosts is as powerful a symbol for the aftermath of the Great War as anything else I've seen.

29. Dominican Republic - The Devil's Hole (2012)
I got this one from a website run by someone with access to thousands of rare DVDs who will send you a digital copy of one if you pay. I'm not totally sure it's legal so I'm not going to give a link, but it ended up being quite helpful...to a point. The subtitles were extremely spotty, only translating some of the dialogue and being downright questionable at times. A character is struck by a car early in the film and the subtitles read "I shit in the area," which I don't think anyone said. I had to rely on visual storytelling, my very limited grasp of Spanish (and Latin, since they have a lot of root words in common), and the movie's Wikipedia page to get the gist of what was going on. The behind the scenes work that goes into making these lists can get wacky.

A psychic medical school student named Sofia and several friends are on their way to a spring break vacation when their car goes off the road (hopefully everyone kept their bowels under control this time). They find a foreboding house to spend the night in, only to discover that it was once used by the military during the Parsley Massacre, a mass killing of Haitians in 1937 led by the dictator Rafael Trujillo. Throw in some black magic and you’ve got yourself a mean haunting. The low-budget effects are often campy, but the bloody deaths and overall grimy atmosphere of the house give it some bite. Like a lot of horror movies we've covered, it uses the trappings of horror to reckon with difficult history. Unlike the others, Catholicism is treated with a lot of reverence - its intervention saves the day during the unexpectedly corny ending.

30. Bulgaria - Roseville (2013)
This movie is supposedly based on a real unsolved murder case in 1985, but there doesn't seem to be any background information available on the internet. Real or not, it serves as the foundation for a slow-paced possession story about four people encountering an evil presence at a remote mountain lodge. One of them is an American photographer who is so obnoxious that he almost torpedoes the movie. This character is arrogant, aggressive, won't use the native language, and seems desperate to shoot something. We can only really blame ourselves given that these are the traits American culture tends to embrace.

Even without him, this movie would still be a little frustrating. Most of the big scares turn out to be hallucinations and other ones just don't really land - the demonic dog following one of the characters around actually looks pretty friendly. Leaning into the true crime/cold case aspects of the story might have helped.

31. Antarctica - South of Sanity (2012)
The first time I did one of these lists, I made a joke about hitting every continent except Antarctica. Well, now we've got all of them. I couldn't have found a better way to end this third (and probably last for quite a while) batch of 31 movies, even if it's not a "country" in any sense of the word. There are no indigenous people of Antarctica and nobody else there except research facilities and rich tourists. So who made this horror film? Penguins?

A group of real British researchers shot this movie for fun while stationed there. It’s extremely rare for a non-documentary film to shoot in Antarctica and the spectacular snowy vistas lend a unique look to what is otherwise a pretty standard low-budget slasher. About a dozen characters find themselves isolated and vulnerable as a killer in a freaky mask picks them off one by one. Despite how small the group is, they don’t seem to notice that their colleagues have vanished for an inordinately long time. That and the amateurish acting makes it hard to get out of the mindset that you’re watching someone’s home movie, but there's entertainment to be found in that as well.

That brings us to the end of this three year adventure. I've enjoyed this immensely and I hope you've found it interesting as well. I'll continue to search for movies from other countries to add to the master list and hopefully you'll see another 31 movies pop up on October 1 sometime in the future. Long live horror and Happy Halloween!

Monday, May 29, 2023

Embarrassing Vulnerability in the Mid-2000s

There's a moment I think a lot of us have experienced at least once in our lives. Something upsetting happens and catches us off guard. We end up turning to some venue to express ourselves - could be social media, but older folks might have used Livejournal or Wordpress, and our raw feelings spill out. There's no attempt to cushion the impact with irony or withholding certain details, this is pure vulnerability. It feels cathartic in the moment, but in the cold light of the next day, it's embarrassing. Leaving it visible to the public feels like an invitation to ridicule so we get rid of it. 

American movies went through a phase like this in the middle of the 2000s. The movies are still here, but are now generally mocked by the public who once embraced them, if briefly. These films captured the essence of an uncertain, vulnerable time but as that moment passed, we didn't want anything to do with them. I'm going to spotlight three movies that I feel like summarize this unique era but before that, we have to set the scene.

This moment of intense vulnerability came about because of two major American tragedies - the first is of course the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. It was devastating and horrific even for people who only saw it on TV. I was there and am now at the age where my kids can't believe it and have like a million questions about it, which is both sweet and kind of agonizing because I don't go out of my way to relive those memories if I can help it. However, I think we would have all come back stronger from that if not for the second tragedy - the start of the Iraq invasion in 2003. The Bush administration decided to start a war against a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks, using thin rationales that anyone with a functioning brain could see were total bullshit but anyone who spoke out was buried in unhinged hostility from the same low-intelligence-high-confidence meatheads who cursed us with the Trump presidency ten years later. The war in Iraq inspired some of the largest protests in the history of mankind, but none of them made a difference. It's not really a stretch to say that the way the war machine pushed ahead, unconcerned with the passionate objections of so many people, convinced my entire generation that protesting was useless. Thankfully, Generation Z isn't burdened by this so it's made quite a comeback.

But before I get carried away with the history, let's talk about the movies.

Garden State (2004)

It's almost impossible to believe now, but people really did love this movie when it first came out. It still has a pretty high imdb score of 7.4, which demonstrates that while people might deny ever liking something that seems embarrassing after some time has passed, most of them don't bother going back and changing their votes.

The actor Zach Braff wrote, directed and stars in this movie as a guy who returns home to New Jersey for his mother's funeral. While at home, he has a personal crisis when he realizes he doesn't feel much of anything because he's been on medication for as long as he can remember thanks to his psychiatrist father. While waiting at the DMV, he connects with a very smiley young woman played by Natalie Portman who insists that he has to borrow her walkman and listen to The Shins during their first meeting. Ultimately, the message is that it's better to experience life with all its ups and downs rather than numb yourself with anti-depressants. Almost twenty years later, it's pretty easy to see why that's a questionable message. It's quite ill-advised to try and "tough out" mental illness without help for the sake of authenticity or whatever. Something about this really spoke to people in that moment, however. Were we all so numbed and disillusioned by the preceding years that we craved permission to enjoy life again? It's hard to stay for sure, especially now that the moment has long since passed.

Portman's character is also an archetypal example of the "manic pixie dream girl," a phrase coined by film critic Nathan Rabin right around the time this movie came out. Her role is to use her ample quirkiness to help young men get out of their funk and appreciate hipster indie music again. The Kirsten Dunst character in Elizabethtown, which came out a few years later, is another big one. Movies were more or less done with this character type by the end of the decade. 500 Days of Summer (2009) appeared to be in the same vein at first, but turned out to be a deconstruction of these cutesy romance stories that was utterly ruthless.

Crash (2005)

In fairness, this one was controversial from the start and could very well destroy American society if it were released today. An infamously blunt drama about the way racism drives much of what ails our culture, it got a rapturous reception from critics upon its initial release but is now something of a punching bag. It won the Oscar for Best Picture in a shocking upset over the groundbreaking gay romance Brokeback Mountain, which is one of the most infamous Oscar moments that doesn't involve someone getting smacked across the face.

I remember seeing this in the theater back then and thinking that it really worked. It was hard not to get caught up in the emotions that were bleeding off the screen. But even on the second viewing, the cracks started to show. It was almost one of those "turn off your brain" scenarios that people often use to defend the shittiest blockbusters because once you really start to think about what's going on, it gets pretty questionable. The biggest sticking point with people who talk about it today is the story arc that attempts to redeem a racist, corrupt police officer (Matt Dillon) who sexually assaults a woman (Thandiwe Newton) during a traffic stop but later saves that same woman from the scene of a car wreck. The whole "bigot with hidden nobility" trope actually used to be very common, but the threat of social media backlash has put it on life support. I don't think it's inherently impossible to pull off, but you need to have much more careful writing than this.

For better or worse, you can't really get away with playing fast and loose with this subject matter in today's world. I might be in the minority on this, but I still feel there's something worthwhile about engaging so directly with these issues once in a while. I suspect that in the moment, Crash offered an emotional catharsis for people who really needed one, but it was never destined for timelessness. 

Juno (2007)

This one came near the end of this era and is interesting in this context because it's more or less about how people use irony and humor to manage their fear of genuine emotions. Elliott Page (back in the Ellen era) plays the title character, a teenage girl impregnated by her goofy friend Paulie (Michael Cera) who must reconcile the various relationships in her life while preparing for the child's birth. Why she decided to go through with the pregnancy isn't fully explained, probably because the movie didn't want to get caught up in the minefield of the abortion debate. 

The screenwriter Diablo Cody is mostly known for her penchant for inventing slang for her movies, a serious love it or hate it proposition, but this is a genuinely funny movie with a heart. Just like the other two, people responded passionately upon its initial release but today the quirkiness of the dialogue feels way out of touch, along with the "hipster" subculture that was in full swing around this time. Being able to capture the essence of the times is a virtue, but what happens when the time in question is one that most of us would rather forget? 

That's what happened with all three of these movies, along with several others. The historic election of President Barack Obama was a dramatic start to a new era and we were all more than happy to move on. It was one of the few genuinely good historical events to happen in my lifetime - the biggest competition I can think of is Parasite's Best Picture win and maybe the advent of recliners in movie theaters.  

The best movies both embody their eras and tell a story that's universal enough for people to connect with in the future. None of these movies really managed that, but that doesn't mean we should dismiss them out of hand. We're all older now, we don't have to be embarrassed about the messiness of our younger days...but those overwrought blog posts are definitely going to stay deleted.

Friday, April 7, 2023

Land of the Free


(cartoon by Bill Bramhall)

The first shooting of the day took place at Enrichment Insurance at about 10 am, just an hour after Tim had sat down at his computer and started his daily tasks. He didn’t recognize the man who had burst through the door with an assault rifle, but it must have been someone with a grudge against the company. You had to expect this sort of thing in his line of work. Tim and most of his colleagues crawled through the maze of cubicles, just as they had done about three weeks earlier, and were able to get to the exit when the gunman had his back turned. 

Not long afterwards, the police had arrived and the shooter was dead along with three of Tim’s co-workers. He made his way to the employee parking lot alongside Chris, who sat in the cubicle next to his. 

“Pretty lucky this happened on a Friday, right? Now we get an early start to the weekend.”

“I guess,” Tim replied. “It’s kind of a mixed blessing, because now we’ll have to finish today’s work on Monday.”

“Not me,” Chris said with a smile. “I’m headed to Aruba this week.”

“Are you really? That’s great, man. I’m so jealous.”

“We’ve been looking forward to it so much,” he continued. “Sunshine, the beach, no work, no chores, no shootings. You can really relax in a place like that.”

“Have an extra pina colada for me,” Tim said as they went their separate ways. As he opened the door to his car, he let out a loud sneeze. The early spring allergies were in full force. Before leaving the parking lot, he called his wife Carol.

“Hey. I’m out early today because of the shooting.”

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, I’m fine.”

“Can you stop at the grocery store at some point today?”

“Yeah, that’s no problem,” Tim said. “I think I’m going to stop at the pharmacy too. My allergies are terrible.”

While browsing the aisles at the grocery store, his phone began to vibrate. It was Brent, a childhood friend who had recently moved out of state for a new job. They still kept in touch, being just old enough so that they actually spoke on the phone sometimes rather than exclusively texting. 

“How’s it going, dude?”

“Not bad,” Brent said. “I got out of work today because of a shooting so I’m just hanging around the house.”

“No kidding!” Tim said with a chuckle. “I did too!”

“Just one of those days, I guess. You playing any good games lately?”

“Not so much. The new Zelda comes out in a few weeks so that will be fun.”

“Hell yeah,” Brent agreed. “That game’s going to take over my life for a few months, I just know it.”

“Same here. I hope my kids will understand,” he said facetiously. “Well, I’m just getting to the checkout line so I’ll talk to you later.”

Just as he was pulling the credit card out of the machine that took the payment, gunfire rang out again. He and the cashier both ducked out of sight. 

“I don’t need a receipt,” Tim told her. With that, he awkwardly pushed the cart towards the exit doors while trying to stay out of view. It was a bit like a “duck walk.” Hopefully nobody was getting him on video. 

Once he was outside, he spotted a familiar face making his way towards the store. It was his neighbor Gary.

“Hey there, Tim.”

“How’s it going, Gary?”

“No complaints.” He peered in the windows and noticed the pandemonium. “Shooting, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tim grimaced. “Got out just in time.”

“I guess the groceries will have to wait,” Gary replied. “Did you guys ever figure out what was eating your vegetables?”

“I’m thinking it was a gopher,” Tim said. “I was out in the garden yesterday and I found a few little holes in the dirt. I’m not sure how you get rid of them, other than blowing the whole thing up like in Caddyshack.”

They both had a good laugh at that. “How about you, Gary? How’s your family?”

“A little rough, honestly. Will is really having a hard time with anxiety.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Tim said. “Is he seeing a counselor?”

“We’ve tried,” Gary said with a sigh. “I can’t find any that are taking new patients.”

“That’s rough. Keep at it though, hopefully something will open up. I’m gonna stop at the liquor store quick before I go home. It’s been that kind of day.”

“I hear that,” Gary said. “I’ll see you around, Tim.”

Tim wasn’t sure exactly what he was looking for, just something to take the edge off. He didn’t drink often but it was sometimes a nice way to ring in the weekend. He picked out some Irish cream and was making his way over to the register when the nearby bottles suddenly exploded. The liquor splashed all over him as he threw himself to the ground while the familiar sound of assault rifle fire went off once again. 

A liquor store? This was a bit unusual. He heard the shooter and the older man at the cash register arguing and deduced that this was a recently fired employee. It sounded like the man was willing to pay the guy to stop shooting, so hopefully nobody would end up dead. He didn’t think he’d be able to get to the register anytime soon, but he really had a hankering for the Irish cream.
 
Briefly catching the eyes of the cashier, he gestured to the bottle in his hand and placed a $20 bill on a nearby shelf. The cashier nodded and Tim made his way to the door. The shooter noticed him but didn’t do anything. He didn’t seem interested in taking out any bystanders, thankfully. 

Back in his car once again, Tim noticed the strong smell of vodka coming from his shirt. He had really gotten covered when that bottle was hit. It the police happened to pull him over, he would be in big trouble. 

The last stop of the day was the pharmacy, but Tim noticed several police cars in front of the place. It was probably another shooting. For now, he hoped there was still some allergy medicine somewhere at home, at least enough to get him through the next day or two. 

Right as he got home and pulled into the driveway, his phone buzzed with a notification. There had been a shooting at the elementary school where his two children were. Thankfully, it was a short drive away. It was truly remarkable just how persistent these school shootings were. They had added rooftop snipers to the building after the last one and these gunmen were still finding a way in.
 
Allie and Justin were waiting outside when he pulled up. He hugged them both and the three of them quietly made their way back to the car. 

“Did you have a good day at school? I mean….aside from that.”

“It was fine,” Allie said. “Let’s just go home.”

Tim couldn’t blame them for being a little grouchy. At least they could spend the rest of the day at home playing, petting the dog, and just trying to relax. He was grateful for the chance to change his soiled shirt and recline in his favorite chair. Carol arrived home after a few hours.

“How was your day?” Tim asked. “Any shootings?”

“Just one,” she answered. “I was going to get coffee before work but I saw the cop cars and kept going. No big deal, I just had to use the Keurig cups at the office.”

“I had four. Well, five if you count the school.”

“Wow, that’s a lot.”

“Yeah,” Tim sighed. “But what can you do?”

The sun went down and it was time to get the kids ready for bed. Hopefully the coming weekend would calm everyone’s nerves a bit. 

“Have a good night’s sleep,” he told them. “Tomorrow’s another big day.”