Horror
Good Boy (15)
Review: Once dogs are let off the leash in a horror film, man’s best friend frequently becomes his most terrifying enemy. In John Carpenter’s The Thing, a shape-shifting entity assumes the benevolent form of an Alaskan Malamute to infiltrate an Antarctic research base. T-virus-infected Dobermans snarl through the Resident Evil films and rottweilers do the Antichrist’s bidding in The Omen. As for Cujo, the rabid Saint Bernard in the 1983 survival thriller based on Stephen King’s novel…
Writer-director Ben Leonberg’s low budget haunted house horror, co-written by Alex Cannon, glimpses malevolence lurking in the shadows through the eyes of its four-legged hero, portrayed by the filmmaker’s own pet. Indy, the lovable Nova Scotia duck tolling retriever, melts hearts from the opening shot of the animal waking from a light sleep and staring curiously around a room lit by television static. Leonberg and cinematographer Wade Grebnoel shoot predominantly at ground level and the few human characters who interact with Indy are usually captured from the waist down. By design, lead actor Shane Jensen’s face seldom drifts into view, focusing attention on Indy’s line of sight and any bumps in the night that prick the dog’s ears. Directorial ingenuity fits snugly into a compact 73-minute running time, punctuated by a couple of pleasing practical effects shocks.
Todd (Jensen) hopes to ease the symptoms of chronic illness by spontaneously relocating from the city to peaceful backwoods where his late grandfather (Larry Fessenden) lived in relative seclusion. The patient takes his beloved four-legged companion, Indy, to the house where the old man died and neighbour Richard (Stuart Rudin) found the body. Todd’s worrywart sister Vera (Arielle Friedman) believes the house is haunted because no one, apart from their grandfather, managed to live in the property for more than a few weeks.
As Indy settles into his new home – “It beats the hospital,” smiles Todd – the animal senses a dark force, which skulks in the shadows and initially manifests as a silhouetted skeletal figure lit by a flash of lightning. The dog protects his ailing owner from the menacing presence but the unwanted guest is insidious and relentless. Todd’s health deteriorates and in his dangerously weakened state, he can only resist attacks for so long.
Good Boy is an effective shiver down the spine that milks droplets of suspense from the simple premise. Leonberg elicits a winning performance from his tail-wagging protagonist, captured in close-up for long stretches to glimpse the dog’s natural reactions to increasingly disturbing paranormal activity. The filmmaker’s ambition doesn’t exceed his firm grasp. Any time common sense prepares to go walkies, Leonberg wisely returns to Indy’s side and entrusts his picture’s fate to old-fashioned animal magic.
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Drama
I Swear (15)
Review: In 2019, Tourette syndrome campaigner John Davidson travelled to Holyrood Palace in Edinburgh to accept an MBE from the late Queen Elizabeth II in recognition of his tireless efforts to raise awareness and deepen understanding of the neurological condition. During the ceremony, he famously blurted out “F*** the Queen” in front of other worthy recipients of the New Year Honours list. That colourful episode is recreated with a flourish as the delightfully potty-mouthed opening scene of writer-director Kirk Jones’ heartwarming biopic, which is the dictionary definition of a crowd-pleasing underdog story.
As a teenager, Davidson featured in an episode of the BBC documentary series Q.E.D. titled John’s Not Mad, which dispelled myths about Tourette’s by allowing cameras to follow the 16-year-old and his family through daily life in Galashiels. I Swear lands with similar emotional force, anchored by compelling performances from Scott Ellis Watson and Robert Aramayo as adolescent and adult incarnations of John over more than 35 years of bullying and alienation. Jones’ script laces the soul-searching with wry humour and an unabashed affection for its unlikely hero, who is misunderstood by his parents and finds unconditional love and support with a chosen family that accepts and cherishes him, just as he is.
In the early 1980s, John (Watson) is a popular kid at school with a bright academic future and the same footballing dreams as his proud father (Steven Cree). His body begins to experience occasional jerks and spasms and he becomes prone to uncontrollable verbal outbursts that incur the wrath of the headmaster and his embarrassed mother Heather (Shirley Henderson). As symptoms become more acute, John is an easy target for cruel classmates. When his father leaves home, Heather blames her son for the breakdown of the marriage.
Alienated from his peers, John (now played by Aramayo) finds a passionate advocate in Dottie Achenbach (Maxine Peake), mother of classmate and friend James (Chris Dixon). She invites John to stay and lavishes him with the affection he needs to flourish. Dottie encourages John to begin work as a caretaker at Langlee Community Centre under kindly supervisor Tommy Trotter (Peter Mullan), who grows accustomed to the tics and explosive expletives. John is empowered to share his experiences with local police and businesses to draw attention to Tourette’s and his passionate activism inspires a new generation to view the condition through caring eyes.
I Swear does not sugarcoat John’s experiences (a suicide attempt is tastefully depicted on screen) but a river of hopefulness runs through Jones’ deeply moving and inspirational picture. Peake’s maternal warmth is a pleasing contrast to Henderson’s icy intolerance in difficult circumstances. Aramayo and newcomer Watson both melt hearts, deftly navigating the physical and emotional demands of a role that politely requests compassion but never pleads for pity.
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Animation
Night Of The Zoopocalypse (PG)
Review: Creatures great and small unite to survive a zombie apocalypse in a rollicking computer-animated escapade for the whole family, co-directed by Ricardo Curtis and Rodrigo Perez-Castro. Inspired by a short story idea by Clive Barker, Night Of The Zoopocalypse engineers enough PG-friendly shocks to delight young audiences, including a zombie gorilla which loses one of its legs in a fight. The infected appendage runs amok, like Thing from The Addams Family, independent from the rest of the ape until it can reattach itself.
Scriptwriters James Kee and Steven Hoban supply a steady stream of giggles, relying heavily on in-jokes from a cinema-obsessed French lemur, who is well versed in the rules of survival if you become trapped inside a horror movie. A squeaky pink elephant toy ruins one hushed escape from an infected gazelle. “A convenient plot device!” whoops the lemur, giving the toy an additional squeeze for good measure to draw further attention to his location. Energetic vocal performances match the bright, colourful visuals and Curtis and Perez-Castro maintain dramatic momentum by distributing breathless chase sequences evenly across the brisk running time.
Gracie the wolf (voiced by Gabbi Kosmidis) prefers to play with the rest of her pack at Colepepper Zoo rather than practise her safety drills. “Something bad, or worse, is gonna happen!” prophetically warns Grandma Abigale (Carolyn Scott). That night, a mysterious meteorite succumbs to Earth’s gravitational pull and a fragment crashes into the petting zoo where a cute, wide-eyed bunny eats the luminous shard and slowly mutates into a slavering, fanged predator capable of infecting other animals with a single bite. The contagion spreads rapidly from Bunny Zero (Bryn McAuley) to other feathered and furry residents including Fred the gorilla (Kyle Derek).
Thankfully, Gracie is in a cage in the veterinary office when the outbreak begins and she spearheads a daredevil resistance comprising Ash the ostrich (Scott Thompson), Dan the mountain lion (David Harbour), Felix the monkey (Paul Sun-hyung Lee), Frida the capybara (Heather Loreto) and Xavier the lemur (Pierre Simpson). A cute, pink pygmy hippo named Poot (Christina Nova) rallies to the amusingly disorganised cause and survivors pledge to prevent Bunny Zero from escaping the zoo’s confines and restore order to the cages and enclosures.
Night Of The Zoopocalypse is an entertaining walk on the wild side with pawsome characters who learn the value of teamwork in outlandish adversity. “It takes a whole pack working together, howling together… to survive,” wisely professes Abigale. The green, purple and black-heavy colour palette gets into the Halloween spirit and any on-screen violence is cartoonish to nimbly sidestep the chance of a sleepless night.
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Drama
Tron: Ares (12A)
Review: In Greek mythology, Ares was the god of war and son to Zeus and Hera. He was often depicted in conflict with his wise and noble half-sister, Athena. Sibling rivalry spills into our AI-imperilled reality in a high-octane sequel to the 2010 film Tron: Legacy, which welcomes a new director to the franchise, Norwegian filmmaker Joachim Ronning. The two previous instalments dating back to 1982 transmitted flesh and blood protagonists into the Grid to defeat digital armies with expertly tossed identity discs.
Tron: Ares reverses the flow of data and welcomes weaponised denizens of the digital domain into our 21st-century reality for a vicious power struggle over lines of code that can stabilise objects created by digitising lasers. Screenwriter Jesse Wigutow opts for a simple narrative fabricated in the same mould as Terminator by dispatching a mechanised warrior to hunt down the film’s gutsy human heroine. Her tenderness and empathy compel the high-tech hunter to rebel against his programming and assign himself a new directive as valiant protector.
Wigutow’s script repurposes the Monster’s dialogue from Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein – “Beware; for I am fearless, and therefore powerful!” – as the title character’s self-empowering battle cry before he faces off against a hulking Recognizer aerial transporter to a bombastic soundtrack composed by industrial rock outfit Nine Inch Nails. Game on.
Julian Dillinger (Evan Peters), grandson of ENCOM’s Machiavellian former president Ed Dillinger, writes code dubbed Ares (Jared Leto) in his capacity as CEO of ENCOM’s sworn rival, Dillinger Systems. The Ares security programme is designed to repel attacks and, when covertly planted in other mainframes, can steal precious lines of code to realise Julian’s grand vision of AI-controlled military technology.
Ares is summoned from the Grid to our world with his officious second-in-command, Athena (Jodie Turner-Smith), and the pair hunt down ENCOM’s current CEO, Eve Kim (Greta Lee). She is continuing the groundbreaking work of Kevin Flynn (Jeff Bridges) and stands on the brink of discovering the elusive Permanence Code. Julian covets the prize and defies the orders of his mother Elisabeth (Gillian Anderson) to weaponise Ares against Eve and her associates including boyfriend Seth (Arturo Castro) and ENCOM’s Chief Technology Officer Ajay Singh (Hasan Minhaj).
Tron: Ares is a visually stunning third chapter that invests more time and effort in achieving sensory overload than engineering a compelling plot. Leto lacks an emotion processing chip for the majority of the two-hour running time so Past Lives breakout star Lee confidently shoulders the burden for tugging heartstrings between slickly executed set pieces astride a turbo-charged lightcycle. Bridges’ fleeting appearance unifies the three missions to date and an additional scene hardcoded into the end credits teases the next software update.
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