Short Takes

A dramedy and a couple more horror flicks.  Yawn.

 

The Boy is Back

Despite largely negative reviews from the critics and lukewarm feedback from moviegoers, 2016’s boy-playing-with-doll horror flick ‘The Boy’ recouped its meager $10 million budget nearly seven-fold and earned a sequel (big surprise).  ‘Brahms: The Boy II’ picks up the story as an unwitting new family looking for some peace and quiet in the countryside after a traumatic event stumbled upon the creepy pale vintage porcelain doll, since repaired after it was “destroyed” in the original.  Alas, ‘Brahms’ is but the latest low-rent horror flick that failed to scare or interest us during these dog days of February.

Grade: D

 

Dark Fantasy Island 

While I probably watched more episodes of this soapy '80's TV show starring Ricardo Montalbán and (the plane, the plane!) Hervé Villechaize than I care to admit, Blumhouse Production’s horror spin on ‘Fantasy Island’ is an ill-conceived bloody mess of a movie.  The story follows five mostly good-looking young fantasy-seekers (Maggie Q being the oldest among them) as they live out their fantasies to the inevitable end, for better or worse, as Mr. Roarke (Michael Peña, who’s no Ricardo Montalbán) warns them upon their arrival.  All is well and good until things go horribly awry and the fantasies devolve into nightmares, culminating with a head-scratching twist at the end involving Lucy Hale's character that makes us want to pull our hair out and scream in helpless frustration.

 
Grade: D

Going ‘Downhill’

Love (or rather, marriage) is on the rocks (going downhill) in this quirky dramedy starring Will Ferrell and Julia Louis-Dreyfus as a middle-aged American couple on a ski trip in the Alps with their two kids, only to find their relationship sorely tested by an act of supreme cowardice on the part of Ferrell.  A remake of the 2014 Swedish film ‘Force Majeure’ (which I haven’t seen), ‘Downhill’ is a darkly funny yet somewhat uncomfortable viewing experience as we witness the gradual unraveling of a happy marriage amidst increasing doubt and awkwardness between Ferrell and Louis-Dreyfus (and Ferrell and his two kids), casting a dark cloud on the family’s  future.  I’m more generous here than most critics probably because, not having seen the Swedish original, I have no frame of reference for comparison.

Grade: B