Kate Greenhouse – Podcasting Them Softly

Henry Rollins screams out energetically from the not so subtle DVD artwork of He Never Died making the film appear to be a loud, obnoxious “rocker does a horror flick” type deal. I mean, it is technically that but Rollins is a great actor independent of his musical career and this film is far quieter, more muted and meandering than that melodramatic, operatic poster seems. Henry is Jack, a tired, very stoic and reserved fellow who, as we gradually learn, is in fact some sort of immortal angel, demon or other biblical figure who has been obligated to walk the earth since the very dawn of time, forced to feed on humans to retain his life force. These days he hangs around nocturnal Toronto doing not much of anything except attending an all night diner where the waitress (Kate Greenhouse) flirts with him, protecting the daughter (Jordan Todosey) of a former (brief) flame from dark forces, employing a hospital intern (Booboo Stewart) who provides him with blood bags and generally just moping about trying to kill time until a life resolution he’s not sure will ever come. Most of the people in his life aren’t content with leaving him alone though, so we have a series of darkly comic, noir tinged misadventures when several mob factions target him for murky reasons, he plays a lot of bingo, beats up a lot of dudes, tries his best to protect the waitress and his friend’s kid if only by default or boredom and just sort of… exists at a dull roar. Rollins is such an interesting dude in terms of character and charisma, not to mention that imposing hewn granite frame and intense obsidian glare. He adopts a hilariously stoic persona here, absolutely unflappably impassive until he gets to the end of his rope and sparks fly, it’s a terrific performance and one of the rare showcase lead roles he’s been gifted. Like I said, this isn’t at all like the posters suggest, it’s a lot more like a laidback ‘hang out’ type film with just a vague flavour of horror and a zig-zaggy feel to it that’s a lot of fun, provided you’re in the mood for something mellow, loose and experimental that doesn’t have very high plot ambitions and is more content to cruise along in neutral with the occasional blast of nitrous when it’s characters feel like getting frisky. Good times.

-Nate Hill

There’s home invasion films and then there’s whatever pseudo-psychological cosmic fuckery that transpires in Paul Fox‘s The Dark Hours, and I mean that in the best way possible way, this is a superior Canadian indie shocker that will knock your teeth out with its cunning verbosity, ruthless edge, terrifying villains and spooky atmospherics. Kate Greenhouse is Dr. Samantha Goodman, a veteran psychiatrist with a lot of inmates turned enemies who is spending some time away from her practice at a remote rural cabin with her hubbie (Gordon Currie) and little sis (Iris Graham). Unfortunately a former patient she once used shady malpractice on has followed her out there though, menacing serial rapist/murderer Harlan Pyne (Aiden Devine) with his twitchy, violent teen protege (Dov Tiefenbach) in tow. Harlan is extremely unstable, narcoleptic, sociopathic and out for mind-games, murder and revenge most sweet. Cue a very violent, anxiety inducing close quarters battle as we see the (not so?) good doctor match will, wit and physicality with this deadly psychopath and his monkeying lackey. Or do we? The third act of the film throws some metaphysical, supremely psychologically dense curveballs our way and there’s a reason for this: Samantha suffers from an inoperable brain tumour that causes unreliable rifts in perception, waking visions and all manner of cognitive disruptions. Additionally and for fascinating reasons that I won’t spoil.. Pyne suffers from the same type of ailments. So, we have an unreliable protagonist *and* an unreliable antagonist in an eerie setting with other characters orbiting them as cannon fodder for this brain damaged showdown and the result is nothing short of electrifying. The script is terse, intelligent, full of dark humour and vivid character eccentricity, the horror is shocking, genuinely unpredictable and very disturbing, the performances are raw, lithe and full of life and the overall aesthetic feels like a delicious concoction of Panic Room with splashes of Memento by way of the cabin in the woods motif. The very definition of a hidden gem, and a terrific film. This is streaming nowhere and dvds are apparently hard to find but there’s a decent version on YouTube, anyone can DM/email if they would like the link.

-Nate Hill