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Reviews
Shadow in the Cloud (2020)
A recycled concept, but that's OK...
As other reviewers have pointed out, this movie has a definite 80s b-movie vibe, and I believe there is a reason for this.
I remember reading an interview with Dan O'Bannon in which he pointed out that Alien was a development of the motif used in John Carpenter's "Dark Star", in which an alien gets loose on a spaceship and causes havoc. In Alien the motif was played for its horror effect, as opposed to comic value in Dark Star.
However the alien havoc motif in Dark Star was, in itself, inspired by a script by - I think - John Landis (I'm not 100% sure of this, it might have been O'Bannon himself, or even Richard Matheson), about a gremlin that gets loose on a wartime B-17, inspired by the Private Snafu cartoon shown at the start of the film. Having passed through various hands - as properties often do in Hollywood - This was subsequently reworked as "Nightmare at 20,000ft" which was an original episode of The Twilight Zone, subsequently remade as a segment of the portmanteau Twilight Zone: the Movie.
Twilight Zone: The Movie was produced by John Landis, and who should appear as a co-writer of Shadow in the Cloud but Max Landis, son of John.
So, I believe that this movie is based on the original treatment that gave rise to at least three classic movies, and perhaps should be seen in that light.
Undeniably, the movie has flaws but, honestly, it's no worse than any other 80's horror. Chloê's English accent is well rendered, although I find it implausible that an American girl of the 1940s could have pulled off quite such a convincing performance. After all, Chloê's a professional actress with access to voice coaches and considerably more exposure to authentic British accents than Garrett/Mrs Johnson would have had growing up in the first half of 20th century America.
Was the ending implausible? Yup. Ridiculous, even, but, seriously, when has that been an issue in the movies? Mission Impossible, anyone? Fast and Furious 1 through 8? Stranger Things? Gravity? The Walking Dead?
Suspend your disbelief and go along for the ride...
Spides (2020)
Very odd
Wow, this is a weird one. Seeing the trailers, I had hopes that this would be something in the mould of Orphan Black, but the two are poles apart in every respect.
Let's start with the dialogue. Others have commented that the acting is bad; I don't think it's that at all. The dilaogue has this strange, stilted quality, like a foreign movie dubbed into English, where the voice artists have attempted to crowbar the rhythms and cadences of English into the unfamilar patterns of German, Italian or Japanese. Except it's actually an English language movie, but the English sounds unnatural. Only a handful of the actors are native English speakers but that alone is insufficient to explain the strange ambience of the dialogue. I think the problem lies in the translation. There is a scene in the opening episode where Nora is greeted by her friend with the words "I'm so glad you're not dead!".
I'm not fluent in German, but it may be that "Ich bin so froh dass du nicht tot bis" sounds perfectly fine in a pragmatic language like German, but in English it sounds odd as we would be more likely to say something like "I'm glad to see you're still with us!" an idiomatic construction that might sound ambiguous directly translated into German. So I think it might have paid for them to have employed a consultant to proof read the translated script and put some of it into correct idiomatic English. I notice that Anna Bullard, who co stars, is also listed as a dialogue coach. Hmm. Probably never a good idea to split roles to save the cost of a specialist consultant. I can't work out if she's an American actress living in Germany or a German actress who speaks fluent American. Go figure...
The plot. I know that there is a necessity for a gradual reveal, but the plot is not just overcomplicated; at times it is bafflingly incomprehensible. Characters waft in and out of the narrative without much of a backstory. I've watched it assiduously from the start, but five episodes in and I still ahve no idea who many of them are, or how they relate to the main narrative. If I can cite Orphan Black in comparison again, this had one actress playing as many as fourteen different versions of herself and yet, despite the complexity of the plot, it never tied itself in the narrative knots that Spides does, and it remained coherent throughout its run.
Spides is hard going. I will persevere with it, but I often find myself wondering why, and if my time would be better spent doing something more entertaining.
If you are a fan of the weird, the chimerical and the nightmarish (it could be argued that the dialogue flaws actually contribute to the surreal feeling of alienation) and aren't particularly critical of the issues that I've raised, then Spides is probably right up your Strasse. I found it a bit meh.
Zomboat! (2019)
Crazyhead version 2.0
"Hey, remember that hot girl from Downton who went round Bristol whacking demons with a baseball bat with her not quite as hot but funny friend? Let's do something like that!"
That's how imagine the pitch went at the production meeting.
So far it's not quite as much fun or as well written as Crazyhead, but it's got Cara Theobold in it who's always watchable and gives everything to the part however flimsy the story.
The title is rubbish and the sort of thing that I imagine the writer's nine year old niece might have come up with. The humour will appeal to the millennial demographic more than baby-boomers.
I'm surprised it's not on E4 rather than ITV2 as it seems more their kind of thing. Overall it's not rubbish, but it's not great either. There's not much that's worthy of criticism and I'll carry on watching it. It's only three hours over a six episode span, so what could go wrong...?