Qui êtes-vous, 2022?

Ostensibly, 2022 presented me to the world as a man of leisure, if not yet of influence. I am in the happy position of not having to do a damned thing that I don't care to, at least not in anyone else's service. There are things I would have just as soon rather not done, such as the surprises left dormant by the previous occupant of my childhood home that I had to reckon with. But today, I can shrug, settle the matter, and move on comfortably. That is a luxury I did not have not so long ago, and I am a lucky man to be in this state of being, especially when far too many are not.

I would love to tell you about what particularly made 2022 a special year for me, but...

...you'll just have to trust me, it was really awesome.

I can talk about a smaller but respectively awesome event: after lobbying what seemed in vain for over a decade, I was able to witness my valued friend Philippe Mora saw his wonderfully eccentric and earnest 1983 film THE RETURN OF CAPTAIN INVINCIBLE - a film I've gone to the mat for going two decades - get the bells-and-whistles Blu-Ray edition it's deserved. And I had the honor of conducting a long-form, full-career interview with him that is among the bonus features on this release. I relish any opportunity to speak for posterity on physical media, and I've long wanted to contribute to the legacy of tremendous presentations that the Severin label is known for.

But in the immortally mangled words of the otherwise forgotten Jane & Goodman Ace, you have to take the bitter with the batter. And one of the harsh millstones of living past 50 is the rise in obits that affect you directly. There was way too much loss in my life. A high school crush died. Several artists I revered died. And two important friends in my regular life died.

Clu Gulager was one of the first people I grew up watching on TV who, when I made the pilgrimage to Los Angeles, I had the outstanding fortune to befriend. If you ever found yourself driving around Hollywood, or having a late snack at Canter's or Astro Burger, or catching a midnight movie, you likely crossed paths with him.

Native American
Gallant cowboy
Generous actor
Genial raconteur
Fearless artist
Innovative teacher
L.A. legend

In a properly spiritual world, every cinema should keep a front row seat empty for Clu Gulager, like having a seat for Elijah at the Passover seder.

When it often seemed like every physical media label had their own in-house version of me already to work on their special features, Bill Olsen gave me opportunity when nobody else wanted me, and I owe him. I've had a long, wild history with him and his Code Red Blu/DVD label, involving a lot of loud late night phone calls, effectively begging for his cinematic scraps to build my exposure, and having to helplessly watch him try to burn every bridge in the home video business. But as Harlan Ellison once observed, when you've been made an outcast, you are always angry. And Bill was, well, mostly known for his outbursts, living his life like a spite house. We would yell at each other, and a minute later be laughing at old inside jokes. He didn't have a lot of friends, so the fact that I kept his trust and he mostly had my back was important to us both. And as I got what precious few insights I could into his background, I think the only reciprocated love he ever had in his life was with the movies. 

Passings weren't limited to the corporeal realm. My house boiler died. My garage plumbing had been long dead, I learned too late, which led to some crazy winter flooding, which almost killed the car sitting inside it. That car died later last summer of unrelated engine issues. But again, when confronted, I mutter, then I laugh, then I fix the problem. 'tis what grown-ups do.

And after a' that, I went to the movies. A lot. And from there, comes The Top 13 of 2022.

13. (tie) X + PEARL

12. THE FABELMANS

11. AVATAR: THE WAY OF WATER

10. BROS

9. THE BANSHEES OF INISHERIN

8. A LOVE SONG

7. THE BLACK PHONE

6. AFTERSUN

5. HIT THE ROAD

4. WOMEN TALKING

3. TÁR

2. RRR

1. EVERYTHING EVERYWHERE ALL AT ONCE

"We need to laugh, we need to be scared, we need to hug our girl in the theater. It lightens the load of this crummy life."

"Those with obsessions never learn. Those with a compulsion to make films are fucked in the beginning, fucked in the middle, and fucked in the end. You can call it madness, you can call it being an artist, or you can call it ruining your life. But we have not learned one God-damned thing."

- Clu Gulager. November 16, 1928 – August 5, 2022

"Stay tuned...and keep the calls coming!"

A preface: The following essay will be detailing almost every major plot revelation in THE BLACK PHONE, as well as that from other well-known films by the same director. I don't personally believe that knowing all the details will ever hurt a first-time viewing of a movie if the story is good and the direction well-executed, and this particular film is less about its surprise revelations and more about how it reaches conclusion, but there is definitely a specific pleasure to be obtained from going into discovering a previously unviewed film with a blank slate. So use that information as you will...

Can you hear what I've been thinking
Do you hear my words out loud
Cause there's an echo that's insisting
That this here phone should ring about now
But when it does, it rings, no questions
Then when it don't, I wonder why
Maybe I'm somewhere you can't reach me
On this dark and lonely night

- Terry Reid, "Faith to Arise"

Writer/director Scott Derrickson has maintained a singular presence in a crowded field of auteurs, by delivering a consistent flow of entertaining films in the horror and fantasy genres, and more importantly, imbuing them with significant themes on and questions about believing in forces other than what's knowable in the corporeal realm. In a business where its most visible talent either cautiously avoid discussing religious practice, or cravenly make it their entire brand at the expense of any nuance, he frequently expounds unvarnished on his life as a Christian, from his conversion to Evangelical fundamentalism in youth, expanding into larger ecumenism in adulthood, and his present of, as he told the National Catholic Register, being more of a general mystic, but carrying a rosary and a G.K. Chesterton book almost all the time. And in full disclosure, I have enjoyed congenial correspondence with the artist for several years, and had the privilege of securing him to introduce one of my series of "Cinema Tremens" screenings in 2014.

There have been two dominant collaborators in Derrickson's filmography, each assisting in getting across ideas that have mattered to him. His first writing partner, Paul Harris Boardman, can be associated with his most overtly Christian-driven narratives - HELLRAISER: INFERNO, THE EXORCISM OF EMILY ROSE, DELIVER US FROM EVIL, while his current writing partner, C. Robert Cargill, has helped steer the more general supernatural tales  - SINISTER, DOCTOR STRANGE, and their current hit film, THE BLACK PHONE. Barring the disawowed Pinhead installment (as a certain "SCTV" sketch might say, "Was this box in fact, HELL???"), all these films have conveyed Derrickson's concepts of morality and the varying degrees of what happens when it is compromised. 

While he recently stated to writer Walter Chaw, "I haven't made any movies with happy endings. They're always really bleak," in the opinion of this writer, it's not so much that they're unhappy or bleak, but they don't neatly wrap everything in the kind of clean finish that most films...and indeed, some branches of Christianity...often promise; there's a mess to be reckoned with after the credits roll. In the Christian stories written with Boardman, God's glory is served as demon possessions are thwarted, but one priest is found guilty of negligent homicide, a detective causes the death of his partner while his wife and child are traumatized by abduction, and nobody comes back from the netherworld. In the first two outings with Cargill, both protagonists - played by actors made up to bear a striking resemblance to Derrickson - give in to hubris, believing themselves smarter than the unknown forces they're investigating, and while one is completely consumed while the other survives, they both have facilitated the continuation of chaos they thought could be tamed. Sadly, on occasion this conundrum has bled into his real life: as he elaborated to Chaw, two years after the life-changing success of DOCTOR STRANGE, "my house burned down in [the Woodley] wildfire and my wife and I of many years separated and divorced very shortly after that. It was really hard, so hard..."

"[I] thought one day when I was depressed, you know when you’re real depressed and you see everything comes to nothing, well, I thought, maybe I ought to take a different approach, and write [something] that, instead of directed at people, would somehow musically induce God into giving us all a break, cause I was getting a little fed up by this point. So...I’d like to [give this to] you in the hope that you’ll get a break.”

- Judee Sill, introduction to "The Donor" for the BBC, 1972

THE BLACK PHONE, Derrickson's newest release, again co-scripted with Robert Cargill from the 2004 short story by Joe Hill, in principle continues exploring his favorite topics - folklore, cruelty, and faith - but takes several new approaches on their depiction. It is his first film that, barring its lead villain, focuses almost entirely on child protagonists. It is his first set in the past, rather than the present tense of his previous stories. There is supernatural activity, but all violence visited upon its characters are acts of free will by humans. And while it is unflinching in its dramatization of family abuse, bullying, psychological torture, and catatonic fear, it is the first Derrickson film that does not leave a mess behind to linger on; God has finally granted the hero a break.

In a Denver suburb during 1978, shy tweener kid Finney Blake (Mason Thames) and his brasher younger sister Gwen (Madeleine McGraw) endure steady beatings from a trio of bullies at school and from their anguished alcoholic father (Jeremy Davies) at home. They have heard accounts of a rumored local child abductor called The Grabber (Ethan Hawke), and his threat looms harder over them when two of Finney's schoolmates go missing. Gwen, in recounting dreams she has had about the kidnappings to others, describes details not disclosed to the public, which leads desperate police to interrogate her while having misgivings about her claims. Finney himself ultimately gets taken by The Grabber, and is imprisoned in a barren, soundproof basement. Already feeling mostly cowed by antagonists, he now faces his ultimate enemy - one who cannot be hidden from, deferred to, bargained with, tricked, or moved - and is almost resigned to the worst. Until an old, otherwise disconnected wall phone, regularly rings just for him, with the voices of previous Grabber victims instructing him on various ways of making an escape. Concurrently, Gwen, unaware of Finney's incidents, senses more details about the crimes, at times almost overlapping visions with him, and sets out to determine if what she's seen is real. But after all Finney's attempts have failed, and he recognizes his captor is ready to finish this grim charade, he'll need to tap into his own spirit rather than the ones beyond him. And Gwen must find order in the chaos of her manifestations - or else. All of these events taking place in a decade where, even today, one of the biggest questions taking place within was whether the children were growing up too fast. 

 Help me find my proper place

Help me in my weakness
'Cos I'm falling out of grace

- The Velvet Underground, "Jesus"

Going against his previous films whose stories frequently involve long-forgotten arcana about secret societies and deities, there is a brilliant and ruthless simplicity to THE BLACK PHONE in its near-lack of back story. There are references to trauma The Grabber himself was subject to in his childhood, and the suicide of the Blake family's mother when her own powers of prophesy became overwhelming, but they ultimately do not come into play; no digging through dusty books or microfiche, no ancient relics once lost now found. When Finney and Gwen have their flashes to the past moments of the missing boys, witnessing lives they did not otherwise know intimate details about, they are not so much finding clues as they are placing themselves in the shoes of the fallen, building empathy. At the core, this is a straightforward scary tale of survival where each moment matters *right now*, and in many cases, will unexpectedly matter later on. And as all the victims testify to losing memory of their names first, retaining only details of their confinement or their ties to the siblings, it is their job to remember for them to the living world.

Personal memory permeates this film more than perhaps any other Derrickson film and screenplay. Upon first reading Hill's minimalist tale, it became a personal mission for him to adapt it, telling SlashFilm's Jacob Hall, "I had thought about Joe's story for a long time, over 15 years I was trying to do it. And I had given it to my writing partner Cargill, and he loved it too...toward the end of working on the sequel to DOCTOR STRANGE and then stepping off of it, I had been in therapy for three years dealing with the traumatic nature of my own childhood, and just the violence that I experienced, and violence in my home and my neighborhood, the bullying, just the kind of place that I grew up. And I felt that I could take all of that and merge it with Joe's story, and have something really powerful. [The] most terrifying difficult scene to watch in the movie is the whipping, and that happened to me all the time as a kid, and a lot of other kids in my neighborhood. That was pretty standard for that time, for the late '70s. And so the idea, ultimately, of making a movie about childhood trauma and the resilience of children became — it's a horror film and a coming-of-age film."

Lest these details make the film sound unbearably grim, there is a frequent and therapeutic amount of levity throughout the story. There is warm and funny banter between the siblings and their friends, discussing such solemn topics as toughest kid in school rankings, who's the best TV heartthrob, or the better "forbidden" adult action movie to sneak a look at. Totems of the 70s are used sparingly but smartly, with darkly humorous moments as Finney watching William Castle's THE TINGLER (specifically, the scene when a mute woman is attacked by the creature, telegraphing his own impending imprisonment of silence), or when Robin's abduction is followed by a TV screen broadcasting "EMERGENCY!" And most surprisingly, Gwen's relationship to religion provides the most laughs, as she has clearly not had any actual church upbringing and is cobbling together her own ritual to speak to Jesus; when she feels she's been left adrift by God, whilst not descending to the rage of, say, Harvey Keitel in BAD LIEUTENANT, she has no qualms about expressing herself to the Great Infinite with several expletives...though she quickly apologizes just in case. Our heroes are dealing with ordeals on par with Job himself, but never lose their capacity for rueful amusement.

As befitting its period setting, in the best ways possible, THE BLACK PHONE unfolds and plays like a tight, efficient ABC Movie of the Week that its 1978 characters would be at home watching tonight. If Derrickson & Cargill's script had somehow traveled back in time to Fred Silverman's desk, it would have easily become a World Television Premiere directed by Curtis Harrington, starring Alfred Lutter, Quinn Cummings, and Richard Thomas as The Grabber. The premise of isolation and escape with a ticking clock amidst an outwardly uncaring world calls to mind not just horror classics as Jack Smight's 1972 THE SCREAMING WOMAN with Olivia de Havilland and THE LONGEST NIGHT with James Farentino, but even non-horror fare as Daryl Duke's 1975 A CRY FOR HELP, written by future "MURDER SHE WROTE" co-creator Peter S. Fischer, where Robert Culp plays a morning "shock jock" talk radio star who, after initially ridiculing a suicidal caller, changes course and desperately appeals to all his listeners to help track her down before she gives in to her depression. (All films produced, appropriately enough, by the studio behind this one, Universal.) In one powerful moment, Culp's DJ could just as easily be speaking for Gwen after her brother's kidnapping:

"There's a guy down at the police station - you heard him - who said that the girl can't be found. The word was can't. Well, I'll tell you what I think. Maybe we better get cracking. Not just me, but all of us, because...I guess she's one of us...and maybe we oughta take some responsibility for her." 

Hey, now, who really cares?
Hey, won't somebody listen
Let me say what's been on my mind
Can I bring it out to you
I need someone to talk to
And no one else will spare me the time

- Linda Perhacs, "Hey, Who Really Cares"

Indeed, the notion of being the proverbial brother's keeper is the recurrent thread through Finney's interactions with the voices of The Grabber's previous victims, all of whom, in their own ways, are children on the margins. Bruce Yasmada is Asian, Robin Arellano is Latino, mingling amiably with white kids in a time where racial integration in the suburbs is still a relatively new phenomenon. Billy Showalter, who bristles at hearing his name and prefers being called by his occupation "Paperboy," suggests a child thrust into the work force to sustain the household. Griffin Staggs is a proverbial lonely invisible kid - Finney says to him, "I didn't know you," and he replies, "Nobody did." And Vance Hopper, by contrast, is one of the meanest, most feared people in the neighborhood, almost a rival to The Grabber in tall tales around the playground, the kind of person who would actively not be missed. They have little in common beyond any of them not being considered one of the average boys in town, but in cold Kubrickian calculus, whatever their previous quarrels, they are all equal now. And in turn, it is now Finney's task to try every strategy they offer him to escape and expose their killer. He has already demonstrated an ability to grasp the circumstances of others, it is time to augment that with action. Because, as Robin reminds him, he is capable of withstanding pain without compromising his morals: "You were always afraid to throw a punch, but you knew how to take one." When he was alive, he warned him that some day he would have to stand up for himself, and in his posthumous counsel he proclaims, "Someday is today...Use what we gave you." In saving himself, he will also make sure the other boys are not forgotten, and that no other child in their town will be claimed either.

This is a sentiment that is right at home in the tradition of Roman Catholicism what has fascinated Derrickson for some time. Though almost completely eliminated in the present day, for centuries during the Sacrament of Confirmation, when a teenager stands before an archbishop and speaks for themselves the vows that a godparent previously took for them at Baptism, the bishop would in turn softly touch their cheek with their hand, to symbolize the potential conflicts ahead from adhering to those vows. And while post-Vatican II church teachings have attempted to de-escalate the fetishization of suffering, many Catholics, including myself, appreciate the base concept that in life, doing the right thing is often going to hurt, emotionally and physically, and many times, it will be an unrewarding endeavor. Finney gets a taste of this harsh truth when, upon trying to thank Vance for his escape hint, he screams back, "IT'S NOT ABOUT YOU, FUCKHEAD!" In his literal quest for survival, he accepts a crucial lesson about allyship, that some of the pain of conscientious behavior will involve being castigated by the very souls he seeks to help. With apologies to Eddie Izzard, being good won't guarantee you any fucking cake; at best, maybe a cracker on Sunday.

You've been sitting on your ass
Trying to find some grace
But you better save yourself
If you wanna see his face

- Chris Bell, "Better Save Yourself"

Derrickson, in his thoughtful interview with Chaw, expounded on the acceptance of pain in a life of faith, as opposed to the excessive positivity of, say, Prosperity Gospel purveyors. He states, "man, in that culture, you gotta be happy. You gotta be happy and everything's positive because that's the result of loving Jesus. That's proof. You wanna hear the Good News? Everything's great. You know, He saved me. Never mind the horrible and obvious shit I have pressed down into my gut, my life is wonderful. Everything is great. The idea of delving into darkness is in the Catholic tradition, but boy, it sure as shit is not in the Evangelical one. That's not healthy. It has no relationship with reality. There's kind of a no darkness allowed rule when it comes to that brand of American Christianity."

As Finney is the surrogate for Derrickson learning to transcend childhood trauma, Gwen is the surrogate for accepting mystery in the greater world. She is initially trepidatious at the prospect of psychic sight, having only a vague knowledge that her mother claimed to be able to "see things" before taking her own life, much like Ellie Taylor, the tender protagonist of Edgar Wright's equally scintillating 2021 thriller LAST NIGHT IN SOHO; to her, this gift has only yielded alternating bouts of abuse and angst from her father. But once her own brother goes missing, with practically all the adults around her proving to be nigh worthless for help, she's open to accept whatever God or her subconscious have to show her. She's wise enough to temper these mind flights within the reality of her environment, lest this become a Great Pumpkin-esque weight on her playground reputation, but as she bravely and alone follows the crumbs, she helps make a positive outcome possible; she's is willing to look where others have not thought to look, be it in that quiet house no is seen entering or leaving, or in her own self.

Reflecting back on Derrickson's assertion about his previous endings, any viewer will concur that this is the cleanest and happiest resolution of his films. In sober terms, it's not without some future ambiguities for its characters. Finney likely may find himself overcome by survivor's guilt as he grows older. His Big Man on Campus status will dissipate one day, and his old antagonists may feel bold enough to resume stirring his pot. He and Gwen may be in a honeymoon stage with their father now that they've emerged from this ordeal safe, but how long before a parental hand gets raised in a fit of pique again? But these matters will be dealt with later, if or when they happen. Today, *right now*, he has earned the right to express his wish to be called "Finn," and to be exempt from petty shit. He now has faith in his abilities to survive and assert himself. Gwen now has faith that the world has forces that will set things right. And these already loving siblings have blood proof they can rely on each other. Tonight, they're going to stay up past their bedtime, watch scary movies and eat ice cream, and enjoy childhood. 

Help your fellow man
Your cause is great and good

Your temple made of sand

No trace of where it stood
No, you can't be hurt

You're a golden child of God

- Emitt Rhodes, "Golden Child of God"

Twenty-One Guns the Loot

It's a peculiar thing to be in my circumstance now, watching and shuddering over the pendulum swings that have affected peoples' lives in 2021, while I now exist on a comfortable keel. I spent so many years having to think three moves ahead while others could play in the moment; I'm still not 100% at ease with the turnabout. But while the world at large was not exactly conducive to engaging in large gambles, I want to think that in small degrees, I placed wagers on people who matter to me that will pay off later in the game, and I am grateful that I'm capable of that.

What I am most grateful and proud for, though, is the gamble someone took on me. B Peterson, before even reaching the age of 21, launched the ambitious The Screens Margins podcast network, creating shows for nurturing long, thorough discussions on the works of Wiseman, Fassbinder, and the offerings of Ovid.tv, and within that mission, decided there was a place for me in the conversation. Together, we engaged on an exhaustive journey through the surviving works of Dorothy Arzner, culminating in a viewing marathon not seen since those Robbie Robertson and Martin Scorsese made famous, and even made a detour podcast to spend time kibitzing over flicks written by one of her friends, Zoe Akins. I had the gift of watching terrific hard-to-see gems, waxing thoughtfully on them, and most importantly, making a wonderful new friend. Oh yeah, and discovering Arzner's student Francis Ford Coppola has been brewing a rye in her honor. I'm eagerly awaiting more engagement with B and this bottle in the New Year.

For rash or for better, regular theatrical moviegoing, and a stream of features justifying the trip outside, returned to the fore, allowing me to allocate a Jury Prize this year. And this time, well, I have to declare a hung jury, in that there's a tie: 2 unique films that deserve a spotlight all their own, both tackling multiple ideas with aplomb. Nobuhiko Obayashi's 2019 LABYRINTH OF CINEMA, finally getting a stateside release this year, was a moving blend of hilarity, surreality, poignance, and righteous anger about art, Japan, war, propaganda, and the movies, the kind of final statement only the director of HOUSE and THE GIRL WHO LEAPT THROUGH TIME could pull off. And Kier-La Janisse's WOODLANDS DARK AND DAYS BEWITCHED was the mammoth documentary on the history and diversity of folk horror I didn't know I needed, and now cannot live without; not just a history of cool films, but of class, racism, upheaval, and hauntology. To again summon Scorsese's name, it stands alongside his A HISTORY OF AMERICAN MOVIES and MY VOYAGE TO ITALY as a one-stop epic primer for the self-educating cineaste. 

And while potent pandemics persist and performative politicians punt, we still find solace at the cinema. Thus The Top 13 of 2021.

13. SAINT MAUD

12. ZOLA

11. THE POWER OF THE DOG

10. ANNETTE

9. PASSING

8. PIG

7. SHIVA BABY

6. LAST NIGHT IN SOHO

5. LICORICE PIZZA

4. TITANE

3. SWAN SONG

2. DRIVE MY CAR

1. SUMMERTIME

It has been an unofficial and unfortunate trend to post a moving quote from a cultural figure I admired who passed away in the calendar year, both unexepectedly, and much too young. Seeing how this year had so many deaths brought about by an indifferent virus, that not only claimed titans, but who knows how many more nascent creators who never got their big break, I think this epigram from the past is an appropriate tribute:

"Nothing seems so tragic to one who is old as the death of one who is young, and this alone proves that life is a good thing." 

- Zoe Akins,  October 30, 1886 – October 29, 1958

"I believe you; thousands wouldn't."

A preface: The following essay will be detailing almost every major plot revelation in LAST NIGHT IN SOHO, as well as that from another well-known Italian thriller by  a name director. I don't personally believe that knowing all the details will ever hurt a first-time viewing of a movie if the story is good and the direction well-executed, but there is definitely a specific pleasure to be obtained from going into discovering a previously unviewed film with a blank slate. So use that information as you will...

It lay buried here, it lay deep inside me

It's so deep I don't think that I can speak about it

It could take me all of my life

But it would only take a moment to

Tell you what I'm feeling

But I don't know if I'm ready yet

You come walking into this room

Like you're walking into my arms

Longtime readers of this blog know from previous writings that I am openly and unashamedly in the tank (or should that be in the boot?) for Edgar Wright. There is the surface appeal, which is his genial cinemania, both on display in his films via creatively repurposed homage, and in his public profile, refusing to engage in cultural gatekeeping by politely observing that those who have never seen any of the canonized classics have the unique gift of seeing them with fresh eyes. But always beneath the playful visualizations, there has been serious reflection on the difficult moments faced in a life, usually involving taking responsibility for bad choices amidst increasingly calamitous circumstances. In a sense, he is the current master of delivering potent medicine inside the most delicious candy coatings.

Yet even by that metric, LAST NIGHT IN SOHO is a striking variation on the Wright template. There is still virtuoso composition at work, but with much more discipline than the comical quick cuts in his comedies. For that matter, while hardly bereft of levity, there's little comedy at all in this production, with those being Laugh Quietly To Myself rather than Laugh Out Loud incidents. There is allusion to influential works of the past, but most are not so direct as to be pointed to by Rick Dalton watching himself on TV. Notably, it is his first film with a female lead, who also happens to be his youngest as well. And for once, the protagonist is not faced with having to change and adapt, it is the environment around her that is shown to be mired in stasis.

Ellie Taylor (Thomasin McKenzie), in the tradition of several Wright heroes, is living with the loss of her mother, made particularly painful in that the parent took her own life, as opposed to dying in accidents as Baby Miles' in BABY DRIVER or Danny Butterman's in HOT FUZZ, or being dispatched after zombie infection as Shaun's in SHAUN OF THE DEAD. However, the girl regularly senses her presence in mirrors, a mixed gift which alternately gives the comfort of feeling the absent parent is witnessing her still but leaves her worrying if she too will succumb to the same emotional turmoil that drove that end-of-life decision. When she moves to Soho, and embarks on a path of dream-state journeys with her Swinging Sixties avatar Sandie (Anya Taylor-Joy), Ellie receives physical sensations of the experiences, driving her to investigate if they're based in real events. And after an initial run of piquant encounters, the increasingly bleak and violent turns of Sandie's circumstance bleeds into Ellie's waking consciousness too, making her sense threats around her even she's in no outwardly perceivable danger. Effectively, her concerns about subsuming her mother's psychosis have now been replaced by inheriting the mounting paranoia of a kindred spirit and fearing that she too will be consumed by that darkness. To paraphrase an otherwise tired cliche, once you've been struck down like a nail, everything that comes at you looks like a hammer.

In short, if there were a giallo-appropriate alternate title for this tale, it should be The Girl Who Felt Too Much. The same internal chemistry that buoys her when she listens to '60s Britpop is what inspires embarrassment when her mother's energy is present, making her lie to her grandmother about how recently she's had the sensations. When initially thrust into a a clique of Mean Girls, she can't just blow off their catty insults or ignore the noise they make; it's directly injurious. Yet in the deceptively quiet confines of the quaint bed-sit she moves to, in the absence of people and cacophony, she ingests the energy of lingering memories that only near the end, she realizes were indeed based in reality; the life of her outwardly taciturn landlady...Alexandra Collins (Diana Rigg). Like Ellie, she too had pendulum swings of elation and paralyzing fear, but somehow Ellie never realized that Sandie resolved that problem by killing everyone who threatened her...because that's when Sandie stopped feeling anything anymore.

If you can't tell your sister

If you can't tell a priest

'Cause it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it

To anyone

And you tell it to your heart?

Can you find it in your heart

To let go of these feelings

Like a bell to a Southerly wind?

We could be like two strings beating

Speaking in sympathy

Different viewers have been gleaning different themes from the film, mostly about the dangers of the big city, or of romanticizing the past. But these readings seem facile. Yes, London may be an overwhelming place for a sensitive "country mouse" as Ellie, but as Gary King might attest, small towns are just as capable of callous behavior since they tend to be the kind of place where everyone knows your business and has an unsolicited opinion about it, regardless of whether or not they have been absorbed into a giant alien consciousness. While the nightmare sequences well demonstrate how the surface image of smashing birds cavorting on Carnaby St. disguised how many women's throats were under the heels of Beatle boots, the present day sequences involving a creepy cabbie, space invading male students, and indifferent police, make it clear that not only has the misogyny not gone away, it's even more blatantly out in the open. Even when retired vice squad punter Lindsay (Terence Stamp) is revealed to be roughly benign, he is hardly a model of chivalry: telling Sandie in the midst of her sex work that "you're better than this," without offering any sort of direct route to that mythical better opportunity, is not the compliment he thinks it is, and the condescending tone he takes in conversation with Ellie suggests his attitude toward women may not be malicious, but it's not nuanced either. And for a vulnerable girl in any incarnation of the city, getting people to take them seriously when they claim powerful men have abused them is often met with as much resistance and ridicule as, well, claiming to possess paranormal capabilities.

However, people suggesting that Wright has made an opportunistic "#metoo" story are neglecting that in all his major works, the comedy may have the appearance of "lads being lads," but there's always been criticism of that mindset. Baby Miles Driver is often too clever for his own good, his impulses to show off in the face of threatening parties puts those he ostensibly cares about further in harm's way; even with all the people who vouch for his integrity, he's still going to have to do that prison sentence to get some perspective. When Scott Pilgrim meets Nega-Scott, and his antithesis offers to buy breakfast, it's pretty clear that the doppelganger was the "good" Scott all this time. Shaun may be easily distracted and Ed an enabler, but it is jealous jockeying by Liz's flatmate and unrequited lover David that brings the most cataclysmic battle of their zombie exodus. Danny Butterman ultimately stands up to the martinet classism, racism, and outsider demonization of his police chief father, but he and Nick employ the same militarized tactics to eliminate the Neighborhood Watch Alliance, and its hinted that much like the meme of a bomber plane painted with a rainbow flag, Sanford is going to have a more virtuous but not less violent police force. And Gary has found sobriety and consideration for others and asserted the worth of the individual (even alien clones), but he's forced the rest of mankind to return to hunter-gathering in the process. You could love all these men if you knew them in real life, but you would confess privately to those friends of yours whom they don't know that they're a handful.

In contrast, Ellie stands out not just by her youth and gender, but her willful reserves. She is still raw about losing her mother, but is secure in the knowledge she did not take her presence for granted like Shaun did, and unlike Danny, who has cocooned in childish police cosplay after his mom's passing, or Baby, whose tinnitus from a car accident may as well be mentally obscuring the memory of his mother's death throes, she presses onward with her goals. She must sometime retreat to herself when the world is hostile, but she has activated her self-respect a lot sooner than Scott Pilgrim has. Despite the mounting phalanx of horrors in her head, she soldiers through researching the forgotten crimes of the past, confronts the enigmatic Lindsay, and saves herself.

Thus, Wright and his co-screenwriter Krysty Wilson-Cairns demonstrate that in many circumstances, women cannot and do not take the luxury of stewing in their sorrows like his other arrested adolescent characters. This is echoed in the grim descent of Sandie, in the cautions of Ellie's world-weary pub boss, even in the glint of sympathy and strength accorded to Ellie's outward nemesis Jocasta (Synnøve Karlsen): admitting to a parental loss herself, her one-upmanship and over-it-all manner among her peers may well be projection of a personal pain she fears she should not admit to lest she be thought too weak and emotional too. It could be said that Jocasta is on the precipice of becoming a future Alexandra Collins, repressing her legitimate heartbreak in favor of callous bravado to survive, endangering her humanity. There's also an interesting parallel to Wilson-Cairns' previous screenplay credit of 1917 with Sam Mendes, where that film's two lance corporals are continuously attacked and injured, yet they must literally continue going forward or else they and thousands more will die. The bitter difference being that after two World Wars, the battle between the English and the Germans mostly ended, but the battle between the sexes has gotten more lethal.

Take away the love and the anger

And a little piece of hope holding us together

Looking for a moment that'll never happen

Living in the gap between past and future

Take away the stone and the timber

And a little piece of rope won't hold it together

We're building a house of the future together

But let us not allow the deep concepts being discussed here to overshadow that above all else, LAST NIGHT is a feast of luminous performers, gorgeous visuals, compelling set-pieces, and thoughtful connotations to a diverse body of songs and films that may not be readily familiar to its audience, raising awareness while remixing them to new effect. In a sense, it is the fulfillment of the possibilities offered in his exuberant fake trailer DON'T! from GRINDHOUSE in 2007. In fact, here there is a tip of the hat sent back to that ambitious Rodriguez/Tarantino project, in that deep cut pop band Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick & Tich, whose 1968 single provides the title of this film, was a passionate subject of debate for Sydney Tamiia Poitier's ill-fated D.J. Jungle Julia in DEATH PROOF, and Ellie's ghoulish dark-eyed Halloween party makeup recalls the haunting visage of Marley Shelton as Dr. Dakota Block in PLANET TERROR.

Casting choices for the supporting players are particularly astute, not just for their iconic status from the bygone era, but for the specific archetypes they represented therein. Rita Tushingham is most perfect to play Ellie's supporting grandmother, because in the same manner of Ellie's travails in the city, Tushingham's film roles included an interracial relationship in A TASTE OF HONEY, growing too enmeshed with a serial killer in STRAIGHT ON TILL MORNING, and coping with sexual distress brought through miscommunication in THE KNACK...AND HOW TO GET IT. She even starred in an Italian murder film (albeit comedic) called BLACK JOURNAL about female serial killer Leonarda Cianciulli. And after achieving immortality for playing a sexy heroine named homophonically for her M(ale) Appeal, Diana Rigg not only presents an elegant coda to her career by playing a Darkest Timeline version of what her life could have become, as the elderly, hardened Ms. Collins, but also a sly tribute to other past characters of hers from THE ASSASSINATION BUREAU and THEATRE OF BLOOD, that on the outside seemed harmless but harbored deadly secrets within.

For all the British kitchen sink dramas and European thrillers that Wright has declared as influences on SOHO in interviews and promotional videos, a title I have not yet seen discussed that feels like a very direct inspiration is Lucio Fulci's 1977 mystery SEVEN NOTES IN BLACK, released in America as THE PSYCHIC. In that film's screenplay, written by Roberto Gianviti and Dardano Sacchetti, the protagonist, Virginia, is first seen as an English teenager in an Italian boarding school, who visualizes and feels the pains of her mother's suicide in Dover as it happens in real time, and then, as an adult (Jennifer O'Neill) in an otherwise pleasant marriage, is haunted by recurring visions - a deconstructed wall, a smashed mirror, a dead body - that suggest a killing has taken place in a mansion purchased by her wealthy husband Francesco (Gianni Garko). Against the disbelief of others, she investigates on her own, and the revelations initially contradict her claims - a dead body is found, but not the one she saw, a magazine was not yet published when the murder took place, etc - but soon she realizes she has not seen a past event, but a future one. What she does not figure out until too late is that the event is her own murder. Fulci had envisioned the film as a story about challenging fate, and whether it is even possible.

Ellie too is challenging fate throughout her entire odyssey. On a superficial level, the fate of being a small-town dreamer who can't hack it in the competitive field she aspires to join. On a personal level, the fate of being the daughter of a fatally depressed parent and potentially repeating the same fragility; a trajectory predicted by Jocasta within hours of meeting her. On a visceral level, the fate of being driven to madness by another woman's trauma. And then of course, the primary level of coming face to face with a murderer that wants Ellie to take her secrets to the grave.

The difference between Fulci and Wright's heroines is that unlike poor Virginia (her musical watch notwithstanding), Ellie succeeds in changing what would have been seen as inevitable. Not just that she survives the nightmare. She finds a balance for her sensitivity. London doesn't break her. Her artistic pursuits continue. Threats don't make her cower. And in a most poignant turn, she even changes the fate of Alexandra Collins: rather than watch her commit suicide in a state of self-loathing, Ellie intervenes and demonstrates that she has born witness to the promise and ache of young Sandie, she is that one person that understood her and what was lost so many years ago to a band of predators. Ms. Collins will have to face a fiery, lacerating death for the lives she ended, but she knows now, in her final moments, in the memory of one girl, she will not die as a monster.

In years to come, Ellie Turner may not become a popular cosplay subject like other Edgar Wright heroes, but her instincts for empathy, adventure, discovery, justice, and trusting in even the aspects of herself that others would mock, may well make her something better for the random distressed soul who sits down to watch LAST NIGHT IN SOHO for a little distraction: an understanding surrogate. Someone Sandie never had. Someone too many sweet souls of the past never had. 

Well, if it's so deep you don't think that you can speak about it

Just remember to reach out and touch the past and the future

Well, if it's so deep you don't think you can speak about it

Don't ever think that you can't change the past and the future

You might not, not think so now

But just you wait and see, someone will come to help you

- Kate Bush, "Love and Anger"