Author: Mark Glass

EYE FOR AN EYE: BLIND SWORDSMAN – Review

Miao Xie as Cheng in EYE FOR AN EYE: BLIND SWORDSMAN (MU ZHONG WU REN). Courtesy of WellGoUSA

Chinese martial arts films have a long tradition of including quite an array of masterful fighters with significant disabilities. Many of them feature a hero who is blind, deaf, missing an arm, etc. yet still able to defeat whatever evil being or force must be eliminated for the common good. That usually yields a bunch of intricately choreographed battles – one-on-ones with the worst, often preceded by dispatching hordes of underlings and anonymous minions.

EYE FOR AN EYE: BLIND SWORDSMAN (MU ZHONG WU REN) follows the pattern in a relatively low-key production set in the distant (pre-firearms) past. Cheng (Miao Xie) has the unlikely job of itinerant bounty hunter for the government. He’s very good at it, of course, despite his lack of sight. The film opens in a gambling den. We soon learn he’s been hunting the region’s bad guys down for a decade. Remaining skills are evident when he doesn’t need vision to tell that they’re cheating, leading to action that establishes his credentials for both integrity and mad skills. Cheng is quiet, humble and all business.

Unfortunately, he stops for a drink at what will become the sight of a massacre by an evil warlord, including the rape of a lovely woman (Wieman Gao) who was about to be married. When the local authorities, obviously feeling the perps are too powerful for them to handle, decline, Cheng takes up her cause of seeking justice. That comprises the rest of the running time which includes a couple of important non-combat roles for women in the plot. As the genre goes, this one plays out more sedately than many, even venturing into the CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON realm of lyricism in a few picturesque scenes. The final battle will remind fans of the sequence in KILL BILL: VOL. 1 between The Bride (Uma Thurman) and O Ren Rishii (Lucy Liu).

Those seeking a sword-fest of splatter will find this to be on the tame side. Writer/director Bingjia Yang pulls a lot of punches, cutting away early in scenes of mass sword fights, returning only to show the number of prone henchmen killed or wounded while our eyes were diverted to something else. The fights he displays are diverse and well-choreographed, relatively free of wire work and other special effects that turn fiction into fantasy. One exception is a cloaked baddie with almost supernatural agility and speed. Cool scenes with him in motion.

There’s nothing particularly memorable about the production for those who devour Asian action fare from the 1970s to the present. But it’s non-gory enough to embrace those preferring character and story arcs to blood lust, while having a fair amount of mayhem for the adrenaline junkies.

EYE FOR AN EYE: BLIND SWORDSMAN (MU ZHONG WU REN), in Mandarin Chinese with English subtitles, debuts Friday, Nov. 28, streaming on demand and on DVD and Blu-Ray.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars

“Deadly Tropics: Season 3” – TV review

Sonia Rolland in French crime series “Deadly Tropics.” Courtesy of MHz Choice

Regular readers know I’ve reviewed dozens of streaming TV series from a number of European countries over the past few years. The light-hearted cop show, “Deadly Tropics (Tropiques Criminels)”, based in an idyllic (other than the requisite murders and assorted felonies) Caribbean locale has been one of my favorites. That made the 18-month gap between the domestic release of the first two seasons and this next one seem even longer.

To bring everyone up to speed, here are the links to those reviews on We Are Movie Geeks 

Season 1

“Deadly Tropics” (“Tropiques Criminels”) – TV Series

Season 2

“Deadly Tropics” Season 2 – TV Series Review

Although each of these eight episodes features a different crime, it’s advisable to watch the series in order, due to evolving relationships among the regulars, and a few recurrent plot-lines and supporting players that are better appreciated if one knows the context.

Season 3 picks up shortly after the last one. Gaelle (Beatrice de la Boulaye) is about to be married, but only via a chaotic course, as one would expect from her. Melissa (Sonia Rolland) has a number of romantic and family sidebars, as well. As before, the early episodes contain more humor in the mix; forensics maven Phil (Valentin Papoudof) gets even ditsier than before as a reliable source of comic relief. The later tales shift the balance more to the dramatic side; one even ventures into the supernatural realm.

Fans of other imports from MHz Choice will also enjoy seeing Francis Perrin, the eponymous star of the charming French mystery series “Mongeville” in a small, yet important, role in the first episode.

The sharply different personalities of the two leads continue to energize the series and complement each other in the tradition of Riggs and Murtaugh, Cagney and Lacey and many other cop-buddy pairings. Melissa’s default setting is serious and laser-focused; Gaelle remains irreverent but extremely effective, with method in her façade of madness. Episodes 6 and 8 are particularly dramatic and emotional in tenor, and to good effect. Some of the season’s crimes involve broad social issues like sexism in the military, the growing dangers of designer drugs, and the far-reaching consequences of spousal abuse.

As before, the season ends (thankfully) without cliffhangers but with several story arcs open for further development in Season 4, which aired abroad earlier this year, and should be destined to also cross the Atlantic. I just hope the wait won’t be as long for that next round of adventures with this delightful set of characters in their picturesque setting.

“Deadly Tropics (Tropiques Criminels): Season 3,” mostly in French with English subtitles, streams on MHz Choice starting Tuesday, Nov. 21.

RATING: 3.5 out of 4 stars

Béatrice de la Boulaye and Sonia Rolland in “Deadly Tropics”

THANKSGIVING – Review

Thanksgiving Parade from TriStar Pictures and Spyglass Media Group, LLC THANKSGIVING

Back in 2007, Quentin Tarantino rounded up some pals for a release called GRINDHOUSE, intended to re-create the experience of going to a drive-in for a schlocky double feature, complete with jingles for the snack bar and fake trailers for other movies. Funny thing about the way that turned out.

The GRINDHOUSE package did fairly well at the box office but the trailers eventually outstripped its performance by a wide margin. Robert Rodriguez’s MACHETE clip turned into two wildly successful (okay, highly successful for most, wildly for me) comedic gore-fests, with a third on the way, and boosting Danny Trejo into the stratosphere of celebrity status. HOBO WITH A SHOTGUN (great title, pretty entertaining movie) became a cultish outing for Rutger Hauer. Two other trailers stayed as such – Edgar Wright’s DON’T and Rob Zombie’s WEREWOLF WOMEN OF THE S.S. Eli Roth’s THANKSGIVING teaser preview is now the third of the quintet (HOBO wasn’t included in all versions of the GRINDHOUSE release) to spawn features.

In the others, much of what was in the trailers was repeated in the movies. Same for THANKSGIVING, though the original was set in the 1970s, and this one is current. Patrick Dempsey plays the sheriff in this holiday horror/comedy yarn. The family that owns a big box store in Plymouth, Massachusetts, opens its Black Friday sale on Thursday night, causing anger among many, and a mob of customers waiting outside to rush in for the bargains the moment the doors open. When the owner’s (Rick Hoffman) teen daughter Jess (Nell Verlaque) and some of her friends are seen through the glass doors jumping the gun, the crowd goes nuts and storms the store, killing and injuring quite a few of their fellow townsmen while fighting each other for the merch they crave.

Skip ahead a year. The disaster led to multiple lawsuits and claims by the victims, spurring gestures of atonement by the ownership that still left many grudges simmering. The town, as usual, celebrates its Pilgrim heritage with a parade, and many people donning those period costumes, including masks of their first mayor, bearing a fortuitous (for the audience) resemblance to the face covering on the dude from V FOR VENDETTA. Despite the previous disaster, they plan to open on Thanksgiving night again, but with more security in place. Many are displeased. Or worse.

The early social satire about greed, consumerism and Black Friday feeding frenzies soon yields to standard slasher traditions, as a mayorally-masked figure starts killing folks off in a variety of gruesome ways, with the owning family and those young friends primarily targeted. In a mashup of the SCREAM and FINAL DESTINATION franchises, there’s suspense in “who was that masked man?” and delightfully complex and graphic methods for racking up his (or possibly her) body count. The faint of heart should pick another movie.

Roth’s concept unfortunately outpaces its execution. The entire cast consists of all the standard types doing all the standard things in completely unmemorable ways. Some of it seems like an homage; at other times, a grimly amusing genre spoof. Also, most of the proceedings are severely under-lit – presumably to ramp up the foreboding factor, but actually obscuring the action, leaving viewers less sure of who did what to whom in more than a few scenes. Given Roth’s solid horror credentials, including CABIN FEVER and the HOSTEL series, one might reasonably expect a punchier finished product. Despite its shortcomings – including an odd ending – slasher fans will still find about as much carnage as they expected when they bought the tickets. And isn’t that what matters most?

THANKSGIVING opens Friday, Nov 17, in theaters.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

“Varg Veum” – TV series review

Trond Espen Seim stars as the title character in the Norwegian detective series “Varg Veum,” streaming on Topic. Courtesy of MHz Choice.

“Varg Veum” is the eponymous title of this Norwegian crime series. The star (Trond Espen Seim) is a former social worker turned private detective due to frustration with the failings of public service agencies. More accurately, he was fired for beating up a drug dealer who was pushing product to kids he was trying to protect. In classic genre style, Varg is a scruffy fellow with a marginal income trying to do some meaningful good for people and the community between times he has to tail cheating spouses to keep his business afloat. The Norwegian series aired from 2007 – 2012 and must have been popular in its homeland, since Seim returned as the same character in about a dozen movie incarnations filmed during and for several years after its run. Topic is releasing its six-episode first season for streaming here.

This is one to enjoy without having to binge, since each episode is a new case. It’s advisable to see them in order, since progressive relationships between Varg and the cops – mainly detective Hamre (Bjorn Floberg) – and another acquired colleague also follow tradition as trust and respect among them grow, albeit rather slowly. That and a few other sources provide bits of comic relief in the mostly serious proceedings. Though less violent than our typical domestic fare, Varg does tend to recklessly put himself in danger more than one with his limited fighting skills should attempt. Unconsciousness is no stranger to Varg, though it’s somewhat offset by the occasional upswing in his romantic life.

The stories are diverse and generally well-written, maintaining suspense and tension in most episodes. Industrial pollution, financial and political corruption, robberies, murders and infidelities are all fodder for these scripts. One admirable aspect of the series is the moral complexity of its tales. Good guys and bad guys aren’t just cookie-cutter types. Exploration of characters’ characters makes these play out with a richer texture than many, with a number of highly intense dramatic moments. If you also find Episode 5 to be relatively weak, fear not. Episode 6 was the strongest.

Varg Veum winds up being a character most fans of crime fiction should find a satisfactory repository of empathy. If so, there are six more episodes in Season 2, and all those movies floating around somewhere.

“Varg Veum: Season One,” in Norwegian with English subtitles begins on Topic on Nov. 9, 2023, with two episodes streaming on Topic on that date and with two more released each week thereafter.

RATING: 2.5 out of 4 stars

ROSE – Review

L-R: Lene Maria Christensen as Ellen, Sofie Grabol as Inger, and Anders W. Berthelsen as Ellen’s husband, in the Danish film ROSE. photo: Martin Dam Kristensen/Nordisk Film. Courtesy of Game Theory

The subtitled Danish dramedy ROSE features an award-worthy performance from its star, elevating what could have been treacly melodrama. It’s often said that leading roles with some sort of disability provide Oscar bait. But that doesn’t always work out as well as it does here. For example, the Campbell Scott vehicle DYING YOUNG still annoys me whenever I think about it, even though it’s been over 30 years since I sat through the thing.

Sofie Grabol stars as Inger, a schizophrenic woman living with, and closely monitored by, her parents. We learn that her condition was one of adult onset, with progressive insights into possible causative factors from her backstory. But when her sister Ellen (Lene Maria Christensen) and brother-in-law (Anders W. Berthelsen) decide to take her on a bus tour to Paris, we watch with trepidation. Inger is prone to retreating into herself, or to sudden outbursts of anger, brutal honesty about her feelings in a conversation, with a sense of looming harm her condition might lead her to do to herself or others. Between periods of withdrawal and flareups, we see bits of the bright, talented personable woman she had been.

The trip is a suspenseful set of unpredictable swings between her old self and whatever the voice in her head may tell her to do or say. The reactions of her fellow travelers realistically run the gamut from supportive to angry and scared. Seeming impossible to manage can flip quickly into her mastery of a situation. She bounces between derailing the journey for all and making it better than it could have been without her, with no way to predict what facet of her personality will manifest.

The screenplay from writer/director Niels Arden Oplev (who directed the original Danish GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATOO) contains an ideal mix of tension, comic relief and exposition. No cutesy feelgood artifice in the package. Inger’s illness may not perfectly represent the lives of those with her condition but it feels about as honest as entertainment films can get. It was supposedly inspired by a true story, but not offered as a documentary. As I write this, star Sofie Grabol and the production have earned 10 awards and nominations in Denmark. More are sure to follow.

Since most of the running time occurs while the group is in Paris, the sets and scenery are major assets. Disclosing more about the plot or characters would be a disservice to the experience. Just know that a reviewer who generally shuns dramas with such a premise is very pleased to have seen this one.

ROSE, in Danish and French, with English subtitles, opens in theaters Nov. 15 and will be available streaming on Dec. 26.

RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED – Review

A scene from COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED. Courtesy of Paramount+

As the odd little horror comedy COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED opens, we meet Courtney (Lauren Buglioli) sitting alone and bored at someone else’s wedding when a jaunty fellow named Dave (Jonathon Pawloski) approaches her and arouses some interest in the lass. Fast-forward five years, and Courtney is now the bride about to marry Glen (Zae Jordan) while coping with her lifelong nemesis of a sister, Caitlin (Madison Hatfield). The latter has always resented her more popular sibling and done all she could to mess with her, from swiping jewelry to boinking her boyfriends. At the bachelorette party, Dave turns up at her door. Courtney tries to keep him out, but Caitlin – if only to annoy her sister – invites him in. The group soon learns that Dave is actually Satan, that Courtney naively had a fling with him several years earlier, and now he wants her back, body and/or soul.

The rest of the film is one long night of Courtney and her friends trying to purge Dave from their midst, and periodically from their possessed bodies. None are skilled at this, and not all share the same goal. Mayhem ensues, including several casualties along the way. The result is a mix of THE EXORCIST (even using background music similar enough to trigger the association but different enough to avoid owing royalties), BRIDESMAIDS and the legion of witchcraft and demonic comedies – especially those with Faustian underpinnings.

The early going seems more silly than engaging, as squabbles among the humans grow rather annoying. But a couple of twists in the latter half turn that around, resulting in a fairly satisfying offbeat comedy. For a low-budget production, the cast is surprisingly good. Dave and the two sisters shine. Among the supporting cast, the snarky best man/bride’s brother Chuck (Steven Reddington) adds the most laughs, followed closely by the hapless aforementioned groom and maid-of-honor, Lexi (Aditi George).

But the most admirable aspect is all the hats that Madison Hatfield wore – writer, director and co-star. I didn’t check on whether she also handled craft services but it wouldn’t surprise me if she did. Though she’s penned a dozen or so shorts and films, this is her first time directing a feature-length production. She keeps things moving well despite the limitations of spending almost all the running time within one house. Plus, one must admire a creator who casts herself in the bitchiest, most antagonistic role, and dives headlong into milking the worst from her character’s character. That reminds me of prolific TV series creator Stephen J. Cannell, whose biggest acting gig was playing the corrupt, sadistic antagonist of hero Lorenzo Lamas throughout the long run of his “Renegade.” Cannell’s vicious, relentless pursuit of Lamas made Lt. Gerard of “The Fugitive” seem like Dr. Kimble’s bestie.

COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED is not a great film, and may not be completely weird enough for eventual cult status. But it’s worth a look if only to get acquainted with Ms. Hatfield. She seems poised for success on both sides of the cameras.

COURTNEY GETS POSSESSED opens in theaters on Friday, Nov. 3.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

HELEN’S DEAD – Review

A scene from HELEN”S DEAD. Courtesy of Screen Media

If you’re in the mood for a gory little dark comedy, HELEN’S DEAD might allay your craving. The tale plays out in one arduous night (apart from a few flashbacks) at a small, rather fancy dinner party. The host (Brian Huskey) is an uptight foodie; his wife (Annabelle Dexter-Jones) is an even more uptight “influencer.” Guests include her sister, Helen (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz), their cousin Addie (Dylan Gelula), a jerk (Emile Hirsch) who’d been involved with both, a writer (Beth Dover) and a couple of unexpected visitors. The film opens with one of them announcing she’s just found Helen dead in another room, then brings us up to and beyond that point, with further casualties, motives and suspects in play.

Unlike most flicks in which the members of a small isolated group of victims-in-waiting are bumped off one-by-one, this one doesn’t establish a clear protagonist. Everyone is unlikable for one or more reasons, and no one’s demise would be mourned much by viewers. There’s a lot of dialog as old and new hurts, resentments and humiliations emerge. Bodies drop periodically in a variety of gory and/or amusing ways, with the extant ones wondering who among them started the population decrease by offing their eponymous companion.

The young adult cast is mostly attractive in looks but less so in character. Though set mainly in one house, it never gets claustrophobic because it’s a rambling ranch style with plenty of rooms for diverse arenas of action. Lack of cell service and some moments in the misty surrounding forest further tie this to the cabin-in-the-woods genre, albeit with nicer clothes and fancy place settings.

Director/co-writer K. Asher Levin, whose resume mostly shows him helming TV episodes and music videos, does well at maintaining pace and suspense, keeping viewers more engaged than the largely unpleasant assemblage of characters might otherwise inspire. And the actors – mostly unfamiliar to me – turn in solid performances all around. Anything further about the story or players would drift into spoiler territory. That’s a reviewing no-no on these pages.

HELEN’S DEAD opens in theaters and video-on-demand on Friday, Nov. 3.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

“Pagan Peak: Season 3” – TV Review

A scene from Episode 1 of German/Austrian crime drama “Pagan Peak: Season 3.” Courtesy of Topic.

The German/Austrian crime drama “Pagan Peak” is back for its third and final season, but it is fairly essential to understanding this final round to have seen the first two seasons, due to the substantial carryover of main characters and key issues shaping their current actions and attitudes. To help out, here is the link to my earlier review of “Pagan Peak”:

“Pagan Peak,” Season 2 – TV series review

Once you read the review (or watch Seasons 1 and 2), you’ll be caught up. Now that you’re up to speed, be prepared for a radical tone shift from a suspenseful dark procedural into something much creepier. More Lovecraft and Lynch (that’s David, not Jane) than Dalgleish or Sherlock in this final season.

The drastic change caused me to check the creators’ credits. Sure enough there was a huge behind-the-cameras overhaul with completely new writers, directors, cinematographer, and composer, among others. The contrast is jarring. The prior episodes seemed a bit slow. This year’s action unfolds at a glacial pace, replete with a surfeit of foggy exteriors and long contemplative stares into the void.

There’s a new serial killer, again with border-spanning elements to the crimes, requiring the joint efforts of cops from both countries. Ellie (Julia Jentsch) and Gedeon (Nicholas Ofczarek) are back but far from working in tandem. She believes he hid evidence from the previous murder of their colleague, Yela Franziska von Harsdorf), and tries to prove his complicity with her usual degree of determination, even while working tenuously with him on the new cases. Both lead detectives are viewed as damaged goods by their superiors, with Gedeon’s declining health also looming large.

One of the returning baddies is a family of wealthy local developers, trying to build luxury homes in a conservation area over the protests of environmentalists. They may also be involved in this new round of killings, many of which have particularly gory, ritualistic methods that may be due to a resurgent cult of Satanists. And for kickers, a neo-Nazi and child molester of yore add even more suspects and subplots to the package. It seems as if the new writers had stacks of rejected pilot scripts for a variety of productions and agreed to toss all of them into this one, leaving it to the editors to merge them coherently.

That adds up to more territory than eight hour-long episodes should have to cover, especially while spending so much time on maintaining mystical, menacing mood rather than plot advancement. Beyond that, the tale unfolds in a non-linear format, including many scenes that could be real, memories or hallucinations without much distinction among those possibilities. Bingeing is recommended as an aid to retaining who’s who, who did what, and why they did it. Far more concentration is required for Season Three than the first two. The good news is that viewers get closure on all matters with nothing of import dangling that calls for more episodes or a telefilm.

“Pagan Peak: Season 3,” mostly in German with English subtitles, streams on Topic starting Thursday, Oct. 26.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars

SEA BEYOND – TV Series Review

Nicolas Maupas and Massimiliano Caiazzo in “The Sea Beyond.” Courtesy of MHzChoice

“The Sea Beyond” is an Italian TV drama, mostly set in a detention facility for teens who’ve run afoul of the law. Inmates include both genders but they’re kept mostly in separate areas. It plays out as something of an under-18 soap opera, with a few romances and multiple arenas of violence among a large ensemble cast of principals.

The course of their current incarceration experiences is inter-cut with flashbacks to the preceding events that landed them in the pokey. Most of their criminal behavior seems to result from abusive fathers and father-figures, multi-generational grudges between rival crime families, and the temptations of drugs and thievery for an easy path out of poverty. Plus the desire for respect from their peers and some elders.

The primary focus is on two young men – rich kid, Filippo (Nicolas Maupas) who accidentally caused the death of a friend with an influential father, and Carmine (Massimiliano Caiano) who struggled to free himself from the criminal enterprise of his family but killed the son of a rival capo who was assaulting his girlfriend. That seeming justification means nothing in terms of keeping him out of jail, or safe from reprisals.

Throughout the first season of 12 hour-long episodes, relationships, plots and allegiances swirl among a couple of dozen cast members we get to know. It’s a series that’s ripe for bingeing, since seeing them back-to-back may be valuable in keeping all the plot lines straight – especially for those of us who need the English subtitles. Like most prison dramas, there are inmates with more control over the institution and inmates than they should have, and a full array of addictions, pathologies and aspirations stirring the pot. Viewers’ sympathies will also shift in some cases.

If this leads you to expect the sexiness and violence of shows like “Orange is the New Black,” scale them down to more PG-13 levels. There are only a few brief displays of nudity, just the still-clad beginnings of any sexual encounters, and much of the violence occurs off-camera or with minimal depiction of the acts and results. On those criteria, this would rank as an “Orange is the New Bland” – coming up short for thrill-seekers, while appealing to a larger audience from those turned off by graphic displays of either variety.

Strong performances abound among the inmates and several others running the facility, or related to the kids. No one skimped on production values either. The sets and costumes are worthy of feature films, including enough scenes in the mean streets and at some lovely seaside locations in and around Naples to keep the show from feeling claustrophobic.

Season One ends without major cliffhangers, though most of the romance and revenge plot lines for the array of characters remain unresolved. Not to worry. Seasons Two and Three have already run in Italy, and are scheduled for streaming release on MHzChoice within the coming months.

“The Sea Beyond: Season One”, mostly in Italian with English subtitles, is available streaming on MHzChoice starting Tuesday, Oct. 17.

RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

MONSTERS OF CALIFORNIA – Review

(l-r) Jack Samson, Richard Kind, Gabrielle Haugh and Jared Scott, in MONSTERS OF CALIFORNIA. Courtesy of Screen Media

The title MONSTERS OF CALIFORNIA intends to refer to a variety of entities sought by three adventuresome teen lads. We meet them hunting ghosts and demons before they shift into pursuing urban legend myths and ultimately trying to prove UFOs have been visiting from other worlds. The title unintentionally winds up equally applying to many of the mere mortals among them.

Dallas Edward’s (Jack Samson) dad was a Navy pilot, presumed dead from a secrecy-shrouded mission some years before. His smart pal Riley (Jared Scott) and their goofy stoner cohort nicknamed Toe (Jack Lancaster) crash headlong into conflicts with military and covert government entities thwarting their efforts while also dogging them in search of some intel Dallas’ dad may have left behind. That bunch is headed by Casper Van Dien, playing yet another stern military man – this time with suspense in whether his motives are good, evil or mixed. Along the way, Dallas finds a potential love interest in newcomer Kelly (Gabrielle Haugh) after their rom-com-esque meet-cute.

For kickers, Dallas is pissed that his mom is dating some bland fellow, despite lingering doubt as to whether her hubby is deceased rather than MIA. Dallas yearns for the latter to be true, and hopes to discover an extant father who had to lie low for some noble purpose. Or at least to get closure from confirming dad’s demise as a byproduct of their broader quest. Three of the kids provide fairly intelligent curiosity; Toe adds the comic relief that toking sidekicks contribute to most of the cabin-in-the-woods fright-fests.

The proceedings are more frenetic than amusing or profound, except for the several times they come to a grinding halt for windy monologues about protecting the environment. All the “message” efforts about governmental cover-ups and ecology ring hollow. The film never quite settles on being something coherent within a genre. It starts off as a horror flick, dangles bits of soap opera and coming-of-age themes, before lurching into sci-fi and conspiracy territory, with an overriding “who can you believe?” theme. Playful and profound do not blend well in director/co-writer Tom DeLonge’s (of Blink182) script. The title could have been CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE WORST KIND.

The most intriguing feature comes from Richard Kind, who built a fine career of playing a wide range of annoying doofuses (doofi?). He’s spot-on in a role calling for a scholarly look, demeanor and intellect straight out of Alfred Molina’s wheelhouse. Nice to see Kind’s stretch, albeit in an otherwise unsatisfying package.

MONSTERS OF CALIFORNIA debuts Friday, Oct. 6, in theaters and streaming on demand.

RATING: 1.5 out of 4 stars