CINEMA CELEBRATED AND DEBATED. BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO SUPERHERO LEVELS… CINEMA CELEBRATED AND DEBATED. BOOSTING YOUR MOVIE GENIUS TO O SUPERHERO LEVELS…
DISNEY, ENTERTAINMENT, SONY, WIKI IS IT BOLLOCKS? Buff investigates the facts behind outlandish movie plots. 01 THE MASK 1994 .............................................................................................$351.6M 02 MICHAEL 1996 .................................................................................................$119.7M 03 JACK 1996 ...........................................................................................................$58.6M 04 ORANGE COUNTY 2002 .......................................................................... $43.3M 05 OCTOBER SKY 1999 ..................................................................................... $34.7M 06 HARD CANDY 2005 ............................................................................................$7M 07 KNOCK KNOCK 2015 .....................................................................................$5.6M 08 STORYTELLING 2001......................................................................................$1.3M 09 PARTY MONSTER 2003 .............................................................................. $0.8M 10 PUMPKIN 2002..................................................................................................$0.3M Sony’s Gran Turismo starts by telling us that it’s based on a true story, and while the story itself – that of Jann Mardenborough, an obsessive video-game player who was handpicked by Nissan to drive professional race cars – has some basis in reality, a key moment in Neill Blomkamp’s retelling has proven controversial. In Gran Turismo, Mardenborough’s car catches a pocket of air while racing the Nürburgring, leading to his vehicle flying off the track and ultimately killing a spectator. In the film, the event paves the way for Mardenborough to step onto the podium at Le Mans during the final act. While the Nürburgring incident is depicted accurately, it actually happened two years after the racer’s team came third at Le Mans. Various publications have since argued that using the tragedy as a piece of character development is tasteless, though others have remarked that it makes sense on a cinematic story level. Other untruths: David Harbour’s charismatic trainer is almost completely fictional, though potentially inspired by sports psychologist Gavin Gough, while Orlando Bloom’s marketing man Danny Moore isn’t real, but instead based on former Nissan executive Darren Cox, who also happens to have a producing credit on the film alongside Mardenborough. Want us to investigate if a movie scenario is bollocks or snapped yourself at a film location? Contact us at [email protected] VERDICT SEMI-BOLLOCKS ALTERNATIVE BOX OFFICE The biggest movies… WITH HALLOWEEN-Y TITLES THIS MONTH GRAN TURISMO Q Is Gran Turismo really based on a true story? ON LOCATION REEL SPOTS BEHIND THE CAMERA WHAT? In Niagara, duplicitous Rose Loomis (Marilyn Monroe) uses a resort’s carillon bell tower to communicate with her lover as they plan her husband’s murder at the Falls. WHERE? Rainbow Carillon Tower, 5702 Falls Avenue, Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada. GO? At the Canadian entrance to the Rainbow Bridge, which spans the Falls and connects Canada and the US, the 1947-built tower still plays its 55 bells three times a day. Just don’t ask for Kiss... 102 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
TOTALFILM.COM NOVEMBER 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 103 COLUMBIA, DISNEY, MARVEL STUDIOS, PAR AMOUNT, SEARCHLIGHT, TRISTAR, WARNER BROS. S N O W W H I T E A N D THE SEVEN DWARFS Playing on the Queen’s insecurities, her Magic Mirror stirs the pot, pitting stepmother against young ward. To achieve the mirror’s booming voice, actor Moroni Olsen delivered his lines by encasing his head within a frame of old drum skins. BLACK SWAN Mirrors are all over Darren Aronofsky’s tale of ballerinas gone wild, each reflecting Nina Sayers’ (Natalie Portman) increasingly shattered psyche. The filmmaker’s cameras were hidden from shot using digital trickery and one-way mirrors. D O C T O R S T R A N G E I N T H E M U LT I V E R S E O F M A D N E S S Trying to fend off the Scarlet Witch (Elizabeth Olsen), Doctor Strange (Benedict Cumberbatch) banishes her to a broken and jagged Mirror Dimension. Unfazed, Wanda continues to wreak havoc, glaring at her captors from a puddle of water. INCEPTION In her introduction to the world of the dreaming, Ariadne (Elliot Page) turns the streets of Paris into an infinite reflection. Drawing two gigantic mirrors together on the Bir-Hakeim bridge, the film achieves one of its most astounding visual effects. JOEL HARLEY D U C K S O U P One of cinema’s most iconic mirror sequences doesn’t even have a mirror in it at all. Hiding within a non-existent looking glass, spy Pinky (Harpo Marx) masquerades as the reflection of dictator Rufus T. Firefly (Groucho). A masterclass in absurdity. TA X I D R I V E R Robert De Niro’s signature moment was improvised on the day, as he locked himself in a room with Martin Scorsese and a full-length mirror. ‘It was like a jazz riff,’ the director recalled. The star spoke, and distilled Travis Bickle tumbled out. T H E L A D Y F R O M SHANGHAI Over 100 plate-glass mirrors were used to build the distorted maze in which O’Hara (Orson Welles) finally confronts the duplicitous Elsa (Rita Hayworth). As the layers of Elsa’s deception come crashing down, so do the mirrors. I T: C H A P T E R T W O Pennywise (Bill Skarsgård) terrorises an all-growed-up Bill Denbrough (James McAvoy) in a carnival mirror maze. The scene, invented for the film, allowed Bill to confront his feelings about brother Georgie’s death… by watching another young child die before his eyes. CANDYMAN Doing for mirrors what Psycho did for showers, the Tony Todd-starring horror classic ensured that generations to come would never look at a mirror the same way - let alone say that name into it. You don’t have to tell us five times. ENTER THE DRAGON After a sound beating from Bruce Lee, off-brand Bond baddie Han (Shih Kien) shrewdly flees to his own private hall of mirrors. This helps the clawed villain get some nasty licks in, but ultimately can’t keep Bruce at bay once he starts kicking. 2 4 6 8 1 0 1 3 5 7 9 Mirror mirror, on the wall… MIRRORS IN MOVIES 10 OF THE BEST Did we miss something? Let us know on @totalfilm
ESTATE REEL FLOP CULTURE FOR SALE Rustic wooden retreat perched above Santa Carla town with great views and proximity to local wildlife. A warm family home with roll-top tub, spacious hall and garage. Features a workshop area that’s perfect for taxidermy and other hobbies. Dirt track to property is great fun for motorbikes and jeeps. A great place for a retirement home or as a spot for a flying visit. Pervading smell of garlic but home cleaners confident of removing this before sale. ALAMY Mother isn’t quite herself in director Gus Van Sant’s bad cover version of Hitchcock’s proto-slasher classic… Why it was a good idea (on paper) Self-conscious exercise in futility or, as Gus van Sant said, ‘Weird science experiment’? However you slice it, Van Sant’s note-for-note 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1960 shower-power thriller couldn’t help but generate a little curiosity. What went wrong? But even morbid curiosity couldn’t justify the budget. After Van Sant’s Good Will Hunting success, the studio lobbed $60m at his arch motel renovation programme. The thinking was far removed from Hitchcock, who shot his original in pulpy monochrome for under $1m, using the crew of TV’s Alfred Hitchcock Presents. Van Sant favoured soft pastels, a kind of pop-art design makeover that sucked any hint of murky mood down the plughole. Recasting proved equally tricky. While Anne Heche’s Marion Crane was too perky, Vince Vaughn’s Norman Bates replaced Anthony Perkins’ wrongfooting fragility and repressed turmoil with bulky presence. Perhaps there was no way around the issue: after all, the film’s twists had become so embedded in the cinemagoing psyche that surprising an audience would be impossible. Even so, Van Sant tried by inserting WTF surreal shots of clouds, cows and erotica into murder scenes. He also showed more flesh in the shower and put the Bates in masturbates with an onanism episode, transforming Norman from tragic figure into an unambiguous creep. For disinterested audiences and damning critics, this Psycho was a self-indulgence too far. Redeeming feature Re-arranged by Danny Elfman, Bernard Herrmann’s thrusting score remains piercingly good. What happened next? Preferring their scares scary, not smart-arsed, audiences stayed away. After 2000’s Finding Forrester, Van Sant fully embraced arthouse principles with his ‘Death’ trilogy. Meanwhile, Robert Downey Jr. has been circling a Vertigo remake, another Hitchcock peak that might prove perilous to scale. Should it be remade? After the sequels, TV prequels and Van Sant’s curio? Maybe we should we let mother RIP. KEVIN HARLEY P SYCH O (19 98) BUDGET $60m $37.1m ★★ ★★ ★ 41% B OX O F F I C E AWA R D S R OT T E N TO M ATO E S T F STA R R AT I N G 0 CAR FOR SALE FILM: THE GREAT GATSBY VEHICLE: 1928 ROLLSROYCE PHANTOM I ASCOT DUAL COWL SPORT YEAR: 1974 Simply marvellous yellow RollsRoyce with green leather interior – perfect for trips to New York via the Valley of Ashes. Some previous damage to front fender that has now been repaired but a perfect ride for a careful driver and an ‘old sport’. The car was the subject of a scandal so price reflects notoriety. Previous owner unavailable to sell. Call Nick Carraway for a test drive. 104 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
TOTALFILM.COM NOVEMBER 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 105 IS IT JUST ME OR IS THIS THE GREATEST ERA FOR ANIMATION? For many people, Disney’s Golden Era (1937-42) remains the apex of cinematic animation. Comprising an almost-unrivalled quintet of classics - Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Pinocchio, Fantasia, Dumbo and perennial tear-jerker Bambi - it’s a dazzling run that did much to define the medium for generations. And though the House of Mouse has since enjoyed other periods of creative brilliance - particularly from 1989 to 1999 (The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King et al) - that early era has long been the benchmark. Until now. Over the last few years there has been an embarrassment of riches. Expanding, redefining and subverting the form in much the same way that Snow White’s life-like movements did in ’37, films such as Spider-Man: Into/ Across the Spider-Verse, Wolfwalkers and Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio have all advanced animation in different ways. Firstly, there are the aesthetic variations: whether it’s cell animation, CGI, stop-motion or a mix of them all, the plurality of styles is incredibly vibrant. But what’s also thrilling is the variety of voices on show. Rather than the largely white, patriarchal, heteronormative world of Uncle Walt, today’s landscape includes masterpieces from people of every walk of life. Some of the most exhilarating work from the last 10 years has been from studios such as Laika (Coraline, Kubo and the Two Strings) and Cartoon Saloon (The Secret of Kells, Song of the Sea), who’ve been quietly reshaping the landscape in their own image and bringing culturally specific stories to the fore. That’s not to say that diversity wasn’t present before – Japanese giant Studio Ghibli has a canon of classics stretching back to the mid-80s (My Neighbour Totoro, etc) – but the current accessibility of different types of animation, and the rate at which modern masterpieces continue to be made, is now unparalleled. So yes, Disney is still an important force in animation, but as the world moves on, we’re now arguably in the greatest era of animation yet, the perfect convergence of style, form and content. Or is it just me? Share your reaction at www.gamesradar. com/totalfilm or on Facebook and Twitter. IT’S JUST YOU IT’S NOT JUST YOU LAST TIME SHOULD SUPERS BE LESS BUFF? JONATHAN BEESON Fully agree with the writer’s point about female heroes... There are a few instances where musculature is important (e.g. She-Hulk) but in most cases it’s more about titillation than narrative. RICHARD STRONG Superheroes are supposed to be larger than life, beyond normal as it were. SLARTIBARTFAST Everything Everywhere All at Once won seven Oscars so there is a market for ordinary people to save the world. SVEIN JOHNNY FEDJE We should celebrate striving to be better, not apathy! OFFICE-OMETER THE TF STAFF VERDICT IS IN! IS IT JUST ME? APPLE T V+, DISNEY, NETFLIX, SONY From left: Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio, Wolfwalkers and Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse TIM COLEMAN @FATSCOLEMAN
N ineties cinema had some wild predictions for our future but none feels as eerily resonant as the one depicted in Demolition Man. Imagine a crime-free world that lives in fear of personal insult or social faux pas, where video conferencing is commonplace and the few criminals that still exist are hidden away in cryo-pods to serve their time, like social-media blocking but in real life. ‘One of the things that makes the movie so relevant today is a lot of its commentary about political correctness and how society As Stallone and Snipes’ explosive and surprisingly prophetic action classic turns 30, director Marco Brambilla turns back the clock with Buff to reflect on a sci-fi with satirical muscle. WORDS SIMON BLAND T O T A L F I L M RETROSPECTIVE DEMOLITION MAN has evolved,’ suggests Marco Brambilla, the filmmaker-turned-artist who helmed this now-classic sci-fi satire. ‘The exaggeration that existed back in 1993 is no longer an exaggeration; I think that’s why people still connect with it.’ Produced by Die Hard’s Joel Silver, Demolition Man gave Sylvester Stallone one of his most successful action films of the decade. He starred as the brilliantly named John Spartan, an LAPD supercop and the only guy hard enough to take down the equally brilliantly named Simon Phoenix, an eccentric blond-haired baddie played by Wesley Snipes. Spartan’s explosive, collateral-damagecausing antics are so wild as to earn him the nickname of the movie’s title. When a fiery scuffle goes awry, both are sentenced and cryogenically frozen in 1996, only for Phoenix to escape in 2032 in what’s now San Angeles, a fictional megalopolis where violent crime has been abolished. With future cops unable to recapture a dangerous 21st-century criminal, Sandra Bullock’s rookie Lenina Huxley convinces her superiors to ALAMY defrost Spartan to help out. Cue explosions. BUFF 106 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS
RETROSPECTIVE just wasn’t working with Stallone. Luckily, we saw Sandra two days later and she jumped in with the most enthusiasm I’ve ever seen,’ recalls Brambilla. ‘She brought this innocent, goofy sense of humour, which was very much her own personality. She’s essentially playing herself in the future.’ Casting aside, Brambilla - now a successful contemporary artist with works in New York’s Museum of Modern Art and Guggenheim - had fun crafting his vision of a near future: from glycerine-filled cryo-prisons (‘[Stallone] insisted on being nude for the freezing,’ he chuckles) and high-end Taco Bell restaurants (‘McDonald’s turned us down,’ he says) to those mysterious toilet seashells. ‘I wasn’t expecting people to believe this was actually the way people would use toilets in the future,’ admits Brambilla on Demolition Man’s bizarre and never-explained toilet paper alternative. ‘It’s basically a McGuffin and something that had no answer.’ As Demolition Man turns 30, Brambilla’s pleased it has endured in unexpected ways: ‘Whenever I work with younger people, it’s the first thing they mention,’ he smiles. ‘Many moments of technological advancement came out of 70s pop culture and we’re now living in that future, and I think it’s the same with Demolition Man. We’re actually living in another aspect of that future where everything has to be sanitised, no one can be offended and people are very fragile,’ argues Brambilla. ‘Demolition Man is similar to how many of these cautionary tales about technology used to be made.’ DEMOLITION MAN IS AVAILABLE ON DVD, BLU-RAY AND DIGITAL DOWNLOAD. ‘I was both apprehensive and excited,’ remembers Brambilla, casting his mind back to when he started the film at just 27 years old. Brambilla cut his teeth in commercials alongside David Fincher, and Demolition Man served as his Hollywood calling card and an opportunity to show what he could do with a $70m action-movie budget. ‘It was a great opportunity,’ he tells Buff. ‘At the time, it was rare to have a young guy be given that kind of budget. It was a little bit horrifying to deal with that pressure, but at the same time it was just filmmaking to me. I wasn’t worried about politics or anything like that.’ That last element came in handy when working with Stallone and Snipes, both of whom were at the height of their powers in the early 90s. ‘Stallone was incredibly easy to work with. He loved the fact that he was in a movie with a guy who had attention to detail and I was the only director to ask him to do 14 takes on things,’ laughs Brambilla. ‘When you’re that young, you don’t really understand how daunting a project like this can be, you just jump in. ‘Wesley was also fantastic,’ he continues. ‘He’d show up and improvise and do things that were off the page. We were rewriting his dialogue based on what he’d done and the direction his character was taking. It was a very free-form experience. Before the fight scenes, we’d play the Rocky and New Jack City music, and he and Stallone would get into the mood. It was a really fun shoot.’ That’s not to say it was without its stresses. In addition to going over schedule, an early clash on set led to a last-minute cast shuffle. ‘Lori Petty was originally playing [Huxley] but after the second day of shooting, we realised it Bullock, Stallone and co-star Benjamin Bratt Sandra Bullock as Lieutenant Lenina Huxley Phoenix (left) finds himself 36 years in the future Wesley Snipes brings the action as crime boss Simon Phoenix NOVEMBER 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 107
T H E W O R L D ’ S N U M B E R O N E S C I - F I , FANTASY & HORROR MAGAZINE Subscribe & save at magazinesdirect.com/sfx O N S A L E NOW! NEW ISSUE
THIS MONTH Lemora and Messiah of Evil Editor-at-Large Jamie Graham unearths underrated classics… O N E M O R E… VALERIE AND HER WEEK OF WONDERS 1970 This Czech New Wave poetic fantasy blends sex, religion and vampires. BUFF T he 1970s were full of micro-budget, one-off, oddity horror movies that looked to play the drive-in circuit and enjoy the kind of success that came to George A. Romero’s Night of the Living Dead and Bob Kelljan’s Count Yorga, Vampire. In the 90s and noughties, as my love of genre movies took me ever deeper on a labyrinthine quest for obscure titles, many of these films were not available on DVD in the UK, and so I’d have Amazon packages arriving almost daily. Two of the greatest treasures I’ve ever stumbled upon are Messiah of Evil and Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural. Oddly, both movies were shot by Californian grad students, both are influenced by H.P. Lovecraft tales (especially The Shadow over Innsmouth), and both concern daughters entering dangerous twilight worlds as they search for missing fathers. Messiah of Evil was directed by husband-andwife team Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz, buddies of George Lucas who wrote the screenplays for American Graffiti and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom and directed infamous comic-book dud Howard the Duck. The film favours mood over plot, as Arletty (Marianna Hill) travels to the coastal town of Point Dume in response to her father’s increasingly doom-laden letters. She arrives to find his house empty and the town all but deserted. Waves roll, winds whistle, and when any locals do shuffle into sight, they have the discombobulated air of ghouls or zombies. Lemora: A Child’s Tale of the Supernatural is Richard Blackburn’s only film as director, though he would go on to co-write cannibalcom Eating Raoul. Set in the American South (but shot in California) in the 20s, it sees teenager Lila (Cheryl Smith) head into the woods when summoned by her dying father, a gangster. What she finds is a land decimated by plague and, like a spider at the centre of its web, Lemora (Lesley Taplin), a feminist libertine who presides over a fairy-tale world of warring vampires and werewolves (yes, decades before the Underworld and Twilight franchises pitched fangs v claws). Or perhaps it’s all in Lil’s fevered imagination? Our heroine was raised by a baptist preacher (played by Blackburn himself) and now discovers sexual promise and threat in her every interaction. Both films are clunky and amateurish and harbour pretensions, but both are also gorgeously atmospheric. ‘Nightmares are like dreams perverted,’ intones Arletty’s voiceover at the start of Messiah of Evil, and the somnambulant paranoia that shrouds the (in)action recalls Carl Theodor Dreyer’s Vampyr. Meanwhile, two sudden assaults – one in a starkly lit supermarket, one in a spacious beachside home – are the illogical, frenzied stuff of giallo movies, and a scene in a deserted cinema that slowly fills up with ghouls is a masterclass of suffocating tension. Similarly, Lemora narcotises viewers with its soft blue-grey night-time photography, and a tone that conjures up Val Lewton’s RKO pictures (Cat People, I Walked with a Zombie) or Charles Laughton’s Night of the Hunter. ‘People were jeering!’ said Blackburn, years later, of Lemora’s preview screening, and Messiah of Evil likewise met with contempt and indifference. Both are genre masterpieces. I’m so glad I found them. You will be, too. JAMIE WILL RETURN NEXT ISSUE… FOR MORE RECOMMENDATIONS, FOLLOW @JAMIE_GRAHAM9 ON TWITTER See this if you liked… NIGHT OF THE HUNTER 1955 Journeying kids face peril in this Southern gothic classic. Director Charles Laughton, like Blackburn, never made another movie. LET’S SCARE JESSICA TO DEATH 1971 Ghosts, vampires and crumbling sanity in a dark lullaby of hippy horror. SUSPIRIA 1977 There’s something witchy to Lemora’s vampire, while Messiah of Evil cribs from Argento’s earlier giallo movies. THE COMPANY OF WOLVES 1984 A teenage girl, wolves in woods, sensuality… AL AMY, GET T Y Neil Jordan’s lavish fairy tale is film as fugue. TOTALFILM.COM NOVEMBER 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 109 et, t t ng e ne I’d . s, oth ht nd-
A WRITER TAKES PAUSE TO CONSIDER.... The Banshees of Inisherin and male friendship at the movies INTERMISSION REEL LIFE BUFF I just don’t like you no more.’ So declared Brendan Gleeson in last year’s BAFTAwinning fable and Irish Civil War allegory, The Banshees of Inisherin. A devastatingly matter-of-fact dismissal, coldly delivered, and one that sent Pádraic Súilleabháin (Colin Farrell) spiralling into existential crisis. It was a sequence of events I recalled as a once-dear friendship of my own fell apart, less than 12 months after I saw the film. I’m lucky enough to have cultivated a wide and diverse group of friends, gathering chums from all avenues of life, from childhood through to university and various dead-end jobs. Not a sporty guy, I bonded with the men I’m closest to over a mutual love of film, crude comedy, and, as we mature to a certain age, board-game nights and conversations about grouting. Until recently, I had never experienced the breakdown of a friendship first-hand. Sure, I had drifted apart from people I used to be close to (especially as we near middle age and rightfully prioritise families and mortgages). This one, formed and sustained over 15-plus years, was born of a mind-numbing retail job and the beers which followed one particularly crushing day in the office. We bonded as we drew comically veiny dicks on rolls of till paper (how very Superbad) and bitchily gossiped about a mildly terrifying co-worker we dubbed ‘the Penguin’ (so called for his habit of quacking and leering at women like Danny DeVito in Batman Returns). ‘Did we just become best friends?’ we quoted, tongue not entirely in cheek, as we discovered a shared love of zombie movies and Peep Show. It was a friendship that would abide long after we left the job and waved goodbye to our early 20s. As Martin McDonagh’s depiction of a friendship gone sour began with a rejection in the pub, so our own died with a whimper rather than a bang. No heated conversation, no blazing row. But even The Banshees of Inisherin had its incident in the end. No lopped-off fingers, no dead donkeys here – ours crumbled with a disappointing absence of drama. It was as though we skipped straight to the beach scene, and that sombre understanding between former friends. Things came to a head over one fateful weekend, a sad situation, by then too late to rectify. We had slowly been drifting apart over months and years, quietly becoming different people without taking each other into account. Like many a friendship founded on mutual interests, we always held ours to the standard of that ultimate male ambition – the Drama Free Relationship. Feelings never came into it, although they were certainly there at some point. We had always been there for each other in all the ways that mattered (consoling me during my most notable break-up; multiple housewarmings; birthdays, barbecues and house moves). I had assumed that would always be the case. As Pádraic struggled to comprehend what had gone wrong, so I found myself tormented in the weeks and months that followed. My own Colm Doherty hadn’t gone so far as to call me ‘dull’ (not that this hadn’t crossed my mind), but the cold dissolution of a friendship had been no less devastating nor confusing. Even Pádraic got his explanation – I had only the distinct awareness that one of my dearest friends didn’t like me no more. I could push the point: stalk him about the island (or, in this case, Birmingham); set fire to his hut; or force a direct confrontation. But, after so many years of not talking about anything meaningful, male stubbornness and habit wouldn’t allow me to start now. No drama, right to the end. ‘The starting point was to capture the sadness of a break-up, be it a love break-up or a friendship one,’ McDonagh said of Banshees’ central conflict. ‘Being on both sides of that is an equally horrible position.’ And it’s this message that resonated as I mourned. We’d passed the point in the bromance movie where the pals part ways after a painful falling-out: Jay and Simon’s furious separation in the Inbetweeners movie; Dale and Saul storming off in a huff in Pineapple Express. Except, in this case, there was no triumphant reunion or grand gesture. I’d like to believe that there’s still a Catalina Wine Mixer on the horizon, but the grim ceasefire between Colm and Pádraic seems more likely. The male friendship may be comforting in its apparent simplicity, but it’s precarious in what goes unspoken. Any relationship takes work, and we had taken ours for granted. A friendship cannot survive on Step Brothers references and dick drawings alone. I should have said it sooner, and now it’s too late. I loved you, man. ‘Male friendship may be comforting in its apparent simplicity, but it’s precarious in what goes unspoken’ 110 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS JOEL HARLEY @JOELHARLEY
I N STA N T E X P E RT U N H O LY T E R R O R The phrase ‘folk horror’ was coined by critic Rod Cooper to describe Piers Haggard’s The Blood on Satan’s Claw (1971). The director himself later adopted the term, although it didn’t enter the mainstream until 2010, when Mark Gatiss used it as the descriptor for an entire subgenre. Discussing key works of folk horror, Gatiss collectively dubbed Haggard’s film, Witchfinder General (1968) and The Wicker Man (1973) as ‘the unholy trinity’. I N A L O N E LY P L A C E ‘What if the landscape was not only alive, but sentient?’ asks director Mark Jenkin, whose Enys Men (2022) explores the fascination of the Cornish standing stones. Jenkin’s question resonates across folk horror, so much of which is concerned with the rural and the isolated. Examples range from 1977 ITV fantasy drama Children of the Stones (a precursor of sorts to Enys Men) and The Wicker Man (remote Scottish island) to 2022’s Men (English village where everyone looks like Rory Kinnear). O C C U LT M OV I E S Lost in a Swedish forest, four friends stumble across a monster-worshipping tribe in The Ritual (2017); a man attempts to rescue his sister from a sinister community in Apostle (2018); and there’s necromancy afoot as Sean Bean searches for a plague cure in Black Death (2010)… A key preoccupation of folk horror is occult or pagan belief systems; over and over again, characters will eschew conventional religion in favour of ancient gods, arcane ritual and the supernatural. OUT WITH A LAMB Two tropes readily associated with the subgenre are human sacrifice and downbeat endings - thanks in no small part to Sergeant Howie’s fiery demise at the end of The Wicker Man, which feels both shocking and inevitable. The protagonist isn’t always destined for doom, though: The Witch (2015) and Midsommar (2019) both conclude with their abused heroines on the up as their friends/relatives meet grisly fates. F I E L D S O F W H E AT L E Y If anyone is a modern keeper of folk horror it’s Ben Wheatley, whose 2011 breakout Kill List sees hitmen stray into the orbit of deadly cultists. Though Wheatley’s CV has remained eclectic (from Doctor Who to Rebecca to Meg 2: The Trench), he’s made vivid returns to the subgenre with the psychedelic A Field in England (2013) and pandemic chiller In the Earth (2021). ‘I’ve always been wary of the woods,’ he says. ‘They can kill you…’ JOEL HARLEY Lore of the land… FOLK HORROR AL AMY, BFI, ENTERTAINMENT, NETFLIX, SECOND SIGHT, STUDIOCANAL, TIGON, UNIVERSAL WITCHFINDER GENERAL 1968 ★★★★★ Of all Vincent Price’s villains, none is more memorably sadistic than his titular witch-hunter in Michael Reeves’ English Civil War shocker. THE WICKER MAN 1973 ★★★★★ Prudish plod takes on heathen hordes (led by a messianic Christopher Lee) in a genre-defining classic, where everything leads up to that reveal. T H E B L O O D O N S ATA N ’S C L AW 1971 ★★★★★ Satanic panic consumes a 17th-century community when their kids become devil worshippers. Eerily gorgeous. MIDSOMMAR 2019 ★★★★★ Ignorant Americans go on holiday by mistake in Ari Aster’s soul-battering solstice epic. Anchored by Florence Pugh’s traumatised tour de force. KEY MOVIES TOTALFILM.COM NOVEMBER 2023 | TOTAL FILM | 111
112 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS to watch it. I’m in the Gen Z/millennial bracket, but after a childhood building up my film collection, I’d hate not to be able to continue it in the future. SHARNA YOUNG, VIA EMAIL The future of physical media may be uncertain, but for now at least we have labels like Arrow, BFI, Indicator, StudioCanal and more still flying the flag - often with super-deluxe packages where a flag is just about the only thing not included. (We still have our Kiki’s Delivery Service tea towel, even if it would take witchcraft to return it to its original pristine state). E V E RY DAY H E R O E S Is anyone else out there fed up with the constant roll-out of Marvel/DC films? Dialogue Mail, rants, theories etc. The trouble with most of these movies is that the superhero is generally either some top scientist (Bruce Banner, Hank Pym, Reed Richards) or unbelievably wealthy (Tony Stark, Bruce Wayne). I’d love it if, just once, studios gave us a superhero with an ordinary job, whose ordinary life is the main focus of the film rather than the usual CGI-laden, pyrotechnic-filled slug-fests. STEPHEN MCCARTHY, GLASGOW That does sound refreshing; it is sometimes hard for audiences to relate to characters that are, to quote Florence Pugh in Black Widow, gods from space (not that TF readers are anything less than divine). Maybe we could get an Iron Man reboot where, instead of opening his briefcase to H AV E YOUR SAY T O TA L F I L M . C O M V I D E O S • R E V I E W S • TRAILERS • NEWS ★STAR LET TER I’ve developed a coping mechanism for when I’m feeling anxious during tense action scenes in the cinema. In such situations I find it useful to hum a cheery ditty. Some examples: during Top Gun: Maverick’s finale, I soothingly broke into, ‘Those magnificent men in their flying machines, they go up tiddly up up, they go down tiddly down down.’ For Meg 2’s jet-ski frenzy it was, ‘Baby shark doo-doo, doo-doo, doo-doo’, and for Oppenheimer’s atomic-test tension I went with Lulu’s ‘Boom-bang-a-bang…’ Unfortunately, I have had a few strange glances from others in the audience. Do you think studios could perhaps put on special showings with these calming tunes as part of the soundtrack? Or include a tension-releasing five-minute interval to let me go for a short walk? WAVEY DAVEY, CALVERLEY We’ll certainly ask our Hollywood pals. Although we’re still waiting for them to get back to us over whether they might consider putting mid/end-credit stings at the start of films, or getting someone with lots of cred (Denzel Washington, say) to record little intros telling us honestly whether said stings are worth staying for. Wavey and everyone with a letter printed here will receive a copy of classic spooker The Others, out now on 4K UHD, BD and DVD via StudioCanal. Didn’t send an address? Email it! Or you can fog-get it! PHYSICAL THERAPY In response to Kevin’s letter on physical media [TF 342], I do have the same concerns about film and television becoming streaming-only. When I enjoy a film, I like to have it on DVD for that feeling of ownership; I also like knowing that I won’t have to scramble through different streaming services and paywalls totalfilm.com twitter.com/totalfilm facebook.com totalfilm [email protected] @Zvez17 ‘If Robert Pattinson can manage Bruce [Wayne] and James’ filming schedules and hairstyles, he would be the best [new Bond].’ An exclusive chat with The Creator director Gareth Edwards; Batman memories; the latest Bond candidates; Fincher’s best movies ranked; and multiple nun puns. Plus spoiler-free reviews and more, every week! WHAT YOU MISSED ON THE POD LAST MONTH ‘I can see my house from here!’ SCOTT HALES, PAR AMOUNT, STUDIOCANAL, WARNER BROS. REFLECTIVE INTEREST CURVE™ THRILLED ENTERTAINED FLIPPIN’ ECK! BAD TIMES RUNNING TIME WEEK 1 WEEK 2 WEEK 3 DEADLINE Venice Film Festival: biopics, hitmen Toronto Film Festival: more hitmen, herons, dicks London Film Festival: bikers, volcanoes, h*t*m*n Harvest Festival: none of the above, thankfully
25,779 (Jan-Dec 2022) 18,019 Print 7,760 Digital GROUP EDITOR-IN-CHIEF JANE CROWTHER [email protected] @janevgcrowther DEPUTY EDITOR MATT MAYTUM [email protected] @mattmaytum REVIEWS EDITOR MATTHEW LEYLAND [email protected] @totalfilm_mattl NEWS EDITOR JORDAN FARLEY [email protected] @JordanFarley ART EDITOR MIKE BRENNAN [email protected] @mike_brennan01 FILM GROUP Editor (SFX) Darren Scott Art Editor Jonathan Coates Deputy Editor Ian Berriman Production Editor Ed Ricketts CONTRIBUTORS Editor-at-Large Jamie Graham Art Catherine Kirkpatrick Prepress and cover manipulation Gary Stuckey Hollywood Correspondent Adam Tanswell Contributing Editors Kevin Harley, Leila Latif, James Mottram, Neil Smith, Paul Bradshaw Contributors Simon Bland, Tim Coleman, Tom Dawson, Matt Glasby, Joel Harley, Simon Kinnear, Matt Looker, Libby Plummer, Rafa Sales Ross, Chris Schilling, Kate Stables, Gabriel Tate, Kim Taylor-Foster, Anton van Beek Entertainment Editor, Gamesradar+ Emily Murray Senior Entertainment Writer, Gamesradar+ Bradley Russell Senior Entertainment Writer, Gamesradar+ Lauren Milici Entertainment Writer, Gamesradar+ Molly Edwards Entertainment Writer, GamesRadar+ Fay Watson Photography Alamy, CameraPress, ontour, Getty, Shutterstock, Thanks to Rhian Drinkwater, Ian Farrington, Heather Seabrook, Matt Yates (Production), Nick Chen, Richard Jordan Cover image Scott Council ADVERTISING Media packs are available on request. Please contact Chris Mitchell. Commercial Director Clare Dove [email protected] Advertising Manager Chris Mitchell [email protected] Account Manager, Gaming & Film Nick Hayes [email protected] INTERNATIONAL LICENSING Total Film is available for licensing and syndication. To find out more contact us at licensing@ futurenet.com or view our available content at www.futurecontenthub.com Head of Print Licensing Rachel Shaw SUBSCRIPTIONS UK orders and enquiries 0844 848 2852; overseas orders & enquiries +44 (0)1604 251 045 Online enquiries www.magazinesdirect.co.uk [email protected] Total Film (ISSN 1366-3135 USPS 23870) is published monthly with an extra issue in April by Future Publishing, Quay House, The Ambury, Bath, BA1 1UA, UK. The US annual subscription price is $168.87. Airfreight and mailing in the USA by agent named World Container Inc., co BBT 150-15 183rd St, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA. Periodicals Postage Paid at Brooklyn Brooklyn NY 11256. US POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Total Film, Air Business Ltd, c/o World Container Inc., 150-15 183rd St, Jamaica, NY 11413, USA. Subscription records are maintained at Future Publishing, co Air Business Subscriptions, Rockwood House, Perrymount Road, Haywards Heath, West Sussex, RH16 3DH, UK. MARKETING AND CIRCULATION Global Trade Marketing Director Victoria Chappell Head of Subscriptions Sharon Todd Direct Marketing Campaign Manager William Hardy Newstrade Director Ben Oakden PRINT, PRODUCTION AND DISTRIBUTION Production Manager Frances Twentyman Head of Production, UK & US Mark Constance Production Project Manager Clare Scott Senior Ad Production Manager Jo Crosby Ad Production Coordinator Emma Thomas Digital Editions Controller Jason Hudson Printed in the UK by William Gibbons & Sons, on behalf of Future Distributed by Marketforce, 2nd Floor, 5 Churchill Place, Canary Wharf, London E14 5HU. Tel: 0203 787 9001 MANAGEMENT Managing Director, TV & Film Matthew Pierce Content Director, Games & Film Daniel Dawkins Head of Art & Design Rodney Dive Editorial Production Manager Stuart Dade Director of Group Finance Oli Foster All contents © 2023 Future Publishing Limited or published under licence. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be used, stored, transmitted or reproduced in any way without the prior written permission of the publisher. Future Publishing Limited (company number 2008885) is registered in England and Wales. Registered office: Quay House, The Ambury, Bath BA1 1UA. All information contained in this publication is for information only and is, as far as we are aware, correct at the time of going to press. Future cannot accept any responsibility for errors or inaccuracies in such information. You are advised to contact manufacturers and retailers directly with regard to the price of products services referred to in this publication. Apps and websites mentioned in this publication are not under our control. We are not responsible for their contents or any other changes or updates to them. This magazine is fully independent and not affiliated in any way with the companies mentioned herein. If you submit material to us, you warrant that you own the material and/or have the necessary rights/permissions to supply the material and you automatically grant Future and its licensees a licence to publish your submission in whole or in part in any/all issues and/or editions of publications, in any format published worldwide and on associated websites, social media channels and associated products. Any material you submit is sent at your own risk and, although every care is taken, neither Future nor its employees, agents, subcontractors or licensees shall be liable for loss or damage. We assume all unsolicited material is for publication unless otherwise stated, and reserve the right to edit, amend, adapt all submissions. ISSN Total Film 1366-3135 We encourage you to recycle this magazine, either through your household recyclable waste collection service or at a recycling site. We are committed to only using magazine paper which is derived from responsibly managed, certified forestry and chlorine-free manufacture. The paper in this magazine was sourced and produced from sustainable managed forests, conforming to strict environmental and socioeconomic standards. TOTALFILM.COM ‘I can’t bear the heat… I just close all the curtains and watch miserable films.’ * ‘I’m going to start using “You dope!” a lot more in my day-to-day and working life. You dope!’ CHATTER ‘GEMS’ OVERHEARD IN THE TOTAL FILM OFFICE THIS MONTH… YOU CAN ALSO WRITE TO Total Film, 121-141 Westbourne Terrace, London, W2 6JR (postal addresses will be used for the sole purpose of sending out prizes) reveal a Mark Umpteenth mega-suit, there’s a battered spiral notebook, a packet of expired Nurofen and his 11am banana. SACRED PROFANIT Y Re: last month’s letter about the use of profanity in cinema [from David Patrick Moore, TF 342]. My mum used to say that the use of swear words showed a person to have an inadequate vocabulary. Sorry, Mum, but their effectiveness on the big screen can’t be denied, starting with movies from her day, like Rhett Butler not giving a damn or 1970’s M*A*S*H dropping the first F-bomb heard in a mainstream US movie. Many great movies have a lot of cussing: Casino, Uncut Gems, The Wolf of Wall Street… And I’m not really sure some classic movie quotes would have the same power if you cleaned them up: ‘Yippee-ki-yay, mother-fudge-knockers!’; ‘Go flopperdoodle yourself, San Diego’; ‘How the fiddlesticks am I funny? What’s so frying-fishcake funny about me?’ Darnation, they just don’t quite sound the same! JACK HARGREAVES, ADDINGHAM True enough, although taking the opposite approach - injecting filth into innocuous quotes - feels equally wrong: ‘Oh crap, Auntie Em, there’s no chuffing place like home’; ‘Houston, we have one giant arseboil of a problem’; ‘That’ll do, pig. That’ll do. FFS’; ‘Rose-bleedin’-bud.’ GOLDEN TICKET In response to your game of ‘Who has the oldest ticket stub?’ [Dialogue, TF 341], I would like to submit my almost 35-year-old ticket for Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I used to keep all my ticket stubs back in the day, as it was a great reminder of all the films I had seen over the years. Paperless tickets are now the norm and better for the environment. But who knows, maybe in years to come you could suggest a game of ‘Who has the oldest virtual ticket?’ SCOTT HALES, HORNCHURCH Yes, imagine Dialogue-bot asking if anyone remembers QR codes… Thanks for throwing down the old-stub gauntlet, Scott; our eyes telescoped Looney Tunes-style when we saw the ticket price: £1 actual 50! That would barely buy you the dust off a cheesy nacho in today’s world. OFFICE SPACED Bryan Stahl ‘I’m just going to say it… I love [Ahsoka] but Thrawn is one of the most ridiculous-looking villains I’ve ever seen. I just can’t take him seriously.’ Goodfellas uses the F-word 300 times in 146 minutes – can you quote them all?
114 | TOTAL FILM | NOVEMBER 2023 SUBSCRIBE AT WWW.TOTALFILM.COM/SUBS FADE IN: EXT: LAND BEFORE TIME A Megalodon eats a T-rex to remind us that giant sharks are dangerous. Sixty-five million years later, rescue diver turned eco-warrior JASON STATHAM sneaks aboard a freighter. JASON STATHAM You pillocks are illegally dumping radioactive waste in the sea. I’m here to stop you because I care about the planet and my fellow man. JASON beats the crew to a pulp. He then dives into the sea, now contaminated with toxic waste, to get rescued by his pal CLIFF CURTIS. CLIFF CURTIS Now we’ve got the film’s environmental message out of the way, let’s get on with the bloodlust! INT: OCEANIC INSTITUTE, CHINA JASON STATHAM’s previous love interest is dead, but he is raising her teenage daughter SOPHIA CAI with the help of her uncle WU JING. Mostly all underwater. WU JING Thanks to my rich and suspicious investor SIENNA GUILLORY, we have an actual Megalodon in captivity. You know, just like the one that endlessly terrorised my dead sister! SOPHIA CAI I’d love to dive with you one day to see the Meg up close and risk death or grievous injury. I’m 100% sure it’s what mum would have wanted. WU JING goes for a swim with the Meg. He uses a clicker pen to train the humongous predator not to eat him. It nearly eats him anyway. WU JING Y’see? It’s all under control. I easily survived that near-fatal predicament I placed myself in. INT: MARINE RESEARCH CENTRE JASON and co dive to the Mariana Trench in tiny subs and find several Megs as well as a mysterious base. A sudden explosion forces them to crash. SOPHIA CAI Hi everyone! By the way, I stowed aboard just for fun. Hope that’s OK. JASON STATHAM Well, we have no power or air. The only way to survive is to wear special suits and walk to that mysterious base. What could possibly go wrong? Several people die in horrific ways. Their suits start running out of oxygen and, at one point, JASON STATHAM has an actual fist fight with a sea dinosaur. JASON STATHAM Phew! We made it! Well, some of us did, anyway. But at least we’re all safe now. INT: UNDERWATER BASE Someone’s head explodes. JASON and co discover that the base is mining rare valuable materials. Suddenly TRAITOR SKYLER SAMUELS – from back at HQ – calls them up. TRAITOR SKYLER SAMUELS Ah-ha! I’m actually working for the rich investor SIENNA GUILLORY! I now have to kill you, even though we could probably just do all of this legally anyway. She floods the base, but JASON STATHAM just swims outside and opens the door. The group escapes to the surface, but so do some Megs, sea dinosaurs and a giant octopus. JASON STATHAM Great. Now I have to kill all the deadly sea monsters by riding a jet-ski around and stabbing them all with harpoons strapped to bombs. It’s the only possible way. EXT: FUN ISLAND There are lots of people partying on a nearby island with an incredibly unimaginative name. Several of them die in horrific yet admittedly entertaining ways. CLIFF CURTIS Everyone get out of the water! Get yourselves onto dry land – you’ll definitely be safe there! People die in the sea, on land and even in a helicopter. Eventually, JASON STATHAM stabs the giant octopus with a bomb and kills the alpha Meg with a rotor blade. JASON STATHAM Wow, that was sheer incomprehensible chaos for a really, really long time. I take it all the bad guys were killed? Good. EXT: THE BEACH JASON STATHAM and all his friends enjoy beers, presumably all surrounded by human bodies. WU JING Well, I think we all had that under control. Hahahahaha! Everyone joins in with the laughter. SOPHIA CAI Guys, a LOT of people just died. Including some of our own close friends and colleagues. EVERYONE What? [PAUSE] Hahahahaha… FIN NEXT ISSUE: THE NUN II NEXT ISSUE ON SALE 9 NOV e s S P O I L E R ALERT! WARNER BROS. TF SAVES YOU THE COST OF A MOVIE EVERY MONTH. THIS ISSUE: MEG 2: THE TRENCH… 60 SECOND SCREENPLAY WORDS MATT LOOKER See page 32 for details SUBSCRIBE TODAY AND GET A FREE JOBY MAGNETIC WIRELESS CHARGER ETIC WORTH £29.95
9000 9023