We Go Again (2026)

This is one we covered on the podcast, episode 256 in the archives, where we had screenwriter Tom Jolliffe and the two stars of the film, Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew, on to discuss it. It was a great conversation, definitely worth checking out, and like my podcasts on Death Among the Pines, there's a spoiler wall if you want to listen to the first part before you watch the film.

We Go Again is about a neurodivergent couple, Marie and Amy (Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew), who have moved to an isolated cottage, but are now dealing with financial issues, and their relationship is starting to fray, all compounded by the struggles they're already going though by being neurodivergent in our society. Marie is trying to make it as an actor, but is having difficulty finding roles, especially roles that pay well, so she's working with an acting coach (Annabelle Lanyon, Legend) to try to land some of those better parts. At the same time, Amy wants to leave the corporate 9 to 5 world that she doesn't feel comfortable in, but with the bills mounting, she's finding she may need to go back. Will Maria and Amy be able to navigate all of this and come out on the other side?

This is an amazing movie, dealing with subject matter we often don’t see in film. A true love story for the 2020s. I think the question is, because this isn't our usual genre fare, will you enjoy it? To be honest, I follow a lot of you on Letterboxd (and if you're not following me on Letterboxd, I do follow back), and I see that you watch a lot of different movies, it's not all PM Entertainment flicks and Italian-directed Rambo interpolations shot in the Philippines, and with that in mind, I think you will enjoy this. Tom wrote another great script, and his brother Oliver does a great job as director and cinematographer, but then Zuza Tehanu and Charlotte Chiew really bring the whole thing to life. Two moving, emotional performances that don't pull any punches, which is exactly what this movie needed. Sometimes they're completely still, with no dialog at all; sometimes they're being goofy and all over the place and enjoying each other's company; and sometimes one of them is frantically tearing a room apart in a fit of rage. Yet there's nothing exploitative about it, it's all human, which is what makes it so compelling. This isn't a 90s indie male gaze manic pixie dream girl fest, it's raw and unidealized, which can be uncomfortable to watch at times, but the result is something really special and worth checking out.

In talking to Zuza and Charlotte on the podcast, we found out that Tom and Oliver had Zuza in mind for Marie from the beginning, but Charlotte had to step in and take the role of Amy on short notice. You wouldn't have known from watching it that each actor had a completely different path to their roles like this, the performances we get feels like they spent two weeks living in the cottage together before filming even started, a la Ryan Gosling and Michelle Williams in Blue Valentine, so to make us believe they're a couple who has been together for a long time and the story is dropping in on this moment in their relationship is all the more amazing. Tom said he cast Zuza because she's both an actor and a dancer, and that really comes through, as she's able to tells us as much from her dialog as she is from her movements, but that acting piece was still important because there were moments where she needed to be more raw and uncomfortable, and her acting ability bore that out. Juxtapose that with Charlotte's Amy character, who was maybe the more responsible of the two by greater society's standards, and I think had she not successfully conveyed the fullness of her character, it would've been easy for us in the audience to say "why doesn't she just go back to work and solve all their problems?", but she did convey that fullness, and she provided both a great complement and counter Zuza's Marie. Again, two fantastic performances, and finding out on the podcast how they each came to their roles makes it even more incredible.

This is the sixth film of Tom's we've looked at on the site, but the first one that's not really a genre picture per se. I can see how being a genre film makes it easier to sell with obvious hooks from a marketing standpoint; but I feel like when a movie like this is done right, the way this one was, it should find its audience--at least hopefully. When he came to me to see if I would discuss this film on my podcast, he mentioned that this is not our usual kind of movie, but that part didn't matter to me, I was happy to help get the word out on his latest project; what surprised me though was how emotionally evocative it was. I was expecting something good based off his previous work, but not to be moved to the amount I was. At one point on the podcast episode, I think it was Zuza who asked if there was anything I didn't like about the movie, and you can hear me stumbling over my words to think of something, but having had six months or so to reflect on it, I think when a movie moves you emotionally this much, it feels like to find faults would be finding them for the sake of finding them, and I don't think that's necessary here. Going back to the kinds of movies we usually review here, yes, most of the time I need car chases, exploding helicopters, and people crashing through windows, but watching this reminded me that I love when a movie can move me emotionally too.

Another thing we discussed on the podcast was how the two lead characters were a lesbian couple, but that wasn't an actual story element. Where it becomes an important part of things is in how the film can divorce itself from the 90s indie manic pixie dream girl trope. It was common in 90s indie films for faux edgy male directors to craft these stories around these idealized "quirky" female characters, with male characters acting as a surrogate for the filmmaker trying to make sense of this "quirky" girl, but loving her just the same. Or if it's a guy who's the "quirky" one, he finds an impossibly beautiful starlet who loves him despite his flaws in some kind of noble self-sacrificing way. I'm not saying that by having the two leads be a lesbian couple alone that this film is divorced from all that, but it's a start, and I think had it been a male and female character it would've been harder to remove it from that tradition; and then to not make the fact that they're a lesbian couple part of the story further divorces it from the male gaze aspect so it can really be about the main characters' humanity above anything else, which I think treats their neurodiversity with the proper respect. All that said, it is important that a movie can have a lesbian couple just be a couple as you'd have any heteronormative couple, and I think that's another positive among many in the film's favor.

Finally, Tom mentioned that the title of the film, "We Go Again," comes from a line Aston Villa coach Paul Lambert would say at his press conferences after games, denoting the team's rollercoaster run of wins and defeats, which ultimately led to them being sent down for the first time in their Premiership history the next year. You may know from following us that Arsenal is my favorite team, because I was a fan of Dennis Bergkamp in the 1994 World Cup, and figured I'd pick his team in the Premier League; and my second favorite team is Fulham because when I started really following the EPL, they had a lot of American players. In that sense, Aston Villa wasn't a team I actively rooted for, but along with teams like Everton that made up the EPL's middle class, I always appreciated them and felt bad when they were relegated after having played in every other Premier League season to that point. After winning the Europa League, expectations were high for them this year, but claiming only one point from their first four games has them in 19th, so they've got their work cut out for them if they're going to stay in the top flight. I'll be rooting for them though, especially this week when they're playing Tottenham!

And I'll be rooting for this movie too, as I hope everyone gets a chance to experience it. Here in the States you can stream it on Fawesome, which is a great way to go. Hopefully it'll get an even wider distribution and more people will have a chance to see it. Also, if you haven't already, check out the podcast episode we did with Tom, Zuza, and Charlotte, 256 in the archives.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt32344535/

Death Among the Pines (2025)

This is one we covered over two podcast episodes late last year, first with screenwriter Tom Jolliffe in episode 238, and then in episode 249 with two of the films stars, Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr. Both fantastic conversations, and both worth checking out. Now that the film is coming to the UK, it's time to review it on our site as well.

Death Among the Pines has McKeown as Angela, a young woman whose husband (Olly Bassi) is away for work, leaving her alone in their secluded house during a stormy night. Her peaceful evening is disrupted by a knock on the door from a mysterious young man (Nathan Shepka, who also directed) whose car broke down. Despite how suspicious he looks, she lets him in, gives him some of her husband's clothes to change into while his dry, and offers him a glass of whiskey. At the same time, this mysterious young man is at the center of a police manhunt, and when local officer Donny (Kerr) comes to Angela's house to see if their fugitive is hiding out there, she has a decision to make: should she turn this young man over, or protect him from Kerr and the rest of the police.

This was absolutely fantastic, both a tight, smaller-scale thriller that brings you back to the old cable thrillers of the 90s; but also layered and nuanced from the writing, to the performances, to even the cinematography and editing. One of my favorite things was the way Kerr's Donny was introduced into the story. Tom as the writer knew that two characters could only sustain the story so long, so we'd need a third eventually, but he brings Donny in when things are just starting to get interesting between Angela and this mysterious stranger, as opposed after that when things were about to run their course. From there, McKeown, Shepka, and Kerr all play it like Donny's a party crasher, but because we don't really know who anyone is yet, anything could happen from that point, and as a viewer I couldn't wait to see it unfold. I don't want to give anything beyond that away, because I want people to experience this as fresh as possible, and everything else I want to say feels like it could be a spoiler, so I'll leave it at this: if you're looking for an evening thriller done on a smaller scale, but makes the most of it's budget, this should be at the top of your list.

I think the best place to start is in Nicolette McKeown's performance as Angela, because I don't know that the rest of it works if her performance wasn't as great as it was. There was a lot that this movie asked of her, and the way she took it and ran with it makes the whole thing compelling. From there, Shepka and Kerr play two angles of the triangle with McKeown, and they do this dance in their performance where they know as actors outside the film that everything hinges on McKeown, but as characters both think they're in control and that Angela is potentially there for the taking. It's exactly what I want when I fire up a movie like this: excellent performances, a lot of mystery and intrigue, but all in a fun and entertaining spirit. In the podcast episode I did with McKeown and Kerr, they talked about how acting is a career where you get to play make-believe as an adult, and maybe that's the ultimate thing that comes through in the performances, everyone was enjoying themselves, which becomes infectious as the viewer.

This is now the third collaboration between Nathan Shepka and Tom Jolliffe we've done, after When Darkness Falls and The Baby in the Basket, and one element that seems to be a part of all three is a setting that evokes a sense of isolation and claustrophobia. In When Darkness Falls, it's the juxtaposition of the expansiveness of the Scottish Highlands that is beautiful and open during the day, but at night when everything is dark becomes constrictive; in The Baby in the Basket it's the island location, cut off from the rest of the world; and here it's Angela's house, an oasis from the storm outside that may not be such a safe haven. On the surface it feels like limiting locations should make the film easier to produce, but as we've seen with a lot of modern DTV that likes to work in one or two locations, to carry the energy needed to keep things interesting over 90 minutes can be difficult, and a lot of those films resort to all manner of padding to get us over the finish line. For Shepka and Jolliffe to make these stories compelling and have them unfold organically without any padding or dead spots is quite a feat unto itself, and as a result I've really enjoyed watching all three of these movies.

The 90s cable thriller has a bit of a bad connotation, but one of the best ways I remember to spend 90-120 minutes was stumbling upon something while channel surfing, sitting with it for a bit to see what happens, and the next thing I know the credits are rolling and whether I thought the movie was good or bad I had a fun time. It's the crassness of the "good or bad" I think that turns people off, but also, the "bad" often came because maybe we had an actor or two who thought they were slumming it and wanted to get their scenes done and over with; or even if that actor or two did a great job, perhaps they made demands that led to scenes being rewritten so they no longer fit the rest of the story; or maybe a line producer or distributer made suggestions that led to an unevenness that disrupted the flow of the film. What we get here with Death Among the Pines is an example of what happens when everyone is pulling in the same direction, we get the fun of the 90s cable thriller, but with a consistency and higher quality all around, which makes it even better to watch.

Finally, our podcast is no stranger to Scotland, as we have Scott Murphy from All 90s Action, All the Time on the pod every couple months or so to talk about Seagal's DTV oeuvre, plus we've had the director of this film Nathan Shepka on a couple times, and now Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr as well; but this summer as the US hosted the World Cup, the Scottish fans showed up in a big way. It started in Boston, where they wore special tartan-patterned Red Sox jerseys to Fenway Park and made the atmosphere there the most fun its been in years, especially with the team in last place at the time they visited. (The Red Sox then went on an historic run of success and are now firmly in a playoff spot.) The fun of the Scottish fans there was infectious, as stories ran all over the country about them, and I think it helped build more excitement for the World Cup among us Americans. So while Spain won the World Cup on the pitch, if there was a trophy for best supporters, the Scottish fans would've won that, and hopefully all of that goodwill will lead to more of us Americans consuming more Scottish cinema, because there's a lot of great stuff like this film available for us to watch.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can get this on Tubi, or VOD on Prime; and then in the UK, on September 7th it's be available on VOD. This is absolutely worth checking out, especially if you're looking to support indie filmmakers, fire this up on an evening where you're looking for a fun watch. Also, you can check out the podcast episodes we've done on this, episode 238 with Tom Jolliffe, and 249 with Nicolette McKeown and Stephen Kerr.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt33089967

The Baby in the Basket (2025)

This is a film we covered on the podcast on two separate occasions, once before the film was made, in April of 2023 on episode 122, where we had Nate Shepka and Tom Jolliffe on to get the word out on the kickstarter; and then more recently back in February when the film was released, in episode 197, we talked with the guys again to go over highlights and some of the backstory behind the making of; and now we're finally here giving it a proper site review. In addition to us, The Guardian has covered this as well, so we're in great company!

The Baby in the Basket follows a nunnery located on an isolated island in Scotland during WWII. The nuns themselves all have various issues they're working through, which would be enough to make a great reality show, but not a movie. Enter an abandoned baby in a basket left on the nunnery's doorstep. One of the nuns, Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne) thinks the devil is afoot, and she wants to kill the baby; while the Mother Superior (Maryam d'Abo) thinks this is her one chance to be a mother in the more literal sense. Who's right? And who will be left alive for it even to matter?

As I said on the pod episode, I really enjoyed this. It feels like old Hammer Horror, but where a Hammer film would've focused on Nathan Shepka's caretaker, as it would've probably been the Oliver Reed part, here he's more of a supporting character in favor of the nuns, which makes it a more modern take on Hammer Horror that I appreciated. Black Narcissus is another one that comes to mind, and even though it's not a direct sequel, Maryam d'Abo's Mother Superior is like what Sister Clodagh would've been doing years later after she left the Himalayas. I don't know that any of this works though without the great job from the cast. Beyond turning in professional performances, it felt like the actors were really enjoying the craft of acting, which for me as a viewer makes the experience more enjoyable too. That's what I want from a fun, Saturday night movie, and this delivers.

This is the second Shepka-Jolliffe collaboration we've covered here, after When Darkness Falls--which we've also covered on the pod, both on episode 122 when we talked about this, and 103. I don't know that I can say I like one better than the other, because they're both pretty different. This is more traditional horror, while When Darkness Falls is a slow-burn thriller. But they both worked for me, and if I extend that out to Renegades and Cinderella's Revenge, two others that Jolliffe has written that we've reviewed, and Lock and Load and Dead Before They Wake, two other films that Shepka has directed and produced (Dead Before They Wake he co-directed with Andy Crane, who co-directed this as well), that's six movies that run the gamut of styles and genres, but all movies I enjoyed. Their next one is in production now, Death Among the Pines, and I can't wait to check that one out too. If these other ones are any indication, it should be another fun time!

One of the standout performances for me was Michaela Longden, because of how her character's story arc went. She comes in and establishes herself as the nun who's troubled and questioning her faith, then she leaves the film to go back to the mainland, and comes back for the last 45 minutes or so while all hell is breaking loose. She really had to make a mark in those early scenes, because we then have all that time in between to get to know everyone else, and as I said above, everyone in the cast did a great job, so it would've been easy to lose her, but those opening scenes, especially opposite Maryam d'Abo, definitely left that impression. It was a different role from the one she had in When Darkness Falls, where she was the lead and the film centered around her struggle. I think her performance also matched the Hammer Horror energy that the film had overall, but, again, with Tom Jolliffe's writing taking it in a different direction, she could do more to affect the outcome than just be the dangerous wild card who's having a crisis of faith.

Among the other performances, I loved the juxtaposition between Amber Doig-Thorne's Agnes and her "fully believe in God and believe that God is talking to me" version of faith, versus Maryam d'Abo's Mother Superior and her "adherence to rules and discipline" version of faith, and how the two clash as the film goes on. There's also the humanity in d'Abo's Mother Superior wanting to be a mother after sacrificing that for her faith for so long, and it's that one time she's slipping in her discipline and adherence to the rules that proves her undoing. I think from there, I liked how Elle O'Hara's Valerie is caught between the two, she's used to the routine and structure of the nunnery, and when the baby comes and things start breaking down, her sense of self starts to go with it. That's a part most horror movies wouldn't bother fleshing out, she'd just be there to be killed off, so the fact that it was fleshed out, and she gave it life, was another touch that gave the film more depth. Finally, there was Lisa Riesner, who plays the young newcomer who doesn't speak, and dances nude in the courtyard in the middle of the night. To be fully game for a part like that takes courage--usually with the exploitation films we do here, when a producer says a nude scene was part of the "character development," it sounds dubious, but because she was game, and because of how the part was written, it actually did add to the film in a substantial and not gratuitous way.

Finally, I mentioned above that Shepka's young caretaker was inhabiting an Oliver Reed-type role. The way this would work in a Hammer film in the 60s, is the young hero ends up in the remote location, where evil is afoot, and he needs to find a way to escape. Maybe Peter Cushing or Christopher Lee is lurking in the background. I was trying to think how many Hammer films were woman-led like this one, and the best I could think of was Die! Die! My Darling!, where Stephanie Powers is that Oliver Reed character stuck in a dangerous, isolated situation, and Tallulah Bankhead plays the evil Christopher Lee/Peter Cushing type. Usually in a Hammer film a scenario with a group of women would go like this: Shepka's character shows up at the nunnery, and then learns the nuns are all evil, murdering temptresses, and the question is, can he escape before it's too late? And I think having Shepka's character feel like it would've been Oliver Reed's enhanced the Hammer vibe, while at the same time focusing on the nuns showed that this was also breaking from some Hammer traditions. It was bringing Hammer into the 21st century, and as the kids say, I'm here for it.

And with that, let's wrap this up. Here in the States you can watch this on Tubi or rent it on Prime. When I think of a Hammer Horror on a Saturday night, like on Svengoolie, this is a modern movie that fits that bill; but it also gives you a bit more, which is a credit to the work of the cast and crew. Speaking of which, Svengoolie is a repeat this week, so why not load up on snacks give this a watch instead?

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt26594761

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Dead Before They Wake (2025)

Recently, filmmaker and actor Nathan Shepka reached out to see if I'd review his latest release, which I was more than happy to do. We've seen two other of his films here on the site, When Darkness Falls and Lock & Load, both vastly different movies, but both very enjoyable. Let's see how this one did.

Dead Before They Wake has Shepka as Alex, a lonely nightclub bouncer whose only companionship is his father, who's close to passing and living in a rest home; and Gemma, a teacher who makes extra cash as a sex worker. All that changes when a lawyer representing a government official asks Alex to rescue a young deaf girl who's being held by some traffickers that have been taking young girls in the city that live in vulnerable situations. The £20,000 he's offered for the job is nice, but really he wants to do the right thing, so he agrees to find her. As this job takes him down a dark path though, will he be able to get out alive? And if not, whom might he take with him?

This was really intense. Even though I watched it lying in bed, I was figuratively on the edge of my seat a lot of the time. It's a dark intense though, no punches are pulled here. This isn't the standard middle class American white girl getting grabbed from the Hobby Lobby parking lot version of trafficking we see in a lot of action movies, this is closer to what it really is, young girls and boys who are either sold by drug-addicted parents, or who have run away from bad situations and are vulnerable to being exploited like this. Nothing's overly elaborate, there aren't rich businessmen flying in on private jets to bid on girls in fancy auctions, these are dark rooms where girls are drugged and preyed upon by local degenerates that have the money. Nate plays a great hero too. He's not Superman, he can't take out five guys at once with lighting quick martial arts skills--even though we do have a really nicely-choreographed knife fight at one point--this is part a dramatic lead with more depth, yet also not afraid to mix it up with a baseball bat to get things done. Then our two main baddies, played by Manjot Sumal and Karim Nasif, are definitely evil, but they aren't scenery chewing baddies, they're just evil, which helps ground the film. And finally the other major standout for me was Grace Cordell as Gemma. Usually her type of character in a film like this is solely there to be our hero's humanity and emotional surrogate, but because Nate is doing more of that already in his performance, she can be more independent--she's a sex worker that doesn't need to be saved by the hero. I had a little trouble with the ending, which I'll discuss further down the post with spoiler warnings, but overall I really enjoyed it. It's an intense, dark thriller, so if you're looking for something in that vein, this will do the trick.

Technically this is the fourth film I've seen of Nate's, but the third one, The Baby in the Basket, hasn't been released yet, so you won't get my thoughts on that one until then. As far as how this one stacks up with those other two, it's hard to say because they're all so different. This is probably closer in feel to When Darkness Falls, but I think this one is much darker than that one. Like there's a scene where a young girl, played by Emily Crawley, gets into a cab that's driven by Karim Nasif. It's so frightening but so dark and depraved too, the way Nasif starts asking her questions about herself that go from slightly off to downright creepy, but we know it's going to get worse, and it does when his friend gets in the backseat and he's all over her, and she's realizing she's in a horrible situation. In these interactions, Shepka and company are not letting us off easy, not to say he did let us off easy in When Darkness Falls, but that was a more straight ahead thriller, while this is absolutely disturbing at times. But it's also not disturbing for the sake of being disturbing, this is a compelling story with great performances too, which elevates it beyond the dark nature of the subject matter and how it's being depicted.

About that subject matter, you've probably heard me either on here, or on the pod, discussing the human trafficking trope that's popular in modern action movies. Part of it comes from Taken, part of it from the "baddie in a can" element that allows us to have villains without a lot of development, because how do you not want to see a trafficker get his comeuppance? It also lends itself well to the damsel in distress being rescued by our white knight hero construct. The usual approach is, middle class, beautiful--many times virginal--white girl gets picked up by some baddies, and it's a race against time before she's defiled by these ne'er do wells. In my short action novel, Bainbridge, I tried to do a take on the Eastern European trafficking I'd read about, where young women apply for what they think are office jobs, but end up kidnapped and shipped across Europe to underground brothels, only in my case I used girls from Mexico trafficked into the US instead. What Nate and company do here though is look at the most common kind of trafficking, the kind that FBI agents here in the US spend countless hours on the dark web trying to crack down on, and nothing like the popular depiction in Jim Caviezel films or whatnot. These aren't girls who found a water bottle on their car at a Hobby Lobby parking lot, the kind of baseless urban legend stuff your aunt may post on her Facebook wall, they're girls whose parents sold them for drugs, or who had no family and were taken in by people who they thought cared for them, or who went to a party and were drugged and kept in a hotel for a weekend. This isn't your fun action movie trafficking, and I think the film is better for it. At the same time, we have Grace Cordell's Gemma character who is voluntarily doing sex work to make some extra cash. When Alex says how he felt guilty paying her for sex, like he was taking advantage of her the way the johns were in the brothels of trafficked girls he found, she's assertive in telling him she was doing sex work of her own volition, she wouldn't be doing it if she didn't want to. It's a great juxtaposition to show both sides, that sex work doesn't automatically equal trafficked; but also, I think it removes this more insidious part of the conversation that has less to do with keeping young men and women out of unsafe situations, and more about controlling this idea of a woman's "virginity" as some kind of sacred thing. I thought it was a good move to use Cordell's character that way to further ground the film, especially when we're dealing with such disturbing material.

(And don't think it wasn't lost on me that in the UK teachers get paid enough that Gemma had to turn to sex work to make extra money because her father ran up charges on her credit cards then disappeared. In America teachers get paid so little that just doing sex work on the side would've been believable even without the family member putting her into debt.)

SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!! SPOILER ALERT!!!

I used that rant on how poorly we pay our teachers in the US to give a further buffer so I can discuss the ending without spoiling it for anyone who hasn't seen it. The term "Shakespearean," among many Americans anyway, usually means "a story where everyone dies at the end," and that's kind of the case here, which I got, but I thought it was a bit harsh for the characters. First we have the young girl that was trafficked. With all that she went through, and all that Alex went through to rescue her, for her to die after, however it happened, felt unfulfilling. Then Gemma, she's kidnapped by the baddies, tied up and gagged, shot in the leg, then after a melee she gets on top of Manjot Sumal and beats him, only to be shot in the head. For all she brought to the movie, and how we became invested in her, that one may have been harshest of all. And then when Alex dies, I get that there's that sense that he lost everything by letting the darkness of this task envelope him, but I think I just would've preferred a better outcome for him too. You could also make the point that it would've been even harsher if he had died while Gemma lived, because he then misses out on the nice life they could've had together. Ultimately, these are choices filmmakers make to tell the story they want to tell, the way they want to tell it, and maybe my issue as a storyteller is I'm afraid to kill my characters off or give them a bad ending, which I understand, it could be more me than them, it just means this is an area in the film that didn't resonate as much with me, which I think is okay too.

END SPOILER ALERT!!! END SPOILER ALERT!!! END SPOILER ALERT!!!

Finally, while that isn't Wayne Rooney in that shot, it's Graeme MacPherson, it looks a lot like him, doesn't it? As an Arsenal fan, Rooney's not really one of my favorites, but the idea of having a Wayne Rooney look-a-like is fantastic. Like how Robert Bronzi has made an entire career out of looking like Charles Bronson, could MacPherson do the same? And maybe loosely imply he's Rooney without saying it, like MacPherson plays a "former famous footballer" that's either a cop on the edge, or a baddie running a trafficking ring, or maybe best of all, running a Dark Kumite a la Ben Franklin in Bloodsport IV. And though twice helicopters have been blown up using American footballs, I don't think anyone has blown one up with a non-American football, aka a "soccer ball." We'll have to ask Will from Exploding Helicopter to be sure, but it feels like a film with MacPherson looking like Rooney is the place for it to finally happen. I can see the whole thing now, the hero's a former famous footballer who missed a big penalty late in his career. It's always haunted him. But now he's the fly in the ointment in a Die Hard scenario, and at the end, as the baddie's about to escape in a helicopter, his only chance to get him is to kick a soccer ball at the helicopter, with C4 attached to it of course, and he bends it perfectly, blowing the machine to bits in spectacular fashion. Instead of "Sudden Death" we could call it "Injury Time."

And with that let's wrap this up. As of January 7th, this will be available on VOD and DVD here in the States, and then January 27th on VOD in the UK. This is well-worth checking out and supporting. It's dark, doesn't pull punches, and keeps you on the edge of your seat, but also develops compelling characters that are well-scripted and well-acted. It's just really great stuff.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17044894

And if you haven't yet, check out my newest book, Nadia and Aidan, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

Lock & Load (2023)

This was a screener submission from Nathan Shepka of Shepka Productions. We'd seen his work before with When Darkness Falls, which I really enjoyed, plus he and screenwriter Tom Jolliffe were guests on the pod earlier this year to discuss their newest project, The Baby in the Basket. In addition to us, our friends Mike, Rich, and Steve at the DTV Digest have covered this as well, in episode 241 of their podcast.

Lock & Load has Shepka and Colin MacDougall as Nick and Derek, two high-end private security guys who think they're going to have a relaxing bank holiday, but instead are called into action when their friend, Agent Stokes, goes missing. As they dig deeper into what happened, they uncover an arms deal between a mysterious figure named the Chess Master, and an arms dealer named Steiger. They also run into a lot of trouble as baddies come out of nowhere and try to take them down assault weapons and explosive devices. Will our heroes find their friend and stop this arms deal from happening?

This was a lot of fun. There were legitimate laugh out loud moments, some of which I thought about after the fact and still laughed at. The thing is though, while it's a send-up of action films, the humor is obvious, but it's not over the top. With the limit resources they had, they made nice looking fight scenes and action sequences, which for me made the comedy even better. It was a bit long for me, it comes in at about 105 minutes, and I could've done with 15-20 minutes shaved off, but this was entertaining enough overall that that mitigated it. The plot may have been a bit convoluted, but I think even that was supposed to be part of the fun--at least I took it that way and went with it. As a fellow action fan, I love something like this that I can have fun with the cliches, but also puts a lot of work into the action as well. It couldn't have been easy on a tight budget, but I think they pulled it off.

Nathan Shepka was writer and director for this as well as acting as one of the leads, but I don't think there's much in common between this and his previous directorial effort, When Darkness Falls. The latter was a slow-burn thriller, without a lot of humor in it, while this jumps right in with a hip hop song about Atlanta, a goofy conversation about pigeons fat shaming, and then a shoot out. Because they're so different, I don't know that I can say I like one better than the other--When Darkness Falls is a cleaner film because it has fewer moving parts, and it's not required to take the chances visually that this one does, but the things this does on a limited budget--and does well on a limited budget--can't be overlooked. And again, the jokes landed, which is probably the most important. I'm excited to see what he and Tom Jolliffe do with The Baby in the Basket.

In America, comedy tends to be more over the top, and I think when that kind of comedy is married with action, what that does is, one, make the filmmaker think they're insulated from criticism--"I'm going to make the action sequences so goofy that if they look lazy, I can say 'that's what it's supposed to look like, it's goofy!' " and then two, when I'm watching it, even as an American with my American sensibilities, I feel like I'm getting hit over the head with it. The problem is, to pull it off they way Shepka and everyone else working on this project did, the action scenes need to look good enough, which I think is why most filmmakers doing a send-up of action go over the top. Sure, the action sequences weren't Hong Kong stuff, but they still looked pretty solid. I was waiting for the fight between Colin MacDougall and Laura MacDougall (not sure if they're related) and Shepka and David McCallum, and they didn't disappoint when we finally got them--and didn't disappoint because they were good cinematic fights, but we also had those touches of humor as well. 

Earlier this year I did a series on my solo DTVC Extra podcast looking at the Fast and Furious franchise, and I think maybe a movie like this shows us where big budget action has lost its way. Sure, with $375 million you can make the best looking action sequences, but what good is it if it's running over the same, safe material. It's the same thing with the Marvel movies. This is doing something different with the genre, and while I'm sure Shepka and co. would like a little more money than they had, they didn't need $375 million to make something fun and entertaining. And the point could be made that my doing that series on the Fast and Furious movies was me losing my way, because a movie like Lock & Load, or Lady Terror, which I did on my last indie screener post, are more where I enjoy watching movies, and a big reason why I started the site.

Finally, like Lady Terror, Lock & Load takes place in a part of the world where people drive on the right-hand side of their car. This was shot in Glasgow, which was slightly disappointing, because I thought it would've been funny if it took place in Aberdeen with the movie starting with the song "Do it in the A,"--which writing the title sounds worse, it's supposed to mean "how we do it in Atlanta." Anyway, as an American, the steering wheel on the right hurts my sensibilities, but the amount of shooting in this makes total sense, though as Will told us when he was on to discuss Craig Fairbrass and Rise of the Footsolider 3, shootings and killings by firearms in the UK are pretty rare, which is why the Range Rover killings where Pat Tate was murdered are so compelling to UK audiences. I think that's part of the joke here, that Glasgow--unfortunately not Aberdeen--looks like LA in a PM Entertainment flick with all the shootings and explosions, but it's a joke I don't think I would've gotten if I didn't have that info from Will ahead of time. 

And with that, let's wrap this up. This currently isn't available in the US, but hopefully will be soon. For our UK readers, you can check it out on digital platforms. This is the rare mix of a comedic action film that does a great job on both the comedy and the action. Thank you again to Nathan for sending this along, it was a fun time! And as an aside, I didn't plan this out, but Monday is a holiday here in the States, Labor Day.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13552530

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, Holtman Arms, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!

When Darkness Falls (2022)

Recently Tom Jolliffe, screenwriter for this movie, reached out to see if I'd like to have him on the pod to discuss it. It was a great conversation where he gave us a lot of insights on how the process of making it went, what went into certain decisions, and what they were aiming for. In addition, Tom writes for Flickering Myth, and has some great articles, including many action-themed one. In addition to us, our friends at the DTV Digest have covered this as well.

When Darkness Falls follows two American women traveling through the Scottish Highlands: Jess, who's more responsible, and Andrea who's a bit more of a free spirit. While on their way, there are two men in the area at the same time who are breaking into and robbing local houses, and in between jobs they're drugging and raping local women. The two pairs meet at a local pub, and when Jess is annoyed by Andrea hanging out with the guys, she leaves them, only to come back and find Andrea missing. Now it's up to Jess in this strange land to find her friend and make it out of the Highlands alive.

While this isn't my usual kind of film, I really enjoyed this. It's more of a slow burner than the high-octane shooter helicopter explosion-fest I'm used to, but in the slow burner vein it really works. I don't want to get into too many aspects of it so I don't give anything away, but with what I can tell you, the story itself unfolds in a very organic way, which is what we need if we're following the actions of someone like Jess as she moves along on her journey. From there we need a Jess who's very believable, and Michaela Longden in that role pulls it off. As director Nathan Shepka and Tom as the screenwriter weave in the actions of the other characters, they never get too far from Jess, which makes her the center of gravity around which everything else orbits. Just the same, the other actors turn in great performances as well, and included in that is the way they were able to make the Scottish Highlands a character in itself. It was at times vast and open, and at others claustrophobic, which furthered the dualities we find throughout the film: Jess's thoughtfulness and sense of responsibility versus Andrea (Emma O'Hara) and her carefree and reckless sense of adventure; the two women versus the two criminal men (Nathan Shepka and Craig McEwan) and the danger they bring; the vast open beauty of the Scottish Highlands during the day versus how sinister and claustrophobic they can seem at night. This had what you'd want from a taut, suspenseful, slow burning thriller.

One element that Tom told me about was how he an Nathan collaborated throughout the process. For example Nathan would find a location and have Tom write in a scene that included it. Tom was able to give us a sense that this isn't usually what happens, that more often he submits the script, and then everything from the film's name to the characters could be subject to change without his input. It still sounded fun to write those movies and see what the end product looks like, but here we see the fruits of a collaboration where director and screenwriter are working toward a common vision. If you look in the additional cast details, Tom also got a casting credit, and that's because he had a part in casting Michaela Longden as Jess, so even that was collaborative. The result was something that felt really authentic, which is something I always appreciate.

Here in the US we usually think of New York City as acting as a character when a move takes place there. A lot of times with independent films or lower-budget films, the geographical location doesn't matter as much, it's more about finding the cheapest place that works. Montreal is a great substitute for NYC, Bucharest works instead of London, etc. In When Darkness Falls though, the Scottish Highlands function the way NYC does, and we get its beauty and vastness on display, especially in these drone shots. The other decision Tom and Nathan made was to have Jess and Andrea be Americans, which not only enhances their sense of being in an entirely foreign land, but also enhances the Highlands as a character. They easily could've just set this in Any Remote Village, UK, and it would've worked to some extent, but by doing it this way it works that much better, and it's touches like this that can make all the difference in an independent film that's working on limited resources.

One thing I realized when I watched this is how much my brain is velocitized to the action films I'm used to seeing. Not only that, but even the bigger budget films like The Rise of Skywalker that I saw recently move quickly with a lot of split-second shots. It took me changing how my brain worked to slow it down and trust the process of what was happening here, and when I did, it paid off. The problem with my brain being velocitized is a slow burner can feel slower than it really is, like when my buddy and I were driving 100 MPH on 95 in Maine between Bangor and Millinocket, and then when we got off the highway in Millinocket and were only going 50, we felt like it was 20; when I see a story taking more time to unfold, I have to convince myself not to get antsy. If you're like me and you watch a lot of action films, it's good to recognize when the velocitization process is happening, and try to account for it--or do like I needed to do, and watch something other than action movies.

Finally, we had two English actresses playing Americans, with a script written by someone from England as well in Tom. The result was there were some moments where they gave themselves away. One big one was when they used Celsius to describe the temperature--10 degrees for us in Fahrenheit is much colder. My anthropology professor was from Nottingham, and he talked about the differences in UK and US English, including a story about how in a class before mine with him, he said the term for board eraser in the UK is "rubber," and if you go to someone's place to get them in the morning, you "knock them up," to which an American woman in his class said "if you come to my place tomorrow morning, make sure you bring your board eraser." All in all, I think Tom did a great job writing for his two American characters, and the decision to make them Americans had a greater effect in providing the mood and atmosphere they wanted; and besides, I don't know how well I'd do writing UK characters--I know "windshield" is "windscreen" in the UK from the Depeche Mode song "Fly on the Windscreen"--which was used in a Miami Vice episode--so that's a start.

And with that, let's wrap this up. In the US you can currently rent this on Amazon Kindle VOD, or you can buy it on DVD if you're a fan of physical media. It's worth checking out and supporting this project, so however you get it it's good. And if you want more info about the film, you can check out the podcast episode we did, ep 103, on iTunes, Spotify, or if you're viewing the web version of the site as you're reading this, you can right-click to save it on the left-hand side.

For more info: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt13330168

And if you haven't yet, check out my new novel, A Girl and a Gun, at Amazon in paperback or Kindle!