Bones And All (2022)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- A young Maren (Taylor Russell) flees Virginia with her father, Frank (Andre Holland) after she tries to eat a friend’s finger at a slumber party. Frank, feeling the pressure of constantly covering up Maren’s cannibalistic attacks, eventually abandons his daughter. 

Maren meets another cannibal named Sully (Mark Rylance) during her journey. Sully, offering his help and guidance, informs Maren that she is an eater, and the urge to feed on human flesh is too strong to ignore, a problem that’ll only get worse as Maren ages. 

Maren crosses paths with Lee (Timothee Chalamet), another young eater, who agrees to help Maren find her estranged mother, Janelle (Chloe Sevingy). Maren and Lee develop feelings for each other, but Maren runs into trouble, when Sully returns with hopes of rekindling their partnership.

My Thoughts- Taylor Russell delivers an excellent performance, bringing the necessary vulnerability to Maren. There’s a noticeable layer of innocence to Maren’s character, but it’s also hard to ignore the fact that she’s willfully ignorant about the lifestyle of a cannibal. Russell did a good job of showing frustration and anger, because after all the eating and the deaths, Maren slowly realizes there’s no real moral high ground to stand on, when you’re attacking and killing innocent people. 

Timothee Chalamet plays the edgy bad boy loner type, but he’s also a kid, who’s hurting inside, a broken young man. Choosing the path of a self imposed exile from his family, Lee wants to reconnect and bond with his sister, Kayla (Anna Cobb), but he’s carrying around the heavy burden of being an eater and killing his father. Chalamet nails a wide variety of emotions with a good performance. Lee is dangerous, but he can also be endearing and charismatic.

Taylor Russell and Timothee Chalamet share believable chemistry together. Maren and Lee are two people, who need each other, sharing a dark secret and a highly unusual lifestyle that only both of them can truly understand. Lee and Maren’s relationship feels real. A lot of ups and downs, with Maren slowly trusting Lee to the point, where she feels safe enough to lower her guard.

Mark Rylance is phenomenal as Sully, easily delivering the best performance here. Rylance brings a charming  presence to Sully, complete with a soft southern accent. But there’s also a dangerous side to Sully, and there’s no denying he’s extremely creepy. 

Rylance smoothly switches gears between the seemingly wise and helpful old man and a menacing threat. Sully wants to be the mentor and father figure that Maren needs. You’re isolated and alone in the world as an eater, so that’s why Sully was heartbroken, when Maren ran away from him after they ate the old lady. Great facial expressions from Rylance. The scene where a frozen and shocked Sully watches Maren leave on the bus with that devastated look on his face is just perfect. 

Loneliness, abandonment, and how it affects people plays a big role in Bones And All. Frank was put in a tough spot, but you can understand why he left Maren. Still, it’s rough for a teenage girl to go out in the world alone after her father leaves without a warning, or any real preparations for survival. To make matters worse, Barbara (Jessica Harper), Maren’s adoptive grandmother, insists she honors her promise to never visit her again.

Sully is old. Living so many years alone with a secretive lifestyle will inevitably take its toll on anyone. That’s why Sully lashed out, when Maren sternly rejected his friendship. And it’s clear Sully was depressed about his family choosing not to look for him after he ran away as a child. 

A lot of important details to pay attention to, as Sully and Maren are eating the old lady. You’ll see a bunch of pictures telling the story of a woman, who once had a family and friends. Imagine dying alone in that big house, while two strangers literally eat what’s left of you, leaving your mangled corpse on the ground surrounded by flies. That’s a depressing ending for anyone. 

Maren has a rocky transition into adulthood, because she’s quickly forced to learn lessons about life on the fly. Maren runs away from Sully, and she runs away from Lee, when she panics for different reasons. Eventually, Maren realizes she can’t just run away from all of her problems. Confrontations and reconciling are cornerstones for adult life. Maren’s no longer in a position, where she can hide behind her father, while he takes care of everything. 

Two big moments for Maren, starting with telling Sully that she no longer wants to be around him, and patching things up with Lee at the lake. Standing up for yourself and burying the hatchet takes guts. It’s uncomfortable, and Taylor Russell did a good job of showing how nervous Maren was with Sully, while also realizing shutting him out of her life was something that needed to be done.

She starts her journey into the world alone, only to wind up alone after killing Sully with Lee’s help. The timing of Sully’s attack was impeccable. Maren and Lee are living a normal and peaceful life together, but it’s all ripped away from them in an instant. It’s an unfortunate ending, with Maren eating a dying Lee. If anyone was going to eat Lee, he’d obviously choose Maren to do it, someone who cared about and understood him. 

There’s also a callback to Jake’s (Michael Stuhlbarg) “bones and all” line at the campfire during Lee’s death scene. Lee wants Maren to eat him, bones and all, an experience that Jake romanticized as something special. According to Jake, leaving a bare bones corpse counts as the first real experience as an eater, passing the stage of foreplay, and transitioning to a legitimate achievement that’s basically a badge of honor. 

Did Maren and Lee actually deserve a happy ending? Yeah, you could say they were young, two people with a strange condition doing what they had to do to survive, but that doesn’t erase the fact that they’re also murderers. The ending works as a full circle moment and karma coming to collect. Sully and Lee got what they deserved, while Maren is left to deal with the emotional and devastating aftermath alone.

Too many examples throughout the movie that clearly showed there’s no real happy ending for an eater. Maren was disgusted by Brad (David Gordon Green) and Jake’s joyous approach to cannibalism, especially Brad, who’s not an eater, but he still gets a kick out of the lifestyle. Sully and Lee were both predators. The big difference is, Lee was more of a cerebral tactician, manipulating his victim’s emotions before he attacked. And you can’t forget about Maren’s mother, Janelle. She’s alone, heavily medicated and deranged, living out the rest of her days in an institution.

So when you look at the big picture, Maren’s options are she can either spend the rest of her life running, hiding, or basically living off the grid. It’s a vicious cycle to literally feed her addiction. One problem after another, and not spending the rest of her life in prison or an institution is the best that Maren could hope for. I’m sure one of the reasons why Sully made Maren’s skin crawl is, she didn’t want to follow the same path during the later stages of her life: a monster, who was too enamored with the lifestyle, collecting locks of hair (including Kayla’s hair) from his victims. 

Bones And All is a bloody and brutal love story, with a grotesque horror twist. All of the storylines and themes seamlessly connected for a smooth style of storytelling, leading to a gut-wrenching finale. Bones And All shows how having an addiction can ruin your life, and how it affects those closest to you. A bleak and genuinely emotional film, featuring a superb cast, and a number of creepy and unsettling scenes. Jake chasing after Maren and Lee in the darkness, and the sight of a distributed Janelle, including her mangled arms, because she couldn’t control her cravings and ate her own hands are two of my top picks.

And maybe I’m looking too deep into this, but I do wonder if the little girl at the diner was an eater? Sully did say eaters can locate each other by picking up on a peculiar scent. The child seemingly gave Maren a knowing look, so I guess it’s a possibility, an intriguing what if, without any definitive clues or hints.

So much blood and graphic gore, but Bones And All ironically feels homely and nostalgic. Placing the story in the 1980’s helps, while Maren and Lee traveled along the quiet backroads, passing through all the small and quaint towns. 

Rating- 10/10

Escape Room: Tournament Of Champions (2021)

 

**This post contains spoilers, including thoughts on the alternate opening and ending **

The Story- Continuing their pursuit to expose Minos, Zoey (Taylor Russell) and Ben (Logan Miller) travel to New York to find more evidence. But things take an unexpected turn, when a homeless man lures Zoey and Ben into another one of Minos’ games by stealing Zoey’s necklace.

Zoey and Ben are forced to survive another series of escape rooms with former winners including, Theo (Carlito Olivero), Brianna (Indya Moore), Rachel (Holland Rode), and Nathan (Thomas Cocquerel). The players are put to the test and pushed to their limits, and a surprising return forces Zoey to make a difficult decision.

My Thoughts- Tournament Of Champions knocks it out of the park again with a different set of more grandiose escape rooms. Each escape room is uniquely different and has its own brand of chaotic life or death danger, especially the bank and vault escape room. The subway train, the bank and vault, the beach, and the outdoor New York City escape rooms all had genuine awe-inspiring atmospheres, but the smaller and more modest escape rooms also worked here. The water cage and the sauna escape rooms fit within the story to play up the claustrophobia and anxiety more, so you still get that strong sense of panic and dread, just on a smaller scale.

Escape Room 2019 took the clever approach to use the participant’s personal tragedies and traumas as tie-ins for the escape rooms and the clues within the rooms to add an emotional layer, but that’s not the case in the sequel. They were clearly going with a bigger razzle-dazzle style for the escape rooms here and more complex problem solving. It’s a noticeably different approach that still works. The strong sense of urgency is intact, and there’s a few believable tense moments, with a lot of good close calls in the NYC acid rain and the bank escape rooms. Including two exits during the beach escape room delivered more hysteria, because when you consider everything she’s been through, it’s easy to buy into Zoey’s desperation to finally escape the game.

The teamwork in Tournament Of Champions is more cohesive and fluid, and you won’t see any selfish characters resembling Jason from the original. Everyone in the sequel is a former champion. They know how dangerous the games are, and they know Minos means business. You can say the stunt he pulled in the bank escape room was stupid, but Nathan solely risked his life twice to help the group.

We already know about Zoey and Ben’s stories and their motivations, and I was hoping for more character depth for the rest of the contestants. Brianna is a social media influencer and a travel blogger, and that’s it? Rachel has a high tolerance for pain, but they never go into any details about her being a “pain freak.” Nathan is traumatized. He’s an alcoholic, and something about his life as a priest is clearly bothering him.

The original did a good job of exploring the traumas behind each contestant, and working their traumatic experiences into the escape rooms. With the exception of Nathan and to a lesser extent, Theo (he loves his wife and doesn’t want to be late to her birthday party), there’s no real attempts to explore the backstories behind the contestants. So if we’re talking about performances, the cast is basically limited to frantic shouting and panicky reactions.

Amanda is alive! That’s the big surprise towards the end. But it’s not a happy reunion with Zoey and Ben, because it’s revealed Amanda has been working with Minos to design escape rooms. We know for sure the beach escape room was Amanda’s brainchild, and she’s only working as an escape room builder, because Minos kidnapped her daughter. Of course, Amanda comes to her senses and helps Zoey and Ben escape, after Zoey refuses Minos offer to work for them.

So they’re in the clear and Minos is done for, right? Well, Zoey and Ben are stuck in another escape room on a plane to end the movie. Zoey realizes something is wrong, when she sees her therapist (Lucy Newman-Williams) on the flight, who’s revealed to be a plant from Minos. It’s the plane crash escape room that was teased at the end of the first movie, and it plays into Zoey’s fears of flying.

But wait there’s more! In the alternate opening and ending, we learn more about the Puzzle Maker, Henry (James Frain) his daughter, Claire (Isabelle Fuhrman), and his wife, Sonya (Tanya Van Graan). There’s a twist, where it’s revealed Claire is the true Puzzle Maker and architect behind the escape rooms, and Henry’s been stealing her ideas and passing them off his own for years. All the escape rooms were inspired by events during Claire’s childhood, and as a child, Claire is the one who killed her mother with the sauna escape room.

So which ending is better? I have to go with the ending in the alternate version. It’s a definitive ending with more closure. Claire helps Ben and Zoey escape. There’s no cliffhanger for their ending, and Amanda and her storyline are completely cut out of this version. There’s also a slight crack in the door to continue the story. Claire presumably kills Henry, and she promises to fulfill her true potential after she escapes from her prison. 

Fuhrman and Frain delivered a pair of solid performances, and their characters added a good emotional layer to the movie, with the unusual and dysfunctional family dynamic. The extended cut also shows more footage, with Zoey struggling to get on a plane again. The scene where Zoey envisions her mother warmly encouraging her to join her on the flight did a good job of  showing why Zoey is still paranoid, and you can understand why it’s not so easy for her to move on.

I don’t hate the theatrical ending, but it’s too wide open. All of the struggles Zoey and Ben went through are meaningless. On the plane, Zoey mentioned the escape rooms were “too easy” this time around, and Amanda revealed the reason for that earlier. It was all one big recruitment scheme to get Zoey to work for Minos. Going back to the NYC acid rain room, it’s easy to see how things were set up for Zoey to be the winner. Rachel and Brianna never had a chance to get inside the taxi. 

So if we’re going by the theatrical ending, everything was a ruse to get Zoey to lower her guard and finally get on a plane. Zoey and Ben didn’t really accomplish anything, and Amanda’s shocking return is wasted.

I never believed Zoey and Ben were in any real danger, but Tournament Of Champions is still a satisfying sequel. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor, Tournament Of Champions delivers consistent thrills and suspense with a speedy pace. The sequel is also loaded with amazing set pieces and good eye candy. Logan Miller and Taylor Russell share believable chemistry as best friends, and there’s slight teases for a possible romance. Zoey and Ben developed a tight bond, and they’re genuinely willing to risk their lives to keep each other safe. 

The theatrical ending and the extended ending are completely different with two separate paths. The big difference is, and I’ve said this before, but the extended version’s ending gives you the impression a sequel could happen. The theatrical version’s ending will leave you with the impression that a sequel NEEDS to happen. The theatrical ending shows the start of an escape room game, and Henry’s identity is never revealed. 

 I know it’ll probably never happen, but personally, I was holding out hope for an Escape Room 3. There’s untapped potential with mainstream game horror movies. Escape Room could’ve been a nice alternative to Saw, if you’re not into the more extreme gory stuff. Zoey and Ben worked as a duo, and it’s easy to fit them into future films, as two players who managed to survive Minos.

Rating- 7/10

Escape Room (2019)

 

**This post contains spoilers**

The Story- The Minos Corporation chooses Zoey (Taylor Russell), Ben (Logan Miller), Amanda (Deborah Ann Woll), Danny (Nik Dodani), Mike (Tyler Labine), and Jason (Jay Ellis) to participate in an escape room game. Playing the game seems like a fun challenge at first, but as the rooms become more dangerous, it’s clear Minos has sinister motivations.

My Thoughts- Escape Room features the usual cast of characters you’ll see in a survival game horror movie. Zoey is the wholesome protagonist, who wants to help and hopefully save everyone from certain death. Jason? Well, he’s a jerk. Jason represents the kind of relentless participant, who will do anything to win the game and stay alive. He’s selfish and heartless, and Jason only wants to be a team player, if it’ll help his chances of survival. But his mindset is also understandable, because if we’re being honest, not too many people are going to risk their lives to save and protect complete strangers.

Personal tragedies play a big part in the games for Escape Room. Amanda is a combat veteran with PTSD, so you can easily see why she’s the first member of the group to panic. There’s also the red jacket from Jason’s story in the outdoor winter room. Jason used that jacket to keep himself from freezing to death after he murdered his friend. In the winter room, the red jacket is shared amongst the group to fight off hypothermia, something Jason selfishly refused to do with his friend.

The clever interweaving for using personal hardships as tie-ins for the games adds an emotional layer to Escape Room. The main cast of characters are forced to face their demons. The majority of the escape rooms have their own brands of uniqueness and deadly creativity. Starting things off with the oven room was a good choice to set the tone for the rest of the movie. The upside down room with the bar and the pool table was truly unreal. It’s easily the only room, where I could buy into the possibility of anyone dying, because of how extremely dangerous everything was, a true nail biter.

Something to pay close attention to is how the mood changes, as the game progresses. At first, the banter and jokes throughout the group are playful, but that changes as things get more serious. The insults are more personal and nasty, because the group realizes death is a realistic possibility. Jason gets more belligerent with his finger wagging, while constantly trying to expose the weak links, and everyone’s moral compass is put to the test.

The second to last escape room was a big letdown for me. It’s down to Jason and Ben for the final two survivors, and Zoey is presumably dead. The whole sequence inside this boring and plain room didn’t do anything for me. I get the whole idea behind the distorted POV, because Jason and Ben were heavily drugged, but it’s just too whacky overall. And to make matters worse, the placement they chose for this room didn’t fit. It’s toward the end of the movie, so I was expecting something more complex to reflect the high stakes to make it to the finish line.

The Gamemaster’s (Yorick van Wageningen) explanation to Ben for Minos’ motivations might be a tad bit cliched, but it still works. Minos’ clients are rich and powerful, and they’re willing to pay top dollar for more extreme content. The Gamemaster believes most of the world has gone soft, and that’s where Minos steps in. You can believe the rich and powerful see ordinary people as disposable toys for their amusement, and The Gamemaster also uses gladiator games and public executions for examples. That specific group of spectators never vanished, they were just pushed further into the shadows as the world changed.

Ben making it to the end as the “dark horse” survivor was a decent enough surprise, because you knew Jason’s selfishness and his arrogance would come back to bite him sooner or later. I didn’t buy Zoey’s death in the carbon monoxide poisoning room for one second. They tried a swerve, but they invested too much in Zoey, as the shy and scrappy protagonist with a fighting spirit. She’s too smart, and Zoey was going to find a way to make it. 

Escape Room has an alternate ending, where Zoey is lured back into one of her college classrooms. She gets the $10k grand prize check (she defiantly tears it up) and her mother’s compass, and the Puzzle Maker traps her inside for another game. This ending just feels flat, when you compare it to the theatrical ending. Zoe and Ben continuing their pursuit to expose Minos, while the Puzzle Maker prepares another game for both of them with the crashing flight simulator is a far more intriguing cliffhanger and ending.

Escape Room is a fun and entertaining game horror movie, with a lot of energy and brisk pacing. The thrills are consistent, and the entire cast delivers solid performances. I almost wish Yorick van Wageningen had more screen time. I understand the idea behind saving his only appearance until the end for the big reveal, but Wageningen is genuinely evil, cold, and cruel as The Gamemaster, truly a perfect fit to represent Minos. He does a lot with a little amount of time, and Wageningen would’ve made a great villain to showcase throughout the movie.

Rating- 7/10