Fantasia 2019--LITTLE MONSTERS (Abe Forsythe, 2019)

Lupita Nyong'o plays the charming Miss Caroline who protects her young charges from zombies in Little Monsters (2019)

Most kids are annoying.  It's true, and it's not just that other people's kids are annoying.  Don't let those parents fool you--they think their kids are also annoying, but they aren't supposed to say so, and...well, you can't put the toothpaste back into the tube.  Horror is common ground for evil kids getting up to mischief, but little urchins as victims--either of their own parents, or "stranger danger" evildoers--are even more ubiquitous.  These "children in peril" horrors also inevitably have kids doing really dumb things in order to land themselves in mortal danger.  Then they grow into the most irritating people imaginable--teenagers--and we gleefully watch them be picked off by some invincible serial killer. 

Okay, I'm getting ahead of myself.  Back to kids.  Cinematic kids are notoriously adorable, and the 5-6 year olds Abe Forsythe chose for Little Monsters (2019) are definitely cuties.  Still, none of them come close to the angelic adorableness that Lupita Nyong'o channels as their super-sweet and heroic kindergarten teacher, Miss Audrey Caroline; whom, beyond a somewhat checkered past that landed her in Australia, can only exist in the movies.  She is impossibly wonderful, and utterly winning.  After seeing Nyong'o in Jordan Peele's Us (2019), audiences expect her to whup some sorry Zombie ass. She does not disappoint.

If she and those kids were the only people in the movie, I would have been delighted, but nope--we've got to have an overgrown man child in need of a redemption arc and a new girlfriend, so enter Dave (Alexander Englund).  Dave is a washed-up heavy metal wannabe who fights with his girlfriend throughout the opening of the film, and crashes on his sister's couch.  Said sister, Tess (Kat Stewart) happens to be a single mum to one adorable kid, Felix (Diesel La Tarraca--what a name!), who also coincidentally attends Miss Caroline's kindergarten class.  You see where this story is going, right?  When Dave is conscripted to bring Felix to school, he takes one look at Miss Caroline and falls in LUV. 

Miss Caroline plays Taylor Swift songs on the ukulele--and she makes it seem sweet rather than cloying

Frankly, you cannot blame him, but really, there is zero chemistry between these two since Audrey can surely do infinitely better.  He eagerly volunteers to join her in chaperoning the kids to a petting zoo, where a marvelous surprise awaits--Teddy McGiggle (Josh Gad), a really horrid children's performer who seems to be part of a trend of evil children's performers (think Pennywise in It and the evil clown/kidnapper/psycho in Happy).  Although Teddy is not supernaturally evil--he's just a human a**hole.  He serves as a foil for loser Dave, who seems positively evolved in comparison.

When the zombies show up, Miss Caroline does her best to distract the kids and tell them that it's all a game--high-jinks ensue.  While the film is mostly structured for laughs, there are some worrying moments; nevertheless, Audrey wields a shovel with gusto.  As frequent readers know, I'm not a fan of horror comedies, but watching this film in a packed house at Fantasia, I found myself cheering right along with everyone else whenever Miss Caroline got out of a tight scrape.  Likewise, Dave's nephew, Felix, is probably one of the cutest kids I've seen in a while.  As a kid who is allergic to everything, you would expect the little tyke to be ripe victim fodder, but he manages to be much more than his sensitivities. 

Little Monsters is mostly fluff, but fun fluff

Some of the laughs hit, some miss, but Lupita Nyong'o makes the whole experience worthwhile.  She is luminous throughout, and Forsythe really scored when he secured her for Miss Caroline.  This woman can do anything.  I want her to be the star of all the movies. Dave's arc is hackneyed, but I guess we still need to reassure dickhead white guys that they have some place in contemporary cinema.  Be prepared, though--your tolerance for Taylor Swift and Neil Diamond needs to be pretty high to survive Little Monsters.

Extinction--Miguel Angel Vivas (2015)

A "cool" set-piece from Miguel Angel Vivas's film Extinction (2015)

Urrgh.  I get so irritated when the trailer of the film is better than the film itself.  Unfortunately, Miguel Angel Vivas' Extinction (2015) disappoints, big time. Even the post-apocalyptic frozen landscape and fast snow zombies couldn't save the hamstrung emotional relationships that serve as a rubbery backbone to this overwrought, unoriginal film.  Vivas' last film, Kidnapped (2010) was relentlessly bleak and also pretty derivative (Haneke's Funny Games (1997 and 2007), but still had flair in its Home Invasion stylings.  If you're looking for some global-warming-gone-wrong snow apocalypse, I highly recommend Joon-ho Bong's Snowpiercer (2013) instead.

Still, the Fantasia crowd was super-enthusiastic for the film's World Premiere, especially when the organizers announced the screening's special guest, child actress Quinn McColgan who plays the young Lu, the heart of the film's emotional center.  All of twelve now, she came up to the stage poised and excited, ready to watch the film on the big screen for the first time.  She revved everyone up, and the hoots and cheers were thundering.  Quinn deserves a better movie, as did the Fantasia crowd.

The film opens in a frozen environment, with a bunch of survivors bundled onto a school bus as two lonely buses try to make it through some military checkpoint.  The town is under martial law and the passengers are being held by gunpoint.  On this bus is Patrick (Matthew Fox--that guy from Lost) and Jack (Jeffrey Donovan--that guy from Burn Notice), and they seem to both be bent on protecting a pregnant Emma (Valeria Vereau), because a good zombie apocalypse is nothing without either a pregnant woman, infant, or child-in-peril.  Yeah, already I'm annoyed.  After an almost comical series of military blunders as the bus in front of them suddenly stops ("Alpha one do you read? "Static" "Alpha one?  I'm going to go out there to check it out, close the doors behind me." RINSE AND REPEAT 3 times), the zombies get on the bus, Emma's bitten, and the film flashes forward to 9 years later.

Jack (Jeffrey Donovan) and Lu (Quinn McColgan) leave a meager, listless "life"

Jack and Lu have been holed up in a house for the last nine years, where Jack home-schools Lu on basic mathematics and geography, and never lets her leave the house.  She's understandable pretty bored, especially when Jack insists that the monsters are all gone, having frozen to death.  She's also pretty fascinated with the guy next door, a grizzled drunken mountain man of a dude with his cute dog, who unsurprisingly turns out to be Patrick.  A high barbed-wire fence separates the two houses, and it's clear that divide has something to do with Emma from years ago.  Turns out that Jack holds an incredibly pissy grudge; even if there's a zombie apocalypse and his kid doesn't even remember meat, he's not gonna speak to the guy who regularly hunts meat next door.  Patrick alternately drowns himself in booze and tries to communicate through a ham radio to the outside world.

Patrick (Matthew Fox) gets snuggly with a zombie

Jack rigidly maintains this enforced division between the neighbors until Patrick comes back from town with a zombie in tow.  He seems to get bitten, and it looks like curtains for the neighbor, but somehow the monsters are no longer contagious, so there's that.  The kid ends up repeatedly in danger because she never stays put when she's told to, and the two quarreling boys have to band together to keep her alive.  The film's narrative is almost entirely constructed by a series of dumb ideas or choices and an overworked melodramatic narrative that is telegraphed by extremely annoying orchestral cues.  You could figure out exactly where this film is going with your eyes closed.

A pregnant woman (Clara Lago) shows up to complicate things further

Because it's hard to care about anyone but Lu (and only because she's cute and we are required to), Vivas ups the stakes by bringing a pregnant woman back into the narrative--a different one.  I'm not kidding.  I wish I was.  She does not even get a name.  But for that little detail, this film would probably pass the Bechdel Test, although the only time that the two women communicate is when the woman is braiding Lu's hair.  Ugh.  At least the pregnant lady knows how to use a gun, and she helps defend the house with the inevitable zombie siege goes down.

Extinction isn't terrible.  There are a couple moments of levity that make the film quite engaging, and those scenes center on Quinn McColgan's gritty and endearing performance as Lu.  Scenes where Lu learns to shoot a gun, and where the neighbors discuss the population of China over dinner, stand out as film highlights.  The film has some very satisfying kills as well, and the zombies slurpy ear orifices create just the right amount of ICK. 

Matthew Fox actually does a better than average job as Patrick, but Jeffrey Donovan as Jack?  Dude, what happened?  He's so great in Joey Lauren Adams' Come Early Morning (2006), but in Extinction he's a histrionic, whiny, pathetic jerk whom I wanted to die through the entire damn thing.  Not a good sign.  Better stick to TV.  Wait for this film to play repeatedly on either the SyFy channel or FX in the next 5 years.  And give Quinn McColgan a part that she can really take a bite out of ;)

31 Days of Horror--Day 15 THE UNDEADING (2012)

Horror films are great places to experience terror vicariously, and to identify with various victims and heroes along the way.  Horror fans always spend a chunk of time toying with "what if" scenarios.  "What if I was being chased by a psychopathic killer?  Would I fight back or would I hide?  Would I run away or try to get help?  Would I separate from my friends and explore a house's old attic/basement/boarded up room?"

One of my most frequently asked questions: "On actually encountering one of these horrors, would I just snap like a twig, and be unable to move or react, and just freeze like a gibbering fool?"  Well, I hope I never find out, but a definite option would be to die of a heart attack--killed by crippling fear.  But then, in a zombie apocalypse, you never know who has learned CPR.

Well the Heart and Stroke Foundation of Canada also appears to have these burning questions, and the organization is staging a phenomenal zombie flash mob event at Toronto's Yonge and Dundas square tomorrow at noon.  This event is the first of many throughout Ontario through November, put together to raise awareness for CPR, which will certainly make one "undead."  The following awesome video is directed by Vincenzo Natali, who also directed the incredibly unsettling Splice (2009).  Enjoy!

"Play Dead"--Andres and Diego Meza-Valdes

This short film from the Meza-Valdes brothers is getting play all over the internet right now, but so what?  The film gives us a very different perspective on your standard zombie apocalypse, and raises some dreaded concerns about what might happen to our beloved "best friends."  Pets or Meat indeed.  **Vegetarians, steer clear of this one.  I even felt like becoming one after screening this short.  Still not a fan of the cats vs. dogs dichotomy that seems to permeate our culture though.

The film is very genre sensitive, with homages to 28 Days Later and Dawn of the Dead, among other well-known zombie epics.  There's a nod to The Graduate too, as well as some romantic comedy hijinks between Princess and Nemo.  This film is one of the shorts from Miami's Borscht festival, and you can see it and others online.  Or here!