Threshold

It’s not the tools you use to tell the story, it’s how you tell it.  That’s a wonderful mantra for filmmaking, which, up until the last decade or so, has been an exorbitantly expensive career to break into.  When digital finally caught up to the look of celluloid, it opened the door for low-budget storytellers to compete on the same stage.  So much so that even that $1000 dollar iPhone in your pocket is professional enough to put together a film that stands up quite well.  Take Threshold (2020) for example, a road movie about two siblings struggling with their personal issues; one facing an impending divorce and dead-end career, the other long-term drug addiction and, oh yeah, a body-swapping curse inflicted by a satanic cult.  Co-directors Powell Robertson and Patrick Robert Young’s creative gamble, besides shooting the entire thing on beefed up iPhones, is that neither sibling’s crisis takes center stage.

Sundance dramas masquerading as horror films are nothing new.  Even in the literary world up-and-comers are hedging their bets with horror elements to attract attention from audience’s that otherwise wouldn’t give the material a second look.  And that’s certainly the case Threshold, kicking off with an attention-getting supernatural scenario - Virginia claims to have been “linked” to a fellow cult member, experiencing his pain and emotions - then settling down into a pleasant but pedantic family therapy session well improvised by its two lead actors, but leading the audience far afield from what was promised.  It’s a mature and well-made piece of work that will certainly appeal to those up for a dramatic detour.  But, even with its whopper of a finale, Threshold is a mixed bag of Gen Z whininess and home movie mediocrity.


Arrow Video’s special edition Blu-ray makes for great viewing, that’s for sure.  Without the copious extras you’d probably never guess the film’s iPhone origins.  Extras include two audio commentaries, a feature length documentary, two round-table discussions, the original soundtrack and a color correcting featurette to show how the filmmakers got that high-end look out of their low end cameras.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Tormented

Image
The west coast always struggled to create a creepy atmosphere on screen.  All that southern California sunshine just doesn’t lend itself to ghostly apparitions or gothic castles.  But  Tormented  (1960) gives it a good try, staging its opening scene in an abandoned lighthouse where blackmail turns into murder - and one cover up leads to another.  Director Bert I. Gordon, better known for his giant-sized - but low-budget - monster movies, works well at this level, turning in a film that delivers small scares but perhaps his most  professional finished product. Tom Stewart (played by genre regular Richard Carlson) is a fairly successful jazz pianist whose impending marriage to Meg Hubbard (Susan Gordon) will put him in an entirely new tax bracket.  Trouble is his old flame, Vi (Juli Reding), isn’t taking this lying down.  After  allowing  her to fall to her death in the opening scene, Tom is haunted by disembo...
Read more

All Ladies Do It / Frivolous Lola

Image
Every semi-professional review of erotica probably starts off with the same question:  what’s the difference between porn and art?  The internet age has essentially done away with foreplay; sex is merely the act of completion itself, minus the threat of any malware or suspicious browser activity.  But the work of Italian director Tinto Brass, for all its leering upskirt shots of derrieres and pubic hair, still communicates something that websites like Pornhub never will:  the art of seduction.  All Ladies Do It  (1992), a breezy sexual adventure, follows Diana (Claudia Koll) whose marriage is threatened by her fantasies of dalliances with other men, stories her husband believes are nothing more than exciting role play.  But her loose definition of adultery inspires plenty of promiscuous hook-ups, taking advantage of any (ahem)  loophole  that provides a quick thrill.   Flirting with some hardcore sequences (there...
Read more

The Cat and the Canary

Image
My favorite directors have always been showoffs:  Hitchcock, DePalma, Spielberg (when he’s feeling frisky) and gonzo auteurs like Sam Raimi.  There’s just something about their cinematic ambition, constantly reminding the audience that, yes, there actually  is  someone behind the camera calling the shots.  And that directorial discontent shines through even in the early days of the medium, such as Paul Leni’s 1927 adaptation of  The Cat and the Canary .  While the rest of the industry was still learning the basics of visual language, Leni fills his frame with tracking shots, POVs and dramatic lighting that set the standard for every spook show to come!  Gathered for the reading of the last will and testament of eccentric recluse Cyrus West,  the potential heirs meet up in his decrepit mansion to discover who will inherit the estate and family jewels.  Predictably there is some petty jealousy when young Annab...
Read more