Daily Mail - 23.08.2019

Daily Mail, Friday, August 23, 2019 Page 51

H A BANG

THE IMPISH LIFE OF AN AGED ENFANT TERRIBLE

Mother love: Vibrant Penelope Cruz

THE popular horror

story collection Scary

Stories to Tell in the

Dark, written by Alvin

Schwartz with creepy

illustrations by

Stephen Gammell,

has provided night-

mares for children

for years.

But in this transla-

tion to the big

screen, the grue-

some becomes

laughable and child-

ish despite the fim’s

15 certificate.

The plot centres on bookish

schoolgirl Stella (Zoe Margaret Colletti, pic-

tured) and her two geeky, outcast male

friends, who find themselves at war, on

Halloween night, with the cool school bullies,

led by Tommy (Austin Abrams).

After a chase, the kids jump into a car in a

drive-in movie, and the driver, Ramón (Michael

Garza), ends up taking them to a supposedly

haunted house. Here, Stella tells the tale of

Pennsylvania mill-owner’s daughter Sarah

Bellows (Kathleen Pollard), who hanged her-

self in Victorian times and is said to tell stories

to children through the ancient walls.

Naturally, Stella makes the cardinal error of

picking up Sarah’s dusty old storybook,

which soon starts writing fresh stories... in

fresh blood.

Each tale features a new victim — one of

Stella’s schoolmates — and the horrors visited

upon them are nicely varied: a severed toe

that pops up in a stew; an enormous red spot

that erupts with spiders; a living scarecrow

and body parts that reassemble into a walking

corpse and pursue Tommy.

Unfortunately, many of these ‘terrifying’

apparitions met with laughter rather than

gasps of horror in the screening room, despite

the fact this film is produced and part-written

by master of suspense Guillermo del Toro.

As the death rate increases and the methods

of demise grow ever weirder, Stella has to

work out why Sarah wants revenge on the

town and so delves into the murky past of the

Bellows family. She must confront the ghost

herself — but again, the director André

Øvredal reveals too much, and the ghoulish

atmosphere just drains away.

Carry on screaming

... with laughter!

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (15)

Verdict: Half-baked horror ★★✩✩✩

surprising are the final credits

featuring a therapeutic

moment as the two men

explore their masculinity.

Where is this leading? Will

the next Banning film be

Vegan Has Fallen?

n WHile Angel Has Fallen

cost at least $80 million to

make, Crawl provides far more

tension on a relatively small

$13 million budget, as

alligators go rogue.

As toothsome as it is

terrifying, Crawl tosses hungry

reptiles and a snack-sized

Kaya Scodelario into the eye

of a ferocious

Florida hurricane.

Which species will

triumph as storm

drains burst, flood

water rises and a

father and daughter

are trapped in the

basement of the

family home with

monstrous companions?

While the 10ft-long gators

are moody and murderous,

Scodelario’s character Haley

Keller is almost a match for

them, armed with a screw-

driver, a wind-up torch and

her skills as a university

swim-team athlete. Her

divorced, hard-drinking dad

Dave (Barry Pepper) was pre-

viously her swimming coach,

and his mantra was that

Haley should be ‘an apex

predator’ when racing.

This comes in useful when

faced with the real thing —

though i’m not convinced

that a speedy crawl outpaces

a predatory alligator.

The gap-toothed gators get

the munchies as Haley tries

to rescue the injured Dave

from the basement before a

further mauling.

This is not a movie for the

weak of stomach. Often, the

flood water looks like tomato

soup after an attack, and an

alligator shower scene tops

the drama, which is ably

directed by Alexandre Aja of

Piranha 3-D.

C

OuPling gators with

the unpredictable

power of a category

five hurricane has

some of the genius of that

other B-movie, Sharknado,

where sharks fell from the sky

during a flood and tornado.

Here, however, what

could be a stupid

screamfest is more

convincing thanks to

Scodelario, who seesaws

realistically between fear

and ferocity.

The camera is right in

her vulnerable but deter-

mined face, chronicling

the twitch of every mus-

cle; and her previous

work in Skins, The Maze

Runner and Wuthering

Heights shows in her

professionalism when

confronted on set with

what must be a Cgi

puppet show.

While the main char-

acters make endless

escapes, the demise of

minor characters is as

predictable as it is darkly

funny. Who in their right mind

would try to loot sunglasses

or steal a cash-dispensing

machine in a near-tsunami?

As the alligators swim down

main street, the criminals are

looking increasingly like

reptile fast food.

Pain And Glory (15)

Verdict: Director on the verge of a nervous breakdown

★★★★✩

PeDRO AlMODOVAR, the great Spanish

director whose career highlights include

Women On The Verge Of A nervous

Breakdown, Tie Me up! Tie Me Down! and

the Oscar-winning All About My Mother,

has created a witty and painfully insightful

film drawing on his memories as he enters

his 70th year.

‘Cinema is my life, and my life is cinema,’

Almodovar once said. Here, in a purgatory

between fiction and biography, a film

director struggles to find his artistic mojo,

lost to world weariness.

Antonio Banderas, one of Almodovar’s

regulars, won best actor at Cannes for his

portrayal of filmmaker Salvador Mallo in

Pain And glory, sporting a white beard and

an electric shock of hair that mimics the

director’s own. Penélope Cruz, also a regular

collaborator, plays the younger version of

Jacinta, Mallo’s gorgeous mother.

The film will appeal to longtime fans of

his, but it also stands alone as a memoir of

a poverty-stricken, sun-drenched Catholic

childhood, reflected upon by a man whose

powers are waning.

The effect of the ailing body on the working

mind is exposed in an amusing animated

sequence showing Mallo’s gammy knee,

creaking joints and difficulty swallowing.

Without painkillers, Mallo can barely

function, and his addiction ramps up when

he meets Alberto (Asier etxeandia), an

actor from one of his old films. Their

ancient feud dissolves when they smoke

heroin together. (Almodovar denies this is

autobiographical, though he has spoken of

the toll heroin took on his generation.)

There follows a hilarious scene where the

actor and director call in, stoned, to a

cinema Q&A — but the incident also

re-opens Mallo’s imagination.

His childhood home is in a white painted

cave, where we see the whip-smart nine-

year-old Mallo (played by Asier Flores)

teaching a local builder to read. in return,

the builder paints a watercolour of him,

and also kindles his adoration of men.

The past revisits Mallo, too; as an old

boyfriend returns with affection and regret,

and his now aged mother (Julieta Serrano)

berates him for his failures as a son — and

explains, with relish, precisely how she

would like to be laid out in death.

As always with Almodovar, each shot is

carefully curated, from the rich reds and

paintings in his apartment to the floral

dresses worn by Cruz. everything is a

paean to his art, even the outdoor village

film shows projected onto a bedsheet.

‘The cinema of my childhood smells of

pee and jasmine and a summer’s breeze,’

says Mallo.

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BRIAN VINER IS AWAY

Under the gun: Gerard

Butler in Angel Has Fallen,

and (inset) Barry Pepper and

Kaya Scodelario in Crawl

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