Streaming Shuffle
You know what, maybe houses just shouldn't have sliding glass doors. That's what I've learned here.
Hush is a relatively early Mike Flanagan effort, after the too-dreamy Oculus but before his career-defining streak of Stephen King adaptations (Gerald’s Game and Doctor Sleep) and Netflix horror series. It doesn’t have his usual lush quality, but it’s a home invasion thriller; lushness wouldn’t work in its favor. Instead—despite a few overworked bits of cleverness—it’s a clean, tense, and well-paced little horror film that features one of my all-time favorite things in fiction: people trying to solve problems while under tremendous stress.
One of those people is our protagonist, writer Maddie Young (Kate Siegel—Flanagan’s wife and regular collaborator, as well as the director of the best segment of V/H/S Beyond). Maddie is Deaf and mute, and while I’m no expert, I think the film uses those traits as complicating factors—sometimes assets, sometimes obstacles—that are fundamentally neutral; this doesn’t feel either pitying or condescending. Maddie is creative and adaptable, a woman used to thinking through complicated chains of events … even if she sometimes has to resort to the first draft trick of typing, “Ending stuff. Money please.”
Flanagan doesn’t belabor the setup, but he does give us enough time to get to know Maddie and—maybe even more crucially, for this kind of thriller—her immediate surroundings and resources. Thankfully, it doesn’t all feel like setup. Hush uses charm as a distraction, and this first part of the film sometimes seems like it could turn into a romcom about her being invited into a throuple with her friendly, admiring neighbor Sarah (Samantha Sloyan) and Sarah’s eventually-appearing husband (Michael Trucco).
Alas, everyone is in for a much worse night. Crossing back to her house in the dark, Sarah runs afoul of an unnamed killer (John Gallagher Jr.). Bleeding and terrified, she retreats to Maddie’s for help—only to bang futilely on the sliding glass door just out of Maddie’s sight as the killer brutally finishes the job. He’s able to slip into the house unobserved, filching Maddie’s phone, shutting off her internet, and consigning her to a grueling cat-and-mouse game so he can better enjoy her terror.
Gallagher Jr. is one of the best parts of the movie. He can play a kind of rumpled, easygoing charm—it served him well in 10 Cloverfield Lane, which made me forgive him for his work on The Newsroom—but here he trims it back to nothing. Crucially, the floppy hair goes too: this isn’t the cute boy next door but a menacing blank slate. He wears a featureless white mask, and when he first takes it off—in one of the film’s most chilling moments—he makes himself into a featureless white guy, a sulky-looking void, not physically imposing all on his own, but dead-eyed and deadly:
DIDN’T SEE FACE, Maddie has scrawled on the glass, desperate to convince him he’s safe, to get him to leave.
The killer processes this and then slowly lifts off his mask. Forces Maddie to read his lips as he repeats her words, every syllable mocking, and then adds, “You’ve seen it now, haven’t you?”
It’s exactly the escalation the movie needs, sacrificing a slasher villain’s traditional mystery for stakes: he’s willing to risk his freedom to take her life. That’s how sure he is of who will win out. And now Maddie knows that the bargaining stage, as short as it was, is over, and that all that’s ahead of her is a fight to survive. Nothing else in Hush can quite live up to that moment, not when it comes to sheer impact, but it never stops its precise, effective balancing of threat and opportunity. The horror may fade, but the tension doesn’t, and Flanagan and Siegel (both co-writers on the script) are good at providing reasonable complications the audience won’t necessarily anticipate. (As well as a few that are easier to see coming, but those have their own satisfactions.) At only 81 minutes, you can’t ask for much more. Flanagan and Siegel’s most famous work might still be ahead of them here, but there’s something to be said for this kind of unambitious but well-executed project. It’s a reliable pleasure.
Hush is streaming on Tubi and Shudder.
About the writer
Lauren James
Lauren James is a writer who wears many different hats (and pen names). She lives in Connecticut with her wife and two cats.
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Anthologized
A little slice of American folklore that feels like it's been here all along.
Streaming Shuffle
You make your royal bed, and you lie in it.
Anthologized
Alone in vast space and timeless infinity: one man in a ghost town.
Streaming Shuffle
A beautiful slice-of-life film that helped make a career.
Department of
Conversation
What did we watch?
The Righteous Gemstones, “Now the Sons of Eli Were Worthless Men,” “And Yet One of You Is a Devil,” and “But the Righteous Will See Their Fall”
Killer set of episodes with an uncountable number of highlights:
– Gideon’s uncontrollable “that’s my dad!” smile when Jesse goes off at Scotty on the phone: we see the two of them take a lot of meaningful steps towards each other in these episodes, but Gideon just enjoying his dad’s bluster being channeled into genuine badassery for once is one of my favorites, especially since Jesse isn’t even there to see it.
– But also, Gideon beating up Scotty to take the hard drive and then staring down a gun in his face. (He’s less calm about a gun being in his dad’s face, which: aww.)
– Jesse in the screening room is A+ Jesse Gemstone, because he’s making a sincere and even noble gesture in the dumbest, most self-aggrandizing, most hilariously inconsiderate way possible. Bonus to the scene: realizing that Levi didn’t even have a wife in tow, sat through this humiliation for nothing, and feels kind of bummed about it.
– “I love my bi son.”
– Absolutely top-tier Judy and BJ stuff in these episodes. BJ’s incredibly sweet offering of the SodaStream (“Girl, I got you all kinds of syrups”) and his soothing suggestion that Judy, ah, see to her own needs before the show while he goes ahead and grabs a seat! The painful breakup–her saying that her family hates him and it’s embarrassing especially hurts, since, as BJ points out, he’s done nothing but be nice to the Gemstones in the face of a ton of bullshit; Judy saying she’s embarrassed by him rather than them stings so much–and the painful and hilarious post-breakup conversation, complete with dramatic earring reveal! “BJ, I hope you live forever, I hope you discover magic, and I hope you learn to fly like we always talked about.” Edi Patterson and Tim Baltz just kill it.
– “Who wants to suck an old man’s dick?”
– Tiffany accidentally killing Scotty is amazing, and I love Baby Billy mixing up high and low tide and therefore doing a hilariously inept job disposing of the body.
– Jesse’s Easter sermon is pretty good!
Justified, Season One, Episode Nine, “Hatless”, repeat, hatless.
“For a supposedly smart guy, Gary, you’re making some bad decisions.”
“Just because you can’t box and you’re stupid don’t mean you gotta die.”
I love that this show has at least three thesis statements every episode.
Gary is equivalent to the Gilroy land scheme in The Shield, in that he’s the most complex form of a basic plot the show works with, where this is a stab at real ambition that wobbles slightly but will be developed later; Gilroy’s land scheme is a fairly complex criminal plot by that point in the show, and later episodes would pull off even greater complexity more elegantly. Meanwhile, here, Gary is the most complex portrait of a hapless amateur criminal not even a quarter as smart or brave enough to pull off what they’re doing. It’s not actually that complicated a plot; he owes loan sharks some money he doesn’t have.
The nuances come in his emotions and actions. It’s interesting to me that his idea for a mall is actually pretty good; not wildly original, but it doesn’t have to be to make money, or just nice to spend time in (it sounds like the waterfront of Hobart with a less nice view). Gary comes off like a guy who could easily make it in legitimate business and whose obstacle is the equally legitimate lack of capital; like most criminals, his reach has exceeded his grasp. Even outside whatever personal qualities he has, he’s simply not experienced enough in this world to survive in it for more than a day. For the most part, he’s acting in ways that defend his ego, right up to his self-righteous suicidal ideation.
Obviously, what’s more important is how this affects Raylan and how he deals with it. I like his attitude to talking Gary down is exasperated congeniality; he doesn’t just get Gary to pitch the mall because it’ll make Gary feel better, he does it because he’s genuinely curious (echoes of “Don’t you wanna know how it all turns out?”). With Gary as much as anyone, it’s “if you do X, I’m gonna do Y.” Of course, not only is this while Raylan is acting all shitty about women he knows, it’s right in the middle of him being an asshole about his hat. If this show is about any one thing, it’s about how sometimes, it ain’t easier people are looking for.
I wonder why this show improves my writing just by writing about it. I think it’s definitely that the basic way of talking is so cool that I automatically think in it; certainly, there’s some crossover in how it takes the long way around a sentence. There’s an extent that I already talk like a Justified character. Maybe I should start consciously imitating other shows – it’s hard to do that with Kids In The Hall.
Raylan chooses to go straight to Duffy and let him know he’s onto him (which is a tactic Vic Mackey brings up once). This puzzles me; not only does Duffy strike me as a mostly rational man (though he goes down like a bitch at the end when he thinks he won’t immediately get cash), I think he would strike Raylan as one too. The idea is to light a fire under a criminal and drive him to act emotionally and thus irrationally, making a mistake one could take advantage of. I suppose I could see it, but it does drive Duffy to act violently almost immediately.
Toby is such a classic Justified character and plot turn. Billy taunting him with a racial slur is a great plot turn too.
Biggest Laugh: “Now you’re gonna shoot me? On my vacation?”
Top Ownage: Raylan firing a gun around Billy to provoke answers out of him. The couch dust floating around him in the dark adds to it.
I have nothing insightful to add to this excellent comment, but I still wanted to post:
“WHAT AM I, A FARMER?”
You quoted that before, and I had forgotten the context (reminder: I’ve seen the first season and the first season only). So I laughed when it came up.
It’s the bit of Wynn Duffy/Jack Donaghy synergy the world never knew it always needed.
Beat me to it!
Part of me expected the “repeat, hatless,” and I’m so pleased you did not disappoint.
For once, his hatless butt threw them in jail.
You hit on something that makes Gary such a real (and loathsome) character to me– how much is wrapped in his ego and entitlement. It’s not just that he has business ideas; it’s that he feels like he deserves to have them succeed, and therefore is willing to to get involved in increasingly seedy shenanigans to do so, and because he feels so entitled, in his mind it’s not his fault when the very predictable consequences of those shenanigans come calling.
Live Music – Adam Rivera from Philadelphia, who describes his music as “speed-folk” which appears to be folk-punk but without the politics. I’ve seen him before and he was just OK, but a friend is touring with him at the moment and her stuff is great, they did a few songs together too which worked well. But yeah Adam’s stuff is not that great to my ears and he was intent on playing as much of it as possible, to the extent of playing a Christmas song (in May!?) and I think FOUR They Might Be Giants covers? I’m never going to be mad about hearing Dr. Worm but I would have come away from his set feeling far more positive if it had been half as long.
Wooooooo live music from Philadelphia!!
Wooo live music! Boo overeliance on covers! Pick a lane, buddy!
Warfare – For the second year in a row an Alex Garland A24 war movie sidesteps the backstory but this time it’s a better choice. A quick prologue announces we’re watching a supporting sniper team in a Baghdad neighborhood. The platoon basically performs a home invasion on the building they want to occupy and, starting the next morning, the movie proceeds in real-time as the soldiers observe a gathering opposing force preparing to attack. The real-time treatment – co-directed by Ray Mendoza based on his own experience of the event and using soldiers’ collected memories – gives everything an added tension. When the radio says help is five minutes away, we can see just what can be done and undone as the minutes tick by. It also shows off the shockingly quick reflexes of the US military, as when a soldier radios for a show of force and a flyover covers the street in sonic dust seconds later.
It’s immersive as an experience if flat as a storytelling device. The soldiers (their real life counterparts dutifully matched in photos with the actors playing them) are quick sketches, meaning any Iraqi is barely a curlicue in the margins. A few cruelties go by as unmentioned matter of course, like when the Iraqi translators are lined up to go first into a street of unknown dangers. And of course there’s the family who lived in the home in the first place, held at gunpoint in their own house throughout the operation and left with a hell of a mess when it’s through.
Moralizing wouldn’t make the movie any better, it’s not hard to parse who’s the invading force in this scenario and the reasons why these men have found themselves holed up in this building don’t really matter to them once the shrapnel starts flying. Warfare does accomplish the rare trick of making you root for the action to stop. The surround sound intensity and awesome visuals of tech and organization give way to blood, smoke and screams and eventually all you want to see and hear is peace and quiet.
Conclave
First time, over two nights. Less catty and more chilly than advertised (there’s a reason my wife fell asleep both times and still hasn’t finished, though late starts also played a part) but impeccably acted all the same, and with just enough political bite. Commanding Ralph Fiennes lead peformance and very effective, if ortodhox, use of Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow and Isabella Rosselini. It’s the less well known actors like Sergio Castellito and Lucian Msamati, who get the more dubious characters and get to flash a little more. Castellito in particular enters the movie like he’s Jeff Goldblum in Jurassic Park, before dutifully embracing his conservative hardass role in the proceedings. Fun movie and I was genuinely surprised by the late twist.
Football
Saw the second leg of the UEFA Champions League semifinals, where Inter Milan defeated FC Barcelona 4-3 in extra time (7-6 aggregate) in one of the all-time rollercoaster thriller games. I was out of breath well into the night, and I can’t wait for Inter to have another go at the final in the 31st.
Forza Nerazzurri.
Castellito’s performance is so much fun (some of the shots of him vaping are probably singlehandedly upping rumors of the film’s cattiness). Goldblum in Jurassic Park is a perfect and eye-opening comparison.
Castellito was such a welcome surprise.
More on Sunday, as always, but I finally caught last week’s Hacks, so now I can read the discussion you all were having!
I also caught last night’s set of Andor episodes. Very effective. Certainly no real-world parallels come to mind, fortunately!
That Hamilton Woman — Winston Churchill’s favorite movie! And not hard to see why, because every time someone (usually Lord Nelson) goes off on the evils of Napoleon and his conquest of Europe there might as well be giant flashing “WE MEAN HITLER” chryons on screen*. But this is the story of Emily Hamilton more than Nelson, Hamilton was a Becky Sharp-ish figure who became famous for being painted a lot and then for being Nelson’s lover and for running diplomatic interference in Naples, I did not know any of this and it is fascinating stuff. As played by Vivian Leigh Hamilton is romantic, fast-talking and capable, she knows her worth and finds in Nelson someone who understands it too. But they’re messing around not just with ye olde English prudery but actual relationships (not so much Hamilton’s diplomat husband but Nelson’s long-absent wife) and that is shown as well. The first half in particular, courtship and intrigue in Naples, is great stuff (people used to light Vivian Leigh and her eyes! THE CINEMA), the second half makes the mistake of giving me a second scotch and also spending more time in England but rallies with a great Trafalgar sequence, anyone enjoying Tristan’s great pieces about Star Wars and its tactile models will find a ton to love here. The ending is abrupt, circling back to the beginning of Hamilton being impoverished as she relates her story but not explaining why and that is because British society really fucked her over, hmmm wonder why the filmmakers kept that out in 1941. But on the whole a dashing and romantic picture they Don’t Make Like They Used To, and Leigh in particular is great enough to make up for the inexplicable absence of Jack Aubrey.
*especially obvious when talking about the need for others to join the fight!
Sounds similar to The Sea Hawk, also strong “actually about Hitler” swashbuckling romance made in the same period.
Huge Sea Hawk vibes! I love that flick, and it is even more nakedly anti-Hitler but as you note many buckles are swashed and the tone is much more fun (and the action more plentiful) than here. But the drama in Hamilton is very affecting.
“It’s exactly the escalation the movie needs, sacrificing a slasher villain’s traditional mystery for stakes: he’s willing to risk his freedom to take her life. That’s how sure he is of who will win out” — absolutely. It’s such a nasty thrill in the moment, destabilizing the viewer so the following suspense (which is good anyway, Flanagan has not yet hit The Pad Zone) has extra tension. And it’s also the kind of thematic hook that works as text and sub- — I am just a guy, not a boogeyman or a Shape, and just a guy is all I need to be to own and destroy you.
Re: that last part, it’s especially interesting to me when the film makes use of his visible face to heighten the horror. I think in general, it amplifies the thriller side instead, but there are a couple moments–him propping the friend’s dead body against the glass to use her hand to beat on it, grinning ghoulishly all the while–where it’s so much scarier because it’s just this guy doing it, and his enjoyment is so visceral. A lot of the classic slasher villains have done something similar, but it feels much more malevolent here precisely because it’s on a personal, human-sized scale.
Great. My post was eaten and I was logged out! No time to repeat it, either. So…
Rachel and the Stranger is a solid western with Loretta Young, Bob Mitchum, and Bill Holden. Believe it or not, but I had never seen anything with Ms. Young. I need to fix that.
Kojak, “The Condemned” is a good noirish episode with guest appearances by Roscoe Orman (Gordon on Sesame Street) and Luis Avalos (a regular on The Electric Company).
Frasier, “Three Days of the Condo” is generally funny and features Dana Ivey and Austin Pendleton.
Disquuuu— oh, wait.
I don’t care for horror movies, but I do appreciate characters working through problems while under pressure. It’s why I really enjoyed the Skydance animation movie Luck, which is about a woman with preternaturally bad luck who never lets it get her down: https://youtu.be/jgFC-gTTEWo?si=riBEQc4Sr4JZpHRk
Year of the Month update!
May’s year will be 1962, so you can write about any of these movies, albums, books, et al!
May 9th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Bon Voyage!
May 15th: John Bruni: L’Eclisse/Il Sorpasso
May 16th: Gillian Rose Nelson: Big Red
May 23rd: Gillian Rose Nelson: Almost Angels
May 30th: Gillian Rose Nelson: In Search of the Castaways
And coming in June, we’ll be moving on to 1983, including all these movies, albums, books, et al!
Jun. 9th: Sam Scott: El Sur
Jun. 23rd: Sam Scott: Codex Seraphianus
Jun. 24th: John Bruni: Legendary Hearts
I’ll take The Big Chill for June 30th, please.
I’ll take the 20th for the D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths.
So great to see this getting some love, particularly now that it’s available on physical media. My partner introduced me to it shortly after we got together. “Died fighting” will make me cry a bit if I think about it for too long.
Flanagan’s said that part of the goal of this was to write Siegel a star-making role (inasmuch as a made-for-Netflix slasher can be) and use it as a springboard to cast her as Theo in his Haunting of Hill House series. Their writing process apparently included wandering around outside their home rattling doors and trying to freak each other out while not inducing the neighbors to call the cops.
I’ve been trying to put into words for some time why it can be scarier to have an antagonist that’s more not invulnerable. Maybe having the possibility of survival raises the emotional stakes, whereas coming up against The Sublime in a hockey mask makes some of us want to give up. Maybe there’s a monkey brain reaction to being attacked by something exhibiting unnatural predator behavior, knowing that it can be hurt and is bring hurt and it’s still not giving up.
“Died fighting” really gets to me too. I definitely got teary.
That’s a great point about the possibility of survival and the emotional stakes, especially in contrast to “The Sublime in a hockey mask,” which is just a phrase I love.
I get why he wanted to have a Deaf character and I get why it had to be his wife but…siiiigh.
Yeah, it would have been undeniably nice to have had a Deaf actress in the role.