Under The Radar: Kick Off 2023 With Vengeance, Kids Vs Aliens, And More January Gems
(Welcome to Under the Radar, a column where we spotlight specific movies, shows, trends, performances, or scenes that caught our eye and deserved more attention ... but otherwise flew under the radar. In this edition: B.J. Novak makes a big-screen directorial debut to remember with "Vengeance," "Kids vs Aliens" brings a gore-soaked kitschiness on a micro-budget, and a dose of horror hits a little close to home in "Sick.")
When I first started this column a little more than a year ago, it was with the original intention of highlighting the kinds of movies, shows, and performances that awards voters and other industry gatekeepers would hardly give a second thought to. Over the months, however, "Under the Radar" has morphed into a series that's much less focused on the Oscars and more so on the merits of the actual movie or show itself — and, if you ask me, I think that change has been for the better.
That brings us to the month of January, which tends to feel like the most overlooked month of the year. Sandwiched right in between the December frenzy of leggy blockbusters and awards hopefuls in limited theatrical runs, but just a little too early to serve as the opening act to the Academy Awards headliner, January has historically been treated as the place where schlocky genre pictures, unmarketable horror flicks, and other castaways go to die. While recent releases like "Plane" and "Skinamarink" fit that label quite nicely, the past few years have seen a growing number of worthy productions purposefully slated for the dead zone of January — and finding quite a bit of success, at that. Is it time to rethink our perceptions of the forgotten winter month?
That remains to be seen. But until then, there are always a few hidden gems to uncover. In this edition, we have B.J. Novak's remarkably confident "Vengeance," the schlocky charms of "Kids vs Aliens," and the early pandemic-set thriller "Sick."
What you see isn't always what you get in Vengeance
How far would you go for a good story? Can any of us reconcile the vast differences that divide us along geographical and political lines in the U.S.? And, most importantly, what if the person trying to wrap their head around all this just so happens to be a big ol' jerk? "Vengeance" sees writer/director B.J. Novak starring as perhaps the most terrifying protagonist there is: an irresponsible, privileged, and disillusioned white guy living in New York City who's trying to branch out from online journalism to podcasting about Important Topics™. Thankfully, Novak seems well-aware of how insufferable a character like Ben Manalowitz is and steers directly into the skid as much as possible.
This, as it turns out, proves to be the key to making "Vengeance," Novak's feature debut as a director, work even half as well as it does.
Introduced in painfully online fashion (for more on that, check out our review here) as a typically self-inflated ego searching for the singular story that will sum up all of humanity's troubles and turn him into a star, Novak makes the purposeful choice to kick off the action in this quasi-whodunit tale by highlighting Ben's sheer unlikability. In the middle of a one-night stand, Ben receives a phone call about a random woman he once slept with years ago and never thought about again. As it turns out, she's recently died under awfully suspicious circumstances and, for some reason, her Texas-based family seems convinced that she'd been in a serious, long-term relationship with Ben. Cornered into flying down for the funeral, the ever-condescending Ben quickly realizes that he can exploit these tragic circumstances for his own ends and center himself in the drama of a lifetime.
It's one thing for a well-known actor from a beloved sitcom to jump to the other side of the camera with a blistering, macabre, and dryly humorous noir. It's quite another to do so with a movie with as much on its mind as "Vengeance" does. The film is now available to stream on Prime Video.
Kids vs Aliens is an ode to the '80s
A group of nerdy young friends want nothing more than to make the monster movie of their dreams — without fear of their local bully. The older sister who hangs out with them (ostensibly for babysitting purposes, but mostly because she doesn't have any other friends of her own) gets her first taste of romance and becomes eager to put childish things behind her. Oh, and in the midst of it all, there's an impending alien invasion of performers in throwback rubber suits who can't wait to get their paws on some hapless victims.
We've seen the exact same beats of this formula time and again, but it's always nice to see it done with as much charm and creativity as director and co-writer Jason Eisener does in "Kids vs Aliens."
There's something wonderfully refreshing about a micro-budget feature that makes the absolute most of its B-movie silliness and '80s inspirations. Making no bones about its glaringly small scope and scale, the schlocky feature uses evocative lighting/shadows and simple, threadbare, yet incredibly fun creature designs to wring as much tension out of this gory coming-of-age story as it can. Nothing here even comes close to reinventing the wheel, mind you, but that's exactly why it becomes such a treat to watch some very capable child performers in Dominic Mariche, Phoebe Rex, Asher Grayson, Ben Tector, and Isaiah Fortune turn "Kids vs Aliens" into something more than the sum of its parts. If you love wrestling, ill-advised romance, and that familiar sense of old-fashioned Amblin nostalgia, then there's lots to love here in its remarkably short 75-minute runtime. Check it out on Shudder.
Sick delivers the pandemic movie we probably deserve
How do filmmakers address our post-2020 life in the midst of an ongoing pandemic? Some took a more tasteless path towards fictionalizing a global emergency that we could barely wrap our heads around at the time. Others borrowed from Hitchcock to tell a thrilling story that used this unique moment in history to enhance its themes. And, more recently, a certain kind of pandemic movie treated its setting very matter-of-factly, grounding the story in a very specific time but otherwise taking the escapism approach.
Finally, however, we've now received a lean, mean, and pull-no-punches slasher that takes COVID anxiety to its breaking point. Directed by John Hyams from a script by Katelyn Crabb and Kevin Williamson (yes, the very same Kevin Williamson behind the "Scream" franchise), "Sick" depicts the very early days of the country's quarantine lockdown and simply puts a murderous twist on 2020's stay-at-home reality. To say that the film has dubious politics and an incredibly questionable approach to a real-life tragedy would be putting it mildly, but what else would you expect from a horror film like this one? Thankfully, even that doesn't completely overshadow the movie's undeniable strengths in staging a series of tense set pieces, jump-scares galore, and a nasty mean streak that shines an uncomfortable light squarely on personal responsibility in the midst of a health crisis.
Yes, it's rather dated and probably somewhat misguided and exploitative to the extreme ... but doesn't it simply make sense for a pandemic movie titled "Sick" to end up evoking all sorts of irreconcilable feelings? That might seem like damning a movie with faint praise, but stream it on Peacock and experience it in all its weirdly fascinating messiness for yourself.