Watching in a Winter Wonderland

Snow Angel (2023)

Rating: C+

Dir: Gabriel Allard
Star: Catherine Bérubé, Olivier Renaud, Paul Doucet, Kimberly-Sue Murray

Just about all the other reviews of this I’ve read, have one thing in common: everybody said, they saw the twist coming. They’re not wrong. You would, I suspect, need to be particularly oblivious for it to come as much of a shock. However, I don’t reckon this damaged the film too much. Felt to me as if the makers were just not particularly concerned with it coming as a surprise, to anyone except for the lead character. This is Mary-Jane Morris (Bérubé), known to everyone as MJ. She’s a snowboarder who relocated from Vermont to Canada, until her life there is upended, by her involvement in a car accident which killed the kids of her best friend, Alice (Murray).

Consequently, her life in the small mountain town has become almost untenable, with MJ becoming a pariah. Only a few people will still talk to her, such as her boyfriend Fred (Renaud), who was in the car at the time. Initially, the film is split into two time-lines: one showing the events leading up to the accident, the other MJ’s post-crash efforts to rebuild her life. The latter prove terminally unsuccessful; she decides to leave town, and head back to Vermont. But her efforts to do so, are stymied at every turn, by forces apparently beyond MJ’s control. There are weird incidents in her cabin, as if someone is sneaking into her cabin, and moving things about. Or perhaps she is simply going mad.

I’ll stop there: I fear I may have said too much already. However, I actually found the film a bit more engaging once I had worked out the destination. The early going was rather disorienting, as it jumped between the pre- and post-accident threads. Once it settled down and you could see where it was going, it was easier to enjoy the journey. Bérubé is on screen in almost every scene, and I liked her performance – probably to a greater degree than most of the supporting cast, who don’t do much to give their characters much depth. The exception might be Rachelle (Margaux Vaillancourt), the little moppet in a snow-suit (top), who drops surprisingly profound nuggets of philosophical wisdom on MJ.

I’d have liked to have seen the film go on further, and see how MJ dealt with her eventual situation. Another ten or fifteen minutes would have allowed things to wrap up less abruptly. Still, the scenery is pretty, the cinematography on point, and a special nod to the sound design and music, both of which do a fine job of enhancing a steadily increasing atmosphere of dread. To be honest, it could have benefited from a bit more subtlety. There’s at least one line which is painfully obvious, and there’s not much satisfaction in putting together the pieces, when the jigsaw is one apparently intended for those 0-3 years old. But providing you’re not looking for a challenge, this should pass muster.

[The film is out on VOD now, from 4 Digital Media]

Arctic’s Edge (2025)

Rating: B-

Dir: Max Keough
Star: David Lenik, Rory Wilton, Ricardo Freitas, Rosie Edwards

If there’s one lesson I’ve learned from watching movies, it’s that stumbling across a fortuitous stash of money is never a good thing. Run away. Immediately. Otherwise, you will end up with one of the following. A) Christopher Eccleston in your attic (Shallow Grave). B) Billy Bob Thornton wielding a tyre iron (A Simple Plan). C) And probably worst, Javier Bardem flipping a coin at you (No Country for Old Men). Death inevitably will follow – it might well be yours. And yet, people naively continue to think they can get away with it. The latest sucker is Calvin Trask (Lenik, also the film’s writer), inhabitant of a small Norwegian town, up by the Arctic Circle.

He follows his new neighbour, Lucas Wade (Wilton), and watches him digging up a bag of cash. Shortly after, Lucas is attacked by two men; Calvin helps patch him up, and also dispose of the bodies in the snowy wilderness. Turns out Lucas used to work for a cartel, and skimmed off two million dollars, which his collaborator stashed away in the nearby woods. However, the cartel boss, the brutal Gabriel Ortega (Freitas), has discovered the embezzlement, and is none too happy about it. There is some other stuff round the edges, such as Calvin’s terminally-ill mother, and the woman (Edwards) who cared for her. However, none of it is particularly important: this is a mostly straightforward tale, kept simple and told in a similar manner. 

I must admit, I was a little confused initially, by the fact that everyone involved here has an English accent, despite the Scandinavian location. I’d just about got over that, when the cartel boss shows up, and… Yes, he also sounds as if he had finished a shift as a BBC continuity announcer. It’s all a bit weird. Yet, that aside, I found a good deal to enjoy here. Everyone here is holding secrets of varying shapes, sizes, and relevance to proceedings as they unfold.  Consequently, there are some very effective “Holy shit” moments sprinkled through proceedings. Wilton probably delivers the most effective performance, though the script likely gives him more with which to work, such as a desire to reconnect with his estranged daughter.

After Ortega gets fed up of sending minions who fail to carry out their assignments, he shows up with an unexpected friend, and it’s at this point the film truly gets going. I don’t think it counts as a spoiler to say, there will be Mexican standoffs, betrayal, and more than one corpse. It is quite restrained in its ambitions, and there isn’t much here you won’t have seen before. Yet it kept me interested in both the outcome, and the way things developed towards it, from the first scene to the last. That’s an outcome some far larger-budgeted movies could only hope to achieve. 

[The film is out now on Tubi, or to rent on Amazon Prime and other streaming services]

Unnatural (2015)

Rating: C+

Dir: Hank Braxtan
Star: James Remar, Sherilyn Fenn, Ron Carlson, Allegra Carpenter
a.k.a. Maneater

This hits a number of the same beats as our When Chinese Animals Attack films. There is an evil corporation, carrying out dubious genetic experiments on its fauna subjects. The test critter escapes and goes on a rampage. We get a wise native local, irritating people who deserve to be eaten, a serious scientist with respect for nature, and random eye-candy. In this case, events unfold in the Alaskan wilderness, where fashion photographer Brooking (Carlson) has taken his bimbo models for a shoot. The creature in question is a bear, into which the Clobirch corporation, under scientist Dr. Hanna Lindval (Fenn), has injected wolf DNA – for reasons which are never adequately explained. 

It escapes, and begins behaving less like a wild animal, and more like the killer in a slasher flick. We get sequences shot in Bear-o-vision, and it is conveniently able either to make scary noises, or move in complete silence, as necessary for the movie. Until the final reel, we don’t see much of it, though I was amused by it reaching up through the ice, to drag a bikini-clad model to her doom. For the first hour, we are thus largely left in the hands of the human cast. This is better than most, also including Remar as Martin Kakis, operator of the wilderness lodge round which the bear prowls; Ray Wise playing the Clobirch CEO; and Graham Greene (RIP) as the token indigenous guy mentioned above. 

However, there is just not enough bear here for my tastes, with the barest (pun not intended, for once) glimpse of a paw about as much as you get during this stage. I will say, the foley work is up to scratch, with a wide range of suitably meaty sounds. I can honestly say, I have never before seen subtitles which read – accurately, I should add – “(flesh squelching) (screaming stops)”. Brooking is the most irritating of the characters: while undeniably intentional, the film would have been improved by him having a considerably shorter lifespan. The corporate malfeasance could have been better integrated too, beyond the initial Clobirch promotional video. The mention of things like global warming seem a token gesture, and the ending suggests no lessons have been learned. 

Fortunately, it does find a new gear down the stretch. When we see the beast, it’s better than I expected, given the reticence of the movie about showing it, to that point. It doesn’t look completely like a polar bear – presumably due to the injection of wolf. The climax bumps up the rating half a grade, due to the first occurrence (of which I’m aware) of Chekhov’s Ice Auger. This is driven into the bear-wolf by Nakos, along with a yell: “Add this to your DNA!” Because it’s a spiral, see? Additional helpings of such dumb excess, throughout the movie, would have been welcome. It’s still one more memorable moment than many entries in this genre can provide.

Monster Grizzly (2023)

Rating: D-

Dir: Richard Douglas Jensen
Star: Richard Douglas Jensen, Vanesa Tamayo, Saporah Bonnette, Michael V. Jordan

This is the kind of film which makes a good round of Would you rather? As in, would you rather watch Monster Grizzly, or be savaged by a monster grizzly? Having suffered the former, although not the latter, I would need to give the question careful consideration before being willing to commit to my answer. The bear attack genre is not one noted for quality, yet this still comes in at or very near the bottom of the barrel. The story, at least, has an elegant simplicity. A grizzly is attacking inhabitants of a remote Minnesota town. Which is particularly odd, since it’s the middle of winter, and all right-thinking ursines should be hibernating. 

Investigating – for a very loose definition of the term – is local Sheriff Tom Dunson (Jensen) and his team. As is almost required for these movies, they bring in a Hooper, a scientist with specialist knowledge of the species. In this case, it’s Dr. Giuliana Ochoa (Tamayo). So you have all the pieces in place here for a potentially… Adequate? Yeah, most people would settle for an adequate entry in the genre. Those viewers are likely to be sorely disappointed. Personally, I had heard beforehand how terrible this was: indeed, it is how the film came onto my Tubi watchlist. On that basis, I can’t complain. My badmovie expectations were solidly met, and I discovered there may be worse things than a bear attack. 

The most obvious stylistic feature here is Jensen’s love, to an obsessive level, of the fade to black. It’s something you normally see only in TV movies, to make a smooth transition into the advert break. Here, it feels almost like the only shot in the director’s locker. It would make for a good drinking game, although I recommend checking the fine print on your health coverage to make sure it includes self-inflicted alcohol poisoning. The first time we see this is before the grizzly claims its first victim, which is then depicted entirely by enthusiastic gnawing sounds [props to the foley artist, by the way]. Ok, they’re holding back on the proper attack footage for later. No, they’re not. They don’t have any, or even close.

All you get to see is very brief shots – which I think are repeated – of a clearly CGI bear roaring. I tried to get a screenshot, but it was just too dark and blurry, and there is absolutely nothing in the way of interaction with the human cast members. However, it’s still likely better than the scenes where the human characters interact with each other. Deputies Stony (Jordan) and Flower (Bonnette) are in a relationship. This upsets Flower’s aunt, who is native American and casually racist: “He’s a white boy. Don’t you wanna be with one of your own people?” But it’s alright, because Flower is too: “I can’t find a Blackfoot man who’s not on drugs. I will not be with someone who is a drug addict or an alcoholic, and all the men on the res are.” Okay.

This probably counts as bleeding-heart liberalism compared to the scene where Dr. Ochoa and Sheriff Dunson are having dinner. In dialogue freshly plucked from the depths of 4Chan, Ochoa goes on a rant about how “Masculine men are in short supply these days… Human males have begun to feminize in the past 30 years,” before calling Dunson an “apex dominant male”. This is in contrast to her university colleagues, who are “all vegan, sandal-wearing puffballs with man-buns.” Which is, according to the academic, why lesbians exist. Naturally, Ochoa is unable to resist her primeval hormonal impulses, and ends up in bed with Dunson. This is where I remind you: the actor playing the sheriff is also the director and wrote the script. ‘Nuff said, I trust.

The film staggers from misbegotten scene to misbegotten scene. For example, several minutes are spent interviewing a local to absolutely no purpose. The sheriff says, “I just came by here to see if anybody’s seen anything around here, but apparently nobody has.” SO WHY ARE WE HERE? I mean this both in the cinematic and existential senses, because I lost my will to live, on realizing the pointlessness of the entire sequence. Elsewhere? Obvious CGI snow for a film made in Minnesota. A random shot of guns on a wall. Dialogue which is overpowered by tinkly muzak on the soundtrack. An unappealing sex scene – I was, at least for once, grateful for the fade to black there. Exchanges like this:
– Can I help you?
– I was just-
– She was just.
– I was just.
– You were just?

This has all the hallmarks of a debut feature. When you’re doing this for the first time, like say, the director of Sophie and the Serial Killers, it’s inevitably a learning experience. Providing you do learn, and at least make different mistakes next time, that’s fine. [Though there’s a case to be made that no-one should be allowed to release a film for public consumption, without burying their first five attempts on a building site] However, this is already Jensen’s third movie, following in the footsteps of No Man’s Law and I am Mine Alone. The latter sounds like a Neil Breen film, while the former is apparently a sympathetic take on illegal immigration. Feels kinda at odds with the philosophies expressed by the characters here.

It is on Tubi, as is his latest, The Kiss of a Vampire. Might be a while before I get round to watching them. Especially since I am now fighting an overwhelming urge to go up to the Grand Canyon, strip naked, and cover my body in honey, in order to settle the whole “monster grizzly” argument. I have to say, it takes self-confidence to appear in two episodes of The Dukes of Hazzard, plus one of Manimal, then thirty-eight years later, decide to restart your career by writing, directing and starring in your own movies. But according to the IMDb, that’s what Jensen had done. Calling your production company “Poverty Row Pictures” does suggest a morsel of self-awareness. It’s just a shame this is not at all carried through into the resulting output.