THE POUGHKEEPSIE TAPES (2007)

You know how many found footage flicks are based on tapes or film cans being discovered and exhibited, reflecting footage that had been shot during an abstract past? There’s a tangible irony in that, being that’s not only the same deal for The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ concept, but because The Poughkeepsie Tapes is probably more famous for how long it sat on the shelf waiting to see release than anything else. The Poughkeepsie Tape was actually shot and completed alllll the way back in 2007 at the height of the found footage rebirth. Produced by MGM, who began going through a series of financial woes and lacked the means to properly market and exhibit their films during that period (which is how the MGM-produced Cabin in the Woods eventually ended up with Lionsgate), Shout! Factory stepped up to acquire the distribution rights so that horror fans everywhere without the inclination to use a torrent program could finally see the long-mooted film for themselves.

So after ten-plus years, was the wait worth it?

Not…really.

Before you let the term “found footage” steer you toward a certain expectation, know that there aren’t any paranormal/supernatural/metaphysical aspects in The Poughkeepsie Tapes. Refreshingly, it’s a straightforward and (mostly) realistic look at a serial killer, his victims, and the law enforcement angle that surrounds the investigation. And again, “found footage” doesn’t just mean that The Poughkeepsie Tapes is 90 minutes of raw serial killer home movies, but instead features sit-down interviews with law enforcement officials, family and friends, and more — along with serial killer home movies. From a reality point of view, this is the ideal way to present this kind of story while still maintaining the ultimate suspense question: how is this going to end? The problem is nearly half of the interviewees in The Poughkeepsie Tapes are clearly actors who are clearly focusing on trying to look natural and casual and end up giving a performance. For something billed as “reality,” it busts the illusion consistently throughout.

The Poughkeepsie Tapes’ content is disturbing at times, and during others, surprisingly violent. This is far less about titillation and more about disturbing viewers and making them uncomfortable. To its credit, The Poughkeepsie Tapes concocts some eerie images (the corpse being yanked out of the coffin via rope is especially eerie and it belongs in a far better film), but it also concocts some that are incredibly dopey. One interviewee preempts a coming sequence known as “the balloon footage” that one expects is going to be super disturbing, but instead shows a prostitute blowing up a large balloon, tying it off, and then bouncing on it. “Like this?” she keeps asking the off-screen perpetrator (which conjured images from The Greasy Strangler*, causing me to laugh), and the whole notion of it is just bizarre. If this is supposed to be funny…why? Because other than this, The Poughkeepsie Tapes doesn’t try to be. And if it’s not supposed to be funny, who on earth thought this was disturbing?

Ten years ago. That’s when The Poughkeepsie Tapes was completed and ready for release before Shout! Factory rescued it for a video release. A lot has changed in the horror genre since then, including the most important thing: found footage fatigue. But even if The Poughkeepsie Tapes had been released during a time when found footage was still considered a novelty, that still wouldn’t help its overall presentation — as an unconvincing, alternately silly and disturbing, but forgettable low budget horror flick that happens to feature the logo of a major film studio.

Very few films could be worth waiting ten years to see, and that very long delay has to be taken into account when determining its overall value. By now the more tenacious horror fans have already seen The Poughkeepsie Tapes, whether it was on a torrent, Youtube, or a bootleg DVD-r from a horror convention. MGM’s financial woes may have been a good scapegoat for the company to avoid otherwise releasing an almost unmarketable and disturbing film to the masses.

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* "Like this? Like this, Janet? I don't know if I'm doing it right, Janet. I don't know if I'm doing it right, Janet. Like this? Is this right? Janet? I don't know if I'm doing it right, Janet. Like this?"

THE SEVEN-UPS (1973)

Gritty cop thrillers from the late ‘60s and ‘70s are among some of my favorite films. The French Connection, Bullitt, Dirty Harry — hell, I’ll even throw a bone to the Dirty Harry-inspired John Wayne flick McQ, even if it’s the weakest of the bunch. Put McQueen or Eastwood in a trench coat; give him a cynical attitude, fast car, and a talkative gun; mix in a little Lalo Schifrin jazz flute; and I’m yours. The Seven-Ups hails from this same school, this time seeing JAWS’ Roy Scheider in the lead role of Buddy Mancino, leader of a secret police force investigating organized crime. It presents with the same kind of gutsy gusto as it predecessors, this time with the novelty of seeing Scheider in a lead role — a rarity for an actor who was usually part of an ensemble, or as director William Friedkin once called him, an actor more appropriate as “a second banana.”

The Seven-Ups was directed by Philip D’Antoni, who had previously produced Friedkin’s classic crime thriller The French Connection, though that’s not the only commonality between them. In fact, The Seven-Ups feels like a French Connection spin-off, this time focusing on Popeye Doyle’s partner, also named Buddy (and played by Scheider). There’s also the New York setting, along with, again, the grittiness of the real New York; the expertly executed car chases choreographed by legendary stunt driver Bill Hickman; the extremely atypical musical score by Don Ellis; and the essential presence of writer/former NYPD detective Sonny Grosso, whose exploits would go on to inspire the aforementioned films.

The Seven-Ups occasionally gets derided by critics for its loosey-goosey plot, which isn’t unfair; there are many moving parts within its running time, including lots of double-crossing, duplicity, and the eeriest car wash you could ever visit, and I can’t say with confidence it all comes together into one streamlined story. But, being that 1968’s Bullitt has an even more nonsensical plot and is even more celebrated, I’m totally fine with celebrating The Seven-Ups — warts and all. 

What’s most important is that The Seven-Ups is absolutely entertaining as hell, and Roy Scheider excels in this kind of role, along with the immensely talented and underrated character actor Tony Lo Bianco. In terms of D’Antoni’s presence, The French Connection may be the more well-regarded and more confidently plotted crime classic, but give me The Seven-Ups any night of the week. It’s viscerally thrilling in the same way as its counterparts, aided by a score by Don Ellis that’s so unexpectedly eerie you’d think he were instead scoring a horror film. And the car chase scene — holy shit. If Bill Hickman doesn’t have a lifetime achievement award, posthumously or otherwise, shame on the entire Academy.

GET OUT (2016)

Within Get Out’s opening moments, writer/director Jordan Peele manages to homage both John Carpenter’s Halloween – as the camera glides across leafy, suburban streets and an obscured humanoid threat shadows an innocent person in the wrong place at the wrong time – and Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining, as this same person remarks about how those same suburban streets are “like a hedge maze.” This opening concludes with a simply done but expertly executed sequence which doesn’t linger long enough for its suspense to grow tedious; it’s over before you fully realize it’s begun, and as you see this play out before you, you’re taken with the bizarre notion that not only are you about to watch a horror/thriller from one of television’s best and underrated comedians – but that the guy knows his genre shit.

When critical praise for Peele’s directorial debut began rolling in – and for an entirely different genre from which he was previously known – it was during these commendations that reviewers insisted on downplaying the different aspects of comedy that were still pretty prevalent in what was marketed as a straight horror/thriller. From the more obvious broader moments of white-meets-black-culture clash, to the severe black comedy aspects of the admittedly over-the-top twist, Get Out’s creator was smart enough to know that making a film as still inherently angry as it was would go over better so long as it could rely on these multi-layered approaches to humor. That’s something that only the comedy genre – and especially the black comedy sub-genre – allows. That’s its biggest strength: that it can still reflect the anger and fears and frustrations of its writer or director, but without sacrificing the good time and titillation that audiences still want to experience in the theater. If you’re watching Get Out and not recognizing it as a black comedy, then you’re risking your enjoyment. Yes, it’s a horror film, but it is a comedy as well – just one very different than what Peele and his comedian partner Keegan-Michael Key farmed so well during their successful run of Comedy Central’s Key & Peele.

Get Out, a sort of Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? meets The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, exists in a post-Black Lives Matter and post-Trump world. Up to now, the stain of racism that will sadly always permeate throughout this country, had been dormant – not altogether extinct, but quiet. And then wave after wave of controversial police shootings began; and, like almost anything else in the era of Modern America, they became politicized. Liberals backed the victims; conservatives backed the police. It just became one more line drawn in the sand. And politicians seized on this. Trump fanned those flames and made hate speak socially acceptable. It’s no coincidence that hate groups have felt empowered following not just his victory on election day but since the earliest days of his presidency. As I write this, white supremacists are gathering – proudly – in New Orleans, bearing torches, to protest the removal of state symbols representing hatred and a “once”-divided nation. Drunken Texans are shouting slurs on beaches at Muslim families. Racist incidents are surging in schools. 

Schools! 

What the fuck is happening! 

For so long things weren’t racially perfect (nowhere near), but it was put back in the closet — only taken back out for special occasions or the random, isolated incident. But these days, it’s apparently not just okay to be a proud, outspoken racist — it’s your American duty. And those in the community who represent the target of this hate are speaking out against it. Everyone is finding their own outlet to do it. With Get Out, Jordan Peele is using his usual brand married to a horror approach — and if nothing else, the horror genre has proven time and time again that it can be used to tell (while disguising) the angriest stories told by the most frustrated filmmakers.

Some people – in their undying drive to become fake outraged via the Internet whenever they read something they don’t agree with — probably won’t like that, but this is a matter that has to be confronted if Get Out is to be fairly appraised and explain why it’s so relevant. [And the remainder of this paragraph gets into spoiler territory, so if you’re a Get Out virgin, then GET OUT…to the next section.] The idea behind Get Out – the crux behind the motivations of the Armitage family (I’m sensing another Carpenter reference there) – is absurd: the harvesting of strong and vibrant black men and women for their more desirable traits, with the leftovers being turned into soulless automatons serving their white owners in whatever ways they’ve been programmed. Taking that silliness from the film and examining the concept under the microscope of the real world, is it really that absurd? Society chooses to worship certain African Americans as athletes, as actors, as musicians. We adopt certain aspects of their culture and fashion and leave others behind. Sometimes we even elect them to political office so we can feel really good about ourselves and we can pretend that racism is that thing which died in the 1960s. (Yet we get annoyed that black Santa Clause decorations exist because THE REAL SANTA MIGHT BE OFFENDED.) But even as we shower our chosen few with adoration and celebrity worship, we discard the rest. We change the channel mid-news report about an unarmed black man or boy being shot by the police in a sketchy shooting. “I’m no racist, but,” begins the guy in your family who is obviously racist. “They’re not ALL bad, but,” begins the woman at your office who thinks they’re all bad. Get Out's message isn’t anything new, but it is conveying it in a different way. And the message is that racism hasn’t gone away — will probably never go away — and for all the time it’s here, those affected aren’t going to take it sitting down.

These days, in America, everyone is angry. I am, and you are. Even if you got the president you wanted, chances are good that you’re either feeling buyer’s remorse, or you were angry to begin with and voted for the orange Hail Mary hoping his magic wand would reverse everything you think is wrong with our country. But the thing to remember is you don’t have exclusivity on anger. No one does. Jordan Peele is allowed to be as angry as the rest of us, but while we all complain on the Internet behind avatars bearing anything other than our real faces and nicknames bearing anything other than what’s on our birth certificate, Peele is at least out there, first, contributing a solid title to the horror genre, but second, crafting something that kicks at the hornet’s nest in a way that’s both playful as well as furious. Though Get Out falls victim to predictability in certain areas and laziness in others, its uniqueness and bravery more than make up for it – and, above all, it wants to start a conversation that many of us aren’t ready to have.

MARK OF THE DEVIL (1970)

It's an undated 18th-century Austria, and two witch-hunters - Lord Cumberland (Henry Lom) and his apprentice, Count Christian von Meruh (Udo Kier), have come to a small village to root out its witchy influence. Already in attendance is Albino (pronounced Al-bee-no, and played by Reggie Nalder), the acting witch-hunter and all-around misogynist, who accuses any woman of witchcraft if she does not submit to his sexual demands. At first, Lord Cumberland seems to be rational, punishing Albino for his behavior and removing him from his service, but Cumberland soon lets the power go to his head and acts on his sexual desires much in the same way. His young apprentice has no choice to rebel, and that may have more than a little to do with the fact that he's begun falling in love with the beautiful and sultry Vanessa Benedikt (Olivera Katarina). Things soon spiral out of control as Lord Cumberland and his peons begin accusing the most random of people as being in league with the devil; the biggest offense, it would seem, is causing impotence in men. 

Talk about a limp reason! (Terrible.)

Goddamn, Udo Kier was handsome in his youth, wasn't he? What a handsome man! Look at those eyes! Why was he never cast as a James Bond villain? He's the perfect amount of handsome and miscellaneous European. They should have cast him in “A Man Too Handsome,” and James Bond would’ve fought how handsome he was. (This would have been one of the Timothy Dalton ones.) Man, I wish he'd come save me from Henry Lom!

Uh oh, I've really gotten off track here. I better get back to the film.

It goes without saying that Mark of the Devil, more than anything, is about men forcing their dominion over women, threatening them with torture and death should they not submit to their sexual whims. The majority of the men in the film are either villainous, or spineless and weak. Count von Meruh is the only decent male and ultimately ends up paying the price for it. Take that, add a few scenes of bodily torment, and what you have is an exploitation film masquerading as European gothic, but despite those specific tropes, Mark of the Devil did well enough financially that a sequel was commissioned, which maintains a religious vibe, retains Reggie Nalder in a different (and again villainous role), and tosses out the rest.

Mark of the Devil was a reactionary film based mostly off the success of 1968's Witchfinder General starring Vincent Price. Though the two films share a similar plot (that of witch-finding/destroying), Mark of the Devil is fine existing in shadow of the former so long as it gets to inflict all kinds of pain against its characters as well as revulsion against its audience.

Upon the film's premiere, sick bags were handed out to theatergoers who were there to see what was being marketed as "positively the most horrifying film ever made," which had been rated "V for violence." What that means in modern speak, by which time films that include a man's penis being bitten off and eaten by piranha have the potential to go theatrical, is that forty years later, it all plays rather tamely. Despite the tongues being ripped out and the bodies being stretched on the rack and the bed of nails poking all the butts, it doesn't quite retain the same amount of shock and horror as it did then. Normally that wouldn't be a big deal, since that's not the reason one should go see a film - regardless of it being horror – but that's really all Mark of the Devil had to which it could lay claim at that time. If we're being fair, it was an unoriginal plot conceived by piggy-backing off another infamous horror film (that underwent its own cuts to avoid getting a "V for violence" rating [just kidding, that doesn't exist]), but after all these years, the shock of the "violence" has worn off. Because of that, there’s not much else to carry the film beyond the array of very interesting and memorable performances (the best probably being the absolutely slimy role of Albino by Reggie Nalder).

Obviously, films have no choice, regardless of when they take place, but to reflect the zeitgeist of the times, and Mark of the Devil is no exception. While it was the brutality that drove audiences to see the film after word-of-mouth had begun spreading, it undoubtedly played much differently back then compared to how it plays today. Thankfully, though time has counteracted the appeal it once had, enough was left in place to justify first-timers to give it a chance. Of all the films made during this era, it's more that Mark of the Devil is one of the more infamous rather than the one of the better made, but that's okay. Sometimes that's reason enough.

DISTURBING BEHAVIOR (1998)

By 1998, screenwriter Kevin Williamson was dominating both television and cinemas with his teen-centric cry baby drama Dawson's Creek as well as his screenplays for Scream, I Know What You Did Last Summer, Scream 2, and The Faculty. MGM, it seemed, was eager to get into the Williamson business, but instead of just flat-out soliciting him, they instead hired someone to mimic his style: teens in a perilous conflict inspired by a classic horror film, all while uttering overly complicated and abstract dialogue that doesn't sound at all realistic. Scream had sent up Halloween, The Faculty modernized Invasion of the Body Snatchers (or Puppetmasters if you want to be all Clea DuVall about it), so Disturbing Behavior became tasked with revisiting The Stepford Wives with a hint of Pleasantville thrown in for good measure.

The script by Scott Rosenberg (Things to Do in Denver When You're Dead), who's been accused for pretty much his entire career of ripping off Tarantino's overly pompous writing, actually does an admirable job of mimicking Williamson's penchant for self-congratulatory dialogue indicative of imperiled teens thumbing through their worn-out thesauruses in between monster attacks. This dialogue tends to range from the unnecessarily flowery ("Don't worry about the snakes in your garden when you've got spiders in your bed.") to the downright befuddling ("Fail to be a tumor, Gavin!" "Sounds razor!"), but it never sounds at all casual. Along with this Williamson essence, the casting of Katie Holmes, still part of the then-current Dawson's Creek phenomenon, certainly didn't hurt in the "It's Kevin Williamson, we swear!" department.

Director David Nutter, who directed the best episodes of The X-Files and Millennium (including its excellent pilot) as well as Game of Thrones, gets credit for taking on an outlandish concept and injecting all the life he can into it, but the end result isn't something of which to be particularly proud. (Behind-the-scenes drama between himself and the studio apparently resulted in a whopping 27 minutes being removed from his preferred cut, which didn't help matters.)

An allegory about sexual repression and the social pressures of "fitting in," Disturbing Behavior, alternate title Kids Are Dicks: The Movie, works less as a film on its own but more as a '90s time capsule for both filmmaking and teen culture. Because Disturbing Behavior was released within the tidal wave of younger-skewing horror/thrillers started by 1996's Scream, it followed the same template, right down to the sampling of inoffensive alternative rock songs used for thirty seconds at a time, every 3-4 mins, just so kids could have trendy musical accompaniment while walking to math class. (Props goes to Shout! Factory for opting not to specifically identify "Got You Where I Want You" by The Fly's on their Blu-ray's subtitle track during the film's opening, instead using the wonderful descriptor "[cheesy rock]".)

But it's the second part of this "time capsule" outlook that's the most interesting, which comes from viewing a 1998 film about teen culture with modern eyes, being how much teen culture has changed. Nick Stahl's Gavin does the obligatory introduction of the various social groups at Cradle Bay High School—the jocks, the nerds, etc.—only now, those once-nerds being "bottom feeders" whose "music of choice is the sound of their 'Apple PCs' booting up" are now an entire generation of hipsters who have embraced their lord and master Apple, and whose childhoods spent reading comic books and staying out of the sun are now resulting in billion dollar film production companies, whose profits come not just from those nerds, but from everyone. 

These days, comic books are cool! Wearing dorky glasses are cool! The lone nerds have now become the majority.

In 1998, having an Apple computer made you a geek. Now, it makes you a chic American.

That's about where Disturbing Behavior stops being interesting. Not helping are its pallid characters, who are the cinematic equivalent of a flatlining heart monitor. (Some attempts at characterization appear in the deleted scenes, which is the kind of stuff studios love to cut out.) However, in the final film, we're really only given empty archetypes—some of which don't make any sense. The impulsively punchable James Marsden plays a drab empty leather jacket named Steve, who's bitter because his parents never want to talk about his dead brother, as he feels that would help them heal. Later, at school, when officials want to talk with him about his dead brother in an effort to help him heal, Steve says, "No thanks, I'm okay." And when it comes to Katie Holmes' Rachel, she's prone to dancing like no one is looking—right in the back of a pick-up truck, and to no music whatsoever. She's "trash." Also, Gavin's a stoner, and his albino friend (named U.V.—get it?) is basically braindead.

And that's everyone.

Not a total loss, Disturbing Behavior is worth a watch for a few reasons:

One: to see if you can count every single connection to The X-Files, whether it be the cast or the crew. (Spoiler: You will never find them all). The major ones are the presence of director David Nutter, composer Mark Snow, and 26(!) actors, among them Steve Railsback, who played Duane Barry, and Chris Owens, who played Agent Jeffrey Spender. Teen People called Disturbing Behavior "Part X-Files chiller, part Scream thriller!" and they weren't wrong.

Two: a very young Katharine Isabelle, who has been working loyally in the horror genre ever since, most recently in NBC's Hannibal. She's also gotten a lot better, as she's actually so bad here it makes her work in Freddy vs. Jason seem Streep caliber, and that's saying something, because everyone is terrible in Freddy vs. Jason.

Three: William Sadler playing his most eccentric character yet.

Four: Bruce Greenwood's  hilariously '90s porn-star mushroom haircut.

That's it! Good night!

SESSION 9 (2001)

I’ve always been oddly fascinated with abandoned structures. From the tiniest house to the largest factory (or, appropriately, mental institution), the idea of a place formerly inhabited falling into disrepair and becoming the home of a different kind of dweller—the homeless, the fugitive, the reclamation of nature in the form of burrowing animals and crawling vines—is intriguing, a little sad, but exceptionally threatening. Even the most mundane object—an old desk, a stack of files, or perhaps a wheelchair—take on a new, ominous appearance. These things that were once part of everyday life have been sitting dormant, waiting for their owners to come back and give them purpose again. That doesn’t apply just to these everyday things, but the structures that surround them. The more you think about it, the more you realize that an abandoned building is actually the saddest thing there ever could be.

There’s certainly a detectable sadness permeating Brad Anderson’s magnificent debut as a horror director, utilizing the abandoned Danvers State Hospital of Massachusetts as the setting for his film about a group of men each being affected by their interaction with the old crumbling building. Gordon (Peter Mullan), an exhausted new father, is on the verge of losing his business, the Hazmat Elimination Company. Phil (David Caruso) has recently lost his girlfriend to co-worker Hank (Josh Lucas), and has fallen hard on drinking and drugs to cope. Hank, meanwhile, has no real purpose in life, and he knows this, and he’s looking for his “meal ticket” to something better. Mike (co-writer Stephen Gevedon), who was once on a promising path to practicing law, didn’t make it through law school, and is now shucking asbestos to make ends meet. Finally there’s Jeff (Brendon Sexton III), Gordon’s nephew, a naïve innocent who simply finds himself in over his head, in the wrong place, and at the wrong time.

As for the less traditional characters, okay, fine—the most important character is Danvers State Hospital itself, barely dressed up beyond a shock therapy room and the plastic-covered walls. It effortlessly exudes menace, mystery, sadness, and terror all at once. Also doing a lot of the heavy lifting are the audio recordings of a nameless doctor and his patient, Mary Hobbes, who presents in three different alternate personalities: Princess, Billy, and Simon. Once these recordings are discovered, Mike becomes obsessed with them, playing them in order, beginning with session one and ending with you-know-what. As eerie as the hospital that surrounds them, these different voices come together to tell one story, allowing a glimpse into both the kind of terror and sadness that must have been rampant in structures like this during the early 1900s.

Peter Mullan, taking the lead, pulls off a staggering performance as Gordon, father to a newborn trying to fix his broken marriage as he’s also dedicating his time to a poisonous, crumbling hospital. His transformation from beginning to end is slow, but at the last stop of his journey, his final scenes are heartbreaking. Caruso’s Phil is a wonderful prick—the kind he excels at playing. A bit too overbearing at times, his weed-smoking, bar-dwelling presence leaves the viewer constantly on edge, and unsure if he’s to be trusted. (And his epic "fuckyouuuuuuu" is already infamous.) Josh Lucas, in one of his earliest rolls, plays another kind of prick—the one even more obnoxious, but also the kind you can’t help but love. Rounding out the cast are Stephen Gevedon, whose knowledge of the history of the hospital provides the basis for an early disturbing scene (and which will sound familiar if you’ve seen the recent film Regression), and Brendon Sexton III, who offers the only weak performance in the ensemble, though it’s more inconsistent than outright distracting.

On the making of the film, director Brad Anderson talked about finding the location first and wanting to set a story within and around the infamous structure, but wanting to avoid the typical scenario in which teenagers break in to fuck around and end up in peril. His describing falling back on a group of men charged with clearing out asbestos simply as a device to set a story inside the hospital comes off almost as dismissive, which is strange considering that this same device is not only wholly original, but actually serves as an interesting dichotomy between the lives these men want to live and the lives they currently are. Being forced to “shuck fiber” is not only potentially hazardous to their health, but also represents to each of them just how low they have all sunk—from Gordon, who promises to pull off what would ordinarily be a 3-week job in just seven days, to the men who work alongside with him, all who’d rather be any place else. None of them are in particularly enviable positions in life, and despite their occasional camaraderie, leave them more susceptible to the influence the hospital has over them. As to what the hospital is doing to the men exactly—Is it supernatural? A form of cabin fever?—Anderson never makes it clear, which is just fine. Like the hospital itself, this thing that awakens when the men enter and takes hold of each of them in different ways is better left as mysterious. Like its patient room walls covered in old family photos and newspaper headlines, you’re given just enough of the story to reach its conclusion—and, like the ambiguity of all the awful things that may or may not have occurred in that hospital over the years, it’s better not to know, and it’s even more intriguing because we don’t.

A criminally under-seen horror thriller, Session 9 is one of the best horror films to come out of the 2000s. Don't look at the cover and dismiss it as just another haunted house kind of film, because it's not that whatsoever. Owing more to The Shining and Don't Look Now rather than Paranormal Activity or Grave Encounters, Session 9 is old-school, slow-burn kind of horror, made for (gasp--and starring) adults experiencing their own kind of horror--and more than just the obvious.

JASON BOURNE (2016)

For a while, the Bourne series managed to avoid falling victim to the scourge of diminishing returns. If anything, the series got better with each subsequent entry. The initial film directed by Doug Liman was a perfectly entertaining if somewhat forgettable bit of spy pulp, featuring a scene in which Matt Damon surfed a dead body down several flights of stairs while shooting bad guys. Once director Greengrass came aboard to helm the next two entries, the franchise found its footing, inventing a bad-ass James Bond Jr. who was one step ahead of his pursuers nearly all the time. Things got a little wacky with The Bourne Legacy, Universal’s attempt to resurrect their money-making franchise once star Matt Damon and director Paul Greengrass seemed perfectly satisfied with The Bourne Ultimatum, which put to bed any further necessity for Jason Bourne to walk briskly through cities while the camera zoomed in frantically on the back of his head. Jeremy Renner did a fine job in a film that, while controversial for both its story choices and its existence in general, still manages to be a perfectly acceptable entry, even if most fans cite it as their least favorite.

Well, consider yourself relieved of duty, The Bourne Legacy — Jason Bourne is here to out-mediocre you in every way.

For a long time, even after the saga of Jason Bourne/David Webb seemed satisfied as he swam to freedom while listening to Moby, Damon and Greengrass were asked about more Bourne. And for a while they both gave the same but perfectly understandable answer: that, as far as they were concerned, the story was completed, and unless they could come up with a very good reason to unretire the character, their tenure in the franchise was done.

That’s why The Bourne Legacy happened, which made everyone miss Damon and Greengrass even more.

I’m not exactly sure what it is about Jason Bourne which made both star and director return to the monster they had created, as it’s nothing more than a greatest hits of the series rolled into one film, with a finale that unfolds in the same city where Con Air did.

Con Air.

As Jason Bourne, Matt Damon looks bored, and for the first time evidently uncomfortable in the role. His performance suggests that Damon still can’t quite understand why Bourne is back, even if the script concocts a half-assed story relying on tired family drama to drag him out of retirement. Tommy Lee Jones as CIA Director Robert Dewey, the new suit-wearing villain, somehow manages to look more bored than the franchise’s star while also giving a performance more lifeless than the one he gave in the direct-to-video Jason Statham actioner The Mechanic 2: Resurrection. Alicia Vikander, who exploded onto the scene after her chilly performance in Ex-Machina, plays another CIA operative who must be breathing the same sedation air as her boss, because she also seems completely bored to be doing…whatever it is she’s doing. Is she a friend to Bourne? Is she a foe? Does anyone care? (The CIA’s employee retention rate is pathetic. Maybe everyone should stop doing corrupt things and getting killed by their own version of Frankenstein’s monster!)

As celebrated as the Bourne franchise has been, the mainstay complaints remain unfettered: Greengrass still shakes the camera during close-quarter action scenes, leaving the choreography that someone was paid to teach, and which the actors were paid to learn, come off as indecipherable. Falling victim to the same pitfalls of other long-running franchises, new conflicts that are supposed to be way worse than previous ones are introduced to give Bourne something to do, only there’s one problem: the previous conflict, a black ops government program that turned soldiers into brainwashed assassins controlled by their superiors, is way more interesting and deadly than the new conflict, which is — wait for it — government surveillance. AKA, real life. Jason Bourne, in an effort to be about something, says the name “Snowden” over and over in hopes that the audience will think, “wait, that’s kinda like what’s happening now!” The problem is the idea of the government surveilling its people had been an old topic for years before 2016. In a world where people railed against the Patriot Act, but then willingly posted the most personal and intimate details about themselves on social media, the concept of a government spying on its people feels less high stakes and more business as usual.

And yeah, once again a Bourne film ends with Moby’s "Extreme Ways" playing over the end credits, only it’s an alternate, remixed, and lesser version...and in a way it perfectly sums up Jason Bourne: somewhat different, mostly familiar, and not nearly as good.

Still, the action — the driving point behind the series — works quite well. Jason Bourne is bookended by two exciting chase sequences — both which manage to initially fool you into thinking you’re about to watch a good film, and later make you wonder if the bloated, tedious middle portion was as dull as you remember. The opening elongated sequence in which Bourne and a returning Julia Stiles as Nikki Parsons navigate the rioting streets of Athens while being pursued by government operatives is an excellent and exciting sequence — perhaps one of the best of the franchise. It gets a little Twister-ish at times in terms of the sudden ridiculous hurdles that the duo must overcome during the chase, but it’s still a striking sequence and one that allows the film to open with a bang…before it soon deflates. Additionally, the finale chase in Las Vegas, too, makes for effective popcorn entertainment, even if once again coming dangerously close to silly and unrealistic.

The problem is that whole middle part called the rest of the film.

Jason Bourne made a bajillion dollars at the box office, so of course Universal is amped up for Bourne to Kill, with Damon and Greengrass keen to come back. Recently series producer Frank Marshall has come out against the idea of teaming up Bourne Legacy’s Aaron Cross with Jason Bourne, but at this point, the filmmakers would be wise to consider it. Jason Bourne has proven there’s nothing left for the character to do besides retcon upon retcon, so maybe Bourne and Cross can hunt down Edward Snowden only to let him go and they can all jump in a river together and listen to some Moby.

Jason Bourne may as well have been two hours of Matt Damon shrugging at the camera. With Universal now having released a second underwhelming Bourne entry in a row, they need to do two things: either come up with a radical but organic dynamic change to the series (I’m telling you — buddy team-up: The Depressing Brothers!), or just let it be, despite the conclusion of this one being obviously left open for another sequel.