Ian Thomas Malone

Wednesday

4

May 2022

0

COMMENTS

Our Father sheds an important light on the ease of medical misconduct within the fertility field

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DNA testing companies such as Ancestry and 23andme cater to a base instinct within humanity. Most of us know the natural sensation of wanting to trace back our roots, to learn more about who we are and how we came to be. No one necessarily embarks on that journey of self-discovery hoping to find a bunch of skeletons in the back of their ancestral closet.

There are abstract privacy concerns about handing over one’s literal cells to a for-profit DNA testing company. The documentary Our Father presents a far more horrifying scenario. No one mails in their 23andme kit expecting to learn they have dozens of half-siblings, but a fertility doctor in Indiana probably didn’t expect to have his handiwork traced back to him decades later either.

The documentary centers its narrative on the biological offspring of Donald Cline, a doctor who used his own sperm for years without his patients’ consent, women who expected to give birth to children fathered by their own partners, or donors of their own choosing. Under the guise of his fundamentalist religion, Dr. Cline committed countless acts of sexual assault over the years. Our Father is every fertility patient’s worst nightmare.

Cline fathered over fifty-confirmed children through his insemination methods, with the real number believed to be at least around a hundred. A few serve as the centerpiece of Our Father, namely Jacoba Ballard, who spearheaded the efforts to connect her half-siblings and expose Dr. Cline in the process, both to the media and to the Indiana Department of Justice. An only child, Ballard initially sought out a DNA test to explain the biological anomalies that set her apart from the rest of her family, never expecting the web of lies she’d uncover.

As a documentary, Our Father struggles to balance its fascinating story with some limitations of such a visual medium. The Blumhouse release is guided with an extremely heavy hand, using actors to recreate some events set against a musical score that feels lifted from a horror movie than a serious documentary. To some extent, it’s hard to fault director Lucie Jourdan for not having access to better archival footage to put on the screen, but the film is hardly very confident in its own delivery.

The documentary works best when exploring the human toll of the ordeal on the victims. The American legal system is hardly well-equipped to handle these kinds of sexual assault cases, with only a few states possessing laws on the books to prevent such disgusting medical misconduct. Some injustices can never be made whole. The film does a good job exploring that reality, never trying to pretend like Dr. Cline will ever truly be punished for his actions. The best anyone can hope for is that laws are strengthened to prevent similar misconduct from escaping with little more than a slap on the wrist.

The story is powerful enough to justify the experience, but Our Father hardly does right by the material with its overproduced delivery. The stage pieces and score serve as little more than distractions. There isn’t much here that couldn’t be summarized in a five-minute piece on the evening news, but the victims do deserve to have a chance to tell their story.

Friday

29

April 2022

0

COMMENTS

The Northman offers an arthouse spin on an epic legend of vengeance

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Vengeance is an easy desire to rationalize. The injustice of suffering leaves a void that the heart naturally wants to fill. The cost of delivering such retribution often plays second fiddle to the mind’s manifestation of the sweet delight seemingly offered by correcting an egregious wrong. Of course, the world is not a binary of good vs. evil, not that vengeance has to care about such realities.

The Northman follows a life of vengeance. An adaptation of the legend of Amleth, a Scandinavian figure more familiar to Western audiences for inspiring Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the narrative follows the prince (Alexander Skarsgård, with Oscar Vovak playing Amleth as a young boy) as he seeks to avenge the death of his father King Aurvandill (Ethan Hawke) at the hands of his uncle Fjölnir (Claes Bang), who also burned his village and abducted his mother Queen Gudrún (Nicole Kidman). Prophecy shapes Amleth’s quest, believing himself to be put on the soil solely to take his uncle’s life.

Amleth gives up a promising career as a Viking berserker to stow away aboard a slave ship headed to Iceland, the seat of his uncle’s exile. Becoming enslaved himself in the process, he meets Olga (Anya Taylor-Joy), a sorceress and kindred spirit. As Amleth and Olga grow closer, the prince faces a fork in the road, the cost of his quest for vengeance contrasted by the prospects of breaking the cycle, to forge a new path free of the endless violence.

Director Robert Eggers delivers a slow-burn that’s singularly focused in its step-by-step depiction of Amleth’s submission to prophecy. Just as good and evil exist outside a binary, the question of nature vs. nurture is a bit irrelevant when faced with a reality where the two work in almost-complete tandem. Violence may not be the only life that Amleth could choose to live, but it is the only life he knows how to live. Eggers’ every motion hammers that point home.

The cast all seem to understand their place less as characters, but as part of the legend. Eggers seems to understand the weight of epic, the performances and cinematography carrying a soft touch even amidst the narrative’s extreme brutality. Skarsgård never once puffs his chest to assert his place as the hero, in complete alignment with Amleth’s sense of prophecy bestowed upon him at an early age. His approach to character development feels almost more like character actualization than any real sense of growth. Not all boys change as they grow into men.

The supporting cast, also including Willem Dafoe and Björk in bit roles, have quite a lot of fun with the material. The 137-minute runtime is a bit over-bloated, but Eggers never loses his grip on his audience through the cerebral narrative. Larger-than-life material is rarely delivered with such serene execution. Epics are not necessarily meant to feel intimate, yet The Northman carries itself like performers in a black box theatre, welcoming even against a backdrop of endless miles of nothingness.

The Northman demonstrates Eggers’ immense maturity as a filmmaker, a testament to cinema’s power to communicate rich art to a wide audience. In a world full of crowd-pleaser films fighting for their share of the box office, the film instead aims to leave its viewers with a calmer sense of satisfaction by the time the credits roll. It feels good to be challenged in the theatre, to see an epic wrestle with morals humanity has been grappling with for hundreds of years.

Monday

25

April 2022

0

COMMENTS

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is a charming, formulaic celebration of Nicholas Cage

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Few actors truly understand the trajectory of American culture quite like Nicholas Cage. The freaks and outcasts vilified through the 90s and 00s have taken over the mainstream. The MCU reigns supreme at the box office, and San Diego Comic-Con rivals Coachella as one of the hottest events of the season. Somewhere along the way, it became cool to give a shit, to be weird, and most important of all, to be yourself.

For all the criticism Nicholas Cage has received for his often-bizarre performances, or his financial troubles, the man has not let anything alter his fundamental approach to his craft. The modern box office does not have a ton of room for the brand of action blockbusters such as The Rock, Con Air, and Face/Off that turned Cage into a A-list movie star. Cinemas are now largely powered by franchises, with a diminished need for star power to fill the theatre seats.

While Hollywood has changed quite a bit over the past thirty years, Cage has remained remarkably consistent. Years removed from his own franchise vehicles, such as Ghost Rider (no pun intended) or National Treasure, Cage has kept busy on smaller films such as Joe, Pig, and Prisoners of the Ghostland. The new movie The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent aims to wield the old-fashioned action hero Cage energy for a modern audience that missed seeing his face up on giant billboards.

Cage plays a heavily fictionalized version of himself, struggling in a Hollywood that’s mostly moved on from his antics. His ex-wife and daughter are also tired of his bloviated ego, heavy drinking, and poor financial restraint. After an emotional “retirement” Cage takes an offer from his agent (Neil Patrick Harris) of one million dollars to attend a birthday party of a diehard fan, Javi (Pedro Pascal), a billionaire with too much money burning a hole in his pocket.

Director Tom Gormican’s film essentially follows two separate tracks at the same time. Much of the film is an homage to Cage’s colorful career, full of nods to his more eccentric roles, and his bizarre behavior. Cage also plays a younger version of himself, “Nicky,” to play devil’s advocate on occasion. The rest of the film aims to be a by-the-books action-comedy, relying heavily on the chemistry between Cage and Pascal.

The film’s first half is remarkably strong, tightly-paced with more than enough time for Cage antics while Gormican lays out the actual plot, centered around arms dealers who kidnapped a politician’s daughter. Cage is more than willing to poke fun at his career and cult status, frequently noting his decline in star power even as his workload increased. Gormican pulls off the impressive feat of blending the various stages of Cage’s career together, albeit through remarkably tame execution that’s beneath the absurdity of his star.

The meta-humor overstays its welcome around the halfway point. The script gets way too defensive when it essentially tries to justify its pivot toward mundane, practicable action. Gormican is way too self-conscious in his mainstream work. It wouldn’t be much of a problem if he didn’t let his narrative drag in the process, a few sequences that essentially regurgitate the same point.

The Unbearable Weight of Massive Talent is an immensely entertaining film, the kind that deserves to be enjoyed on the big screen. Everyone involved seems to understand the sheer value of bringing Cage back to the blockbuster format he enjoys so much. Pascal is the perfect companion to help anchor the whole experience.

As part of Cage’s overall portfolio, Gormican’s work leaves a bit to be desired. This film could have been a perfect encapsulation of Cage’s career, a mainstream triumph of the man’s eccentricities. The third act plays things far too safe. The film is well-worth the price of admission, Cage superfans deserve better than the end result.

Wednesday

13

April 2022

1

COMMENTS

Still brimming with mediocrity, Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is an improvement over its predecessor

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Video game superfans should generally temper their expectations toward big-screen adaptations of beloved works. Sonic the Hedgehog was a bit of an anomaly in this regard, a generic plot constantly uplifted by Jim Carrey’s nostalgia-heavy performance as Dr. Robotnik. Audiences generally don’t see a film play simultaneously to the generic kids movie crowd alongside older viewers who grew up with the source material.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 remains acutely aware that many of the kids who grew up blowing into their Sega Genesis cartridges now have children of their own. The script for the sequel is laden with popular culture references that no one under the age of ten would understand. The efforts toward recreating iconic Sonic boss levels often sharply contrast with the otherwise abundant laziness toward just about every other aspect of the film.

The sequel mostly picks up where the first film left off. Sonic (Ben Schwartz) has the Wachowski residence to himself while Tom (James Marsden) and Maddie (Tika Sumpter) attend the Hawaii wedding for Rachel (Natasha Rothwell) and Randall (Shemar Moore), the latter serving as the film’s sole primary newcomer among the live-action cast. Longtime sidekick Tails (Colleen O’Shaughnessey) joins Sonic to take on Robotnik and fan-favorite Knuckles (Idris Elba), who seek to harness the power of the Master Emerald.

The plot is about as silly and generic as the first film. The script does little in terms of world-building regarding the Emerald’s power or Knuckles’ beef with Sonic, but it also doesn’t really need to. The chemistry between the pairs of Sonic & Tails, and Knuckles & Robotnik supplies most of the narrative’s best moments.

Director Jeff Fowler has no idea what to do with his live-action performers outside of Carrey. The middle of the film dedicates far too much time to Rachel and Randall’s wedding. The actors work hard to endear themselves to the audience with limited screentime, but that doesn’t really change the fact that the film is pretty boring whenever there isn’t a CGI character on screen.

The script is once again laughably bad, projecting a bland hero’s journey onto Sonic, who’s still quite the loner. You get the sense that someone is trying to say something about the power of self-confidence, but the narrative doesn’t have the attention span to stay on any one strand for very long. Elba’s top-notch voice work is undercut by the silly lines he’s expected to deliver with a straight face, lacking Carrey’s innate ability to work magic with amateur-level screenwriting.

Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is way messier than it should have been, full of cheap filler like a lazy dance-off in addition to the pop culture references that already feel dated. Fowler does nail the interactions between his principal players. Sonic benefits immensely from the presence of Tails and Knuckles, inching the character closer toward his rightful place as the epitome of cool.

The film fares better at serving its dual audiences of children and adults than most of its contemporaries, but that reality doesn’t change the fact that Sonic 2 is quite content with mediocrity for most of its bloated 122-minute runtime. Fowler delivered a stark improvement over the original film, but he did not craft a particularly impressive feature, once again leaving Carrey with far too much cleanup duty. Sonic diehards will find much to enjoy, but everyone’s favorite blue hedgehog deserves better than this half-hearted attempt at filmmaking.

Thursday

7

April 2022

0

COMMENTS

Kyle Moore, Big Brother Canada 10

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We are absolutely delighted to welcome Kyle Moore to the show. Kyle’s Head of Household reign in week three of Big Brother Canada 10 will go down as one of the most exciting in BB history, a botched backdoor attempt on Josh Nash that resulted in an epic house flip. Kyle found himself evicted by key ally Steven “Gino” Giannopolous in a similar backdoor effort the following week.

Kyle talks about his experiences in the game and his thought process during his time as HoH, an extensive perspective on the challenges of strategizing within the BB CAN house. Ian & Kyle also talk about mental health and how mindfulness plays into the rigors of the game. TTTE fans will also enjoy a Theodore Tugboat reference at the end of the episode, a beloved figure in Kyle’s native Halifax.

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Ian’s article on BB CAN, which has a heavy emphasis on Kyle’s HoH week: https://ianthomasmalone.com/2022/03/big-brother-canada-is-the-best-reality-show-on-television-right-now/

Kyle hosts the Life’s a Wreck Podcast, which focuses on mental health. You can check out Life’s a Wreck here or wherever you get your podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/lifes-a-wreck/id1471732336

Kyle also has a clothing line, Better Tømørrøw, which he wore many times throughout his tenure in the BB CAN house. You can pick up your own Kyle merch at: https://www.bettertomorrow.world/

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Headshots courtesy of Kyle Moore

Production still courtesy of Big Brother Canada & Global Television Network

Monday

28

March 2022

0

COMMENTS

Uncharted succeeds in spite of its laughably awful script

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A film like Uncharted is not really designed to spark broader conversations about the nature of entertainment. Based on the long-running adventure video game franchise of the same name, it is certainly fair to label the whole affair as a cash grab designed to appeal to fans of both the series and of superstar lead actor Tom Holland. There’s something more at stake for the action genre as a whole in this era defined by massive budges and connected universes.

The film is largely a paint-by-number swashbuckler that borrows heavily from 90s genre tropes. Nathan Drake (Holland) is a skilled pickpocket desperate for news of his long-lost brother Sam (Rudy Pankow), the two separated at an orphanage at an early age. Savvy fortune hunter Victor “Sully” Sullivan (Mark Walhberg) quickly enlists Nathan’s help in locating the lost treasure of Ferdinand Magellan, both displaying a knowledge of history that highlights their proficiency at reading half a Wikipedia page.

Nathan and Sully are joined in their quest by Chloe Frazer (Sophia Ali), a fellow thief with an arsenal of one-liners and a weird backstory with Sully. Santiago Moncada (Antonio Banderas), a spoiled heir desperate for treasure, and his chief enforcer Jo (Tati Gabreille) supply the necessary cartoon villainy that every globe-trotting treasure hunt needs. There are plenty of predictable character twists that anyone can see coming from a mile away, but the actors all showed up to engage in earnest to bring a semblance of seriousness to their one-dimensional roles.

The laughably atrocious screenplay is perpetually buoyed by the film’s tight pacing and strong cast chemistry. Though it often seems to have happened completely by accident, Uncharted manages to be a pretty entertaining summer action flick. It’s not good, but it’s too fun to be bad.

Other actors might try and phone in their performance when faced with a script as clunky as this mess. Holland is his earnest self, doing his best to give the audience a fun time, playful banter with Wahlberg and Ali that does grow on you after a while. Drake does not seem terribly likely to be Holland’s next blockbuster vessel, but the role does showcase his A-list credentials. Uncharted is a good testament to the power of a strong leading man in today’s franchise-heavy age.

Director Ruben Fleischer deserves a lot of credit for his technical skills. The special effects won’t necessarily blow anyone away, but Fleischer’s camera work does elevate the material above plenty of other video game adaptations. The narrative could do without about ten minutes off of its 116-minute runtime, but the pacing does have a way of keeping things fresh in a way that the script never seems to understand.

Uncharted is overly content in its commanding mediocrity, but there’s a certain joy in watching the film that’s hard to ignore. Some lines and plotholes are so terrible that they make you laugh out loud. The action sequences are completely over the top in their resounding absurdity. Fleischer’s work begs to be watched on the biggest screen possible, a throwback to the days when visiting the cinema felt like something you did just to sit in those comfortable seats and turn your brain off. Uncharted should have been a better film, but it’s too enjoyable not to recommend.

Monday

21

March 2022

1

COMMENTS

Big Brother Canada is the best reality show on television right now

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Most successful reality television works best when operating in the realm of mindless escapism, beautiful people doing terrible things to each other in luscious locations. Big Brother stakes its territory out in the pages of Foucault’s seminal classic Discipline & Punish. The Panopticon comes to life within the confines of the Big Brother house, where the world can tune at any hour of the day to watch a bunch of strangers stuck together with nothing to do but stab each other in the back.

Season 10 of Big Brother Canada followed shortly after the conclusion of the third season of the American Celebrity Big Brother, a golden opportunity for those of us who felt more than a bit underwhelmed by the poor quality of play in CBB, where many of the contestants barely understood what show they were on, leaving themselves easy marks for winner Miesha Tate and her primary ally, runner-up Todrick Hall. Big Brother is anything but easy, months of isolation from the outside world, unstable nutrition, and terrible sleeping conditions.

The Big Brother Canada house sets itself apart from other iterations of the show with its commanding beauty. Canada gives its houseguests significantly more space than its neighbors to the south, the season 10 buildout looking like a postmodern casino warehouse pop-up. With plenty of rooms to plot schemes, “BB Can,” as it’s affectionately referred to, manages to keep the drama elevated without the sense of claustrophobia favored in other versions. 

There have been more than 500 different seasons of Big Brother across the world since the show’s launch in 1999. Patterns tend to develop with that kind of longevity, even putting aside the fact that the American and Canadian versions follow a different set of rules than the rest of the world. The jocks of the house tend to align early on, making easy targets of the lone wolves, people of color, and LGBTQ people. Efforts to introduce a more inclusive cast of houseguests haven’t done all that much to fundamentally alter the status quo of this reality.

What sets Big Brother Canada apart from its American counterpart is the relentless way its houseguests actually engage in the game. It’s easy for the flow of the house to feel inevitably pointed in one direction, where the strongest competition players are able to control the tempo until the time comes for them to turn on each other. Twists rarely happen early on.

Season 10 of Big Brother Canada delivered some of the juiciest drama in BB history, just in its third week. Head of Household Kyle Moore sat pretty on top of his alliance, the wind at his back. HoH Icarus took one look at the sun and decided to take his chance to cement his reign as one for the ages. In a game where no one should trust anyone, Kyle began to target his own alliance for no apparent reason.

Tolstoy wrote with great skepticism about the power of generals to use their sheer force of will to conquer throughout War and Peace. Reality spares little time for the whims of men who sit in cushy chairs far removed from the action. The proletariat houseguests are used to falling in line, lest they find themselves next on the chopping block, but emperors cannot simply force their will into existence.

Kyle reaping the fruits of his disastrous HOH run. Courtesy of Big Brother Canada live feeds.

Big Brother Canada finds such beauty in the simple mechanics of the game. Kyle initially nominated Stephanie Paterson and Moose Bendago, both key allies, for eviction. When Moose won the Power of Veto competition, Kyle saw a chance to go down in history by turning his fire on another ally, Josh Nash, widely viewed as one of the strongest competitors in the game. The seeming inevitability of Josh’s fate came up against his sheer force of will to stay. Campaigning for his life, Josh pulled off a stunning upset in the eviction ceremony, a 9-2 vote that sent a visibly shocked Stephanie home. Season 10’s eighth episode seems destined to go down as one of the most thrilling episodes in the entire franchise’s long and storied history.

How often is reality TV capable of genuine excitement? BB live-feed diehards find joy in the often-mundane nature of the game. Big Brother is a marathon, not a sprint, but for large chunks of the time, it can barely feel like much of an actual competition. That’s where Big Brother Canada distinguishes itself from the rest of the pack. The houseguests came not merely to survive Big Brother, but to play Big Brother. 

A game based on treachery and deception deserves houseguests willing to perpetually sharpen their knives. Big Brother Canada is vastly superior to its American counterpart through its commitment to engaging in the ugliness of humanity’s baser instincts. Americans aren’t used to being bested in the reality-TV category, but our neighbors to the north certainly have us beat on this front. BB diehards should not sleep on this amazing season. 

Friday

18

March 2022

0

COMMENTS

Transgender Storytime: What’s in a Name?

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The day has finally arrived. ITM the bisexual is learning more and more that she’s probably more like ITM the heterosexual. Yuck. Boys are gross, and most of them tend not to want to date trans women named Ian Thomas. Again, yuck, but here we are.

Ian does her best to unpack the mess that is her dating life, being confronted with the realities of modern romance and the ways her identity comes into conflict with our swipe left/right binary. Bit of a struggle! You’ve been warned.

 

 

Wednesday

16

March 2022

0

COMMENTS

The Job of Songs makes the case for good old-fashioned human connection

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There are a lot of narratives centered on the hardships of moving, being forced to leave your homeland behind in pursuit of a better life. There’s an additional, often underrepresented burden placed on the communities that bear the brunt of these exoduses and the people left behind. Culture is a living, communal entity, forces of gravity that reflect the people who gravitate toward its orbit.

The documentary The Job of Songs explores the heavy burden that change places on culture to keep the spirit of a people alive. Centered on the village of Doolin, a small town on the western tip of Ireland, the narrative follows the people who stayed behind as the demands of the modern world laid their burdens on these tight-knit communities. Known for its breathtaking scenery, Doolin is the kind of place that’s been elevated by social media platforms such as Instagram that reward such geographical beauty.

Director Lila Schmitz is perpetually wary of the one-dimensional portrait crafted by a tourist selfie that hardly tells much of a story about a community. Doolin’s true vibrancy resonates from its people, particularly the musicians that populate the airwaves and the pubs each night. The songs they sing each night supply the glue that holds everything together.

The documentary supplies plenty of context into Doolin’s history, but Schmitz’s work really comes alive during the interviews and extended sequences featuring local musicians. The Job of Songs constantly recognizes the ace in the back of Schmitz’s pocket in the form of the beautiful music that frequently accompanies the imagery on the screen. There’s a vibrancy to the pub life that makes you feel a part of the room. After more than two years of a global pandemic, that kind of spirit resonates more than ever.

Schmitz’s greatest skill as a director is the way she tackles heavy subjects without getting melancholic or giving into the trap of nostalgia. It might be easy for people to reminisce about the idea of “the good old days,” but the people of Doolin aren’t adverse to change. Change is a part of every single community on the planet whether we like it or not. You have to grow with the times, while also maintaining the culture and history of the plots of earth we call home. Life happens in the present, not the past.

The film has a lean runtime of 73 minutes, a well-paced narrative that knows when it’s made its points. While The Job of Songs makes a compelling case for why someone should want to visit Doolin, Schmitz is more concerned with making sure that her audience understands why travel needs to be a more immersive experience than the kind of stuff that appeals to social media followings. Plenty of musicians came to Doolin for various reasons, choosing to stay after engaging with the magic that song provides.

People matter. Song brings us together, not just in merry times, but also to remember the moments that weren’t as fun. Ireland has faced plenty of hardships in the not-so-distant past, with plenty still alive who remember the catastrophic effects of famine and war. The simple beauty of perseverance comes alive so vividly when a group of musicians huddles together in a crowded pub. The Job of Songs captures all of that for anyone to enjoy from the comforts of their own home.

Monday

7

March 2022

0

COMMENTS

Classic Film: Kuroneko

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The horror genre yields its greatest triumphs when able to crawl under the audience’s skin. A rational mind can understand that ghosts are not exactly real, but a skilled director knows how to craft tension so palpable that reality can be tossed right out the window. Fear needs no justification.

The 1968 film Kuroneko deals with tragedy on a level that you almost feel claustrophobic watching the narrative unfold. Yone (Nobuko Otowa), a mother, and her daughter-in-law Shige (Kiwako Taichi) are brutally raped and murdered in their home by samurai, a black cat serving as the only witness. Though the samurai burn the house down, a mansion later appears in its place. Subsequent samurai who seek respite on the premise are greeted by Yone and Shige, who seduce them before tearing their throats out.

Yone’s son Gintoki (Kichiemon Nakamura) is off fighting battles elsewhere in Japan. The narrative reveals that he was conscripted to fight at an early age, eventually rising to samurai during the events of the narrative. Gintoki hopes to return home to see his wife and mother, unaware of their gruesome murder, or their plans to punish any samurai who cross their path.

Director Kaneto Shindo offers a sleek take on the kaibyō genre with a chilling exploration of vengeance’s corrosive effect on the soul. Gintoki finds himself in the midst of a nature vs. nurture debate that’s so warped that it doesn’t really care about justice. Morality hasn’t exactly exited the equation completely, but the sheer brutality of the events that set off the narrative makes it hard to attach the villain label toward spirits who maybe got a little too caught up in their efforts to right an egregious wrong.

Kuroneko is often quite uncomfortable to watch, but the beautiful Tohoscope style cinematography makes for a captivating viewing experience through the 99-minute runtime. Shindo shows off his technical prowess repeatedly with subtle moments that jump out of nowhere. The film’s scares never make you jump out of your seat, but the dramatic tension leaves you feeling quite drained by the time the credits roll.

The screenplay keeps its characters at arm’s length from the audience. Gintoki is so influenced by those around him, both the spirits and his commanding officers, that he never quite settles into the role of the protagonist, instead the object of his family’s carnal rage. Taichi’s Shige is essentially the true emotional core of the film, caught between the spirit world and the memory of her true love.

Some deeds are so tragic and unthinkable that they can never be made whole. Film is often reluctant to explore that reality. There are no easy outcomes for the events of Kuroneko. Shindo delivers a triumph of the horror genre as he explores his painful themes.