Tag Archives: Alexandre Aja

‘Never Let Go’ Review: Halle Berry Can’t Salvage This Apocalypse

Horror is not without its trends, and two of the more popular of the past decade have been stories about the apocalypse and allegories for mental illness. So it makes sense that Alexandre Aja’s Never Let Go aims to thread the needle, combining the multiplex-friendly world-building of A Quiet Place with A24’s more cerebral brand of ghost stories. There’s just one problem: for as strong as its performances might be, Never Let Go fails to ever coalesce into the ambitious low-fi apocalypse narrative it is so desperately chasing.

Life has only gotten harder for Momma (Halle Berry) and her boys since the end of the world. While the family was lucky enough to escape unscathed, danger lurks around every corner – one touch is all it would take for Nolan (Percy Daggs IV) or Samuel (Anthony B. Jenkins) to succumb to the creatures that stalk outside Momma’s cabin. To combat this, the family uses a series of ropes tied to the floorboards of the building – as long as they are connected to the foundation of their home, the evil in the forest has no means of getting in.

But there are more dangers in the wilderness than just the creatures. The last few winters have been tough ones for Momma and her boys, and the family is quickly running out of both food and fresh water. And when an accident causes Nolan and Samuel to temporarily untether themselves from the rope – despite Momma’s dogmatic reminders that the boys should “never let go” – Nolan begins to suspect that the threat around them might exist entirely in Momma’s head. Faced with the threat of starvation or something worse, Nolan must decide if the rules of the house are truly the boys’ salvation – or the one thing holding them back.

Never Let Go evokes immediate comparisons to the work of M. Night Shyamalan, who also uses subjective storytelling and familial deception as the core component of several of his films. But unlike Shyamalan – and despite its post-apocalyptic setting – Never Let Go is a very restrained movie. There are no flashbacks to the end of the world, no excursions to the remnants of society – the most we get to see are a few rundown vehicles lost in the woods. Most of the movie takes place in Momma’s house and the surrounding forest, with charcoal sketches in the boys’ bedroom showing what paths are safe for the rope. It’s a simple approach, but one that mostly works – it is not the location or production design that holds the movie back.

Speaking of what works: while horror movies built around child actors can sometimes be a mixed bag, both Jenkins and Daggs do a remarkable job with their characters. Samuel and Nolan – twins born minutes apart – have very different relationships with their mother, and Never Let Go is best when it’s exploring the quietly growing divide between the son who believes and the son who does not. The script by KC Coughlin and Ryan Grassby keeps these relationships grounded in love – after all, Momma is quite literally the boys’ entire world – but where there is love there is potential for jealousy, and Daggs gives a sympathetic performance as a child whose world is shifting dangerously beneath his feet.

Never Let Go also features a standout performance from Halle Berry, who has always been an underrated star of the horror genre. From the obvious (Gothika) to the overlooked (The Call), Berry signs onto interesting projects, and it is great to see her in fine form here. Much of Momma’s background is a mystery – it is hinted that she led a “very different life” in the city, and that she killed both her mother and her husband – and Berry is able to create something three-dimensional out of little more than hints and allusion.

Ultimately, though, the hints and allusions are part of the problem. Movies like Never Let Go are built around one question: are the monsters real or imagined? And maintaining that ambiguity means making creative choices that are less about developing the story and more about misleading the viewers. Sure, sometimes this can work – the more you cram your feature with lore, the more we remember the journey over the destination. But Never Let Go keeps its cards so close to its chest that there isn’t much for audiences to dig into, which means either reveal – real or imagined – will highlight just how much of the movie was misdirection to begin with.

If there’s an upside to the movie, it’s that the two young performances are so strong that one could see audiences reclaiming it as gateway horror. Given the relative lack of violence – quite the evolution for the one-time director of High Tension and The Hills Have Eyes – Never Let Go might be the rare horror movie to have benefitted from a PG-13 rating. But for now, Aja’s movie feels more like a watered down version of itself. Berry, Jenkins, and Daggs deserve all the credit in the world for keeping the story grounded, but as the saying goes, unfortunately, this is five pounds of movie in a ten pound bag. [2.5 / 5]

The Public’s Perception of the Penis in Horror

What is it about dicks? Tallywackers, cocks, one-eyed snakes – I could go on, and since I’m here to talk about wieners and their use in horror films, I will. As a society, we have been trained to view the penis as controversial. There exists a double standard where penile nudity is scrutinized or even laughed at, which isn’t something that often befalls vaginal nudity. Luckily, the public’s perception of the penis is shifting, and penile nudity is not only becoming more commonplace in the horror genre, but it’s also being taken more seriously.

Become a Free Member on Patreon to Receive Our Weekly Newsletter

We’ve all been in a theater showing a film in which a character flashes their schlong on screen, haven’t we? The mere sight of a person’s equipment elicits giggles from the audience because, unfortunately, we live in a society that has made it so that knobs are inherently funny. It begins in health class in middle school – or not, depending on which part of the world you live in – and it continues into adulthood. Outside of pornography, people laugh at peckers. Any person with a vagina can run around completely nude with their genitalia fully in the frame in horror. Yet, when it comes to someone with a joystick, it’s usually shot in a way that hides said downstairs appendage. And in the rare instance that someone does show their stiffy on screen, it immediately becomes the talking point (or laughing stock) of the film. 

When Paul Verhoeven’s Hollow Man came out in 2000, the discussions weren’t centering on the unnecessary rape scene or the slasher-y third act. No, the major talking point for people coming out of every Hollow Man screening was the infrared image of Kevin Bacon’s bacon. Never mind that those same audiences could have seen the damn thing sans CGI imagery in Wild Things two years prior. Just seeing a peter on-screen – even one you’ve already seen – was an event.

Hollow Man isn’t exactly considered “high art” in the horror world. Often viewed as, well, “hollow.” Critics found so little to like that it’s unsurprising that attention was focused on the more ridiculous elements of the film. Conversely, similar conversations would be had just two years later about Danny Boyle’s critically lauded outbreak thriller 28 Days Later. In that film, Cillian Murphy’s introductory scene showcases the actor’s uncircumcised ugly stick. It’s just a bizarre social phenomenon that people can walk away from a film as brilliant as 28 Days Later, but the final takeaway is “we saw that guy’s twig ‘n berries.”

Strangely, an extension that people are so proud of can simultaneously be the punchline of any film in which it makes an appearance. People with packages are so quick to boast about them, yet they’re also terrified to show them. What is it that keeps most from wanting to dangle their dongs in front of a camera? It’s almost as if they fear the audience will judgmentally scrutinize their love leg, metaphorically poking and prodding it as the witches did to that police officer in Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria. That thought process isn’t entirely without merit, but it’s a way of thinking that should be remedied.

It could be argued that there is a conspiracy in the people-with-a-phallus-dominated film industry. After all, too much peen on-screen (or too hard of a hard-on) gets a film slapped with an NC-17 rating. But show a vagina? An R is totally fine. What does that say about the vagina? That it’s somehow “less sacred” or “less offensive” than the peter? Obviously, neither is true, but it’s insulting to people with vaginas because the implication is that it’s not as worthy of being put on as high a pedestal as the pud. That needs to stop.

Of course, there is the issue of size. The argument seems to be that when it comes to vaginas, there’s nothing there to show, whereas people with fucksticks have something to lose by exposing themselves. That argument is problematic because it implies that the vagina is “nothing,” which isn’t true. People with trouser snakes are afraid of people assigning their self-worth with the size of their flaccid frankfurter. This is ironic, considering that A) the flaccid length of a lightsaber doesn’t really say anything about its erect length and B) there isn’t the same scrutiny given to people who show their breasts or vaginas. Are people with vaginas self-conscious about the size of their labia? The answer to that question doesn’t matter. Rather, it is assumed by people with whackers that they don’t or that it simply doesn’t matter because, again, there’s “nothing there.”

Even when we have someone with a meat pole going full-frontal, prosthetics (or CGI) are normally used. This is especially true if the quivering member is meant to be erect. A prosthetic was used for Willem Dafoe’s putz in Lars Von Trier’s Antichrist because Dafoe’s own jolly Roger was seemingly so large that “everyone got confused when they saw it.” Luke Evans supposedly showed his dick in Ma, but he has yet to admit whether it was a prosthetic. Hell, we got an entire underwater nude lesbian ballet sequence in Alexandre Aja’s Piranha, but the one bit of meatsicle we saw was Jerry O’Connell’s severed appendage, which was a CGI creation and played for laughs. 

And yet, the tide is seemingly turning. Full-frontal nudity of people with penises is becoming more commonplace, and it’s the horror genre that is spearheading the cause. Films like Hereditary, Under the Skin, and The Love Witch all have sequences of full-frontal penile nudity, albeit from side characters or extras. Brandon Cronenberg’s Possessor features a shot of a semi-erect elephant trunk. Ari Aster showed us Jack Reynor’s rod in Midsommar. This isn’t to say that penile nudity has become normalized, but we’re on the way there. After decades of classifying penile nudity as taboo, it’s time for a change. An unsheathing, so to speak, leveling the playing field when it comes to genital representation that’s long overdue. It’s 2020, after all.