Two Cents is an original column akin to a book club for films. The Cinapse team will program films and contribute our best, most insightful, or most creative thoughts on each film using a maximum of 200 words each. Guest writers and fan comments are encouraged, as are suggestions for future entries to the column. Join us as we share our two cents on films we love, films we are curious about, and films we believe merit some discussion.
The Pick
We’ve had a lot of fun working our way through some of 2019’s best films, and we thought we’d close things out with one of the hidden gems of the genre film scene from last year.
Sweetheart sneaked onto Netflix with little fanfare late in the year, seemingly noteworthy due only to the ‘Blumhouse’ label slapped across its every image. Blumhouse is the reigning king of low-budget horror movies that make major bank, though sometimes it’s unclear why they choose certain films to get a big theatrical push while others, well… sneak onto Netflix with little fanfare.
Co-written and directed by J.D. Dillard, Sweetheart stars as Kiersey Clemons as Jennifer, the sole survivor of a shipwreck. As the film starts, Jennifer washes up on the shore of a desert island and quickly starts to work putting together whatever resources she has on hand to try for both survival and rescue.
That mission gets a complication when a large, carnivorous monster strides out of the water and sets its sights on Jennifer as its next meal. Jennifer’s struggle for survival becomes a literal fight to the death as she has to cull together her meager tools into some kind of defense against an opponent of implacable hunger and will.
Sweetheart got a whisper of a release before being consigned to Netflix, but since then it seems like big things are being beget by this little movie. Dillard has been tapped by Disney to develop a new Star Wars movie, Blumhouse has even spun the title off for an anthology series of films, each one containing the word “Sweetheart” in the title and involving a young woman battling a monstrous opponent.
So before we eagerly dive into the year ahead, let’s spare one last look back at the year we recently finished and take a deep dive with Sweetheart.
Next Week’s Pick:
A seminal work of German Expressionism boasting unprecedented production and character design which is still immediately recognizable, Das Kabinett des Dr. Caligari (The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari) opened on Febrauary 26th, 1920. Please join us in remembering this influential cinema classic — considered by many to be the first great horror film — for its centennial anniversary. As this film is public domain, you can find it just about anywhere, free and legal, but the quality varies wildly. The best quality version is the tinted Kino Lorber restoration, which is free to watch via Kanopy, and available to rent elsewhere.
Would you like to be a guest in next week’s Two Cents column? Simply watch and send your under-200-word review to twocents(at)cinapse.co anytime before midnight on Thursday!
The Team
“You get torn into pieces and dragged into the middle of the ocean. That’s what happens here.”
This survival horror flick isn’t just a simple castaway tale, as it evolves into an effective creature feature. Complete with a gaslighting dickhead boyfriend, a bitchy friend, and a good bit of spear fishing, this is a really solid thriller with some interesting relationship dynamics within it. Of course, those relationships only become of central importance after a solid 40+ minutes of Kiersey Clemons acting her ass off all by herself.
It’s not necessarily a top film of 2019, but it’s surely a worthwhile film for any and all genre fans. If you miss this in 2019, there’s no time like the present to catch up on this take of isolation, survival, and a creepy sea creature who eats people. (@thepaintedman)
I wrote about Sweetheart a little while back and my opinion on it remains unchanged: It’s a near-perfect creature feature that does exactly what you want from this kind of film: A familiar story, told with a neat hook, played out in full, executed with style and skill and wrapped up neatly before the 90 minute mark.
Honestly I’m so used to seeing this sort of film attempted and the mixture getting messed up that my first time through I was nervous for much of the film, anticipating the moment where it finally put a foot wrong and flopped into mediocrity like so many others. Instead, Sweetheart keeps making the smart choices and steadily builds to a terrifically satisfying final stretch. Fingers crossed people make the time for it. (@TheTrueBrendanF)
“Low-budget Castaway Meets Predator” wasn’t a combo that would’ve crossed my mind, but does it ever deliver. While some other cast members also play a role in the tale, this is mostly a one-woman show with Kiersey Clemons ably owning the role of a castaway realizing that the small island she’s landed on wasn’t the refuge from the sea that she thought.
Because the creature that stalks her only seems to hunt at night, there’s a cyclical rhythm built into the framework. Preparation and pensive expectation, followed by terror and immediate threat.
And when her friends show up, and don’t believe her about the creature stalking them — I don’t want to over-read this, but there’s a certain tragic truth in white people downplaying or not believing a person of color when they talk about the monster in their lives.
Anyway, check it out — if for no other reason than that there’s one particular shot in that will go down as an all-timer creature reveal. (@Austin Vashaw)
Next week’s pick: