So yesterday, I told my sister that I was going to go ahead and hop in my car and make the 45-minute drive to our uncle’s place. She said, “Uhmmm….okay, Lisa Marie,” and, at the time, I was confused as to why she sounded confused. After all, we go out to our uncle’s place every Memorial Day weekend. He has a big house. He has a big back yard and a pool that’s great for laying out and working on your tan. Celebrating Memorial Day weekend at our uncle’s is a Bowman-Marchi Family tradition!
And so, I drove out there. And when I arrived at the house, I thought it was weird that none of my cousins had arrived yet. Both my aunt and my uncle seemed surprised to see me but I figured they were just wondering where my cousins were as well. I mentioned to them that I was early and then, instead of sticking around to have a conversation, I ducked into the guest room and I changed into my favorite black bikini and then I went outside and I lay out by the pool.
And I have to admit that I was a little bit frustrated. Unlike all of my sisters and most of my cousins, I am pretty much incapable of getting a decent tan and it didn’t help that the sky was full of clouds. But I was even more frustrated by the fact that nobody else had shown up yet. Didn’t they know it was Memorial Day weekend?
Except, of course, it wasn’t Memorial Day weekend. Memorial Day weekend is next week and somehow, I managed to get my dates confused. Both my uncle and my aunt were very understanding about my mistake and they were kind enough to both feed me and invite me to stay the weekend. I thanked them for their kindness, told them that I couldn’t wait to come back next weekend, and then — with my face almost as red as my hair — I went home.
Shut up, Jimmy Brooks! I’m almost done and my name’s not Ellie! Anyway, my point is that I was planning on making the latest edition of Lisa Marie’s Favorite Grindhouse and Exploitation Film Trailers a Memorial Day edition. And, next weekend, it will be. However, for this weekend, enjoy these 6 randomly and hastily selected replacement trailers, none of which have much to do with each other…
(Because of the nature of the 1986 pseudo-slasher film, April Fool’s Day, it’s impossible to really talk about the film without talking about the film’s ending. As a result, this review will have spoilers. The ending will be revealed. The entire plot will be spoiled. Do not read on if that’s going to be an issue for you.)
(Did you read the warning above?)
If not for the way that the film ends, April Fool’s Day would probably be a forgotten film. It’s a slasher film that doesn’t feature much blood, sex, or any particularly flamboyant kills (though there’s a good reason for that). Compared to most low-budget slasher films from the mid-80s, April Fool’s Day does have a surprisingly charismatic and likable cast but it’s rare that anyone watches a holiday-themed slasher film for the acting. Up until the final ten minutes or so, April Fool’s Day is professionally done but somewhat generic…
But then you hit that ending and it totally changes the whole film. It’s not a perfect ending. In many ways, it’s probably one the most imperfect endings that I’ve ever seen. It requires a massive suspension of disbelief. It makes no logical sense. But dammit, I love it. Almost despite itself, it’s a great ending and it confirms that April Fool’s Day is meant to be a satire and not a straight horror film.
For the first 80 minutes or so, April Fool’s Day plays out like the 100th variation on And Then There Were None. Heiress Muffy St. John (Deborah Foreman, giving a wonderfully odd performance) invites a group of college friends to her island mansion. They arrives on April Fool’s Day and they spend the first night dealing with Muffy’s strange sense of humor. (Actually, Muffy and I both find the same things funny but I’ve been told that I have a strange sense of humor so, therefore, I assume that Muffy must have one too.) Harvey, who prefers to be called Hal (Jay Baker), smokes an exploding cigar and discovers his bedroom has been decorated with newspaper articles about a car accident that he was involved in. Jock Arch Cummings (Thomas F. Wilson) finds steroids hidden away in a medicine cabinet. Nikki (Deborah Goodrich) comes across handcuffs in a dresser. Nan (Leah Pinset), a serious-minded drama student, hears a baby crying in the distance and is reminded of her abortion, something that she believes that only Muffy knows about.
The next day, Muffy is now wandering around in a daze and her brother, Skip (Griffin O’Neal), has vanished. Kit (Amy Steel, playing a similar role to her character in Friday the 13th Part Two) and Rob (Ken Olandt) think that they see Skip’s decaying body floating under the boathouse. As the day progresses, Arch and Nan vanish and later turn up at the bottom of a well. Harvey is found hanging from a rope. Chaz (Clayton Rohner) is castrated and, while we’re not quite sure what exactly happens to Nikki, we do see that it involves a large puddle of blood. Kit and Rob discover Muffy’s head in the basement and realize that they are being stalked by Muffy’s crazy twin, Buffy.
(Deborah Foreman is great in both of the roles. As Muffy, she delivers all of her lines with just a hint of sarcasm and constantly seems to be silently laughing at a private joke that only she understands. And when she’s Buffy — well, she’s totally batshit crazy.)
Being pursued by a knife-wielding Buffy, Kit runs through the mansion and finds herself in the drawing room. And who is waiting for her but all of Buffy’s victims? No, they’re not dead! Instead, they’re alive and they’re all in a very good mood. And Buffy is not Buffy. She’s Muffy and she’s been Muffy all along.
That’s right, it’s all a huge elaborate joke! Muffy does spend a few minutes explaining how the whole weekend was a dry run for her plan to turn her estate into a resort, one that will offer a weekend of fake horror. But, ultimately, it all comes down to the entire movie being an elaborate joke. I know, just from perusing some of the comments at the imdb, that there are some horror fans who hate the ending of April’s Fool’s Day. But, really, that’s the only “honest” way that a film like April Fool’s Day could end. If the movie was called Thanksgiving, I could understand being upset. But this is an April Fool’s Day movie! It has to be a joke.
Of course, if you think about it too much, the ending makes no sense. Muffy specifically states the no one was in on the joke until the last minute. Whenever one of her friends would wander off on their own, Muffy would grab them, explain the joke, and get them to play along. When you consider the size of the island and where, at various points, the victims are in relation to the other characters, Muffy must be a very fast explainer, as well as being very persuasive. (As well, Harvey brings a gun with him to island. Muffy jokes about nearly getting shot by him but imagine if he had been successful?) Even if you accept that all of the friends — even Arch and Harvey, who are both kinda dumbasses — would be able to play along without screwing things up, you have to wonder why Muffy thought it would be a good idea to use dark secrets from everyone’s past.
If you search far enough online, you can find all sorts of rumors about the film that April Fool’s Day was originally meant to be. In the finished film, Skip is a bit of a cipher but, in the original script, he was a much more complex character. While Muffy was busy playing her elaborate prank, Skip was planning on killing Muffy and claiming their parent’s inheritance for himself. The crying baby, the drugs, the incriminating newspaper articles; all of them were originally meant to be the work of Skip. While Skip’s subplot was dropped, the dark secrets of the past were not. As a result, Muffy comes across as being a lot more cruel than was originally intended.
Originally, the film was also meant to end with Skip killing Muffy but the ending was apparently changed at the last-minute. (Reports differ on whether or not the original ending was ever filmed.) Instead, the film now ends with Muffy stumbling into her bedroom, playing with a jack-in-the-box, and then getting a knife drawn across her throat by Nan. It’s just another elaborate practical joke and, once Muffy realizes that she’s not dying, Nan gives her a quick kiss and smiles enigmatically.
(A lot of imdb commenters — mostly males — have read a lot into that kiss, obsessing on a subtext that really isn’t there. As opposed to being the homage to Blue Is The Warmest Colour that many commenters appear to believe it to be, it’s really just a friendly kiss, a way of saying, “I got you.” Sorry, guys, that’s all there is to it.)
It’s an ending that would never be done today. Today, all horror films have to end with the promise of a sequel. Muffy might still get away with pulling an elaborate prank but Nan would definitely have killed her at the end of the film. Her little smile would have said, “Wait for the sequel.” And the modern version of that ending definitely would not be as effective. In fact, it would be so expected that it would be damn near infuriating. Instead, the ending of April Fool’s Day is good-natured and likable, which is appropriate because April Fool’s Day is a surprisingly good-natured and likable film.
After Nan’s final joke, April Fool’s Day ends with a song. And here it is! Enjoy and I hope everyone had a great April Fool’s Day!
“For my final entry in October’s Daily Horror Grindhouse, I want to take a few minutes to tell you about an Italian zombie film from 1981. Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror is not very good but it certainly is memorable. I think it’s debatable whether or not any pleasure can truly be described as being guilty but if there ever was a movie that some people might feel guilty about enjoying, it would probably be Burial Ground.”
“Is that the movie with creepy kid in it?”
“Well, yes, one of the characters in this film is supposed to be a 12 year-old boy and yes, he’s kind of creepy. But you know what? Whenever anyone tries to talk about Burial Ground, everyone always wants to talk about the creepy kid. So, let’s hold off on the creepy kid…”
“That kid really is creepy…”
“Yes, I know the kid is creepy but there’s more to the film than just the kid! For instance, I wonder how many people realize that Burial Ground is perhaps the most blatantly political Italian zombie film ever made? I mean, let’s think about it. This is a film where a bunch of decadent rich people get trapped in a mansion — the same mansion that was used in Patrick Lives Again, by the way — and find themselves besieged by zombies. And who are the zombies? They’re the former workers. They’re the servants who used to toil in the fields and who died exploited and forgotten. And now, without any explanation, they’re suddenly back and they’re determined to kill everyone. And when it comes time to get inside the house, they actually use tools. They have scythes and hammers and all the former tools of their oppression. They are now using them to kill the rich. Well, not just the rich. There are two servants — a butler and a maid — who side with the rich and therefore, have to be killed as well because that’s the way things are in a revolution….”
“What was up with that kid?”
“We’ll get to him. No matter what else you say about Burial Ground, you can’t deny that the zombies were amazingly effective. I mean, they really looked like the living dead and, even if the ‘living’ actors were never quite convincing, the zombies were scary!”
“Not as scary as that creepyass kid…”
“You know, sometimes I think that y’all spend so much time going on about the weird little kid in Burial Ground that you tend to overlook some other fun parts of the film. For instance, there’s the scene Janet — played by Karen Well — gets her ankle stuck in a bear trap and, every time that her boyfriend Mark (Gianluigi Chirizzi) tries to pry it open, he accidentally ends up letting go and it snaps back shut on her ankle. On the one hand, I was having sympathy pains for poor Janet because, as a dancer, I know how much ankle pain sucks. On the other hand, I couldn’t help but laugh because the scene just goes on for so long that it actually starts to resemble a poorly-written SNL sketch. Plus, is it just me or does Mark look like a really young Jack Nicholson?”
“That creepy kid kind of looked like Dario Argento…”
“Yes, he did. But there’s more to this film than the kid! For instance, remember how it ends with this long quote from something called The Prophecy of The Black Spider but, on the title card, they misspelled prophecy…”
“Maybe the kid wrote that card…”
*Sigh* “Okay, I guess I should just admit the truth. The most memorable thing about Burial Groundis the creepy kid. The zombies may be effective. The film may be full of blood, nudity, bear traps, and misspelled words. But ultimately, it all comes down to the character of Michael. Michael is supposed to be 12 years old. He has a small body but he’s also got this weird adult face. According to the credits, he was played by an actor named Peter Bark and strangely enough, there seems to be next to no information available about him. This has led to rumors that Peter Bark was actually a little person or that all of his scenes used trick photography to make him look smaller than he actually was. According to Wikipedia, Peter Bark was actually 25 years old but he was cast because Italian law wouldn’t allow a child to appear in a film like Burial Ground. I don’t necessarily believe that, however. All I can say for sure is that Michael is a creepy little kid and the fact that he was obviously dubbed by an adult trying to sound like a child doesn’t help.”
“That’s not the only reason that Michael was creepy!”
“That’s true. He also has a few … icky scenes with his mother. She, by the way, was played by Mariangela Giordano. Like Giallo in Venice and Patrick Lives Again, Burial Ground was produced by her boyfriend, Gabriele Crisanti. For some reason, any film that he produced featured Mariangela dying in the most gruesome ways possible.”
“Plus, that little kid sure was creepy.”
“Yes, this is true. He certainly was. Happy Halloween.”
“Happy Halloween!”
“Before we leave, here’s two trailers for Burial Ground. The second one is the real trailer. The first one is all Michael.”
Whenever I watch 2012’s Smiley (and, since this is one of those films that always seems to be playing whenever I have insomnia, I actually have seen Smiley more times than I should probably admit), I always find myself hoping that it will actually be a better film than I remember it being.
Some of that, I have to admit, is because I once dated a frat boy whose nickname was Smiley. His high school football coach gave him that name because he was always smiling! (Yes, I once dated a football player who smiled a lot and didn’t really care much about literature, art, movies, history, or anything else that I was actually interested in. Don’t ask me to explain how these things happen.) His pickup truck even had a personalized licence plate that read, “SMILY.” That’s right — he wasn’t really sure how to spell Smiley. Whenever I see the title Smiley listed in the guide, I think of him and I have to kind of laugh.
Beyond that, Smiley was an independent, low-budget film and I have to admit that my natural inclination is always to support independent filmmakers. If Smiley was a huge studio production, I’d have absolutely no qualms about ripping it apart. But when I see an indie horror film like Smiley, there’s a part of me that almost feels that I have to be supportive. But the things is, it’s one thing to be supportive and it’s another thing to be delusional. I may want Smiley to be a good horror film but it’s not and I’m really not doing anyone any good if I pretend otherwise.
Finally, I always want Smiley to be better than it actually is because the film features one of the creepiest killers that I’ve ever seen. Even if the character is cheapened by a rather stupid twist, Smiley is scary looking. Smiley is presented as being the spirit of a man who, after stitching his own eyes closed, carved a permanent smile on his face. As a force of evil, Smiley is genuinely frightening and it’s unfortunate that the rest of the film doesn’t live up to the character’s potential.
As for the rest of the film … well, it’s pretty much your typical slasher. All of the characters are loathsome, the murders are neither suspenseful nor gory enough to really be memorable, and this is one of those films that relies far too much on scenes of people running into someone, screaming in terror, and then discovering that it was just one of their friends. It is true that there is a twist towards the end of the film that’s designed to make you question everything that you’ve just see but since the twist doesn’t make much sense and comes out of nowhere, it’s hard to get excited about it. The best thing the film had going for it was the character of Smiley and the twist pretty much ruins that.
(The film’s other big twist is that the cast is full of YouTube personalities, which makes Smiley the spiritual descendant of The Scorned, a similarly bad slasher film that was full of reality TV stars.)
By the way, the idea behind Smiley is that you can go on Chatroulette and, if you type “I did it for the lulz” three times, Smiley will appear and kill whoever your chatting with. Just for the record, I’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.*
——
* Well, to be honest, I got a friend of mine to try it and it didn’t work. I’ve got better things to do then watch some guy jerking off on Chatroulette.
Since I already reviewed one British film about cannibalism earlier today, I figured why not review another one? Pete Walker’s film Frightmare was released in 1974, two years after the release of Death Line. You have to wonder what was going on in British society in the early 70s that led to so many cannibal films. When watched together, Frightmare and Death Line present a vision of a society that was devouring itself, both literally and figuratively.
Frightmare tells the story of Dorothy (Shelia Keith) and Edmund Yates (Rupert Davies). Dorothy is a fortune teller who has something of a violent temper. Edmund is her loving but abused husband. However, Dorothy has more than just a temper. She also has a taste for human flesh. She’s just spent 15 years in prison, convicted of killing and eating a man. However, she has now been “found sane,” (and that’s a term that is repeated, with increasing irony, throughout the entire film) and she has been released. She’s even reading fortunes again!
Jackie (Deborah Fairfax) is Edmund’s daughter by his first marriage. She’s devoted to her father and, at the same time, scared of her mother. She doesn’t believe that her mother is truly sane, despite the fact that her psychiatrist boyfriend, the well-meaning but arrogant Graham (Paul Greenwood), continues to remind her that Dorothy has been “found sane.” Jackie knows that Dorothy still wants to eat human flesh so, every weekend, she takes the train to Dorothy’s home and delivers meat. Jackie tells Dorothy that it’s human flesh but, in reality, it’s just a placebo. When Graham finds out what Jackie’s doing, he is outraged. After all, Dorothy has been found sane!
Jackie, however, has other things to worry about. Her younger half-sister, the rebellious Debbie (Kim Butcher), is living with her. Along with dating an obnoxious biker, Debbie also resents the fact that Jackie is obviously Edmund’s favorite. And, as quickly becomes clear, Debbie is as much of a sociopath as her mother…
Speaking of which, Dorothy may have been found sane but it’s obvious that she’s not. (Throughout the film, no matter how erratic Dorothy’s behavior becomes, Graham continually assures us that she has been found sane.) It also become obvious that Jackie’s placebos are not doing the trick. Dorothy is once again murdering the random people who come to get their fortunes told. And Edmund is helping her cover up the crimes, all the while pathetically telling anyone who will listen, “They said she was sane….they said she was sane…”
Frightmare is one of those films that you really do have to see in order to understand just how effective it is. It’s an undoubtedly pulpy story and there’s not a subtle moment to be found in the entire film but it doesn’t matter. Frightmare is properly named because it is pure nightmare fuel. This is a film that work both as a family melodrama and a satire on the trust that people put into authority (the authorities said that Dorothy was sane so, everyone assumes, she must be) but ultimately, this is an intense and frightening little film. That’s largely due to Sheila Keith’s ferocious performance. She turns Dorothy into a force of cannibalistic nature.
Feel free to have a Death Line/Frightmare double feature. Just don’t expect to have much of an appetite afterward…
When was the last time you actually saw a good movie on Chiller? Seriously, it doesn’t happen that often and perhaps that’s why, when, a few years ago, I curled up on the couch and watched 2009′s The House of the Devil on Chiller, I wasn’t expecting much. However, I was pleasantly surprised to discover that The House of the Devil is actually one of the most effective low-budget horror films that I’ve seen in a while.
The plot of House of the Devil is pretty simple. Samantha (a likable performance from Jocelin Donahue) is a college student who has just moved into her first apartment. However, Samantha can’t really afford to pay the rent so she agrees to take a babysitting job for the mysterious Mr. Ullman (Tom Noonan, who is just so creepy in this film). Ullman offers her one hundred dollars to come babysit for the night. Samantha agrees and, with her skeptical friend Megan (Greta Gerwig, who is hilarious here), drives out to Ullman’s home. It turns out that Ullman lives in an isolated house out in the country and that he actually doesn’t have any children. Instead, he wants Samantha to babysit his aging mother while he goes into town so he can watch the lunar eclipse which just happens to be happening on that exact night! Samantha is reluctant but agrees to stay when Ullman offers to pay her $400.00.
And can you guess where this story is headed?
This film isn’t titled House of the Devil for nothing.
As I said before, I wasn’t expecting much from The House Of The Devil. I was honestly expecting it just to be a typical, low-budget Chiller horror film, good for nothing more then maybe a laugh or two and maybe a few memorably silly gore effects. Having now seen the film, I’m very happy to say that I was incorrect. The House of the Devil is a well-made, effectively creepy horror film and it’s one that other horror filmmakers could very much learn from.
Don’t get me wrong. The plot of House of the Devil isn’t going to win any points for creativity. Even if the film didn’t open with a wonderfully self-concious title card informing us that the movie is “based on a true story” of Satanic activity, it would be pretty easy to figure out that nothing good is going to happen once Samantha goes into the house. But that actually works to the film’s advantage. The House of the Devil feels like an old ghost story told at a sleepover. You know where the story’s heading but you get scared nonetheless because, ultimately, it’s the type of story that plays on the fears that everyone has.
Also, in the style of the scary ghost story told by a storyteller with a flashlight pointed up at her chin, The House of the Devil understands that the best horrors are the ones produced by an overstimulated imagination. With the exception of two or three scenes, this is not a gory film nor is it a film that sadistically lingers over scenes of torture and carnage. Instead, director Ti West takes his time to set up both the story and the characters. This is a film where the horror comes more from a carefully constructed atmopshere than any sort of easy shock effects. As a result, this is a horror film that actually stays with you after you watch it.
The House of the Devil is a film that I’m very happy to recommend.
So, earlier today, I finally got around to watching the latest SyFy original film, The Hollow. (The Hollow originally aired last Saturday but I missed it because I was going from Halloween party to Halloween party, wandering around in chilly and wet weather without much on and eventually coming down with a cold as a result.) Now, it may seem strange to review a made-for-TV movie as a part of a series of grindhouse film reviews but, much like They Found Hell, The Hollow probably would have played at the grindhouse if there was still a grindhouse around for it to play at.
As for the film itself, it was a story of death, curses, family dysfunction, and sisterhood. The Hollow takes place on Shelter Island. To be honest, just the name Shelter Island should let you know that something bad is going to happen. I mean, Shelter Island sounds too similar to Shutter Island for it to be a totally safe place. One hundred years ago, a legendary storm wiped out the island’s population. Over the century, the island has recovered and new people have moved in. But now, another storm is threatening to hit and that storm is bringing a curse with it! Soon, the island will be attacked by monsters that appear to be made out of dirt and fire…
Of course, the monsters aren’t the only ones coming to Shelter Island. There are three sisters as well — Sarah (Stephanie Hunt), Marley (Sarah Dugdale), and Emma (Alisha Newton). Coming from a dysfunctional family, they’re planning on spending Halloween in a cabin on the island and working on their fractured relationship. Unfortunately, those plans are interrupted by the arrival of the monsters. As the sisters try to find some way to get off the island, Emma suddenly vanishes. Sarah and Marley search for her, while dealing not only with the monster but also with other survivors, some of whom are more helpful than others.
I actually really enjoyed The Hollow. Why? Well, it all comes down to three things:
Number one, Shelter Island was extremely creepy! This film is full of images of characters running through a seemingly endless forest, with all the trees enshrouded by a thick fog. Director Sheldon Wilson took full advantage of the menacing possibilities of his location. When it comes to a horror film — especially a low-budget one — never underestimate the importance of atmosphere.
Number two, the monsters were genuinely scary and well-done. You never knew where they were going to suddenly show up and, as a result, you were kept off-balance throughout the entire film.
Finally, the main reason I enjoyed The Hollow was because Stephanie Hunt, Sarah Dugdale, and Alisha Newton were perfectly cast and believable as the three sisters. I’m the youngest of four sisters and, needless to say, there were many scenes to which I could relate. Since you believed their relationship and cared about them as characters, this brought a bit more depth to The Hollow than you might otherwise have expected.
The Hollow was a nice surprise. Keep an eye out for it on the SyFy channel.
The 1971 Hammer film Hands of the Ripper tells the story of Anna (Angharad Rees), a woman living in Victorian England who has a few issues.
What type of issues, you may wonder? Well, first off, she’s the daughter of the infamous serial killer known as Jack The Ripper. When she was just a baby, her father killed her mother while Anna watched from her crib. Now, years later, the teenage Anna is working for a fake medium named Mrs. Golding (Dora Bryan). It’s Anna’s job to stand behind the curtain and provide the ghostly voices whenever Mrs. Golding is holding one of her fake seances.
One such séance is attended by both a sleazy member of Parliament named Dysart (Derek Godfrey) and a progressive psychiatrist named Dr. John Pritchard (Eric Porter). When Mrs. Golding’s ruse is discovered, she decides to “give” Anna to Dysart. However, this plan falls apart when Anna suddenly goes crazy, grabs a fireplace poker, and murders Mrs. Golding. Dysart flees the scene, leaving Anna, who claims to have no memory of attacking anyone, with John. Assuming that he can cure her, John takes Anna in and set her up at his house.
Well, it turns out that curing Anna will not be quite as easy as John assumed. For one thing, Anna is extremely repressed and often refuses to open up to him. Also, there’s the fact that Anna keeps killing people. Whenever anyone stands to close to Anna or kisses her on the cheek, Anna goes into a trance and hears her father’s voice demanding that she kill. John, convinced that he can save Anna, continues to cover up every murder.
I really wasn’t expecting much from Hands of the Ripper. In fact, I have to admit that the main reason I dvred it off of TCM was because I thought this might be the film in which Klaus Kinski played Jack the Ripper. I was wrong, of course. The Kinski Jack the Ripper film was called Jack the Ripper and it was directed by Jess Franco. Hands of the Ripper, on the other hand, is a Hammer film that was released in 1971, at a time when Hammer was struggling to stay relevant in an ever-changing cinematic landscape. Perhaps that’s why the murders in Hands of the Ripper were gory, even be the bloody standards of Hammer Films.
Interestingly enough, though the film was made over 40 years ago, the murders themselves remain quite shocking. I can only imagine how audiences in 1971 reacted to them. The scene where Anna suddenly attacks a housekeeper made me flinch, as did a later scene in which one of Anna’s victims stumbled out onto a crowded street, minus an eye. Angharad Rees gave a good performance as Anna, one that keeps you guessing as to whether or not she’s just crazy or if maybe she really is possessed by the spirit of her father.
Hands of the Ripper is a good Hammer film, one that combines the usual Hammer tropes with a bit more psychological depth than one might expect. This is one to keep an eye out for.
Through the Shattered Lens 