Tomacco Addicts in Isolation

Sunday night was our third straight Midnight Madness film, Isolation. While it was played up beforehand on the premise of being out in the middle of nowhere when trouble strikes, it was more of a genetic engineering gone wrong suspense. Biology ain’t pretty, whether it’s the graphic depiction of a cow’s difficult birthing or homicidal mutant exo-skeletal cow beasts with a taste for human flesh. As far as suspense/horror movies go, this one was much more effective than the typical Hollywood fare. Instead of overdone fancy special effects, it got a lot more out of effective directing and fleeting glimpses of the ‘monsters’ to actually create a tense atmosphere. The characters sometimes fell victim to horror-movie-stupidity (prompting exasperated giggles from the audience), but all in all it was a good movie.

I was on my own for an early afternoon showing of These Girls the next day. Now unfortunately the debut of this had been earlier in the weekend, so whatever stars may have shown up for the festival would have attended then. Actually, checking the posts at IMDB indicate the major cast members were there. Damn … so I missed out on seeing Caroline Dhavernas (she of Wonderfalls greatness) in person. There was plenty of her to see onscreen, though.

The movie itself turned out to be extremely funny and really enjoyable, despite a somewhat slow start. With the narration and character introductions, it seemed like they were trying too hard and it just wasn’t clicking. But once the story got going, the situation of these three teenage girls ensnaring David Boreanaz’ character with sexual blackmail led to much hilarity. Boreanaz gave Angel some surprising humor at times and that ability came through here as the married father of a small baby, by no means perfect, but still frustrated and resigned to the crazy mess he’s gotten himself into. Previously unknown Holly Lewis was a scene stealer as Lisa, the hypocritically religious and awkward one of the girls. She was the only star at my showing, and claimed in the Q&A afterwards that she didn’t have to stretch much at the awkwardness which may be why it worked so well. She was definitely hilarious, and her and David provided probably the funniest sex scene I’ve seen.

The honor for strangest sex scene would go to Saint-Martyrs-des-Damnes later in the day, but that movie will be the subject of another post.