Horror in the 90s The First Power

The First Power (1990) 

Directed by Robert Resnikoff 

Written by Robert Resnikoff 

Starring Lou Diamond Phillips, Tracy Griffiths, Jeff Kober, Mykelti Williamson 

Release Date April 6th, 1990 

Box Office $22.4 million 

Right off the bat in The First Power, we are off to a bad start. The film begins on a massive info dump of exposition. A Nun, Sister Marguerite (Elizabeth Arlen), is speaking to a group of Priests, her church leadership, one can infer. She lays out the state of the universe. 15 people in Los Angeles have been murdered and their bodies have been mutilated with a symbol of the Devil, the pentagram. Sister Marguerite believes that this a sign, a symbol of, perhaps, the rise of Satan and the start of an apocalypse. The church leaders dismiss her concern and send her back to her convent. 

We know, by knowing the movie that we've chosen to watch, that this Nun is right, and the Devil is indeed inspiring this killer to kill. So, why dump exposition like this? Laziness? Clumsiness? A disrespect for audience intelligence? Yeah, probably. Making things infinitely more insulting however is how awful the acting is in this moment. Now, to be as fair as possible to Elizabeth Arlen, no actor, of any level of skill could deliver this kind of dialogue while emoting and trying to communicate a character and come off well. She was at a grave disadvantage. 

Why choose to start what is supposed to be an atmospheric chiller about a demon possessed serial killer like this? No music, neither the main character or the killer is on screen, and reams of exposition delivered by a main character to several non-characters. It doesn't tell us anything about the church, it tells us little about Sister Marguerite aside from how much her actor is struggling to fight through the scene. Writer-Director Robert Resnikoff has done a grave disservice to Ms. Arlen by placing the burden of starting the movie entirely on her when he has a movie star, Lou Diamond Phillips, at the ready. 

The scene immediately following the opening is WAY more intriguing and effective. Detective Logan (Lou Diamond Phillips) is looking over a map of recent killings. He has crime scene photos laid out, a visual indication of who he is and what he is doing. Logan gets a phone call from a mysterious woman whom we will learn, eventually, is a psychic named Tess Seaton (Tracy Griffith). She tells Logan that she knows where the killer is and will tell Logan if he promises not to kill him, and not to push for the death penalty when he captures him. Logan agrees and the two agree to meet. 

Who is this woman? How does she know what she knows? The crime scene photos tell us he's a killer, the phone conversation tells us he's dangerous and has a very specific M.O. Logan crosses lines on a map based on what the woman on the phone has said, the X's marking the map are places where bodies were found. Each can be connected with lines that come together to form a Pentagram. In less than 2 minutes of cryptic but intriguing visuals and dialogue, we've been brought into The First Power far more effectively that in the opening scene. 

Find my full length review at Horror.Media 

Movie Review: Don't Let Go

Don't Let Go (2019)

Directed by Jacob Aaron Estes

Written by Jacob Aaron Estes

Starring David Oyelowo, Brian Tyree Henry, Storm Reid, Mykelti Williamson

Release Date August 30th, 2019

Published August 29th, 2019 

Don’t Let Go is a pulse-pounding stunner of a time travel thriller. David Oyelowo stars in Don’t Let go as Detective Jack Radcliff, an L.A cop with a very close relationship with his niece, Ashley (Storm Reid). Ashley’s dad, played in a cameo by Bryan Tyree Henry, is a troubled songwriter and part time drug dealer, who has recently gotten deep in over his head. It’s led him to neglect his daughter, and place his family in danger. 

How much danger? When Jack goes for a visit to his brother’s home, he finds the door standing open. Inside, he finds his brother’s wife on the floor, shot dead. Upstairs, Jack finds the body of his brother, dead from a gunshot wound to the head which we see in grisly detail as Jack’s grief overcomes him and he clutches his brother's gaping skull, attempting to hold closed the already fatal wound. 

The most devastating blow however, is yet to come. After finding his brother’s body, Jack goes looking for Ashley and finds her shot to death in the family bathroom, her attempt to flee through a window cut short. It’s a stunning scene and one played by David Oyelowo with a forlorn resignation and jarring emotionality. Oyelowo may be slight in build but his emotional stature is towering and in this scene, devastating. 

In another universe, we would get a straight ahead cop procedural in which Jack tracks down the killers, held back by the rules of law and probably some insider corruption that keeps the baddies ahead of his every move until he’s able to outwit them. That’s not, however, what Don’t Let Go is. This is nothing remotely typical. Written and directed by Jacob Estes, best known for the indie thriller Mean Creek, Don’t Let Go has a time travel conceit that subverts expectations in wonderfully inventive and genuinely surprising ways. 

Days after laying his family to rest, Jack’s phone rings and the display claims that the call is coming from Ashley’s phone. The calls keep coming until finally Jack answers and finds Ashley on the other end. No, she’s not survived by some miracle, she’s actually calling from two weeks in the past, a time before the murder. How is this possible? The filmmakers don’t appear to care about that and neither should we. 

The most important thing to consider in order to find Don’t Let Go as compelling and excited as I did, is not to get caught up on why this is happening. For me, the rest of Don’t Let Go is so interesting, so unique and attention grabbing, I simply bought into the story and went where the movie wanted to take me. I bought into the suspense, I bought into the blood and guts and I bought into this complicated premise that might prove to be a dealbreaker for less committed audience members. 

You cannot overestimate how incredible David Oyelowo is in Don’t Let Go. Oyelowo has remarkable instincts, his eyes are so alive and compelling. You never catch Oyelowo acting and yet the look on his face demonstrates wheels turning and remarkable effort. The blood, the sweat, the dirt, Oyelowo lives this role and I found his intensity and commitment impossible to resist. The same could be said of his young co-star, Storm Reid. Reid impressed me in Ava Duvernay's wonderful, A Wrinkle in Time and she's equally as impressive here as she attempts to solve her own murder. 

Don’t Let Go absolutely came out of nowhere for me. The generic title made me believe this was going to be a minor and forgettable and perhaps that low bar helped a little. Writer-director Jacob Estes makes a strong case that Don’t Let Go with its unusual time travel premise and heart-stopping suspense is just a really great thriller. The pace is perfectly calibrated and the film score is among the best of 2019. 

Don’t Let Go is exceptional and at a time where we lack in great thrillers, the film stands out that much more for being a classic piece of genre filmmaking.