Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (2019)

6. In the Tall Grass

Early in his career, Vincenzo Natali directed a few stray episodes of Canadian-produced TV shows like “PSI Factor,” “Earth: Final Conflict,” or “Space Cases.”  Around 2013, after “Haunter” came and went without making much of an impact, Natali started to work in television a lot more. He did a run of episodes of “Hannibal” and also worked on “Orphan Black,” “Wayward Pines,” “The Strain,” “Westworld,” and “American Gods.” He's also done some work for Netflix, the modern equivalent to low-budget Canadian television. He worked on “Hemlock Grove,” one of their earliest original series, and partnered with the streaming service again to make episodes of “Luke Cage” and the new “Lost in Space.” So it was really only a matter of time before Natali directed a movie for Netflix. That time would come in 2019, when he made “In the Tall Grass” for the streaming giant. 

Becky and her older brother Cal are driving across country. She is six months pregnant and they are traveling to meet the foster family she plans on giving the baby too. After stopping in an abandoned church parking lot, they notice the voice of a child calling to them from the field of tall grass across the street. They decide to head in and help the kid out. Soon, both Cal and Becky become lost in the grass. They soon observe that the field doesn't seem to follow any observable logic, their position in the grass shifting randomly. It's not long before it becomes clear that time works differently in the grass as well, events reoccurring and tracing back over each other. Cal and Becky – accompanied by the father of Becky's child as well as the family of the lost boy – uncover even more disturbing secrets in the tall grass. 

“In the Tall Grass” is adapted from a novella by Stephen King and Joe Hill, the eldest son of the beloved author and a successful horror writer in his own right. It's basically a running gag at this point that King will wrote a scary story about literally anything, no matter how ridiculous it may seem on its face. This is the man who wrote on topics like an evil laundry press, a creepy lawnmower, spooky corn, ominous cellphones, and two separate novels about demonic cars. And because King's name really is that profitable, a lot of those questionable premises were made into movies. When I heard that a Stephen King movie about grass was coming out, it sounded almost like a parody. Was the most successful horror author of our time truly trying to mine scares from the most commonplace of plant life?

As utterly absurd as a horror movie about grass may seem, “In the Tall Grass” actually has a premise with potential. The idea of tall grass blowing in the wind could produce a potentially spooky soundscape. (As evident in “Onibaba,” an obvious influence on this one.) Moreover, the idea of being lost in a maze that can never be escaped brings with it a degree of existential horror. There's a degree of cosmic horror here too, as the grass is seemingly a living organism with plans beyond the scope of human understanding. Some have suggested H.P. Lovecraft's “In the Walls of Eryx” was an influence on the story, which would make the degree of cosmic horror in the movie seem like an even more deliberate choice.

If nothing else, it's easy to see why this idea appealed to this director. As in “Cube” and “Nothing” this is another Vincenzo Natali movie that takes place in a limited location. An inescapable field of grass is not that different from an endless void of white. Characters getting trapped in this situation isn't too different, in the abstract anyway, from being lost in a maze of interconnected cubes. Both the idea behind “In the Tall Grass” and “Cube” tap into similar threads of existential dread. You can also see how the story's eventual time-loop shenanigans and mind-bending twists would appeal to the director who made “Cypher” and “Haunter.” If Natali was going to adapt a King story, this one definitely has his vibe.

Despite that, I still found myself loosing patience with “In the Tall Grass” quickly. Getting lost in an inescapable field, that constantly shifts your location around so you can never gain your bearings? Sure, that's pretty scary. Once the idea of a time loop enters the story, it starts to feel like “In the Tall Grass” is grasping at straws for a way to expand its limited premise to feature length. This is furthered by the movie never once attempting to explain what the hell, exactly, is happening here. There's no logic inside the grass, time going back and forth in random ways. This might've made the idea scarier but, in execution, it just feels like nobody put much thought into the film's interior logic. Stuff just happens in the foreboding field for no reason. 

Eventually, some sort of half-assed explanation for these mysterious events is provided. A large, magical rock lies in the center of the grass. This seems connected to the church on the opposite end of the road. Those who touch the rock develop a cult-like obsession with it and the grass. There are implications that this is not the first batch of people to become enthralled to the rock and the grass. Again, this feels like a desperate attempt to expand a premise that might've made an okay ten-pager or a half-hour anthology episode but feels seriously stretched-out at novel/feature length. I don't mind suggestions or mystery – least of all in a Vincenzo Natali movie – but this stuff does not make the movie feel more intriguing. It just feels sweaty.

In hopes of stretching this idea out long enough to occupy an entire movie, “In the Tall Grass” has to indulge in one of my least favorite genre tropes. That would be characters, trapped in an isolated locations and a perilous situation, beginning to bicker and fight among themselves. You see this happen a lot in zombie movies and I hate it every single time. It's always just an excuse to add more tension to the scenario and it never feels natural. This is exactly how it plays out here. Cal and Becky's baby daddy get into a fight, arguing about who has purer intentions towards Becky, while standing around inside a bowling alley. Presumably, there's an abandoned bowling alley in the middle of the field specifically to set up this bit of meaningless drama. When we are preoccupied with the mystery of what the hell exactly is happening here, it's very difficult indeed to care about insignificant in-fights like this.

Maybe this wouldn't be the case if we were invested in “In the Tall Grass'” characters but, I'm sad to say, this is not the case. Becky is defined solely by her status as a pregnant woman. Cal is just her weird brother, who may or may not have inappropriate feelings towards her. We do learn that Travis, her boyfriend, has a band and that lack of a future is why Cal ostensibly dislikes him so much. That's still not enough to care about him. Tobin, the little boy, varies between being a creepy horror movie child and a naïve kid protagonist. And his mom is only in two scenes. None of the actors bring any particular depth to these roles, with Will Bule Jr. actually being quite tone-deaf as the little boy.

The only character in the movie that made much of an impression on me was Ross, the boy's father. He becomes a fanatical devotee to the rock and field a second after touching it. It's not long before he shifts into a dangerous psychopath who is murdering people on behalf of the strange power behind this eldritch location. On paper, this is another standard Stephen King villain type: The evil religious fanatic. (Ross even clarifies that he used to play in a Christian rock group, confirming he's trading one evil cult for another.) Thanks to star Patrick Wilson, Ross becomes an amusingly hammy bad guy. Despite his depraved acts, Wilson plays Ross as an incessantly upbeat man. He maintains this unhinged energy even when crushing heads in his bare hands or performing profane rituals before his new god.

“In the Tall Grass” continues to run out of ideas the longer it goes on. A grass field that looses people, a magical rock with uncertain purposes, and weirdo time travel malarkey was, I guess, not enough to sustain this story. In its second half, “In the Tall Grass” gets increasingly weird and goofy.  Humanoid creatures with faces made of grass appear. Becky's unborn child is seemingly absorbed by the grass. Screaming infants made out of tangled tree roots appear. There's even a suggestion of infanticide and cannibalism. Where the fuck any of this stuff fits into the film's weirdo cosmology, or what any of it even means, is left for the audience to interpret. Personally, I just think it all looks really silly. 

If I can pay “In the Tall Grass” no other compliment, it's that it looks really nice. Vincenzo Natali does create some cool looking images. Some of the weird grass rituals are depicted through a burst of visuals: Of a crow flying and cawing, of grass growing and tangling up into knots, of blood-like capillaries. In its final act, we even see red veins of light flowing through the field, recalling these body-like images from earlier. In the final, we get a peek at the inside of a church. The interior is very boxy – which feels like an intentional homage to “Cube” – and is accented all in green. It's good to know that, even when working with subpar material, Natali still makes sure things look nice.

“In the Tall Grass” was one of several Stephen King adaptations to debut in 2019. The same year also saw the release of “IT: Chapter Two,” “Doctor Sleep,” the remake of “Pet Semetary,” and the second season of “Castle Rock.” This isn't even the last King property Natali would be involved with, as he also directed two episodes of the new “The Stand” streaming series. While mediocre King stories have been turned into decent movies before, in this case it really feels like the material could not sustain a feature length run time. Despite the best efforts of its director and crew, “In the Tall Grass” is ultimately a meandering and goofy motion picture. [Grade: C]

It seems television is where most of Vincenzo Natali's future credits will be, for the time being. I guess this is the fate of many interesting indie filmmakers who had a few buzzy titles a while ago but never quite crossed over into the mainstream. Considering Natali has been attached to a number of high-profile TV shows, I guess there's certainly worst outcomes. Hopefully, he's able to make more features at some point in the future. And hopefully they are closer to the quality of “Cube” or 'Splice,” clever genre films that mixed deeper idea with effective shocks. I'll always like the guy.

Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (2013)

5. Haunter

“Splice” was actually intended to be Vincenzo Natali’s follow-up to “Cube.” He wrote the script back in the nineties but had neither the effects resources nor the budgets to bring it to life back then. After filming a script that had sat on the shelf for seventeen years, Natali was eager to get to work on his next project. That’s when he was offered a story by his “Cypher” writer, Brian King. The script was called "Haunter" and was ready to go. The movie still wouldn't be done and released until 2013 – October specifically, a good time to put out a spooky ghost story – but that's the realities of indie filmmaking for you.

Lisa wakes up every day to the sound of her little brother talking to her on his walkie talkie. Every day, her mom makes macaroni and cheese for lunch and meatloaf for dinner. Every evening, she practices her clarinet, goes to bed, wakes up, and starts the same day over again. That's because Lisa is a ghost, trapped in a repeating cycle of the day right before her death. Except, one day, something is different: The voice of another girl reaches out to her. Lisa soon realizes she's communicating with another girl, in another time, about to be pulled into the same cycle. That both girls are victims of the same man, who has been enacting this curse for five decades. 

"Haunter" finds a kind of novel approach to the ghost movie premise. This is a ghost movie told from the perspective of the ghost. Like spirits frequently are said to be, Lisa repeats the actions from her life, unaware at first that she's even dead. From her perspective, it's still 1985 and her bedroom is still covered with posters for Siouxsie and the Banshee and David Bowie. One evening, she walks into her bedroom but the walls are different. There's a different girl in her bed. What we're seeing here is a classical ghost encounter but from the ghost's point-of-view. That's a neat idea. 

"Haunter" is also a movie about a curse, one that's been visiting itself on the families living in the same house since the fifties. This was the childhood home of the malevolent old man Lisa sometimes sees. Since his own death, he's been possessing the bodies of the fathers that live there and having them carry out the same mass murder: Killing themselves and their families through carbon-dioxide poisoning. The girl in 2013 Lisa is communicating with is experiencing the exact same thing Lisa did back in the eighties. The killer explains it himself as "history doesn't repeat itself, it rhymes." Showing a ghostly curse like this, from the inside out, is probably the coolest idea "Haunter" has.

In fact, while watching "Haunter," I couldn't help but think a movie about the girl in the modern day, slowly realizing her family is caught up in a curse far older than her, would probably be more interesting. That's because, for most of its runtime, "Haunter" is actually a time loop movie. Lisa is very used to the loop by this point, having experienced it many times. She knows exactly what her parents are going to say and when they're going to say it. That a family meeting about Lisa supposedly stealing clothes is going to come every night at the exact same time. "Haunter" tries to mine suspense from changes slowly working their way into this repeating cycle. Such as her dad suddenly smoking a cigarette after dinner or mom deciding to read a book, instead of watching "Murder, She Wrote," before bed. Yet it's hard to mine suspense from such a repetitive story. Like Lisa, the viewer feels kind of numb to the scenario very quickly. "Haunter" wants to be the horror version of "Groundhog Day" but can't quite pull it off. 

The movie tries really hard to make its premise work. On the technical side of things, "Haunter" is very well done. The interior of Lisa's home feels appropriately lived-in and realistic. It feels like a house from the eighties, one a family has been living in for quite some time. The cinematography – from Jon Joffin, best known for his work on the "The X-Files" – is fittingly spooky. The 1980s scenes have a sickly green tint to them, implying everyone there is already dead, while the modern sequences are far brighter. Lisa rooting around in a dark crawlspace filled with bones or the impenetrable wall of fog that constantly surrounds her home make for some creepy visuals. Alex Khaskin's piano-driven score also establishes a chilly mood.

As hard as "Haunter" is working to generate a creepy atmosphere, it just can't quite get there. Notably, the movie's attempts at scaring the audience fall hopelessly flat. Natali tries to replicate the forceful, shocking scares he created in "Splice." In scenes like Lisa stumbling across the furnace where the killer burns the bodies of his victims. Yet the loud sounds and bright visuals intruding in a dark space just feel like a cheap jump scare. This is especially apparent during the climax, when the screaming, distorted face of a young girl is thrust into the camera. That's the kind of cheesy horror theatrics that I would think would be above Vincenzo Natali. Other attempts at creating creepy visuals – like apparitions moving in a jittery, silent movie style fashion or a little boy speaking with a grown man's voice – come off as goofy. No matter how hard it tries, "Haunter" just can't create a foreboding feeling. 

Perhaps the reason "Haunter" can't deliver the scares it wants to is because the mystery at its center isn't very compelling. At the film's beginning, Lisa already knows that she's dead. That her entire family are already ghosts. Wouldn't watching her realize this be more compelling? It's hard for a creepy atmosphere, of the normal being disrupted, to be created when there is no normal to begin with. While the exact mechanics of the curse are interesting, we've already figured out that Lisa was simply one in a line of victims the minute she fishes the killer's scrapbook out from under the floorboards. Similarly, too much time is focused on the idea of Lisa jumping around timelines, a heady idea that feels out-of-place in a story that is otherwise more grounded. 

Another reason “Haunter” isn't as compelling as it could've been is simply because Lisa is not an especially lovable protagonist. We never learn anything about her backstory or life. Her personality remains largely vague. Except for her gothy fashion and music, her clarinet lessons, and a sarcastic commitment to vegetarianism, we never learn much about her likes or dislikes. That she spends most of the movie in a bitchy mood, owing to being fed-up with this time loop, it's hard to like her. She doesn't even seem that fond of her little brother or parents. Abigail Breslin is totally passable in the role. She invests emotion whenever she can but fails in making her a compelling heroine. It's only in the last act, when she has to fight for her life against an intimidating villain, that Lisa seems to really hook the viewer in.

Playing the killer – whose name is eventually revealed to be Edgar Mullins but is only known as the Pale Man for most of the movie – Stephen McHattie. McHattie, Canada's Lance Henriksen, is exceptionally well-cast here. For the majority of his few scenes on-screen, McHattie just has to glare ominously and whisper creepy things. He's really good at this. In many other moments, just his voice is enough to make “Haunter” feel spooky. McHattie's already distinctive appearance is emphasized with pale make-up, which makes him even more of a foreboding presence. The film is at its best when McHattie's disturbing presence is felt and the film falters anytime he's not on-screen.

Outside of its villain, few of the film's cast members make much of an impression. Michelle Nolden gives a sleepy performance as Lisa's mom, which was likely intentional considering the role the character has to play in the story. Peter Outerbridge has a little more energy as her dad, occasionally showing a threatening poise or welcoming aura. (He also resembles McHattie a little bit, which was also surely intentional.) Peter DaCunha is also very broad and flat as Lisa's little brother, one of those movie kids that seems defined solely by ham-fisted attempts to be adorable. Very few of the family members from the modern day sequence make an impression, though Natali naturally sneaks David Hewlett into the brief role of the modern father. 

Truthfully, “Haunter” is a departure for the director. None of his other horror movies, up to this point, revolved around supernatural elements. Honestly, the element that most connects this movie to the director's earlier ones is that most of the story is set in one location. It's not too far of the leap to see Lisa's house, trapped inside time and fog, as an evolution of “Nothing's” white void or “Cube's” identical rooms. A small conversation between Lisa and her mom, in which the woman comes clean about her feelings about the events leading up to this day, recalls the element parenthood played in “Splice.” Otherwise, there's little here that has that distinctive Vincenzo Natali feeling. 

This review probably came off as a little harsher than I intended. “Haunter” isn't a bad movie, by any means. It has some intriguing ideas, a threatening villain, and enough professionalism behind its look and feel to occasionally scratch an itch for a certain kind of cinematic spookiness. Yet the movie is never as involving as it feels like it should be. It's a film whose potential feels misspent, where some intriguing concepts were put to the side and less compelling elements took center stage. Most reactions to the film seem to be similar to mine, that it just doesn't quite get there. And because the movie was released by IFC Midnight, it wasn't widely seen outside of the horror fandom and general film obsessives. By no means terrible, “Haunter” still ranks among the filmmaker's more forgettable works. [Grade: C+]

Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (2009)

4. Splice

Five years between movies is not a ridiculously long amount of time. Yet, by the time “Splice” came out in 2009, it sure seemed like we hadn't seen a Vincenzo Natali movie in a while. This is probably because “Cypher” and “Nothing” were not widely released and didn't become cult phenomena on the level of “Cube.” Another reason it felt this way is because “Splice” was the first of Natali's films to get a truly wide release. (I saw it at my local shitty Regal.) It was distributed by Hollywood studios like Dark Castle and Warner Brothers. The film was executive produced by Guillermo del Toro, who it's easy to imagine what a big fan of Natali's work, and had a budget of 30 million dollars. In other words, it was easily the biggest movie of the filmmaker's career up to this point.

Elsa and Clive, two genetic engineers and a married couple, work to create life at N.E.R.D. (Nucleic Exchange Research and Development) Their latest creations are Fred and Ginger, male and female lifeforms made by splicing different genes together. Elsa hopes to splice human and animal DNA next but are forbidden from doing it by their bosses... But the two decide to do it anyway, under the radar and off the books. Their experiment unexpectedly comes to term, birthing a bizarre female creature. It survives longer than expect, growing at a fast rate, and eventually begins to display human-like behavior. Elsa names her Dren and begins to treat her like a daughter. Yet, as Dren grows and matures, her inhuman side shows more. And so does the flaws of her “parents.”

“Splice” is, knowingly, Vincenzo Natali doing his riff on the “Frankenstein” story. He nods towards this in several direct ways: Elsa and Clive are named after Elsa Lancester and Colin Clive. Shortly following Dren's birth, Elsa even shouts “she's alive.” The narrative veers towards the idea of man meddling in God's domain. However, the filmmaker attempts to update “the mad scientist creates monster” premise in his own clever way. Instead of stitching together dead bodies, Dren is made through near-future genetic engineering technology. At one point, the characters discuss the legality of cloning a human, before Elsa responds that their creation won't be human. This shows how “Splice” follows in “Frankenstein's” footsteps, expressing modern anxieties about advances like CRISPR the same way Mary Shelley was voicing fears about the science of her time. 

And like Mary Shelly's original novel, “Splice” is also about parenthood. The film is rift with pregnancy imagery. The artificial womb Dren is born from is subjected to ultrasounds, just like a regular pregnancy. Her arrival brings with it anticipation and anxiety, over the countless things that could go wrong. Elsa and Clive even openly discuss having a child before deciding to create life at their lab. The tank the semi-aquatic adult Dren frequently sleeps in invokes a womb-like feeling. Dren screeches in an ear-splitting fashion and keeps the parents up at all hours of the night, the same way a newborn does. The arrival of Dren also means an interruption of Elsa and Clive's sex life, as often happens with new parents. The movie bakes a number of deliberate parallels into its story.

Moreover, the movie is about how men and women approach child rearing. Clive is frightened by Dren at first. He frequently asks Elsa to kill the monsters they've made, bringing the idea of an uncertain father-to-be considering paying for an abortion to mind. Before Dren's unexpected birth, he even outright announces he's going to “kill it.” Elsa, meanwhile, is immediately attached to this small, vulnerable life form. It's not long before Elsa is dressing her little monster up in girly clothing and trying to teach it to read. Clive, meanwhile, remains resistant. When Dren has a panic attack following a move, Clive shoves the female creature under water... Ostensibly to activate the gills Dren has but also, it's suggested, to end the thing's life. While Elsa's maternal instincts kick in immediately, Clive is far more concerned about the consequences of what they've done. 

Of course, parenting skills don't appear in a vacuum. We learn how to raise children from our own parents. The legacy left to us by our own mothers visits itself on Elsa as “Splice” goes on. We learn more and more about her abusive childhood. How her mother forbid her from wearing make-up, how she made her sleep on a naked mattress on the floor. How she wouldn't let her have dolls. At first, Elsa is trying not to repeat the mistakes of the past on Dren, her symbolic child. As Dren grows older and tests the authority of her parents, like any teenager, Elsa quickly backslides towards her own abusive past. Clive says it himself: As long as Dren was something cute and small that Elsa could control, she loved her. The minute the monster becomes independent, Elsa exerts control in horribly abusive ways. This cycle of abuse is something many adult children struggle to escape and “Splice” puts a very interesting, personal riff on that idea.

Part of why teenagers start acting out against their parents, start demanding more freedom, is because they're starting to develop a sex drive. The way “Splice” handles that particular idea is probably the plot point people have the most trouble with. The only male Dren has ever been exposed to is Clive, her “father.” She draws crayon sketches of him, the same way a growing girl might express a childish crush... Yet Dren is also a half-human entity without the built-in societal taboos or conditioning people have. This is probably why Dren attempts to seduce Clive. What I think rubs a lot of the viewers the wrong way about this is how easily Clive gives in. Maybe it does come a bit out of nowhere but I sort of love the movie taking this wild swing, designing a strangely erotic monster and allowing the story to explore that. 

“Splice” does contribute an interesting addition to the cinematic legacy of monsters. Dren begins life as a squirming tadpole creature, before something that resembles a hairless rat with kangaroo legs jumps out. She grows more human-like but retains those springy-legs, with feet that resemble a second pair of hands. She has that unnervingly fleshy tail, outfitted with a deadly stinger. The way Dren evolves as a creature, sprouting wings in a nice moment, is one of “Splice's” best surprises. Delphine Chaneac, her face and eyes made more uncanny with clever CGI, makes Dren a real character to with personality quirks. The way she becomes excited at dancing is honestly cute. 

As interested as it is in science and parenthood, “Splice” is still a horror movie. Natali knows it too. The scare sequences are often filmed with shotgun intensity. Dren's birth, with Elsa's arm being caught in the artificial womb by something, is fittingly tense. The best shock in the movie concerns Fred and Ginger suddenly, violently turning against each other. The weird little critters, resembling both worms and organs, suddenly stabbing one another – splattering blood all over their cage – is pretty shocking. The shocks are piled on, with the scene growing even more outrageous from that point. 

That moment foreshadows “Splice's” last act, which is when the film most resembles a tradition “monster on the loose” narrative. Dren's revenge on their parents certainly contains some moments that shock or disgust. Yet “Splice,” which was so exciting and clever up to this point, also because pretty predictable after this twist. As a horror director, Natali does his best work when catching the audience off-guard. That's why Fred and Giner's blood-splattered demises earlier works so well. And why Dren's last act rampage feels like a foregone conclusion, like the film limply cycling towards its cynical denouncement.

That epilogue is especially important and ends “Splice” on a chilling note. Throughout the film, Elsa and Clive's corporate backers have demanded they abandon their research into human/animal splicing. Instead, they want them to get to work growing DNA strands that can be used in protein and food production. The idea of corporation's disregarding the people behind the things they own, and focused only on the profits they can make from them, continues the thread of anti-corporate themes we've seen in Natali's past films. It's also makes for a hell of an “Or is it?” ending, which also connects back to the kind of classic monster movies “Splice” pays homage too.

Really holding “Splice” together is a strong set of lead performances. Sarah Polly as Elsa and Adrien Brody as Clive were, apparently, the director's only choices for the roles. Both are really good. Even if the script bends her character in some unexpected directions, Polly maintains Elsa's humanity. She is ultimately a tragic person, trying to escape her destiny as another child abuser but hopelessly drawn back towards it anyway. Brody, meanwhile, somehow keeps Clive from coming off as an impulsive, insensitive asshole. Despite the obviously morally objectionable things he does, he still seems like someone the audience can like and root for. Like a guy caught up in something he really can't control. (And just in case you forgot this was a Vincenzo Natali movie, he finds a small supporting role for David Hewlett too.)

“Splice” would be the first Dark Castle production to actually be well received by critics. It would also, funny enough, be one of the few outright flops the company would make, grossing only 27 million at the box office. I guess this goes to show you that audiences and critics have very different expectations for monster movies. This is also apparent in the reactions to “Splice” I've seen, which tend to be wildly mixed. Yet the film has found more than a fair share of defenders. It's an extremely interesting riff on the monster movie premise, exploring deeper ideas among a number of decent shocks and surprise plot twists. [Grade: B+]

Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (2003)

3. Nothing

After directing a bleak sci-fi/horror film with philosophical overtones like “Cube” and a twisting espionage story about the malleability of identity like “Cypher,” you can understand why Vincenzo Natali would want to make something a little more light-hearted. The director had known actors David Hewlett and Andrew Miller since they were teenagers, as they all went to high school together. Together, the three began to formulate an idea for an off-beat comedy. Writer Andrew Lowery was brought in to help hash out the script further. The resulting project, “Nothing,” would begin to play festivals in 2003.

Dave and Andrew have been the best of friends since they were kids, on account of both being outcasts. Dave is a slacker that greatly overestimates his own talent. Andrew is an extreme agoraphobic. As adults, they live in a cramped house positioned between two highway overpasses. In the course of one day, both men's lives totally fall apart. And that is when the outside world is totally replaced by an endless white void. Dave and Andrew are initially baffled and frightened by this incident. Yet they soon find the nothingness to be a cozy escape from the pressures of reality. Afterwards, they even learn to control what disappears and what stays.

“Nothing” is another Vincenzo Natali movie that turns its limitations into a feature. Despite the obvious tonal differences – one is a serious nightmare situation, the other is a surreal farce – “Nothing” has some things in common with “Cube.” Much like his feature debut, this movie is also shot on an obvious limited set. It wasn't shot in one room, endlessly redecorated to present the illusion of multiple rooms. Yet an endless white void, created through clever combination of physical locations and green screen, was similarly limited. “Nothing” also revolves almost totally around three characters and one of them is a pet turtle. It goes to show how able Natali is to do a lot with a little.

Before the story shifts totally to the titular nothingness, the film convincingly creates the worst day ever for both of its protagonists. We see some of the cramped, cyberpunk set design from “Cypher” in the brief glimpse we get at Dave's office job, where chairs are suspended from the ceiling via dangling wires. The home, which looks like half of a proper building, is in a hellish location, where the noise from two overpasses are constantly heard. Even what little comforts they have are shattered by an escalating series of disasters. Dave is accused of embezzlement at work, fired, and then dumped by his girlfriend. Andrew is accused of abusing a little girl by a random woman, considers suicide, and then looses the building he calls home. It's the kind of exaggerated cascade of bad luck that would make a giant big, white void seem nice in comparison.

Even when in a more whimsical mood, Vincenzo Natali's films still tackle heavier, headier themes. About halfway through the movie, Andrew and Dave realize that they created the movie's titular white void themselves by “hating” away the world. They then touch upon the idea of “hating” away their bad memories or their doubts and fears. At which point, the neurotic Andrew becomes more confident while Dave becomes more of an obnoxious asshole. The movie causes the viewer to think about what it is exactly that's holding them back from happiness, what things about ourselves we would “hate” away if we could... And whether what we perceive as our greatest roadblocks actually are or not.

Vincenzo Natali characterizes “Nothing” as, above everything else, a movie about friendship. Dave and Andrew's relationship is mostly based off few other people being able to tolerate them. But it's clear the two also rely on each other after so many years. They've gotten used to cohabiting with one another. After the initial shock of being transported to a white void wears off, they are even giddy to have no one but each other (and their adorable pet turtle) to deal with. Yet even the best friends have their limits. Once he “hates” his insecurities away, Andrew fears Dave only puts up with him because he can look down on him. Dave, meanwhile, resents the ways his friend has his life together better in some ways. They struggle, argue, and fight, which is displayed largely through a hyper-tense game of “Dead or Alive 3.” They also work it out, like bros always do. In its own absurd way, “Nothing” accurately maps how male friendships are often built on this mixture of mutual respect and petty bickering.

But let's put thematic issues aside for a moment. While there was occasional moments of comic relief in “Cube” or “Cypher,” I wouldn't have categorized Vincenzo Natali as a funny filmmaker up to this point. So how does “Nothing” fair as a comedy? It definitely has a number of amusing moments. At first, Andrew fears that he and Dave are dead and in the afterlife. David turns on the TV and says “We can't be dead, we have cable.” Which is a pretty good line. The way the story builds in absurdity, especially the goofy way Andrew starts to spy on his friend in the last act, also got a chuckle out of me. The extremely specific notes Andrew leaves for other people also made me laugh a little. “Nothing” has a quirky spirit – obvious in visuals like a half-house sitting between two freeways – and it rides that for most of its run time.

However, not all of “Nothing” is so giddily amusing. Sometimes, the film's sense of humor veers towards the obnoxiously wacky. Upon exiting their home and entering the nothingness, Dave and Andrew find an invisible floor that is strangely springy. This revelation proceeds a sequence of them bouncing around in a joyous, childish manner. It's a scene that goes on way too long and the intentionally goofy sound effects start to grate after a while. Similarly, a scene where both men have nightmares – about finding murderous doubles of themselves inside their house – goes on far pass the point of being amusing.

As much as “Nothing” sets out to amuse, it's almost as if Vincenzo Natali can't keep himself from inserting something horrific into this story. The big finale of “Nothing” has Dave and Andrew, during their argument, using their powers to “hate” each other's body parts away. We see their skin, muscles, internal organs, and bones dissolve away into nothingness. At different points, both men are crawling around on stumps or just using their arms like legs. It goes on like this until both are disembodied heads. The CGI effects used to create this moment have aged pretty poorly, though it's probably for the best that this sequence veers more towards the cartoonish than the gory. It's still a bizarre sight. If nothing else, it is a memorable visual to conclude the movie on. 

“Nothing” is largely a two-hander, every actor in the movie disappearing after the first act. Naturally, Vincenzo Natali has to make sure one of the two remaining performers is played by David Hewlett. In what the director refers to as an act of “creative bankruptcy,” Hewlett and Andrew Miller both play characters that share their first names. Hewlett showed a degree of comedic timing in “Cube” and “Cypher,” which is also put to good use here. Hewlett delivers the often ridiculous dialogue with the right silly energy. As the film grows more absurd, he clearly enjoys taking the character to increasingly exaggerated places.

Starring opposite Hewlett is Andrew Miller. Miller's fictional counterpart spends the first half of the movie as a fidgeting ball of nerves. His neurosis leave him practically unable to live. A phone call he performs, as part of his ironic job as a travel agent, is a physically painful act for him. Miller does a good job of balancing the character's condition, making his debilitating quirks both amusing and deeply pathetic. As the movie goes on, Andrew overcomes his fears. Watching Miller go on that journey is satisfying, seeing his personality grow from perpetually fearful to bold and outgoing.

In order to make sure we know “Nothing” is a comedy, Natali gives the movie an aggressively quirky visual style. The movie begins with a narrated sequence, showing how Andrew and Dave begin as friends, that is animated in a fashion resembling cut-out photographs. More than once, Andrew's traumatic memories – of which he has many – are also brought to life via animation. These scenes resemble the crude scribblings of a children's drawing. This wacky style carries through up to the end credits, where the remaining characters become a series of size-changing images that are repeatedly remixed.

Much like Natali's second feature, “Nothing” would receive very little attention upon release in 2003. It played a number of festivals but, as far as I can tell, only had the most limited of theatrical releases. The movie then slipped onto DVD, where it also fail to garner much press. I first saw the movie during a late night screening on IFC, back when it was still called the Independent Film Channel. Now, it's not even streaming anywhere. This makes “Nothing” probably the most overlooked of Vincenzo Natali's filmography. Yet it's not a bad little flick. It made me laugh enough to justify its brief 85 minute runtime and has enough amusing, interesting ideas to more than sustain that. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (2002)

2. Cypher

Even though “Cube” would cause a minor stir in the world of horror, sci-fi, and cult cinema fandom, it still took Vincenzo Natali five years to get his next feature made. I guess that's the world of independent filmmaking for you, where financing is harder than ever to come by. While “Cube” was an exceptionally low budget film, Natali's follow-up would be more ambitious featuring far more special effects and sets. A seven million dollar budget – small by studio means but huge compared to “Cube” – was raised to bring “Cypher” to life. The film would be released in most parts of the world in 2002. 

Morgan Sullivan takes a job with DigiCorp, acting as a corporate spy that will travel to conferences for different companies and industries, and record their presentations. He is given the cover identity of Jack Thursby. He hopes these missions will inject some excitement into his mundane, suburban existence. Instead, Morgan/Jack starts to suffer from nightmares and headaches. A mysterious woman, named Rita, soon appears to him and tells him that DigiCorp is actually brainwashing him into believing he is Jack Thursby. He soon aligns himself with a rival company, to spy on DigiCorp as a double agent. Yet, Morgan soon learns that nothing is as it seems in this world of corporate espionage.

As “Cube” combined sci-fi, horror, psychology, and philosophy, Vincenzo Natali's follow-up is a similarly diverse genre hybrid. “Cypher” is set in a world that sometimes seems a lot like our's. There are droning corporate presentation and standard suburban homes. Yet the film will then spring some sci-fi concepts on us, like brainwashing via high-tech machines, underground labs that unfurl onto the surface, or spaceship shaped helicopters. The film also has a frequently retro feeling to it, with its focus on men in nice suits smoking cigarettes or drinking bourbon. This adds a certain noir-like atmosphere to the proceedings, which fits a story full of uncertain alliances and twists and turns. 

Yet, primarily, “Cypher” is set within the espionage genre. As is typical of the genre, the film features a convoluted story. Several times throughout the film, Morgan is working with a different corporate entity, each one with their own plans for him. It can be tricky, sometimes, to keep track of who the protagonist is aligned with at any given point. Moreover, the story is characterized by a prevailing sense of paranoia. Morgan can never be sure who to trust at any given point. Random passerby's turn out to be agents for one corporate entity or another. Even as he's given new information that affects his choices, you have to wonder if it's not part of another plot to betray him. Like the best spy movies, “Cypher” puts us in the mindset of someone who never knows who to trust.

“Cypher” is also a very cerebral take on another type of story: The married man's mid-life crisis story. We only get a few peeks at Morgan's married life but it seems deeply unhappy. His wife bosses him around. His day job is that of an accountant, the most boring job screenwriters can imagine. By going undercover as “Jack Thursby,” he gets a chance to reinvent himself. He imagines “Jack” as an exciting man who smokes cigarettes, drinks bourbon, and has adventures in the Pacific ocean. Most notably, his new identity gives him a chance to pursue strange, beautiful new women... At least until they point out he's still wearing his wedding ring. Considering the darker reveals that are coming, I suspect “Cypher” is knowingly invoking the trope of a miserable married man trying to bring some excitement into his life. Morgan certainly gets just that in this story.

By the time “Cypher” was released, it was after “The Matrix,” “Dark City,” and a number of similarly-themed films. The term “cyberpunk” wasn't as widely used as it is now but the style was definitely having a moment at the time. “Cypher” somewhat falls into this movement of movies as well, mostly for the way it blends sci-fi ideas with themes of uncertain identity. By the middle of the film, neither Morgan nor the viewer is entirely sure who he is. In this world where people can be perfectly brainwashed, we are left wondering if anyone can be entirely sure of who they are. “Cypher” also takes place in a world were corporations, seemingly selling ordinary products like perfume or processed cheese, are able to go to war with each other, another element of the cyberpunk movement that seemed both absurd and prescient.

One of my favorite things about “Cypher” is how it slowly reveals its science fiction elements. We get brief glimpses of it from the beginning, with Morgan hooked up to some sort of elaborate lie detector device. Yet, after that, the movie holds off until a key sequence where Morgan sees the brainwashing procedure up-close. That involves fractal-like test patterns appearing on-screen before metallic apparati are strapped to people's head. They are injected by needles and have messages played over their eyes, flashing messages right into their brains. By this point, we accept that the film takes place in a science-fiction universe. Which prepares us for the Vault, the movie's most elaborate flight of fancy. The entrance to the underground base folds up out of a cornfield, people stepping up a series of rising steps and into a high-tech elevator. It's pretty neat and well-done.

Even if its story sometimes gets a bit confusing, “Cypher” is still compelling on a narrative level throughout most of its run time. You wonder whether Morgan will ever escape from this web, of questioning his own identity, of being uncertain who he can and cannot trust. However, throughout the film, a mysterious employer is mentioned again and again. The viewer figures it out a few scenes before the characters do that neither Morgan nor Jack is our protagonist's actual identity. It robs the climax of a little bit of tis power when you can logic out the incoming twist right before the script unfolds it.

With much more money to play with than on his debut movie, Vincenzo Natali is able to engineer some far more elaborate visuals in “Cypher.” When Morgan is under the effects of the brainwashing drug, Dutch angles are affected along with some other disorientating, whooshing visuals. This recalls some of the clumsier moments in “Cube” but, luckily, the rest of “Cypher” looks a lot better. The scenes, set in conference rooms and offices, have a precise presentation, that seems both distant and cold. As the story grows more outlandish, Natali adds more color. The brainwashing sequence is set in deep blues. The visit to the Vault features deep greens and ambery yellows. It's very cool looking and gives “Cypher” a feel that's unique from similarly themed sci-fi films from around the same time. 

“Cypher' stars an actor named Jeremy Northam. He's an English actor best known for appearing in period dramas, like “The Tudors,” “Gosford Park,” “Emma,” and “The Crown.” Which is probably why I'm not very familiar with him, as that's not my favorite genre. Yet Mr. Northam seems well-cast here. Morgan Sullivan is a nerd, who is hopelessly in-over-his-head and pursuing a juvenile idea of what he thinks is cool. Northam plays up that awkwardness, making the character a geeky everyman that the viewer can easily relate too. Northam is also a decent enough actor to sell the eventual transformation, even if he's not quite as convincing as an experienced spy as he is a fumbling dude having a mid-life crisis.

The co-star of the film, and the closest thing “Cypher” has to a name star, is Lucy Liu as Rita. In her early scenes, Liu has to do nothing but project a smoldering sexuality. Seeing as how Lucy Liu is gorgeous and amazing, she has no problem doing just that. It's easy to see why a guy like Morgan Sullivan would immediately be entranced by her. Yet, for all her beauty and sex appeal, Rita comes across as a very cold person. Her role as a spy keeps her from getting too close to anyone. As the reason why she can't get too attached to Morgan/Jack becomes clear, Liu is allowed to insert a little pathos into her performance. It's nice to see her stretch her obvious talent, beyond just being cast because as a seductive femme fatale.

Just to let you know he hasn't forgotten his Canadian roots, “Cypher's” supporting cast is filled out with recognizable Canadian character actors. Nigel Bennett – who I immediately recognize as “Forever Knight's” LaCroix – appears as Finster, one of the agents attempting to convince Morgan/Jack to trust him. As always, Bennett exudes a certain sort of slimy charm that is well-utilized here. David Hewlett reappears from “Cube” as Virgil, the mysterious keeper of the Vault. Wearing an oddball contact lens on one eye, suggestive of a glass eye, Hewlett gets a stand-out scene where he displays his skills as a detector of spies. It's one of the most suspenseful moments in the film and that's largely thanks to Hewlett's performance.

I have no idea how wide of a release “Cypher” was given in 2002. Considering I had never heard of the movie until I started to research Vincenzo Natali's career, I'm going to say it was not widely seen when new. The movie has not exactly grabbed the cult following of some of Natali's other work. Yet I would recommend “Cypher” be sought out. While the movie's story does not hold together all the way through, it proves to be a twisting and entertaining motion picture. Natali continues to find interesting ways to express his take on sci-fi ideas while blending them with other genres. [Grade: B]

Director Report Card: Vincenzo Natali (1997)

Vincenzo Natali has, for many years now, being one of my go-to answers when asked to name an underrated director. Born in Detroit, but living in Canada his entire life, he's been putting together clever genre indies for two decades now. His movies often combine interesting ideas with big themes without sacrificing the thrills we want from our horror or sci-fi stories. They're also almost always low-budget productions that use their lack of funds as a feature, not a bug. He's done all of this too without getting a lot of mainstream press. (Though he has won a faithful cult following.) As I'm just about ready to kick off the Halloween season, now seems like a good time to revisit Natali's career. 

1. Cube

The germ of “Cube” was first planted in Vincenzo Natali's head in the early nineties, when he wanted to make a movie about people trapped in Hell. A few years later, Natali was working as at Nelvana, doing storyboard art on cartoon shows like “Eek! The Cat,” “Babar,” and “Beetlejuice.” It was during this time that he developed his germ of an idea into a screenplay about people trying to escape a maze-like cube while pursued by a monster.  After fine-tuning the script more, Natali would make a similarly themed short about people trapped in an elevator to raise money. “Elevated” impressed investors and “Cube” rolled into production.

A man in a prison style jumpsuits awakens in a cube-shaped room. He exits through a door in the wall and enters another, nearly identical room... Where he's swiftly killed by a booby trap. Five unrelated strangers – a cop named Quentin, a math grad student named Leaven, a doctor named Holloway, and a cynic named Worth – awaken in a similar room. They soon deduce they are trapped in an enormous cube made up of these smalls rooms. Some rooms are safe while others have deadly traps in them. They discover two other people – an escape artist named Rennes and a mentally handicapped man named Kazan – as they move towards escaping. They attempt to navigate this structure, learning more about the clues left for them, but their personalities soon come into conflict. 

Just from a budgetary perspective, “Cube” has to go down in indie movie history as a most brilliant production. Nearly the entire movie takes place on one set: A simple metallic box with doors on each wall. That same room was redressed and lit with different colors in a few varying ways. This created the illusion that one room was actually hundreds of rooms. That's how Natali was able to make this entire movie for less than 400,000 dollars. Yet, by cooking this budgetary limit into the very premise of the screenplay, the viewer of “Cube” never even notices the limited resources the crew had to work with. It's a clever act of movie-making magic.

“Cube” also has the kind of narrative hook that immediately catches an audience's attention. We are dropped into this story with no explanation for anything that is happening. We don't know how the characters got in the cube. We don't know who built it or for what purpose. We don't even know what time period we are in, if it's the present day or some undetermined point in the future. We are thrusted into this wild situation with this group of characters, who have to unravel the few clues they are presented with. Watching this motley crew figure out more details about their prison – the subtle hints to which rooms are trapped and which aren't, the exact nature of the cube's structure – is absolutely compelling.

But here's the best trick “Cube” is hiding up its four-cornered sleeve: The mystery ultimately doesn't matter. No permanent answers to the question of what forces set this story in motion are provided. That is totally outside the movie's scope, which is strictly focused on the people stuck in this hellish situation. The viewer knows exactly as much as the characters do. They make their guesses, suggesting the cube is the work of the military, sicko billionaires, or some leftover government project. None of these theories are either proven or disproven. This creates a mystery far more compelling than anything the writers could have come right out and say. “Cube” brilliantly fires the imagination by suggesting way more than its limited budget ever could've shown.

The real reason the film makes no attempt to provide a backstory is because that's not what the story is really about. “Cube” is about how different people, motivated by different philosophies, react in times of crisis. Quentin is an authoritarian cop. This at first makes him a useful leader, devising plans and moving forward. Yet, as he grows more frustrated, his inability to see things from other people's perspective – and his reliance on brute force – makes him unhinged. Holloway believes in helping people but is also prone to outlandish conspiracy theories. Worth is a nihilist, who is unwilling to do much of anything at first. Rennes is the kind of person who believes in direct solutions to direct problems, which leaves him totally unprepared for the changing environment of “Cube.” Which is why he dies first. Honestly, you could probably write a pretty compelling philosophy paper about “Cube.” The film contains that level of richness within its simple ideas.

You could argue that reducing characters down to easily understood philosophies makes them something of archetypes. And that's a fair criticism. Yet it also misses part of what makes “Cube” so scary. The characters being easy to understand makes “Cube's” premise universal. It's extremely easy to watch this movie and imagine yourself or your friends in the same situation. To think about how you'd fair in this exact scenario. Through that window, the movie addresses how everyone and anyone can adapt to a crisis. (I, for one, would die very quickly, as no food or water is provided to the prisoners and I'm completely useless on an empty stomach.) This is probably why the movie's most everyman-like character – college student Leaven – is its most likable and personable. 

Here's the other thing about “Cube.” Its ideas aren't just intellectually stimulating. The movie is simply cool and clever. “Cube” is a horror movie too and it presents the viewer with a number of inventively gory set-pieces. The opening scene could operate as a grim short film, showing an unnamed man moving from one silent room to another... Until a giant wall of wires, moving so quickly it's almost invisible, slices him into a pile of bloody squares. Those slicing wires reappear later, almost spiraling around someone. Other clever methods of execution on display here includes sound-activated walls of spikes, hidden flamethrowers, and spraying acid. “Cube” gets you thinking but it also provides some sick-and-twisted horror movie thrills.

Yet “Cube” doesn't just throw in some creative butchery, like many of the "Saw"-era flicks it unknowingly inspired. Natali is extremely talented at generating suspense as well. The unpredictability built into the premise, that the characters frequently aren't sure what waits for them in any given room, creates a lot of tension. Two sequences are the centerpiece of the movie, as far as suspense goes. The first occurs when the cast navigates through the room with sound-activated spikes. They all hold their breath, moving slowly, in hopes of not alerting the sensors. You tensely watch and wait for the moment someone screws up. That scene is awesome and probably the best in the movie, though another moment – when characters are attempting to cross a gap in the cubes – successfully ramps up the suspense too.

As many good ideas as Vincenzo Natali had for “Cube,” eventually he does run out of them. The film's climax proves more than a little messy. The characters come as close as possible to cracking the math behind the cube's layout, approaching the exit. Quentin grows increasingly unhinged, becoming the movie's villain. He re-enters after a brief departure, acting like a masked slasher killer and wielding a giant spike like a dagger. I've got nothing against slasher movie shenanigans but they feel out of place here. It's sort of disappointing that a film with so many clever ideas would, in its final stage, designate one character as a clear bad guy and have him cut through the remaining cast members. I guess if the choice was between climatic carnage and spoiling the story's wonderful ambiguity, this is preferable.

For the most part, “Cube's” visual design is as clever as its screenplay. Save for a couple of tacky whip-pans and some shaky-cam in the last act, Natali's direction is fantastic. He knows how to quickly establish each room without revealing that it's all one set. The pans around the simple box-shaped locations prove surprisingly stylish. The sudden reveals of the various traps all come off as nice surprises. The movie also has fantastic sound design, the quietness of the setting quickly creating an unsettling effect. (Which is further boosted by a sparse but creepy score from Mark Korven.)

Being a low-budget film that is also unabashedly Canadian – characters say “zed” and “merde” – you won't be surprised to read most of the cast is filled with veteran TV actors. Nicole de Boer, probably best known for her work on “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine,” plays Leaven as someone who would likely be really sweet if she wasn't in a crazy situation. She shows an obvious vulnerable side, panicking well, without coming off as unreasonable or annoying. David Hewlett as Worth, is the closest thing the movie has to a “name” talent. It's impressive that Hewlett manages to make Worth so likable while also acknowledging that he's a bit of a pervert and a jerk. Maurice Dean Wint is intimidating at Quentin. Nicky Guadagni is empathetic as Holloway while also showing the character's flaws. The cast makes all the right decision, elevating what are simply written characters to more complex roles.

“Cube” would begin to play festivals in late 1997, where it quickly started to grab attention. The movie would frequently play on TV – I can recall at least one heavily advertised airing on the Sci-Fi Channel – and would also prove popular on DVD. (Which is where I first saw it.) The movie's mixture of grim thrills, inventive violence, and an engrossing premise would quickly win it a cult following. It's a movie that I've grown to love more with repeated re-watches, as “Cube” has enough surprises and layers to reward multiple viewings. It's the definition of an indie gem, an exceptionally clever movie that rises above its low-budget roots to find an audience all over the world. [Grade: A-]