Released: 2018
Starring: Tom Bateman, Rebecca Rittenhouse, Aurora Perrineau, David Hull, Ray Santiago, Harvey Guillen, Max Adler, Alex Winter
Director: Paul Davis
Produced by: Blumhouse Television
Distributed by: Hulu
Rated: TV-MA
“On Halloween, finding the right costume can be murder.”
I consider myself an average fan of Jason Blum’s work. Insidious, Sinister, Happy Death Day... Blumhouse Productions has put out a good number of decent horror films over the last ten years or so. Enough that my attention is immediately caught when I see ‘Blumhouse’ written on anything.
When I saw that his television company had produced a series of horror films exclusively for Hulu, I was excited – the themes seemed fun and the casts included people I was familiar with. The films could be called an anthology series. The only thing they have in common was that each is tied to a month of the year – one for Halloween, one for Thanksgiving, one for Christmas, etc. Each one is an hour and a half long. Hulu classifies them as ‘movies’, but IMDB considers each on an ‘episode’ in the Into the Dark series. I was intrigued by the format alone – something that would only be witnessed in the day of online streaming sites and might never make it on prime time television or on the big screen – so I decided to give it a shot.
I started with October. The Halloween-themed movie is called The Body, written and directed by Paul Davis (Him Indoors). Already, I was disappointed. My understanding was that Jason Blum would have more to do with the production, so my expectations were initially high. The plot is fairly straightforward: A contracted killer has just murdered his victim and is somehow convinced to go to a party on Halloween night to avoid the police. The party-goers are convinced that the man has a fantastic costume, and they aren’t bothered by him dragging a dead body around with him until they realize it’s not a prop. However, one person is not only interested in the man, but excited by him.
The Body is filmed beautifully. It is obviously a top-notch production. Although no big name actors were involved, they all did a great job – especially the killer, played by Tom Bateman (Murder on the Orient Express and Snatched). His coldness and blatant expertise, especially when his relationship with the other characters is developing, is discomforting and creates for an odd sort of humour in his eye-rolls in response to the teenagers’ stupidity. His intelligence is juxtaposed by the other characters whose lives are dictated entirely by social media and alcohol consumption.
On the surface, this seems like a stereotypical serial killer type of movie. The killer was found out and he needs to eliminate the witnesses. However, the dynamic between the characters, the unnatural fascination with the killer, and the Charlie’s Angels-like, over-the-phone instructions being fed to the killer throughout (by Bill and Ted’s Alex Winter, no less) give some really interesting depth to the story. The audience is treated to a little bit of intimacy with all the characters which gives a well-rounded understanding of the story while still leaving out key details to create a decent mystery.
I would have liked this movie a bit more if we had learned who was pulling all the strings. The Voice, as he’s called in the credits, is obviously a powerful man that is orchestrating the entire ordeal, and the story does well to keep him ominous. However, the amount of unanswered questions made this feel like a short film that was feature length. There were also details that were added in that seemed forced – at one point the killer is stuck in a homemade escape room. It’s never explained why someone would build that, and he spends less than five minutes in there only for the film to never mention escape rooms again. The characters’ use of technology, too, rivals the ridiculous level of fabrication possessed only by older CSI shows.
Because The Body was on Hulu, I was skeptical about watching it. I am new to the platform and had never seen a movie considered a ‘Hulu Original’. I think they did a decent job of special effects and makeup and the quality of the film was beautiful. The movie traveled all over a city, in and out of cool, old apartment buildings, dive bars, through a cemetery, and ended up in a crematorium which made for a fantastic atmosphere throughout.
Rating:
Fool on the Hill:
I give this movie three and a half popcorns – it was fun, and I enjoyed every minute of it, but I have no need to watch it a second time. The character relationships to one another, and to the audience, along with the setting and the cold humour written into the killer’s character were all big highlights of this film for me. They tied in the Halloween theme in a way that was non-traditional – it wasn’t a ‘Halloween movie’ per se, but the relationship was clear, and it could be enjoyed year-round. I think this set a good expectation for the rest of the films in the series and I’m excited to see how they are!
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