You've all seen The Gambler, I hope? No, no, not the Mark Wahlberg film: the 1974 James Caan/ Paul Sorvino one, one of the darker films to come out of American cinema at that (already cinematically pretty dark) time, directed by Karel Reisz and written by now-#MeToo-tainted filmmaker James Toback, loosely adapted from Dostoevsky. It's about a college professor (Caan) whose gambling takes on the mien of compulsive self-destruction that impacts everyone around him. It's a fascinating, unpleasant, wallowing-in-it kind of film with a grim-as-hell ending (unlike that of the bizarrely feelgood Wahlberg version), but it contains what for me is one of the most memorable lines in American cinema history: Paul Sorvino -- you know him from Goodfellas, at the very least -- is a mob-affiliated friend of Caan's who is delighted that Caan talks one of his students into throwing a basketball game. Caan has promised it will be just the one time, but Sorvino laughs in his face, in a "what are you talking about" manner, and quips, "Once you ain't a virgin, you're a whore." Or words to that effect.
I think of this line every time a small-time horror filmmaker is recruited into the big leagues. They almost never come back: time and again, original independent filmmakers in America end up making big Hollywood genre productions never to make an original independent film again. It's not always horror, either: Justin Lin and Doug Liman are two filmmakers who made very fun early films (Better Luck Tomorrow and Go!, for instance, though there were others) then got sucked into the machine and spent the majority of their subsequent careers making big budget Hollywood shlock (though they may have since emerged on the other side and done smaller more personal projects; I don't pretend to have followed either of their careers closely, but if they "picked up where they left off" at some point, they didn't return to it). Occasionally you get someone like Sam Raimi, who retains some element of his voice even in his bigger films and does stay fairly close to his roots with his smaller ones, but more often, you get people like Gareth Edwards, who make a genuinely interesting and unusual smaller-scale film (Monsters, in his case) then end up making Godzilla movies or Star Wars movies or Jurassic World movies or...). I do often see those films, and sometimes even enjoy them, but I also feel acutely aware that something has gotten lost. Like, imagine if David Lynch had scored a massive hit with his version of Dune, which was definitely his deal with the devil, and then never gone on to work for Marvel or such, never making Blue Velvet or any of his other later films? You end up almost grateful the film failed.
Maybe I'm the only film enthusiast who thinks this way. I like those little independent films, though: small-scale genre cinema that takes risks and caters to a small audience who understand rather than the widest audience imaginable. There are dozens of mainstream Hollywood filmmakers who command respect and budgets and wide-scale distribution (Kathryn Bigelow, anyone?), the only films of whose I love and care about were made early on, before the mainstream noticed them.
So when I've been following a filmmaker with interest, and they suddenly switch to the big leagues, I feel some measure of despair. In recent years, the biggest case in point has been Adam Wingard. I liked and respected all the early films of his I got to see: A Horrible Way to Die, You're Next, The Guest, and his contributions to the V/H/S franchise. The best of them is probably The Guest, made in 2015 on a budget of $5 million, earning half that, a film about a soldier with secrets who shows up at the door of the widow of a platoon mate. It was perfectly respectable. Then his Blair Witch reboot, a wholly unncessary mediocrity which (though also made relatively cheaply) was much more widely distro'd than anything he'd done before and made $45 million dollars, sounding the alarm that he was going to disappear into the majors, like so many other indy filmmakers before him.
I skipped Death Note, but it's no surprise that it had a budget of $40 million dollars, eight times what he'd made his previous two films on. Then his next two movies were Godzilla Vs. Kong films with budgets around $150 million. I actually enjoyed both of those movies, when I got around to seeing them, but what about the Adam Wingard who made those three fresh, interesting indy films I'd enjoyed ten years before? What was it Quint sang about the Spanish ladies? "Never no more shall we see you again?" I figured the Adam Wingard who made fresh original small-scale horror movies was lost to us and never to return. Maybe he'd end up helming a Marvel movie.
I was really, really happy to learn of Onslaught, a return to small-scale horror filmmaking (budget is $15 million) set in the same fictional universe, he says, that The Guest and You're Next are in. He had a successful dalliance with the big time and RETURNED HOME to make his own kind of movie again: a gory, comic-bookish, kinda-disreputable genre film about psycho super-soldiers laying siege to a small town.
If this makes sense: I loved the film, and must confess that it is not that great. It's comic book aspects are kinda wacky (the film's mad doctor wears the most ridiculous costumes imaginable!); it doesn't make great use of Michael Biehn (though it's sure nice to see him working again); its characters could be developed more, so we care about them, rather than just wondering how they'll get killed; it squanders a very interesting setup where a character discovers she knows one of the film's, uh, "monsters", which you really think will prove a much bigger plot point than it turns out to be; and it leaves a vast number of doors open for sequels (there are no post-credit scenes, but the narrative of the film does continue, in the form of visual elements on the screen while the credits roll; stay and attend to them). Also, the super soldiers, while cool, look kinda like a cross between the leper ghost pirates of The Fog and particularly buff, heavily-armed CHUDs. (In the sense of Cannibalistic Humanoid Underground Dwellers). The film does actually provide a backstory for each of these characters, like, one of them is nicknamed "Crybaby" because he wepts when murdering civilians; but then it does nothing with that backstory. As small films go, in terms of what it accomplishes, this one is small indeed.
But this ends up meaning I love it more. I actually hope there's a sequel. I hope it's enough of a hit that Wingard will be able to continue on this trajectory, eschewing the big budgets and huge exposure and making dozens of other fresh, original little films, even if they aren't mind-blowing. Which might actually happen: even though Onslaught isn't great, it is still totally enjoyable and effective if you take it on its own terms. I guess I can also live with it if Wingard's next film is a $200 million dollar blockbuster, as he has proven that he has the capacity to come back from those.
Welcome back to the little leagues, Adam! I missed you, and Erika and I both had lots of fun tonight.
... and as for my readers: go see Onslaught! If you want more fresh little original films than megabudget mass appeal franchise ones, this is an opportunity to cast your vote. And you WILL have fun, even if you note some of the missed opportunities: there are a couple nice kills, some imaginative gore, and an enjoyable central relationship between an ex-mililitary female soldier and her daughter, trying to survive the onslaught of the title.
Oh, and remember the black cop in Die Hard? He's in it, too! (And one of the maybe-good guys is on MDMA for the whole film, which is pretty fun).
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