#i for one welcome our new irish overlord

[the-lonelyshepherd]

honestly think this is ayo edibiris world and we’re just living in it

[charliejrogers]

Blow the Man Down

Though I don’t do them often, I’m a big fan of movie double-headers. None more satisfying than a summer afternoon in 2018 when I walked out a theater’s showing of BlackKklansmen and then directly into the adjacent theater for Blindspotting (I paid for both tickets, I swear!). And it’s even better when the two films have some sort of thematic link like BlackKklansmen and Blindspotting… 2018’s Green Book and Overlord made for a much less satisfying pairing. This is al la lead-in to say that Blow the Man Down was actually part one of a female-dominated double-header alongside Yes, God, Yes which I previously reviewed. Both the products of women writer/directors (here the dual-team of Bridget Savage Cole & Danielle Krudy) with women being the primary characters… but that’s about where the similarities end.

The best way I can describe Blow the Man Down is that it has a bit of Fargo’s small-town crime vibe to it, but without as much dark humor. Set in fictional coastal seaport of Easter Cove, Maine in what looks like early winter/late fall, the film has a bleak, cloudy look to it, in a way really only New England can, not unlike 2017’s Manchester by the Sea. From the start, things are ominous. The film opens with what is essentially a Greek chorus of fisherman singing/chanting old Irish dirges, specifically the dirge “Blow the Man Down.” While I’ll be honest and say I didn’t listen carefully to the words of the song, it didn’t really feel like the slow chanting in low voices of gruff men would be telling the most upbeat of stories.

We then cut to a funeral reception for a woman who in dying is leaving behind her now-orphaned two daughters. The elder and more responsible of the two, Priscilla Connolly (Sophie Lowe), spends her time working the small seafood store her mother used to own. Though not explored deeply, we get a sense of opportunity lost in Priscilla. She never got to leave town fully, needing instead to take care of her ailing mother and keep up business at the shop. In some senses she knows she is trapped in this small town with no other options or money to make a new path. She’s not even sure there’s enough money left to hold onto their mother’s home.

On the other hand is Mary Beth Connolly (Morgan Saylor), who is more reckless than Priscilla, or more accurately she is less mature. After her mother’s funeral Mary Beth jumps into a car and heads to a local bar where, despite the fact that she may or may not be of the legal drinking age, is clearly welcomed as a regular. Mary Beth dreams of getting out of the small coastal town, and has her eyes set on college as soon as she can get out.

The funeral reception is largely uneventful, but throughout much of it, the soundtrack plays loud dissonant music not so much fitting for a funeral reception but for horror film. We the audience are left confused. Combined with the opening dirge, the soundtrack seems to be preparing us for the type of movie that, as of yet, we are not seeing.

That changes when Mary Beth meets a slimy stranger at the bar, an short-lived tryst that ends with the stranger chopped up, put in a cooler, and set to sea. Much to our surprise, the blood lies not just on Mary Beth’s hands, but on Priscilla’s as well. There’s a great “quote” of Lady Macbeth as Priscilla tries furiously to scrub every last spot of blood out of her hands.

It’s only when the sun rises the morning after the Connollys late-night escapades that the film really seems to begin. Where I was expecting this to be a movie about the Connolly’s dealing with their guilt, by and large we don’t get a sense that they feel all too guilty – more shocked. So while there is a subplot about a young, handsome policeman who is ironically on the lookout for the exact person he seems to have the hots for, I at least didn’t sense any tension in this regard. The real conflict involves looking at the other residents of the not-so-sleepy Easter Cove, or more specifically at the women of Easter Cove.

Gradually throughout the film we get the sense that there’s this group of older women (including one played by June Squibb!!) who acts as pseudo-protectors of the town. They, like all proverbial old fish-wives, know just about everything that goes on in town. So when the police begin their investigations into the death of a local prostitute, these women guardians know who’s to blame far before the police. The one to blame is Enid, a one-time friend of the old-lady club and now sole-operator of the only brothel in town, who seems to have been most close with the Connolly’s mother. Now with Mrs. Connolly gone, the old lady club engages in an all-out war with Enid. As the prostitute’s killing is intimately related to the man whom the Connolly’s have disposed, the old lady club is another group hot on the sisters’ heels in discovering the truth.

As I said, the story of the Connolly’s sort of takes a backseat as the film progresses and begins to focus more on the Old Lady Club and Enid, and I wish the movie hadn’t taken this turn. I would have loved to sit more with the Connollys and their guilt, with that all-too-human instinct to pile lies upon lies that make a genuine misunderstanding into a clusterfuck. Basically I wanted to see a re-do of season 2 of Fargo. Instead, we see the sisters, in very crude terms, have to choose to either join the dark side or join the light side… in the end they join the gray side which I suppose is more artistic, realistic, and satisfying.

Still despite the dark plot, the inter-weaving story threads, the wonderful cinematography, recurring chorus of fishermen singers etc., I couldn’t help but feel like I wasn’t really invested in the story. I don’t know, other than the initial encounter between Mary Beth and the slimy man, I never felt like the characters were really ever in danger. There was very little tension throughout the movie. It doesn’t help that I didn’t think that neither Sophie Lowe as Priscilla nor Morgan Saylor as Mary Beth give a particularly strong performances, though Saylor does a better job, but that may be she just has more to do. So it’s a solid plot with an interesting ending twist, it still feels like this could have been a better movie than it ended up being. If I’m sounding harsher than I should it’s because I wanted this to be a fantastic movie, but I will still happily settle for the good movie I got.

*** (Three out of four stars)

[likeathunderbolt]

I, for one, welcome our new Irish overlords.

[thenextchapterbegins]

Special bulletin with vox himself

and guest

in continuation to this event with @melanrolli​

“Welcome all, sorry to pull all my lovely viewers from their televisions for whatever you were just watching we have breaking news that some of you may have seen last night but forgotten about, playwright having to strike again, this time with a living target, proclamations that a reign of terror has hit our streets and i am beginning to believe him or her. We have a special warning but we will save to the end of our showing, we have a guest today the detective that started investigations on the playwright killer when we were both younger and less tired.”

“Thank you for joining us mr?”

The camera pans to the tired grizzled detective rubbing the brow of his nose before reaching for a cup of coffee. “jack..jack irish, thanks for having me...if you had told me a few weeks ago an old killer would prop up again i would have said your crazy now im wishing that person was right.”

Vox chuckles softly. “trust me, i don’t think any of us want to fear walking around right now, so lets get to the brass tactics what can you tell us about this killer?”

Jack leans back. “not much, they always been slippery, but we have made some new finds since i began my investigations of this killer, we believe the killer is using magic specifcally time and blood its the reason why our dna tests keep coming back different each time it also could explain why he’s lived for so long whilst using blood magic or maybe he truly took a break we cant know for sure.”

vox raises a brow. “blood and time how you mean?”

“blood from what we have found out requires sacrifice to work memories, feelings, emotions, etc..you could technically use time, nothing is more important to ones livelyhood then time decades, minutes, or hours could power blood magic to little or incredible extremes..could kill ya real easy too...time magic requires life to work..without life time cannot age or reknew something...so, use blood to kill, use the blood of those you kill to use time to reknew yourself...give yourself back those hours you wasted...time never becomes useless because the killer always has to worry about not sacrificing too much time. In a sense he could be the first to claim to master blood magic with time magic...its not a good sign though.”

Vox listens intently nodding along before letting out a sigh. “what about the killer, the imp found alive gave a name right? how likely is it that the name given could be our killer?”

Jack takes another sip of his coffee. “its...not as likely as we hope, the name given is from what we can find a rival of the victim found, the suspect is an imp that would have no real way to master any of these magics nor the ability to find the books to acquire these magics...the suspect is hated by most and is clearly from what we can see too dysfunctional to pull out the mere siphosictations of these killings..we will of course look into it but we believe the victim is using the chance to witch hunt a rival they hate...the search goes on.”

Vox taps his fingers against the desk. “thats a shame, with how things are going do you have warnings or tips for the public or an idea of what the killers end goals could be.”

“dont go out at night if you dont have too, dont go out alone if you need to go out at night, avoid alleyways if you can, run dont confront the killer, just be smart as for end goals...we believed the killer was working himself up to eventually try and take on bigger prey..overlords, princes, icons...insane as it sounds..they stopped luckily but if their back they may feel they now have the ability to take these larger preys, if the killer does take an overlord or hell a prince down...we maybe looking at a new overlord and if he becomes an overlord it becomes out of our hands...” Jack finishes.

“Well thank you for joining us and good luck in your search.” The cameras pan to focus on vox fully. “as the detective stated please be careful out there, for all intensive purposes the killer has enacted his reign of terror, the streets of hell arent ours right now. their a playground for a killer who knows what he is doing and we can only hope he is caught or fucking just becomes an overlord and stops this shit because its costing us all alot of fucking money...alright, stay safe out there hell, vox signing out.”