Insomnia (2002)
[7] In this remake of a Swedish film, an L.A. detective and his partner get loaned out to a town in Alaska where night never falls for half the year. While they're hunting a killer, the detective accidentally kills his…
Disturbing Behavior (1998)
[7]
After suffering the suicide of his older brother, Steve (James Marsden) and his family relocate to Cradle Bay, where some of the kids at school aren’t quite themselves these days. With the help of new-found friends Rachel (Katie Holmes) and Gavin (Nick Stahl), Steve discovers that a local doctor, Caldicott (Bruce Greenwood), is conspiring with parents to lobotomize their teens in order to create “good boys and girls”, all of whom become members of the school’s Blue Ribbon elitist clique. Caldicott’s experiments stymie the Blue Ribbons’ sexual impulses and mold them into academic achievers that spend a great deal of time trying to recruit others to “the program”. Unfortunately, the experiments don’t always work. As someone comments in the film, “Whenever one of these kids gets a hard-on, they want to beat someone over the head with it.” But this doesn’t stop Caldicott or the town’s parents from expanding Blue Ribbon membership. When Steve’s parents enter him in Caldicott’s program, he plans a desperate escape, not just from Cradle Bay, but from school, his parents, and the past — the archetypal plight of just about every teenager that ever lived.
American Mary (2012)
[6]
Katharine Isabelle (Ginger Snaps) puts in a solid performance as a student surgeon whose life takes a serendipitous turn into the underground world of extreme body modification in Jen and Sylvia Soska’s American Mary. After one odd surgery procures her some much-needed cash, her name is quickly bandied about the message boards of people who are into things like… horns, tails, split tongues, appendage swaps… you name it, really. One character in the film is trying to look as close to a living Barbie doll as possible, and asks Isabelle’s character to surgically remove her nipples and genitalia (as much as possible). Another is trying to look and sound like Betty Boop. What’s most interesting about American Mary is that it sheds light on a real-life subculture that most people would find interesting and perhaps a little frightening. But the Soska Sisters (who wrote and directed the feature together) paint their subjects in a flattering, sympathetic light. That’s not to say the Soskas don’t take advantage of the sensational potential here — they just do it with respect.