Peter Andrews
is
PRESENCE
Somehow in the last several years Steven Soderbergh became mostly a streaming guy. MAGIC MIKE’S LAST DANCE played theatrically, but other than that since 2019 it’s been HIGH FLYING BIRD and THE LAUNDROMAT on Netflix, LET THEM ALL TALK, NO SUDDEN MOVE, KIMI, the great mini-series Full Circle and the… app (?) Mosaic on HBO MAX, plus a web series called Command Z. So it’s good to have him (briefly) back on the big screen. PRESENCE was the first of two Soderbergh joints released in theaters this year. I caught BLACK BAG but this one came and went too fast for me despite being released by Neon.
That’s okay, it’s not one of his crowdpleasers, it’s one of his Soderbergh-wants-to-try-something movies. Small, simple, kinda raw, built around a simple conceit: a ghost movie from the point of view of the ghost. If you’re thinking “Oh shit, Soderbergh did his first horror movie!” I’d ask you to hold on a second. Technically I think it qualifies, but he’s definitely not aiming for the cover of Fangoria.
DARK HARVEST is a crazy new Halloween movie I rented for six bucks on VOD. I think they kinda fumbled in marketing it because they made me think it was about a corny looking killer in a skeleton mask, when in fact it’s about a cool monster and that’s just a guy in a Halloween costume. But I’m glad I knew nothing, because it was interesting to see the movie’s weird premise unfold and realize yeah, this is obviously based on a book (same title, written by Norman Partridge, published in 2006). Hard to make a movie with a world and concept this odd these days unless it’s based on a book.
