p e n g u i n d e v i l

I was a big fan of The Lighthouse, but I had no idea that settling down for Cold Skin would remind me of it. Cold Skin just looked like any old throw-away monster/horror movie, but it was really quite good.

A century back, a young weather man is dropped off at an isolated island lighthouse. When they arrive, one of the two people that they expect to find is missing and they don’t exactly get a good story from the fellow that as to why. So he is left with this strange, unfriendly, and paranoid old feller who seems to have oddly barricaded the lighthouse quite a bit. It only takes until the first night for the newcomer to see that maybe there is a good reason for the barricade.

If you watched The Lighthouse and would like to follow up your “Isolated lighthouse” viewing with something a bit less traumatizing, but still about two guys at an isolated lighthouse where weird stuff, violent and otherwise, happens. Then this may fit the bill.

And then Hangover Square. Part of the criterion Noir thing this month, it wasn’t really textbook noir. And didn’t seem to involve any actual hangovers. Maybe just mental ones… But it features crimes, a man in trouble, and definitely a conniving lady. Mr Bone is a well-meaning composer with a nice lady and a swell old patron. He is hard at work on his concerto, but sometimes he has these, well, fugue states from which he cannot remember anything. After a particularly long episode, he begins to suspect that he may have killed someone. But there is no evidence and no memory, so he goes about his business.

Of course, he encounters this femme who he is desirous of and who desires for him to put aside his concerto and make popular music for her so she can compel her career forward. Well, more fugue states and crimes (and murder) and burning of Guy Fawkes’ Guys is in store and nothing goes well… But it’s interesting and involving and the end is great!