The Huckleberries Vol. 1 - The Plague & Primate

Obviously we want to have an area for reviewing new films here at The Film Encomium, but we also want to send a message with our methodology. That message is a simple one: Don’t forget about the fun. 

     Yes, film can be transformative, prophetic, and groundbreaking. It can also be none of those things and still be a damn good time, and we want to validate both of those experiences. If your goal is unlocking the philosophical recesses of your psyche, we recommend Andrei Tarkovsky—but if you want to become well-rounded, we still recommend occasionally watching Michael Bay blow something up. 

     It is from the balance of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn that we draw inspiration for the title of this section. Tom is clever; Tom is great. If there was one of those boys we were going to try to get in to Harvard, it would be young Mr. Sawyer…but he will always need his Huckleberry. 

     We all need our Huckleberries. Art needs its Huckleberries. Sometimes beauty is in the little things and figuring out the meaning of life. Other times beauty is loud, bright, and bold. In the interest of providing our readers with a comprehensive experience, we are not willing to skip The Huckleberries. 

     So, with that in mind, here are two entertaining flicks that dropped in theaters recently. The first will work out your mental faculties and help you grow as a human being. The second will feed into slightly more primal instincts. Enjoy!

The Plague -

     For some reason, whenever summer camp is portrayed in movies, it is basically the same summer camp over and over. It’s on a lake somewhere and there are cabins, it’s between the mid-80s and early-90s. People in their late-30s are playing 19-year-old counselors, and they are not good at their jobs. Most importantly, everyone comes together to be friends and walk away with a crucial life lesson from the experience.

     It’s always summer camp from the movies, and while I’m sure some of them were like that, most of them weren’t. The Plague takes a much tougher, more realistic view of the average summer camp experience. Everyone in this film looks like they could actually be attending or working at a summer camp. It is unmistakably the early-2000s. And, most importantly, they don’t all come together to learn a life lesson.

     To write it off as JUST a gritty summer camp tale would be underselling it, though. It delivers so much more than that. The first feature-length film from Charlie Polinger has the courage to ask more out of the featured child actors than most directors would ever dare. He allows them to carry the gravitas of adult actors in their youthful roles, and it is what elevates this film more than any other aspect. 

     The result is a modernized Lord of the Flies that transports an adult viewer back to a time when their brain was ruled by a ceaseless bombardment of hormones and insecurity. It’s one of the most accurate portrayals of bullying there has ever been captured in any medium, right down to the complexity of emotions fueling both sides of the encounter. 

     Joel Edgerton is the biggest name associated with this project. His performance was solid in its own right, but his performance was outshone by all three of Everett Blunk, Kayo Martin, and Kenny Rasmussen. All three genuinely turned in award-worthy work. 

     The final ingredient to this nostalgianxiety stew is the score from Johan Lenox. The surges of intensity and discomfort conveyed in his instrumentation do a lot of the work in transporting you back to teenage worries and impulses. Every small embarrassment takes on a life-or-death feel, blurring the lines for ethics and consequences alike. The Plague is going to infect you, and you should let it. 

Primate -

     Over the last several years, there has been this subtly emerging brand of horror film. Thanksgiving, Heart Eyes, Clown in a Cornfield, and Abigail are all examples of this phenomenon. They are rather route-A with the cinematography and writing, cast fringe movie stars and unknowns, incorporate memorable death scenes, and have the correct ratio of meta in their presentation to appeal to both Millennials and Gen Z. Most notably, they don’t take themselves too seriously. They aim for the middle and hit it, which for some reason is much more palatable than similar quality films that tried to shoot for the moon and missed. 

     Primate is the next movie in this legacy. It doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it doesn’t waste time and energy trying to, either. It is a fairly straightforward slasher flick in many ways, but that isn’t a complete mood killer in that genre. That is to say, for the fans of brutal mass murder on the silver screen, a re-skinning can be just as satisfying as any other kind of skinning. 

     The major quality this film has going for it is that the antagonist is very believable for what a good slasher villain needs to be. Audiences need to somehow find a way to believe that the average person can regularly outsmart that threat, but also that two average people would not be able to easily overpower said villain. A rabid chimp is a REALLY good character to fill that slot believably, and it makes up for a lot of shortcomings that may pop up in the rest of the film. 

     An Oscar for Best Picture in this movie’s future there probably is not, but it can take you for the ride it promises you. If you go in with lofty expectations, they will probably be let down. If you want a somewhat goofy bloodbath with some decent American Sign Language representation thrown in for good measure, you could do a lot worse. 

~The Film Encomium~