Green Room Diaries: Sativa At The Movies

Summer is here and I have allergies. Do you know how much it sucks to be triple-red-eyed when it’s nice out? So, I prefer the great indoors, at least when it comes to entertainment. What better way to make use of a column that is constantly on the brink of running out of ideas, than to hit the cinema after smoking a few grams of the good shit? This round, I review two horror movies, both of which should be in second-run theaters by the time this issue of Exotic hits the stands.

Film: Hereditary

Strain: Blue Dream

Review: 5 out of 7 stars

At first glance, Hereditary appears to be just another "mom, her kids and a stepdad in a cabin" film, which seems to be a weird trend as of late. I swear that Toni Collette—the lady who plays "Mom" in this movie—only plays the "distraught mother" role in every part she takes, kind of like how Joe Pesci always plays "Italian stereotype" or Tarantino always plays "black stereotype." Of note, before I arrived in the theater, I saw that a new Superfly was playing and posted something on Facebook about how I hate remakes. Alas, my online friends corrected me: the film is supposedly not a remake. Yet, it’s centered around the cocaine trade and focuses on a character named Youngblood Prince, who wears a fur coat and acts smooth. So, if Superfly is "not a remake," then Hereditary is "not just another claustrophobic, family-up-to-weird-shit-in-the- woods flick." However, it sure as hell plays a lot of the same notes.

Anyhow, the youngest of the two kids in Hereditary gets decapitated after suffering a peanut allergy attack from cake (yes, this happens, no, it’s not much of a spoiler—after all, the cake turns out to be a lie). With a dead mom and a dead daughter, crazy mom decides to get into witchcraft and spells, before going full-on, hysterical-horror-movie mom, at which point the film begins to resemble a high-brow horror movie for about ten minutes. Then, it returns to the twists and turns, which are clear to anyone who has seen The Omen, Rosemary’s Baby or Bebe’s Kids. Further harshing my mellow, was the fact that Twizzler Nibs are fucking impossible to open without making a shit ton of noise. It took me a minute to dig into my smuggled snacks and I was already getting looks from the guy two seats down (who was also sitting alone). A few seconds later, a bunch of teen girls in the back row started talking, which caused two-seats- down guy to get up in a huff and storm out of the theater. I spent the remainder of the film expecting him to return with a gun, so that made it hard to follow the plot.

There are a surprising amount of subtle, sociopolitical messages in Hereditary, geared toward the left-of-Stalin, Tumblr generation. Boys are encouraged to cry, a divorced mother gets full custody (even when dad is concerned about his ex-wife’s demonic rituals affecting his son’s well-being) and it is possible to be a male spirit in a female child’s body—but only if said male spirit is, quite literally, the root cause of all of evil (not to mention an oppressor and user of females). By the end of the film, I didn’t really get the takeaway from the "male energy is evil" message, nor did I know what to do with my newly realized "demonic privilege." If you’re looking for a feminist horror film, you’re better off with The Descent, Alien or Ghostbusters 2016. However, if you’re just looking for an entertaining, dark horror movie that makes up for a lack of jump-scares with the beheading of children and the elderly, Hereditary is a literal no-brainer.

Film: A Quiet Place

Strain: Granola Funk

Review: 36B

Aside from the cabin-family-in-peril theme, the comedian-who-takes-on-serious-shit trend is an oddly popular genre of film and one that I enjoy. Back in the day, it was Jim Carey doing that movie about brainwashing or whatever. I’m also pretty sure that Steve Carrell played an alcoholic in that film about the little stripper girl in a bus. Recently, we’ve had the pleasure of seeing Key Or Peele’s Get Out completely slaughter at the box office and destroy awards ceremonies (rightfully so, too). So, when actor-director Jim (The Office) decided that he needed to step out of comedy and into horror, he took a similar directorial tone, but instead gearing the film to a white audience, by making it extremely fucking hard to talk during his film without getting shushed.

My friend Hannah and I went to WinCo before the movie, got high in the parking lot and then bought a ton of bulk candy, much of which was individually wrapped. This was not the best idea, because all of the good plot points were interrupted by the sound of plastic being unraveled, followed by, "Hey, do you want one?" and then, "SHHHHH." I swear, some people. Anyhow, A Quiet Place centers around...wait for it...a family in peril—in the woods—and a kid who dies within the first few seconds of the movie. But unlike Hereditary, the horror lurking in the distance is real (well, at least physical) and can only be avoided by being really, really quiet. Or, ya know, heading to a waterfall and talking in a really loud voice (yes, this happens, no, it’s not much of a spoiler—after all, the waterfall turns out to be a lie).

At the end of the film, a spoiler happens and I think the rest of the family survives, but I’m honestly not sure. I was in sugar shock by this point—barely able to keep my eyes open and constantly waiting for a loud noise to wake me up—but, the film wasn’t called A Rowdy Bar, so I knew what I was getting into, I guess. Granola Funk is one of those strains that does not wear off, at least until you’re asleep and having really weird dreams about Dwight Schrute running a zombie beet farm, to get back at Jim for having kids and settling down, which is how I imagine the prequel to A Quiet Place will go.