The Boy is a tense little thriller that, at first glance, may look like a Bad Seed story, but its DNA is much closer to the subtle terrors of Psycho or Magic. Ted (Jared Breeze) is a nine year old boy, trapped with his father (David Morse), running a failing motel out beyond nowhere. His father has all but given up on life, leaving Ted to his own devices and friendless. The boy tends the motel and cleans up roadkill to earn pocket money. Ted puts animal feed in the road in an effort to create more roadkill and causes a car accident, bringing a mysterious and possibly dangerous stranger (Rainn Wilson) to the hotel. At the same time, witnessing the deer from the accident be euthanized peaks a morbid fascination with death in Ted, causing him to begin exploring and experimenting with killing.
I first caught this film a year ago when it played SXSW. At the time I liked it but in the crush of films I was seeing it didn’t particularly stand out; I didn’t even cover it. However, having a chance to watch it fresh and outside of the festival, I see there is really a rather dark and terrifying story here as well as some really top notch performances. Most notable is Jared Breeze who is absolutely chilling as Ted; his spot on performance is the heart of the film and easily holds its own against the more seasoned actors. Also check out the bonus behind-the-scenes footage added onto the disc.
Narcopolis is a future noir tale set in a world where all drugs are legal. Big pharma companies rule and they use the police force to squelch any independent distributors AKA drug dealers. Detective Grieves investigates a dead body and discovers the person died from a powerful and unidentified drug. When he traces the drug back to the Ambro Company, the largest legal drug company in the world, Grieves finds himself the target of the Big Pharma and his own police force.
The film is well produced and has enough surprises to keep it interesting. There are heavy overtones of other films like Blade Runner but Narcolopis is unique enough to stand on its own. Amusingly, the film features Jonathan Pryce and the only work of his the box cites is a recent turn on Game of Thrones. I might have mentioned that other dystopian film he was in. For special features, Narcopolis includes a director’s commentary, behind-the-scenes, deleted scene, and theatrical trailer.
Adam Ruhl is a writer and life long Cinephile. He is the Executive
Cinema Editor of Pop Culture Beast’s Austin branch; covering festivals,
conventions, and new releases. When not filing reports, Adam can be
found stalking Alamo Drafthouse Programmers for leads on upcoming
DrafthouseFilms titles. Adam once blocked Harry Knowles entrance to a
theater until he was given extra tickets to a Roman Polanski movie.