Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. There are many reasons to attend film festivals. There's the unique community of like-minded cinephiles each festival cultivates, there's the thrill you get from discovering something before everyone knows about it and there's the surprise of wandering into something you knew nothing about and having the story just play out for you without any marketing telling you what the movie is or isn't.
So far Fantastic Fest 2016 is hitting all those bases and Safe Neighborhood was the first film to feel like both a discovery and surprise. I mean, Denis Villeneuve's Arrival is fucking great and Park Chan-wook's The Handmaiden is practically perfect in every way, but there was a lot of baggage going into those movies. Safe Neighborhood is a small darkly comic take on the home invasion sub-genre filmed in Australia that jumped out to me because it was a genre movie set around Christmas, which happens to be a favorite niche of mine.
This review was one I was excited the write the second the lights came up because I want people to seek this out at Fantastic Fest and I want this film to find its audience beyond a festival run, but one of the things this film does best is subvert expectation and is at its best when it does, so it's really tough to write about all the things I love about this movie without ruining the experience for fresh eyes.
So, I'll stay away from anything that's more than bare bones set-up. Safe Neighborhood is about a 12 year old boy in love with his 17 year old babysitter, who is looking after him one final time before she moves out of town. His aloof, argumentative parents (Patrick Warburton and Virginia Madsen) are going out to a Christmas party and this is his last chance to express his love for this older woman, so he has everything set up. He puts on a scary movie (so she'll want to cling to him), readies a romantic candle-lit pizza dinner and even breaks out some of his parent's champagne.
The problem is he's still a kid and that's all she can see him as. Plus her real boyfriend is really clingy and keeps calling to ruin the evening. Nothing is going this kid's way. And that's when the man with the ski-mask and shotgun shows up.
Think of this movie as Home Alone meets The Strangers and you're close to the mark. There are twists and turns that will make you re-evaluate exactly what kind of movie you're watching, but at its core it's about the relationship between this boy and his babysitter and how that changes as they have to fight for their lives.
The movie goes to some messed up places, but always with a dark comedy undercurrent, so it never gets too gritty and hard to watch. It also benefits from having a terrific young cast doing great work.
Levi Miller plays the young boy. You may remember him as Peter Pan in the recent PAN. He's taller, lankier and his voice is cracking here, which really helps paint the awkwardness of his character. He's smart, too, which makes for an endearing combination of character traits. He reminded me a whole bunch of the aw-shucks intelligent shyness that Anthony Perkins conveyed so well. He's the real stand-out of this movie filled with charming and interesting people. If nothing else this film will make you want to see everything Levi Miller does.
The babysitter, Ashley, is played by Olivia DeJonge and she's joined by her The Visitor co-star Ed Oxenbould as Levi's nerdy best friend.
DeJonge has a tough role here because she's kind of playing Jamie Lee Curtis in Halloween if Tommy Doyle was trying to romance her throughout the horror going on. The audience's sympathies are with Levi's Luke, but you have to be pulling for Ashley as well. She can't be clueless to the advances of this kid, but she also can't be cruel to him without having the audience turn on her because Luke's so likeable and earnest. That dynamic shifts a bit as the movie goes on, but it's the first impression and if you don't get the audience behind you then it's really hard to win them back later.
She pulls it off well and is smartly written as a pro-active character, so she avoids being the damsel in distress or a weak final girl type.
Ed Oxenbould's Garrett has some of the most complex conflicting emotions of the three leads. He's fiercely loyal to his best friend and a big goofball, but when the real shit starts going down he has to confront some serious scenarios he's not ready for. He plays the character just geeky enough to come across as a real second in command type friend without feeling too silly.
The movie does get pretty brutal, but it's not really a gorehound's delight, which is good news for the tone this thing is going for. The main threat is treated as something very dangerous, deeply demented and blisteringly smart, which is where most of the chills come from. There's some inventive gore, but it's not in-your-face stuff.
Also, the production design is pretty great. Paired with good cinematography, confident directing from Chris Peckover, asmart, fun script and top notch performances that makes Safe Neighborhood the real deal, not some cheapie crap that you'll scroll past because of the 1 ½ star rating on Netflix.
Seek this one out if you can. And don't let anybody tell you anything else about it. I may have said too much, but I haven't spoiled it for you. I can't imagine the trailer for this one can resist some of the money moments from later in the movie, so if you possibly can avoid all that stuff and go in as cold as possible. You'll be happy if you do.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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