Greta. Neil Jordan, director. Frances is a waitress who finds a purse on a NYC subway train. She goes to the owner’s apartment to return it in spite of warnings from her Smith College school chum and roommate Erica. There she meets Greta. It all goes downhill from there as Greta first stalks and then imprisons Frances. Greta is a psycho who’s done this before.

Where some reviewers see a campy horror flick, I see a modern Hitchcockian psychological thriller. The viewer will see good performances by Chloe Grace Moretz as Frances and Maika Monroe as Erica as supporting actors for Isabelle Huppert as the cold, psychotic ex-nurse Greta. Stephen Rea (of The Crying Game) has a brief cameo as a hard-boiled PI without much common sense—unmarried with no children will make a difference too.

Watch for other details too—they’re important in this one (cat and bird figurines on Greta’s nightstand, Greta’s adoption of a dog about to be euthanized, and an old-fashioned metronome on the piano are but three examples).

I don’t often read psychological thriller books, but I loved that old Hitchcock TV show. I think the director did too. This movie and that show specialize in the horror hidden in everyday life. You’ll be thinking and talking about this one for a while. I’m afraid it won’t resonate so soon after the Oscars, but I definitely recommend it.

***

Comments are always welcome.

The Last Humans. Ex-USN SAR diver Penny Castro is now a forensics diver for the LA County Sheriff’s Department. After a dive to recover a corpse near Malibu, she surfaces to find all her colleagues dead. As she moves about LA County, she discovers most people are victims, but a few surviving feral humans make her own survival a challenge. Slowly she forms a small family of sane survivors she has to also defend from a crippled US government that wants revenge against those who unleashed a contagion on the country. Coming soon from Black Opal Books, this post-apocalyptic thriller will be available in print and ebook formats wherever books are sold, including Amazon and Smashwords and all the latter’s associated retailers (iBooks, B&N, Kobo, etc.), as well as at the publisher’s website and your favorite local bookstore (if they don’t have it, ask for it). Reviewers may query now for a copy in return for an honest review.

Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!

This entry was posted on Friday, March 8th, 2019 at 3:30 am and is filed under Movie Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.