Video on demand (VOD) is the latest incarnation of the direct-to-video industry that followed the widespread adoption of VHS and VCRs. Like direct-to-video movies, these are often marginal releases highlighting so-so-to-quite-bad work. Every once in a while, however, you might find something that moves you.
Cell ($6.99, viewed on Amazon) is decidedly in the so-so-to-quite-bad category. Based on the book of the same name by Stephen King, Cell follows comic book artist Clay Riddell (John Cusack) as he attempts to survive the zombie apocalypse. This is no ordinary zombie thriller: These walkers were created by a mysterious audio pulse sent over phone lines, one that turns all of us cell-phone-addicted fools into raving, murderous lunatics.
Teaming up with Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson) and Alice Maxwell (Isabelle Fuhrman), Clay is trying to get back to his son and ex-wife to see if they’re safe. There’s a nugget of a good idea in this flick—the zombies act as a sort of hive-mind, communicating telepathically with one another and through the dreams of the humans they are hunting, an intriguing concept explored with greater depth in King’s underrated novel. But director Tod Williams doesn’t do much with it.
Instead, we are served a healthy heaping of sub-28 Days Later zombie violence smattered with sub-Sharknado special effects. (You’ve never seen fake fire until you’ve seen the terrible CGI flames in this film.) Everything feels wrong, down to John Cusack’s haircut: a greasy pseudo-mullet, it’s no wonder Cusack pulls a beanie on as quickly as possible. You wonder if the production declined to splurge for hairdressers. You also wonder how Cusack and Jackson got talked into this picture, to say nothing of the great Stacy Keach, who has a brief turn as the headmaster of a boy’s school where one of the "flocks" of zombies spends the night sleeping.
Casting is one of the distinctive traits of modern VOD programming. Unlike the no-names who littered the fronts of VHS releases you’d never even dream of renting at the local Blockbuster back in the 1980s, today’s direct-to-video films star big names. Oscar-winner Charlize Theron headlined an adaptation of Gone Girl author Gillian Flynn’s Dark Places in a release that hit DirecTV and a tiny handful of theaters at about the same time. John Travolta has drifted into VOD-land in recent years. Nic Cage is pretty much The King of VOD at this point: It feels like every three months there’s an ad for a new Cage flick on DirecTV. You can’t help but wonder if Cage just needs the cash. VOD is something of a goldmine for stars needing a quick buck.
But it’s not just older stars that are showing up in such programming. Consider Equals (from $8.99, available on DirecTV), starring Kristen Stewart and Nicholas Hoult. Stewart is perhaps most famous for the Twilight films, but she has carved out a niche as a serious actress working with top directors (Woody Allen, Ang Lee) and on Oscar-worthy indie projects (Still Alice). Hoult starred in the best film of last year (Mad Max: Fury Road) and anchors the mega-budget X-Men series as Hank McCoy/The Beast.
In years past, such talent appearing in a straight-to-video production would be the sign of a career in trouble. Now it’s just an indication of the weird state of the business: In a world where it costs tens of millions of dollars to open a movie wide and platforming a smaller release is tricky, it makes more sense to put it out on VOD and hope a star’s fans are able to find it.
In Equals, Hoult and Stewart play residents of a post-nuclear-war society in which emotions have been suppressed and love forbidden. When residents of this society begin suffering from "Switched on Syndrome," they experience emotions. By the time they hit Stage Four, they are shuttled off to a combination psychiatric ward/prison camp, where they are not so subtly encouraged to commit suicide.
Equals is relatively slight but moving nevertheless. The set design and cinematography are both quite crisp, helping to create the mood of a sterile, emotionless society and the internal convulsions that would occur if "the collective" were to have its feelings reawaken. A bit on the nose sometimes (seriously: "Switched on Syndrome"), Equals manages to express the horrors of totalitarianism and the isolation one feels within any collective in which free expression is forbidden. Think of it as The Giver by way of Gattaca.
It works in large part because the cast is so good. Stewart’s half-lidded gaze is perfect for the emotionally awakened Nia; there’s a glint in her eye, one that becomes more exaggerated as the movie progresses. She’s one of the most interesting actresses working today, and is worth seeking out, even on VOD. Guy Pearce also has a starring role, and Guy Pearce has never failed to make whatever he’s in at least 20 percent better.