We’ve all been around people who have made us feel uncomfortable and pushed social boundaries. And sometimes, there are people who are downright strange to the point of being sociopathic in their inappropriate behavior. This is an archetype executed to perfection by James McAvoy in Speak No Evil.

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An American remake of a 2022 Danish film (our review), Speak No Evil follows an American family, father Ben (Scoot McNairy: Monsters 2010), mother Louise (Mackenzie Davis: Terminator: Dark Fate 2019), and daughter Agnes (Alix West Lefler: The King Tide 2023), as they vacation at the isolated residence of another seemingly friendly and carefree English family they had met on a previous vacation to Italy. As the week progresses, however, the host couple, Paddy (McAvoy) and Ciara (Aisling Franciosi: Stopmotion 2023), frequently exhibit bizarre behavior and conduct themselves inappropriately in the presence of their passive guests while their mute son, Ant (Dan Hough: Hollyoaks 2024), behaves timidly and fearfully in front of his parents.

Are the hosts innocent, untroubled country folk with unusual cultural habits? Or are they taking advantage of their guests’ pushover nature for more sinister intentions?

It is no question that McAvoy steals the show. His performance as Paddy is both charismatic and menacing, making for an uncomfortable and disturbing experience that our poor protagonists must endure under his umbrella, as they are shown to be incredibly meek and easy to prey upon. At all times McAvoy is hard to read, injecting echoes of his portrayal as the Horde from 2017’s Split. An irresistible presence shedding its skin once in the safety of its own environment like a true predator.

Such that the film does successfully capture the uncomfortable feeling of the Danish original, as the audience is kept wincing every scene as their sense of decency and manners are constantly offended, as a sort of twisted episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. For those who have never seen the Danish original, this will prove to be very effective. However, for those who have, it will be very familiar territory to the point that the first two-thirds of the film are almost beat-for-beat of the original.

It is in the third act where the film pivots extremely hard to deviate from the 2022 film, in a way that feels very Americanized. For those who have seen the Danish original, and its absolutely brutal final act, this remake falls short of that due to the changes made toward the end that had to have been implemented to play better for American audiences. In this respect, this version is definitely lesser than the original yet is still an effective end of summer chiller. And McAvoy’s performance is worth the price of admission alone.

Speak No Evil released on September 12, 2024, and is in theaters now!

Welcome to an exciting year-long project here at The Nerdy. 1984 was an exciting year for films giving us a lot of films that would go on to be beloved favorites and cult classics. Imagine a world where This is Spinal Tap and Repo Man hit theaters on the same day. That is the world of 1984.

We’re going to pick and choose which movies we hit, but right now the list stands at nearly three dozen.

Yes, we’re insane, but 1984 was that great of a year for film.

The articles will come out on the same day the films hit theaters in 1984 so that it is their true 40th anniversaries. All films are also watched again for the purposes of these reviews and are not being done from memory.

This time around, it’s Sept. 14, 1984, and we’re off to see Exterminator 2, Ninja III: The Domination, and A Soldier’s Story.

Exterminator 2

When I watched Exterminator back in 1980/2020, I did not think four years later I would be reviewing a sequel.

John Eastland (Robert Ginty) has still been making his way around New York City from time to time with his flamethrower, dishing out his own form of justice. As the sequel kicks off, Eastland finds four men robbing a store and kills two of them, unaware they worked for X (Mario Van Peebles), and one of them was his brother. X vows revenge while also putting together a deal for a huge shipment of cocaine that he feels will let him take control of the city. Along the way, X kills an old friend of Eastland’s as well as his girlfriend, setting up the Exterminator to have plenty of reasons for taking down his budding criminal empire.

I was unaware they could make a worse film in the Exterminator series, but they succeeded.

There are massive leaps in logic throughout the film of people just seemingly figuring things out. But, by far, the funniest part comes when John and Caroline (Deborah Geffner) go through Central Park on a date, and stop to watch some break dancers… and continue to watch them. One has to remember this film was released by Cannon Film Distributors, which also released Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo in this year. Cannon really went all-in on break dancing in 1984.

The film isn’t entertaining in the “it’s so bad, it’s good” way. It’s just bad. The script is laughable and you spend most of the movie wondering how X thinks $500,000 worth of cocaine – which fits in just one duffle bag – is going to be enough for him to take over the city. A plan he states multiple times.

This is a definite pass.

Ninja III: The Domination

I lived in Phoenix, Arizona, from 1971 to 1978. Both my parents were raised there.

We had no idea the Valley of the Sun had many issues with ninjas.

Christie Ryder (Lucinda Diskey) is a telephone linewoman, and while working she spots a ninja dying in the desert who had just engaged in a lengthy fight on a golf course. (It actually makes sense in the film despite making no sense here) She runs over to check on him, and his spirit possesses her, making her into his vessel of vengeance against those who killed him. She ends up falling for a policeman who was involved in the death of the ninja and later has to try to fight the ninja spirit from killing him as well.

This movie tries hard to cash in on the ninja crazy of the early 1980s, but it is just so off-the-wall that it is distracting. You have the fact the ninjas are all running around Phoenix – which, even if you never lived there, it’s distracting as the desert setting makes no sense – horrible special effects, and a very odd sex scene involving V8. Yes, as in the juice. And it is more of a cringe-inducing moment than anything sexy.

Once again, this is a film from Cannon Film Distributors, and while there is no breakdancing, Diskey is the woman in both Breakin’ films. In other words, she starred in three Cannon films in one year. You have to respect her grind.

This film is, once again, bad, but it’s good for some laughs such as the incredibly bad floating sword scene. It’s worth checking out as part of several 80s trends, but don’t expect to walk away loving it.

And just think of the poor residents of Phoenix who have had to put up so many ninjas.

A Soldier’s Story

After watching two films by Cannon Film Distributors, it was nice to see something completely different.

Based on a play, CPT. Richard Davenport (Howard E. Rollins Jr.) is sent to Fort Neal in Louisiana to investigate the murder of Master Sergeant Vernon Waters (Adolph Caesar). Davenport uncovers many secrets of the segregated base operating in the Jim Crow South during the time of World War II.

The film is engaging from start to finish, although there are times when you wish for a bit less of the murder mystery and more of just the soldiers’ lives. They are fully fleshed-out characters; you want to learn more about them, but there is insufficient time.

It’s not a cheerful watch as you hear about what everyone is going through, or what the ultimate reason is for the murder, but it’s a worthwhile use of your time for some amazing perfomances.

1984 Movie Reviews will return on Sept. 19 with Amadeus!

Three generations of women are assembled in Sara Porkalob’s “Dragon Lady,” the first in her three-part series of musicals about what she refers to as her “Filipina American gangster family.” She’s not exaggerating. When baby Maria comes crying home after being bullied by a neighbor, her mother hands her a golf club and tells her to go back over there and kill the kid.

She’s not kidding, either.

The show, which opened Thursday at the Geffen Playhouse’s Gil Cates Theater under the direction of Andrew Russell, takes place on Maria Porkalob Senior’s 60th birthday. She and her daughter Maria have had a strained relationship predating even the golf club incident. Feeling unfairly judged as she approaches her golden years, Maria Sr. decides to share episodes of her harrowing life with her granddaughter Sara. What follows are scenes out of a movie melodrama — helpless poverty, horrific exploitation, routine brushes with violence and near-death escapes — performed under the guise of a karaoke cabaret.

Sara Porkalob starred in the 2022 Broadway revival of “1776,” directed by Jeffrey L. Page and Diane Paulus and featuring a multiracial cast made up entirely of female, transgender and nonbinary actors. The production was meant to view the musical through a 21st century, post-“Hamilton” lens, but Porkalob caused a stir in theater circles when she openly critiqued the handling of race and gender both in the rehearsal process and in the show itself.

That uncensored fearlessness, while not always appreciated in a team setting, is a valuable attribute in an artist creating her own material. Porkalob isn’t beholden to anything but her pursuit of the truth, which can be a dangerous game when delving into a family story marked by intergenerational trauma.

“Dragon Lady” moves back in time from the state of Washington to the Philippines, where we find Maria Sr. as a young girl, trying to survive the brutal murder of her father by a notorious gang. Working in the Red Dragon, a Manila nightclub owned by gangsters, Maria starts off as a cleaner, but as she matures into an attractive young woman she is promoted to singer. Promoted is a dubious choice of words, because the entertainers at the Red Dragon are expected to do whatever it takes to satisfy the customers.

Before she even knows what love is, Maria is swept off the stage by the boss of a ruling gang and impregnated. The story of her fight to keep her first daughter, whom she names Maria Elena, after herself, “her bittersweet joy,” represents the climax of the first half of “Dragon Lady.” Maria Sr., in many ways still a child herself, sings to her daughter, “I wish I could tell you that you are no child of pain / But you have my blood in your veins … / And trouble’s a family trait,” a haunting refrain that echoes turbulently throughout the generations.

Sara Porkalob tells her family’s story in “Dragon Lady.”

(Jeff Lorch)

The second half of “Dragon Lady” tells baby Maria’s side of the story. She’s 13 years old when we encounter her back in Washington, after Maria Sr. has moved to the U.S. with an American navy man who fell under her spell at the nightclub. He married her and gave her his last name, but this marital lifeline doesn’t have enough elasticity to withstand Maria Sr.’s past. As the eldest child, young Maria has no choice but to take over the childcare duties of her four younger siblings as her mother desperately tries to earn a living while simultaneously doing everything in her power to attract a new breadwinner for her family.

Porkalob is a vivid actor, but the dizzying array of squeaky children in the second half can make it hard to keep the story straight. Even so, the general picture of a mother’s absence and a daughter’s understandable resentment at having had to pick up the maternal slack in penurious conditions comes through loud and clear. At times there isn’t a single jar of baby food in the house, forcing Maria’s siblings to go out and beg for food donations. This scene seems plucked out of Charles Dickens, but we’re in the Pacific Northwest with a Filipino family and far removed from Victorian consciousness.

Porkalob doesn’t take sides in the conflict between her grandmother and mother. She gives both women their due, providing sufficient context to prevent us from jumping to judgment too quickly. There’s a mischievous element to Porkalob’s storytelling morality that is a direct result of Maria Sr.’s presence. Firing up her jukebox karaoke machine, this newly turned 60-year-old raps by way of introduction, “But I ain’t never killed a man that didn’t deserve it.” Words that we will see come true — at least if we are to credit her account, something her first-born daughter is less apt to do.

Sara Porkalob wrote “Dragon Lady” about her family.

(Jeff Lorch)

“Dragon Lady” works best as a one-person musical. Porkalob shares the stage with three extraordinary musicians (Pete Irving, Jimmy Austin and Mickey Stylin) who largely appear in the shadows of an inset space on the fabulous, garish red nightclub set by Randy Wong-Westbrooke. But she performs all the characters herself, and when she launches into song with her exquisite voice, moving from a range of high bell-like clarity to dusky lowdown in both original material by Irving and tweaked standards, the show is most fully alive.

When “Dragon Lady” becomes more of a conventional solo piece after intermission, a showcase for Porkalob to flex her versatility as an actor, the effect isn’t quite as powerful. One of the issues is that the tale being spun raises more plot questions than can be answered in the allotted time. Details and consequences are breezed over or ignored entirely, making “Dragon Lady” seem sketchy in places. When Porkalob is singing, however, the audience is too rapt to worry about a full narrative accounting.

Part 1 of the Dragon Cycle may not have found its ideal balance between music and drama, but Porkalob leaves a potent theatrical impression. Her family’s immigrant story must be exceedingly painful to relive, but it’s also clearly empowering. And not only for her but also for theatergoers who might feel that their own unsanitized histories couldn’t stand scrutiny on a public stage. “Dragon Lady” gives permission for the marginalized and the morally messy to belt out their complicated truths.