Image via YouTube / MGM
Till
Cocoon (Film Movement DVD)
Cocoon is set in the summer of 2018, the hottest on record in Berlin. Nora, 14, is the shy girl in the company of her older sister and their often meanspirited friends. Their mother is careless and often absent. There is no father. And then, Nora’s humiliation, her first period in front of everyone in gym class. Her coming of age is the subject of German director Leonie Krippendorf’s film, as Nora finds her footing under the incessant glare of selfies—and gropes for her sexual identity in the company of the school’s “wild” but considerate girl, Romy. (David Luhrssen)
Prey for the Devil (In Theaters October 28)
It wouldn’t be Halloween without the release of a horror movie. Enter Prey for the Devil. As a child, Ann (Debora Zhecheva) is tormented by a demonic spirit possessing her mother who informs Ann, “It’s you it wants.” Having managed to avoid the demon, young adult Ann (Jacqueline Byers) becomes a nun, and asks to be trained in exorcism when the world is suddenly overrun with possessions.
Father Quinn (Colin Salmon) runs a Catholic exorcism institute. After meeting Ann, he ignores church dictate (prohibiting women from learning exorcism) and teaches her. What Ann doesn’t know is that the demon still hunts her, and Ann’s proximity to the possessed renews its opportunity. Ben Cross, who filmed his scenes 10 days prior to succumbing to cancer, appears as Cardinal Matthews. The psychiatrist Ann consults is portrayed by Virginia Madsen. Christian Navarro plays young priest Father Dante, who takes a liking to Ann. Screenwriter Robert Zappia, with a long list of TV credits that also includes the feature film Halloween H20: 20 Years Later, co-wrote this story, and hypothesizes an unprecedented demonic outbreak ravaging mankind. Daniel Stamm directs the 93-minute creeper. (Lisa Miller)
Till (In Theaters October 28)
This film dramatizes the 1955 abduction, torture and murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till (Jalyn Hall). Living with his mother Mamie (Danielle Deadwyler) in Chicago, Emmett was visiting relatives in Money, Mississippi when he was accused of flirting with white Carolyn Bryant, operating a grocery she owned with her husband Roy Bryant. When the woman’s husband returned from his business trip, he and a friend, along with two Black men in Bryant’s employ, kidnapped Emmett. Days later, the youth’s body was found in the river. Seeing the horrific beating endured by her son before being shot to death, Mamie Till Mobley insists upon an open casket funeral. The event engenders despair and ignites the rage of African Americans while gaining white sympathy.
Deemed a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement, Nigerian American writer-director Chinonye Chukwu revisits the people and the crime from Mamie’s point of view. Deadwyler’s performance anchors this film and I’m betting she’s an Oscar contender. (Lisa Miller)
