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Beyond Mamushi: Indie Movie Spotlight · Midnight Movie Theatre

• 0:19
  Speaker 1: Let's talk about Beyond the Mushi. This is a low
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  Speaker 1: budget psychological thriller, and right away that stands out to me.
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  Speaker 1: Doing a psychological thriller well on a low budget just
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  Speaker 1: seems like it's going to be a tough task to
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  Speaker 1: pull off most of the time. Whenever people are sending
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  Speaker 1: me low budget movies to check out, I mean, they're
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  Speaker 1: typically horror movies, and it's just one of those things
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  Speaker 1: where I feel like you can get away with a
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  Speaker 1: little bit more of an amateur feel to a low
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  Speaker 1: budget horror movie. Whereas as far as the effects go,
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  Speaker 1: the acting and stuff like that, if that's not top
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  Speaker 1: notch in a horror movie, people are going to have
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  Speaker 1: a lot more leniency typically, whereas the psychological thriller, it's
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  Speaker 1: mostly going to rely on the pacing, storytelling, the acting,
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  Speaker 1: the atmosphere. I feel like there's just so many things
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  Speaker 1: that have to go right to make a psychological thriller work.
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  Speaker 1: It's one of my favorite genres. It's right up there
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  Speaker 1: with horror. So when I realized that that's what I
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  Speaker 1: was watching, I didn't look anything up about the movie.
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  Speaker 1: I just started watching it. I was really excited to
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  Speaker 1: see what we are getting into One of the things
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  Speaker 1: that this movie does really well that I feel like
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  Speaker 1: you have to do if you're going to do this
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  Speaker 1: style of movie is that it shows and doesn't tell.
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  Speaker 1: So you get a lot of visuals, you get a
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  Speaker 1: lot of great acting from Karina Jane and Gary Cross.
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  Speaker 1: They play the two main characters, Kate and Chris. There
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  Speaker 1: are a couple in the movie, and for most of
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  Speaker 1: it we really just get them acting off of each other.
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  Speaker 1: And that's one of my favorite things about the movie
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  Speaker 1: was seeing these two act together. So this couple, Kate
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  Speaker 1: and Chris, we see that they've recently moved in together,
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  Speaker 1: and from what we can tell right away, things are
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  Speaker 1: going pretty good, Like they seem happy. You kind of
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  Speaker 1: I feel like are cutting back and forth from like
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  Speaker 1: moving day, like to when they first get this apartment
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  Speaker 1: until more like current day, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: And moving day, everything's great, they're happy, they're kissing each other,
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  Speaker 1: hugging each other. It's nice. But then when you get
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  Speaker 1: to current day, you kind of see that things aren't
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  Speaker 1: going so well. Chris is insanely abusive to Kate, and
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  Speaker 1: it's something right away where I feel like, if the
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  Speaker 1: acting wasn't done so well. This might not have worked
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  Speaker 1: for me right off the bat, but just from seeing
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  Speaker 1: these two as a couple together, I feel like you're
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  Speaker 1: already kind of questioning, like, what's the dynamic here? And
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  Speaker 1: I hate having to say that you're judging a book
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  Speaker 1: by its cover kind of thing that sucks to be
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  Speaker 1: just by the way these people look. At first, I
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  Speaker 1: wasn't sure, like, is this like a father and daughter situation.
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  Speaker 1: As the movie goes on, obviously you learned that that's
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  Speaker 1: not the case, but it looks like there could be
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  Speaker 1: like a decent age gap there, and it might just
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  Speaker 1: be because of the way these two look, which you
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  Speaker 1: know it is what it is. But I think it
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  Speaker 1: works really well in the movie because then you see
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  Speaker 1: the power dynamic where like Chris is mentally abusing Kate,
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  Speaker 1: he's also like holding her medication hostage, and right when
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  Speaker 1: they introduce medication into the mix, that also brings up
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  Speaker 1: the idea that we might be working with an unreliable
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  Speaker 1: narrator here, saying that that's always the case. But I
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  Speaker 1: feel like in a lot of movies, especially psychological movies,
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  Speaker 1: that's going to be a device where it's like you
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  Speaker 1: might be seeing one thing, but what's really happening is
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  Speaker 1: another and I think they kind of bounce back and
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  Speaker 1: forth with that nicely, where there's some moments throughout where
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  Speaker 1: you start to question what's going on with Kate and
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  Speaker 1: whether or not she is really you know, whether or
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  Speaker 1: not things are really happening as she's imagining them too.
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  Speaker 1: I'll say that I don't want to give too much away,
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  Speaker 1: but right away you're super sympathetic towards Kate because one
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  Speaker 1: of her favorite hobbies is flying a kite. Instantly, as
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  Speaker 1: soon as she gets home from flying a kite, Chris
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  Speaker 1: guy just fucking grabs that shit and rips it in
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  Speaker 1: half in her face, and he's just like, what are
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  Speaker 1: you going to do about it? And he like takes
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  Speaker 1: some medication. He's like, oh, you need these, you need
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  Speaker 1: these because you're having like a little panic attack or something.
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  Speaker 1: And she's totally flipped out on the wall, you know,
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  Speaker 1: like losing it. You don't see any physical abuse. That's
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  Speaker 1: another thing that I'm glad they didn't go there. I'm
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  Speaker 1: glad they kept it at this like power dynamic like
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  Speaker 1: emotional abuse thing where it really toes that line and
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  Speaker 1: I feel like brings a sense of realism to this relationship.
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  Speaker 1: That is, you know, it's kind of refreshing to see
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  Speaker 1: because it's got to be really tempting to bring it
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  Speaker 1: to physical abuse, because then you're totally over the line
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  Speaker 1: as far as like sympathy goes, and you're like, fuck
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  Speaker 1: that guy. I mean, already fucked this guy in the
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  Speaker 1: movie anyway. But at the same time, it just makes
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  Speaker 1: it that much worse, you know what I mean. So,
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  Speaker 1: without saying too much, right when you see them move
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  Speaker 1: into this apartment, there is a mysterious business card in
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  Speaker 1: their closet. It's for a psychologist named Ama Mama Mushie.
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  Speaker 1: Ma'ma Ma Mushie, Mama Mushi. Great name named the movie
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  Speaker 1: Mama Mushie will be like call it big Mamamushi and
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  Speaker 1: have Tyler Perry in it. Actually, how's that for a
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  Speaker 1: psychological thriller? That'd be a total mind fuck. Tyler Perry
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  Speaker 1: bust out of the closet dressed as a woman. Damn bitch,
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  Speaker 1: you gotta kill your husband. Fuck? Yes, I should be
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  Speaker 1: a director. What are we doing here? Guys? I need
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  Speaker 1: to call Tyler Perry right now. So anyway, with all
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  Speaker 1: that being said, I'm not gonna get into too much
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  Speaker 1: more of it, because I don't want to start giving
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  Speaker 1: too much away. But you know, there's clearly the temptation
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  Speaker 1: to contact this psychologist and seek out help, seek out
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  Speaker 1: advice with her serious relationship problems. Obviously, there's a couple
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  Speaker 1: other like little things mixed in there with Chris's dad,
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  Speaker 1: or there's some drama there that gets pretty dark. There's
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  Speaker 1: also this thing that I really like where there's a
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  Speaker 1: certain point, you know, like, obviously, leaving an abusive relationship
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  Speaker 1: is nothing easy, Like I feel like it's too simple
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  Speaker 1: to just be like why doesn't she just leave? But
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  Speaker 1: there are some clear moments where at least one clear
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  Speaker 1: moment that I remember where you're like, it doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: like Chris would stop her from leaving, you know what
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  Speaker 1: I mean. During one of those scenes where she's flipping out,
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  Speaker 1: you're kind of like, I think, like he doesn't seem
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  Speaker 1: like he's going to block the door and like shove
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  Speaker 1: her back into the house, you know what I mean.
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  Speaker 1: He's almost like inviting her to leave, and she's kind
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  Speaker 1: of like sticking around. So there's just a lot of
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  Speaker 1: really interesting layers to this movie and the idea of
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  Speaker 1: watching an abusive relationship unfold along with this other element
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  Speaker 1: sprinkled on top that you might consider it to be
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  Speaker 1: a supernatural psychological thriller. I'm going to kind of leave
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  Speaker 1: that up in the air. Is a question, because although
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  Speaker 1: I feel like maybe the movie's marketed that way, I
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: think if you don't know that going in, it makes
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  Speaker 1: it better. So I just ruin that for you, guys,
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  Speaker 1: So you're welcome anyway I can subscribe. This movie was
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  Speaker 1: directed by M. W. Daniels. I was actually really pleasantly surprised.
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  Speaker 1: He sent me a DM on Instagram and asked me
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: to check out the movie and do a review of it.
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  Speaker 1: So you know, I'm always always willing to do that.
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  Speaker 1: Hell yeah, I'm gonna check this thing out. The run
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  Speaker 1: times about sixty minutes, so it's kind of like a
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  Speaker 1: medium length movie, I would say. I was looking through
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: some of his other work. He's a writer, director, composer.
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  Speaker 1: He wrote and directed this movie. He's also worked on Lizziehead,
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  Speaker 1: which was like a made for TV movie or a
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  Speaker 1: TV film, And I haven't gotten to any of his
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  Speaker 1: other pieces of work yet, but I do plan on
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  Speaker 1: checking some of them out. I saw that he had
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  Speaker 1: a lot of shorts on IMDb that were credited Kei, Lee,
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  Speaker 1: October Loaner, Everyone laugh at LeeAnne, and many more, so
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  Speaker 1: I'm excited to check those out. I always love a
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  Speaker 1: good horror short, and just from the way this movie looks,
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  Speaker 1: it's acted and composed and everything. With all of that considered,
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  Speaker 1: I would one hundred percent look into more of this
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  Speaker 1: guy's work. I think he has a lot of potential clearly,
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  Speaker 1: especially doing this on a twelve thousand euro budget. That
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  Speaker 1: kind of blew me away too, just because how great
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  Speaker 1: it looks. I don't know, like I haven't looked into
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  Speaker 1: the actor in it. So we have Karena Jane, like
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: I said, Gary Cross, we also have Jimmy Thompson, Steven Atkins,
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  Speaker 1: and Kathy Griffiths. The level of acting that these guys
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  Speaker 1: are putting out in this movie, it makes me wonder
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  Speaker 1: like was most of the budget spent on them or
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  Speaker 1: they just happen to be really talented, like you know,
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  Speaker 1: lesser known actors or something like that. Also, just the production,
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  Speaker 1: I feel like one of the great things about it
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  Speaker 1: is like the coloring and contrast to this movie. It
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  Speaker 1: really adds to the mood of it, you really get
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  Speaker 1: a sense of like what they're going for, the tone
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  Speaker 1: that they're going for throughout the whole movie, which I
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  Speaker 1: thought was really great. It's fairly bleak. The pacing was
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  Speaker 1: great too. Like I said, with the show Don't Tell approach,
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  Speaker 1: I think it's pulled off really well, and I think
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  Speaker 1: the pacing lends itself to that, where like right away
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  Speaker 1: you're just kind of swept into the story, and because
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  Speaker 1: you're not getting everything out there at once, you're almost
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  Speaker 1: just like getting these little clues about what's going on.
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  Speaker 1: It leads you to the next scene every time where
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  Speaker 1: you're locked in or anything else. Besides all that, I
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  Speaker 1: think I'm gonna end it on this. I'm not gonna
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  Speaker 1: talk about this in any detail, but the ending scene
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  Speaker 1: is great. The ending scene is fantastic. I feel like
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  Speaker 1: it takes all the little clues that you've gotten throughout
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  Speaker 1: the movie and wraps them up nicely to this really
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  Speaker 1: interesting conclusion that takes a couple turns in a couple
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  Speaker 1: twists that are really pretty satisfying. I would say it
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  Speaker 1: kind of just wraps up the whole story nicely, and
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  Speaker 1: especially the final scene I was not expecting. I'll say that,
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  Speaker 1: and that's it, so go check out Beyond the Mushi.
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  Speaker 1: It's currently playing in festivals, so be on the lookout.
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  Speaker 1: Beyond the Mushie by director MW. Daniels