Mid-Century

Rating: 8/10

Director: Sonja O’Hara

Writer: Mike Stern

Style: Fantasy/Horror/Mystery

Time: 1 hour and 45 minutes

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/672495577

Review by Mike Szymanski

You know something is wrong when a woman takes a shovel and dispatches a bird that has flown into a glass wall of a window. She does it without passion or shame. It was the window who killed the bird, not her, she reasons.

The house is designed and once owned by a famed architect, and it holds a lot of ghostly secrets as well as secret ghosts.

This is a special kind of house that a couple has found and rented for their very own short get-away. An emergency room doctor Alice (played by an adept and likable Chelsea Gilligan) and her husband Tom (played by a handsome Shane West) rent the modern Mid-Century style home with a lot of windows that was designed by Frederick Banner (played with sinister evil by Stephen Lang who is an expert at these creepy roles).

Lang you may know from great roles in both of the “Avatar” films as well as “Public Enemies,” “Manhunter,” “The Hard Way” and more. Gilligan is from “Magnum, P.I.” and West is from “Gotham” and starred opposite Mandy Moore in “A Walk to Remember.”

Tom and Alice barely have time to understand their strange and uncomfortable feelings about the house before they find out other things about the famous architect who built the house; such as the man was very much into the occult, and that his past two wives mysteriously vanished.

We saw from the beginning in a flashback that Banner is a bad dude who in the 1960s murdered the husband of a young woman who ended up finding his body hanging in the hallway.

Tom is unaware of all this history at first, but is intrigued by his hero architect, because he is also one, and is now struggling with a high-end project. Tom’s high-pressure client is a sassy take-no-prisoners Beverly Gordon, played by Vanessa Williams with a lot of fun.

Beverly calls Tom a great deal and insists she “is not spending $10 million for a place to stuff my furniture” and wants a house that will have staying power beyond a few parties and “create something that will last.” As a major influencer who motivates people for a living, Beverly insists that Tom can do the job, even though he tries to step away from it altogether.

Tom is too distracted by what’s going on in the house. Tom finds a sexy red-headed ghost named Marie (played by Sarah Hay from “Flesh & Bone”) who turns out to be Banner’s last wife. He can talk to her, even touch her, and feels like he’s having some mental breakdown.

Mike Stern, who wrote and produced the film, also plays Eldridge Banner, the architect’s somewhat deranged son. You will recognize him from “Jack Reacher.”

Director Sonja O’Hara also gives herself a cameo in the film as an amusing work buddy at the hospital with Alice.

Alice is still taking care of COVID patients at the hospital, while Tom seems to have too-close of a relationship with his assistant Hannah (played by Emmy Perry). Hannah finds an old book about Banner and his odd story, as well as a secret society he was in, and a sinister painter named Emil (played by Bruce Dern) and the paintings are all over the house. It is a memorable cameo from the classic prolific actor Bruce Dern (who was nominated for an Academy Award for “Nebraska” and is in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood).

This imaginative movie has it all: including biting social satire, fine acting, creepy chills, unpredictable twists and a successful mix of multiple genres. Is it a home-invasion robbery? Is it a ghost story? Is it a murder mystery? Is it a lesson in the occult? Somehow it mixes it all very well.

Some characters seem to have supernatural powers, some ghosts can also take possession of other people’s bodies, and some voices come out of the wrong people.

The satirical script by Stern labels Banner as “The Orange King” because of his unnatural complexion. There is no secret that this is a slap at Donald Trump and his desire to turn the clocks back to a simpler, whiter, more misogynistic time like the ’50s and ‘60s.

As Tom is alone in the house, seeking out old photos and other things of interest around the house, there’s a shadow following behind him, observing him, stalking him.

People around Tom and Alice start getting murdered. The phrase: “the dude says no one can know” is heard at each brutal slaying.

The brilliance of the use of the Mid-Century style home is that it seems so open air with large windows, but there are walls behind where things happen that no one can see. That’s the theme of the film.

This movie has already won awards such as Best Picture and Director at the IFS Los Angeles Film Festival, and Bruce Dern won best supporting actor.

The movie has already debuted in some theaters and will soon be available on all streaming platforms.