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The effort is likely to face significant legal hurdles, as have previous attempts by the Trump administration and states to force a sale or ban of the app. “I’m glad to see the House help push this important bill forward to force Beijing-based ByteDance to divest its ownership of TikTok,” Warner said in a statement to The Post. The move represents one of the most significant threats to the U.S. operations of the wildly popular app, which is used by roughly 170 million Americans, but whose China-based parent company ByteDance has long sparked national security fears in Washington. Get the scoop on new movies with exclusive clips, and more when you sign up for Lifetime Movies email updates. “Darkness” broadcasts its intentions early, underscored by the blood-red fonts, nostalgic score and other self-aware nods to classic horror.
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The insufferableness of the BMW-driving Hap (played to wormy, beta-bro perfection by Justin Long) suggests his likely fate; the attentions of his beautiful pickup, Mina (a coolly menacing Kate Bosworth), suggest Hap should be wary of her invitation into her literal castle. The writer-director Neil LaBute takes a crack at the post-#MeToo revenge parable but offers more irony than insight. House of Darkness has all those familiar LaBute elements at play within the trappings of a seductive, gothic thriller. LaBute’s plays and films have proven controversial for their depictions of sexual politics, even as they've also been praised for their sharp dialogue and dark humor.
House of Darkness Review
10 Best Horror Movies Like House Of Darkness - Screen Rant
10 Best Horror Movies Like House Of Darkness.
Posted: Sun, 23 Oct 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
But the real mystery is why a new Neil LaBute movie doesn’t seem to be on anybody’s radar. Buried among the world premieres at the Santa Barbara Film Festival, the project debuted practically in silence and darkness, suggesting that LaBute (who’s been dabbling in television since the MCC split, creating “Billy & Billie” for DirecTV and “The I-Land” for Netflix) may have lost his cultural cachet. But judging by the result, this wicked little movie suggests his voice may be uniquely suited to the broader conversation.
HOUSE OF DARKNESS: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?
While Mina is out of the room fixing drinks, Hap calls a male friend to brag about his hookup. Following an evening of drinking, flirting, and kissing, Mina begins unbuckling Hap’s pants. Summary Driving home to her secluded estate after meeting at a local bar, a player (Justin Long) out to score thinks his beautiful, mysterious date (Kate Bosworth) will be another casual hook-up.
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Lucy responds by telling a tale of wronged women who sought vengeance on men who raped them and who continue pursuing sexual predators across the world. Hap becomes further disturbed when Lucy mentions a cave like the one he saw in his nightmare. Realizing the women intend to teach him a morality lesson, Hap becomes combative and tries to leave. Revealing themselves as vampires, Mina, Lucy and Nora unravel their supernatural powers with their fangs to destroy and devour Hap. Hap has a nightmare where he is imprisoned in a cave with a pile of shoes indicating he is another in a long line of victims. Hap adlibs a glib story about a man who has a threesome with two sisters.
Regardless, the end result is an interesting misfire that only really carries itself across the finish line by relying on our sheer desire to see this guy get demolished and for it all to be over. Oh, and Bosworth being drop-dead hypnotic as the lady, Mina, who's invited a bar-bro home to her freezing cold country castle. LaBute made a name for himself writing about masculinity and gender disparity so watching it play out in a spooky setting is refreshing. The film itself, though, isn't able to sustain under the staging and setting, so a stagnancy sets in. Hap thinks of himself as a “decent guy,” and because Long is such an inherently likable actor, some may give his character the benefit of the doubt.
About the Movie
Review: 'House of Darkness' Is More Interesting If You Also Saw Justin Long In 'Barbarian' - Pajiba Entertainment News
Review: 'House of Darkness' Is More Interesting If You Also Saw Justin Long In 'Barbarian'.
Posted: Fri, 23 Sep 2022 07:00:00 GMT [source]
This clearly isn’t his first one-night stand — nor Mina’s, as a pile of men’s loafers seen over the opening and closing credits unsettlingly suggests. But is infidelity enough to justify whatever Mina and her sister(s) have in store? This is where LaBute is shrewd to leave things vague, inviting audiences to project their own reasons on the film’s inevitable reckoning — a horrific payoff that recalls LabBte’s laughable 2006 remake of “The Wicker Man,” only more intentionally funny this time around. Mina lives in an ominous American castle (Arkansas’ not-at-all-intimidating Dromborg Castle supplied the location, while nighttime exteriors and candlelit parlors give things a fittingly Gothic vibe), and though she claims the two have the place to themselves, Hap keeps catching glimpses of figures at the other end of darkened corridors. But he’s too buzzed and too horny to care, and besides, this clumsy pickup artist isn’t being entirely honest with her either. When Mina asks whether he’s married, Hap offers a cryptic “Not at the moment.” And though he doesn’t overtly pressure her for sex, there’s innuendo in practically everything he says.
While getting acquainted, their flirtation turns playful, sexy and sinister. Sens. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, are supportive of the bill’s inclusion in the aid package, their offices confirmed. The two lawmakers had previously led separate legislative efforts to tackle concerns over the app. Since lawmakers introduced their latest proposal targeting the app last month, the company has launched a major counteroffensive against the effort, enlisting scores of users through pop-up notifications to bombard lawmakers with calls voicing opposition to the legislation.
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Part cautionary tale, part post-#MeToo ghost story, this sly chamber piece uses silence and darkness to its advantage, allowing audiences’ imaginations to fill in the spaces and shadows of an atypical one-night stand. “Policymakers have legitimate concerns about Chinese-made apps and reciprocal access to China’s digital market, but they should address those issues through policies that are specific, scalable, and sound,” Castro said in an email to The Post. We rank every one of the British director's movies by Metascore, from his debut Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels to his brand new film, The Ministry of Ungentlemanly Warfare. With the arrival of Zack Snyder's latest Rebel Moon chapter on Netflix, we rank every one of the director's films—from bad to, well, less bad—by Metascore.
By its generic title alone, House of Darkness seems destined to blend into the million-zillion streaming menus we scroll through mindlessly, but does it deserve such a fate? After House lawmakers passed the earlier TikTok legislation in just over a week, many senators called for slowing down deliberations in the upper chamber. Senate Commerce Committee Chairwoman Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), whose committee has jurisdiction over the bill, initially expressed concerns about whether the proposal could withstand legal scrutiny and called for hearings. House of Darkness is unique in staging and intent but that never propels it beyond being a curiosity. The performances are solid and the experiment is more than clear but it overstays its welcome about mid-way and never offers more than new rooms of the house to explore and one more person to talk to beyond the starting duo.
An argument could be made that going into this film knowing absolutely nothing ahead of time will yield the best results, but even then it's hard not to imagine growing impatient. House of Darkness isn't exactly a two-person gig, though, as one of the ways the story pushes itself along is with the introduction of Gia Crovatin (Billions, Syfy's Van Helsing) as another dweller in the manor who only serves to help Long's tipsy tomcat dig himself into a deeper hole, desire-wise. This definitely aids the back half of the film but, simultaneously, presents more of the same, adding to the dastardly repetition at work. Dracula fans may latch onto small tells and talismans here and there but the final result is still a movie that makes its point early and then doesn't offer much afterward. Would House of Darkness have been made and presented differently outside of the pandemic era or was the idea always to blend a two-person date play into something vampiric (with female empowerment overpinnings)?
The Senate plans to take the matter up Tuesday, Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) said in a statement emailed to The Post. “The Senate now stands ready to take the next step,” Schumer said. John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Find a list of new movie and TV releases on DVD and Blu-ray (updated weekly) as well as a calendar of upcoming releases on home video. House of Darkness is rated R and will be released theatrically by Saban Films on September 9, 2022, and on digital and On Demand on September 13.
A frequent chronicler of power games between the sexes, LaBute excels at this kind of loaded repartee, in which characters communicate their intentions via subtext. The delivery may be too stilted to take at face value, but that’s all the better for keeping audiences guessing. As the evening escalates, Hap becomes more direct in his douchebaggery, even going so far as to hit on Mina’s sister Lucy (Gia Crovatin) after she appears, equally lovely and every bit as enigmatic. House of Darkness finds writer-director Neil LaBute just as acerbic as ever, although he's made more compelling statements on sexual mores.
But since then, a number of senators have come out in favor of the proposal and plans to tuck it into the foreign aid package. Cantwell announced Wednesday that she now supports the legislation after lawmakers agreed to give ByteDance more time to sell off TikTok. It’s pretty clear what Hap Jackson (Justin Long) is hoping will follow when he offers Mina Murray (Kate Bosworth, eerily difficult to read) a ride home from the local bar. Guys like Hap refer to nights like this as “getting lucky,” though he’s almost certain to have a different view of things once this tryst is through. The lucky one here in fact is Mina, whose motives aren’t nearly as apparent — the uncertainty of which drives the sense of creeping dread that percolates over the next hour and a half, depicted practically in real time. After meeting at a bar, Hapgood "Hap" Jackson goes back to Mina Murray’s remote, castle-like estate.
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