The Silence (2019) – One of a handful of similarly themed movies that all came out at once. In this one, a horde of mutated bat-creatures which had been stuck in a sealed cave ecosystem for millions of years (let’s just ignore the problem of needing something to eat, shall we?) gets released and quickly wreaks deadly havoc across the continent. The bat-creatures hunt by sound, which means the only way to survive is to be absolutely quiet. As luck would have it, high school senior Ally (Kiernan Shipka) lost her hearing in an accident a few years ago, and her entire family (including father Stanley Tucci and mother Miranda Otto) has learned sign language. So they maybe, maybe have a chance of reaching some kind of safety in Canada, where it’s cold enough that the beasties can’t survive the winter.
I’d like to think that something basically as nasty as flying wolverines wouldn’t mean a complete breakdown of civilization, but arguments could be made. The one really lazy part of the script, though, was the inclusion of the Religious Boogey-Man as the proximate human villain — in this case, a preacher (Billy Maclellan) leading a small flock he calls “the Hushed,” who wants Ally because she’s of breeding age. No, really. And he and his followers have all cut out their tongues — does anyone who’s ever used that in a movie (the number of times I’ve seen that probably says more about me) understand that your tongue is not the same as your voicebox? Losing your tongue wouldn’t make you silent, it would just make it hard to articulate. You could still scream in fright and shout in pain, which is when the bat-things would get you.
(Also halfway through, the ultimate solution to the whole mess is accidentally introduced when someone turns on a woodchipper, and hundreds of the beasties immediately fly in and get chipped.)
Subway (1985) – Christophe Lambert is an unconnected guy with bleached hair and a predilection for explosives who evades the cops (for blowing a safe for fun) and hides in the interminable, multilevel tunnels of the Paris Metro, meeting various “colorful” characters and also trying to romance the trophy wife whose safe he blew. And he’s also trying to put together a band.
The IMDb calls it “hip and surreal.” Me, I call it emotionally standoffish and deliberately dedicated to not adding up. You know, French cinema.
Vibes (1988) – Unambitious comedy starring Jeff Goldblum as Psychic Jeff Goldblum and Cyndi Lauper as Psychic Cindy Lauper, hired by Peter Falk (not psychic, but still Peter Falk) to find a missing expedition to Ecuador which was seeking an ancient treasure.
This movie seems like it was intentionally crafted to be dumped to endless showings on cable as filler. The only bright spots come from underused professionals Goldblum, Falk and Julian Sands doing little sight gags and such that I’m sure they came up with on their own in between takes because they were bored.
Abandoned movies:
Molchaniye doktora Ivensa, aka Dr. Iven’s Silence (1974) – Soviet-era Russian SF about plane crash survivors recused by mysterious aliens so they can have philosophical conversations that don’t upset the government.
Visitors From the Arkana Galaxy (1981) – Soviet-era Czech SF about a really bad SF writer who encounters mysterious aliens model after the characters in his story. It’s ostensibly a comedy, leading one to believe that the Soviet overlords hated comedy as much as they hated non-approved philosophical conversations.