In an effort to continue The Movie
Sleuth’s desire to provide its readers with new and diverse ways of
experiencing the art of cinema, we have decided to curate a weekly,
streaming, double feature for couples who want a little more out of
their movie date nights. You won’t find any lackluster, predictable
romantic comedies in this series. Instead, we hope to bring a little
spice with a compelling series that will make your ‘chill’ part a
little more cerebral. Beware! Many of these movies are not for the
faint of heart. Delve in at your own risk.
Date Night Double Feature
#1 – Family Secrets
Aren’t secrets just so juicy?!
Businesses, empires, presidencies and the like, rise and fall on the
backs or in the shadows of secrets. We have trade secrets and
governmental secrets, secret societies, secret handshakes, secret
codes and secret lovers. There is a plethora of ways in which humans
make exclusive certain bits of information, giving rise to various
forms of social hierarchies. To the have-nots of information, nothing
is more relishing than a secret exposed. If it’s one thing humans
love more than knowing a secret, it’s revealing one. After all,
wasn’t it George Orwell who wrote in his book 1984, “If
you want to keep a secret, you must also hide it from yourself.”?
This week’s double feature brings you two films about family
secrets, which, with all of their added baggage and dysfunction, are
some of the juiciest of all.
Feature Film #1: Oldboy
(Oldeuboi, 2003)
Directed by Chan-wook Park, this South
Korean, neo-noir action thriller is the story of Oh Dae-Su, a middle
aged, alcoholic family man who finds himself kidnapped and imprisoned
on the night of his young daughter’s birthday. After spending 15
years in a cell disguised as a hotel room, he is released and given 5
days to discover the puzzle behind his imprisonment. Long before
Alfonso Cuarón became the poster child for long and elaborately
choreographed, single shots, Oldboy’s infamous fight scene
set the bar for this type of cinematography. It is still impressive
to watch 16 years later and is just one of the many dark and
beautiful elements to this thrilling first feature. There is an
American remake of this from 2013, so make sure not to confuse the
two. Available on Shudder.
Feature Film #2: Society
(1989)
Directed by Brian
Yunza (Bride of Re-animator 1989), this cult comedy/horror
classic brings audiences a glimpse into the Beverly Hills lifestyle
unlike any other. Teenage Bill Whitney has an uneasy feeling that
something is off about his upper class family. After his sister’s
boyfriend comes to him with some evidence of their dark, sexual
secret, Bill sets out to uncover the truth about his family, and
ultimately the rest of their elitist community. What he finds is
beyond gruesome and includes some awesome (or disgusting depending on
your point of view) traditional horror effects, leading some to
describe The Human Centipede as the second grossest film after
Society. Feature Film #2 is sure to make you simultaneously
laugh and recoil in horror. Available on Amazon
Prime Video.