Welcome to the Blumhouse (Part 1): "The Lie" and "Black Box"


The Lie (2020)

Of the first batch of releases in producer Jason Blum’s “Welcome to the Blumhouse” package deal with Amazon Studios for the month of October, “The Lie” already feels, for what it’s worth, like an anomaly from the micro-budget horror brand. On its own terms, this film is what would happen if “The Parent Trap” was turned into an overwrought morality melodrama. Remade from a 2015 German film “We Monsters,” “The Lie” isn’t much different from a Lifetime movie that’s been elevated by a reliable cast and better production values.


With the setup, writer-director Veena Sud does keep things engrossing for a while. When 15-year-old Kayla (Joey King) pushes her friend off a bridge into a river, her divorced parents, Rebecca (Mireille Enos) and Jay (Peter Sarsgaard), find it in themselves to cover it up. How long can they keep up with their lies and how much longer until the dead friend’s father (Cas Andvar) catches on? Joey King is always emotionally available as the possibly remorseless Kayla, and Peter Sarsgaard and Mireille Enos (who both get the most screen time) commit fully to the material as the parents who bring “overprotective” to a whole other level.


While there is a compelling “what would you do?” element to this story about extreme ethics and privilege, “The Lie” mostly boils down to seemingly good people making increasingly poor decisions to cover something up. Take the Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin college admissions scandal, for instance, where parents will cross all lines for their children. It is easier, however, to believe Toronto playing chilly New York than some of the later turns of the screw. As for the cruelly ironic Big Reveal in the last two minutes of “The Lie,” it is duplicitous in a way that is actually infuriating. Worse, it ends up laughing at (and lying to) both the characters and the audience.


Grade: C



Black Box (2020)


Sci-fi puzzler “Black Box” is intriguing and increasingly so, but one could see it playing even more successfully as an extended “Black Mirror” episode rather than a feature film. Making his directorial debut, writer-director Emmanuel Osei-Kuffour Jr. still manages to impress with his amnesiac concept on a small level and wrings solid performances all around. 


Mamoudou Athie anchors the film as Nolan Wright, a news photographer who has survived his wife in a car accident but struggles with memory loss. He tries putting his life back together with the help of his precocious daughter Ava (a great Amanda Christine). When he has no future at the newspaper, Nolan turns to Dr. Brooks (Phylicia Rashad), a brain surgeon offering a cognitive study. With a machine called the “Black Box,” Nolan will be hypnotized and then be able to open back up his subconscious to key memories playing like a visual experience. As Nolan takes a chance on the “digital voodoo nonsense” (as one character puts it), he starts to see blurred faces in places he’s never been before, as well as a contorted, bone-crunching man haunting every memory. Nolan will eventually discover that something bigger is afoot. 


In contrast with the film’s character-driven first half, the secrets that Nolan and the viewer learn together gradually take the film into more sci-fi plot territory. This isn’t a deal-breaker, however, as the performances help hold it all together. It's particularly fun to watch Phylicia Rashad understatedly playing Clair Huxtable in mad-scientist mode. In the end, “Black Box” is a modest success caught between Blumhouse’s cinematic and TV efforts.


Grade: B -


Amazon Studios released “The Lie” (95 min.) and “Black Box” (100 min.) on Prime Video October 6, 2020. 

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