Weekend Watch: Nightmare Alley And MacGruber

Image Credit: Searchlight Pictures

After years of exploring human foibles through all manner of monsters and creatures, Guillermo del Toro has switched gears to pull a similar trick with very human heroes and villains. The Oscar-winning writer-director has attracted a fantastic cast for this latest movie, with Bradley Cooper, Cate Blanchett, Rooney Mara, Willem Dafoe and Richard Jenkins among the ensemble.

Nightmare Alley also sees del Toro (alongside co-writer Kim Morgan) tackling a new adaptation of a novel that has previously hit screens – William Lindsay Gresham’s book was brought to the cinema in 1947 by Edmund Goulding. Here, Cooper inherits the role of Stanton ‘Stan’ Carlisle, who arrives at a carnival run by Dafoe’s Clem Hoatley. We already know Stan’s not to be trusted – a fiery prologue proves it – but he’s soon wheedling his way into the small, close performing community, and particularly into the affections of Toni Collette’s Zeena the Seer and Mara’s Molly Cahill, who falls for Stan. Before long, Stan has – accidentally? – helped Zeena’s husband Tom (David Strathairn) drink himself to death, and left, after marrying Molly, to seek his fortune as a mind-reader. Cut to two years later and he’s a big success, but still itching for more, so when he meets crafty psychoanalyst Dr. Lilith Ritter (Cate Blanchett on icy, sterling form), he sees the chance to bilk her rich clients out of their money. Suffice to say, it does not go the way Stan plans.

This is prime del Toro territory – there may not be fantastical creatures milling about (the closet we get to that is the collection of foetuses that Hoatley owns), but he casts a spell of creative brilliance for a film that draws you in and keeps you fascinated. It’s beautifully designed and keeps you guessing. Proving that the Oscars he and his team won for The Shape Of Water were no fluke, Nightmare Alley is another resounding winner from a man who hopefully will keep challenging himself and us.

Nightmare Alley is in US cinemas now and will arrive in the UK in January.

Image Credit: Peacock

Will Forte’s Saturday Night Live MacGruber sketch character might be the very definition of an acquired taste and, unfortunately, many people simply didn’t acquire it when the movie adaptation arrived in 2010. The reviews were harsh, and the audience failed to show up. It was castigated as a classic example of an SNL idea that worked in brief sketches but couldn’t be stretched to film length without breaking. The creative team, including Jorma Taccone, would occasionally float the concept of a sequel, yet without much hope that anything would happen.

We live, though, in an era where streaming services are always looking for content, and anything with a recognizable name has a shot, even if that name comes linked to a flop of a film. Hence Forte, Taccone and John Solomon brought MacGruber back for an eight-episode series. Following a silly catch-up song from Maya Rudolph’s Casey (MacGruber’s late wife, who died at the start of the movie), we’re thrown back into his world. Turns out our hero has been rotting in Supermax prison in Arizona for killing the movie’s villain, Dieter von Cunth (Val Kilmer) – who, because this is MacGruber, was thrown to his death by the hero, shot several times and peed upon. Yet when the President’s daughter is kidnapped, MacGruber is offered a dangerous get-of-jail card, as the kidnappers want Mac in exchange. But all that is just an excuse for Forte and co to drum up more of what MacGruber is all about: relentless silliness in the service of spoofing big action movies.

Mac, you see, is an endless contradiction: supremely skilled special forces soldier with the attitude of a teenager and a whole host of strange behaviours. He’s unafraid to rip throats out in the name of saving the world but will soil himself at the thought of a lengthy prison stay. And therein lies the stumbling block for many – MacGruber is frequently utterly ridiculous and committed to its zany, rude, violent sense of humour. I’d always enjoyed the sketches and laughed at the film, but the show is perhaps one step too far.

Because even if you vibe with the concept’s inherent stupidity, the new show is likely to test the limits of your patience. Bits are driven into the ground until they stop being funny. And that’s a real shame. I’ve only watched the first episode so far – which seems to take an age to get moving – and I will give the series at least a couple more episodes to hook me back in, but right now all I can think is this show might just be a MacGruber too far. An upper decker in the master bathroom, if you will.

MacGruber is on Peacock now.