“For Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d buy a gun.”
When Amy Dunne wrote this in her diary with red ink, a personal tradition was born. I rewatch Gone Girl on or around Feb. 14 every year.
Why? Because it’s a fun, pithy little tradition that also feels like throwing the middle finger at a holiday that I find empty, silly, and annoying.
Also, David Fincher’s 2014 movie is simply a blast, a pitch-perfect thriller about a rotting marriage and weaponized narratives.
Sadly, Gone Girl is not currently streaming on a major service. (According to my research, it is “streaming” on “DirecTV,” whatever that means. Seems fake!)
It is available to rent or buy digitally, but if you like it as much as I do, I recommend investing in the Blu-ray, which comes with an Amazing Amy book. Fun!
Anyway, now that I’ve sort of recommended Gone Girl, it’s time to get to the task at hand. This week I have a pair of twisty, twisted double features that are devilishly fun to watch.
(Unless otherwise noted, all movies are available to rent from Apple, Amazon, etc. in addition to the listed streaming services. But if you watch them and like them, I’d consider buying physical copies).
Double Feature: Detour (1945) and The Last Seduction (1994)
Both movies are streaming for free with ads on Tubi. Detour is streaming on Prime Video, The Criterion Channel, and Kanopy. The Last Seduction is streaming on Peacock.
I couldn’t start a column off with Amazing Amy and then fail to recognize a couple of other entries in the Femme Fatale Hall of Fame.
Clocking in at just 69 minutes, Edgar G. Ulmer’s Detour is a lean, mean B-movie that pulsates with filth and cruelty. Proceeding “as a progression of increasingly awful and improbable flashbacks,” the movie is told from the iffy subjectivity of a man named Al (Tom Neal).
Al is hitching a ride from New York to L.A. when his ride mysteriously dies. He hides the body, steals his wallet, and presses on while assuming the man’s identity. He then picks up a hitchhiker of his own, a woman named Vera (Ann Savage).
Savage arrives just under halfway through this 68-minute movie and spits enough venom to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool. As Detour speeds to its finish line with more death, blackmail, and backstabbing, she and Neal give the movie two very different, albeit twisted, views of humanity.
Linda Fiorentino gives a similarly poisonous performance in the ‘90s neo-noir The Last Seduction, though unlike Savage she takes center stage for nearly the entire thing. It’s the kind of role that should have shot her straight to stardom and garnered her an Oscar nomination, but the movie was released for television. Alas.
Fiorentino stars as Bridget, a cutthroat woman hiding out in upstate New York after lifting her husband’s illicit drug money. Here she meets Mike (Peter Berg), a divorced man who becomes wrapped around her finger.
Directed by John Dahl, this is an unapologetically wicked and cynical movie, and it has some truly ugly moments, including some blatant transphobia. But its main appeal is that it does not attempt to tamper Bridget’s ruthless, conniving impulses. You watch The Last Seduction wondering just how far she is willing to go for greed, and the answer is pretty fucking far!
Double Feature: What Lies Beneath (2000) and Allied (2016)
Both films are streaming on Paramount+.
Robert Zemeckis is usually tethered to his more zeitgeist-capturing films, for better (Back to the Future, Who Framed Roger Rabbit) and worse (Forrest Gump). However, he’s had a long and varied career that includes some underrated romantic thrillers.
His 2000 film What Lies Beneath was a video store staple for me. Not because I rented it, but because I was not allowed to rent it. Years later when I did finally get to it (on streaming), the twist had been spoiled for me.
Even though the movie is almost a quarter century old, I will do no such thing here! What Lies Beneath is about a married couple (Harrison Ford and Michelle Pfeiffer) whose lakehouse life is upended when Claire (Pfeiffer) thinks she sees a body in the water.
Then, the tub starts filling up on its own and messages start appearing in their steamy bathroom mirror. When it becomes clear to Claire that this supernatural presence is trying to tell her something, she descends into a rabbit hole that shakes the foundation of her marriage. The movie remains a chilly, effective thriller that is heightened by its stars’ effortless chemistry.
Allied, Zemeckis’ 2016 spy movie, is also about a marriage thrown into doubt. Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star as Max and Marianne, secret agents who fall in love during a mission in Casablanca during World War II.
After the mission, the two are married and live in London. Max is contacted by British intelligence, who inform him that Marianne may in fact be a German spy. Zemeckis ratchets the tension up masterfully here, honing in on every suspicious gesture while also cutting the movie loose with some fantastic action set pieces.
Well, I think that’s enough betrayal and murder for one week! If you have a movie you’d like to see me shoutout in a future column, send Watershed Voice a message on social media. 😁
Matt Erspamer is a writer and movie lover who lives in Seattle.
Any views or opinions expressed in this letter are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Watershed Voice staff or its board of directors.
