By TeeJay Small
| Published 46 seconds ago

Time loop movies are all the rage, with incredible high-concept ideas taking the premise plotted out by 1993’s Groundhog Day and expanding upon it in a new and creative fashion. One such film is 2016’s ARQ, a film that takes the time loop concept and pairs it with action thriller set-pieces.

ARQ‘s a wild ride from start to finish. Though the film failed to make a massive splash when it was first released on Netflix nearly a decade ago, it stands as an excellent outing, shocking many fans who find their way to the film today.

Reliving A Violent Kidnapping

ARQ‘s plot centers on a couple named Renton and Hannah, who wake up one morning as three violent men break into their bedroom. Despite their attempts to fight back and escape, the situation restarts each time they achieve any level of success. After the armed men successfully capture the couple and tie them to chairs, the leader, known only as ‘Father,’ explains that they are part of a rebel group called the Bloc.

Father commands Renton to give him money allegedly stolen from the massive Torus Corporation, where Renton is employed. Once the Bloc men are distracted, Renton cuts himself and Hannah loose and explains that he built and stole a perpetual motion machine, which he calls the ARQ, while working for the company.

ARQ Saved By Netflix

ARQ is written and directed by Orphan Black writer Tony Elliott. The idea for the film dates all the way back to 2008 when a Canadian film studio approached Elliott to option the script. The project fell into nearly a decade of development hell afterward.

Luckily, Netflix eventually bought the rights to produce and distribute the project in 2016 for a total budget of less than $2 million, resulting in the streamer being the exclusive home for the film worldwide.

ARQ stars Rachael Taylor, Shaun Benson, Gray Powell, Jacob Neayem, and Adam Butcher, with Stephen Amell’s brother, Robbie Amell, in the leading role. The film received a world premiere at the 2016 Toronto International Film Festival, where audiences were wowed by the high-concept application of a time loop film with so many moving parts.

What Sets ARQ Apart From Other Time Loop Movies

Unlike other time loop films, ARQ contains multiple time loops within other time loops, creating a veritable Fibonacci sequence of infinite loops that would drive the average person to madness. The film’s writing is spectacular, revealing intense sci-fi concepts, which explains why it may have been so difficult to make the film in the first place. Regardless, the film has finally found its home, even if it failed to leave a massive mark on the cinema landscape upon its release.

ARQ is now available to view on Netflix. Just be sure to catch it on a day when you’re not experiencing any deja vu.

By Britta DeVore
| Published 24 seconds ago

2020 was a busy year for Chris Hemsworth. Not only was he working alongside filmmaker and actor Taika Waititi on Thor: Love and Thunder, but he was also squeezing in days to film the 2022 Netflix thriller, Spiderhead, with director Joseph Kosinski.

Hemsworth’s roles in each film couldn’t have been more different than one another. In Love and Thunder, he reprised his role as the sarcastic and chatty God of Thunder, whereas in Spiderhead, he played a sinister scientist conducting experiments on prisoners.

On paper, Spiderhead was a pretty big grab for the streamer. Not only does it star Chris Hemsworth, but it also featured leading performances from Miles Teller and Jurnee Smollett (Lovecraft Country). It also marked a reunion between Teller and its helmer, Joseph Kosinski, as the pair welcomed another blockbuster success in the summer of 2022 when Top Gun: Maverick soared into theaters, resurrecting the box office following its COVID slump.

Dark Experiments

Based on George Saunders’s short story, “Escape from Spiderhead,” which was first published in The New Yorker, the film centers around prisoners at a top-secret penitentiary located on an island in the middle of nowhere.

While it may seem like a gorgeous place to fill out your sentence, the horrors and crimes against humanity that carried on inside the walls are truly the stuff of nightmares. Chris Hemsworth’s doctor, Steve Abnesti, carried out experiments on the inmates, using mind-altering drugs to put them into traumatic situations – all in the name of healing. 

Turning to one of the most beautiful places in the world to act as the filming location for Spiderhead, the production team picked up their cameras and started filming in Queensland, Australia. You can see these recognizable spots all over the country, from the Gold Coast to Darlington and even Whitsundays – a spot known for drawing in tourists from all over the world.

This also helped Chris Hemsworth pull off a leading role in two projects at the same time as Thor: Love and Thunder was set up in Sydney, Australia, allowing him to travel from one set to the other much easier than if they were in separate countries.

Spiderhead Failed To Impress Critics

Despite what, by all appearances, should have been a critical success, Spiderhead met mixed reviews upon its arrival on Netflix in June 2022. By all means, the movie tried to nab the attention of Chris Hemsworth, Miles Teller, and Joseph Kosinski’s already-set audience, but it didn’t quite manage to hold its head above water. While it was a bummer for everyone involved, the summer wouldn’t be a complete washout as Hemsworth found success with Love and Thunder, and Teller and Kosinski broke records with Top Gun: Maverick.

For fans of either of the film’s leading men or its director, giving Spiderhead a shot on Netflix is still worth the time – especially if you’re a fan of mind-bending sci-fi films that keep you on your toes. It’s also exciting to see Chris Hemsworth in a villainous role as we’ve become so accustomed to seeing him joining the rest of the Avengers in Marvel films and playing the good guy in other flicks like the Extraction franchise and Men in Black: International. You can find Spiderhead now streaming on the platform alongside Netflix’s vast collection of sci-fi fare.

By Robert Scucci
| Published 19 seconds ago

If you thought that Nicolas Cage was the only A-list actor who spent a considerable amount of time occupying direct-to-video territory in the 2010s, you’re gravely mistaken. John Cusack’s career followed a similar trajectory during this time, and the Say Anything actor found himself starring in a dozen films that would not be released theatrically, but rather get picked up as an afterthought at the Redbox outside of your local grocery store. 2014’s The Bag Man resides among these titles, and although Cusack is supported by Robert De Niro and Rebecca Da Costa, it’s one of those strange neo-noir crime thrillers that you probably missed out on.

The Bag

The Bag Man was originally released as The Carrier, and as the updated titles suggests, there is a mysterious black bag involved and we’re not sure what it contains. John Cusack portrays a killer-for-hire named Jack, who is tasked with securing and containing the bag until his employer, Dragna (Robert De Niro), can meet him at a seedy motel and retrieve it. Dragna makes it very clear that Jack is not to look inside the bag under any circumstances or he will be killed. 

Jack checks into room 13, as instructed by Dragna, and awaits further instructions, but he’s not alone. He encounters an escort named Rivka (Rebecca Da Costa), and she immediately starts asking questions about the bag that he has hidden underneath his motel bed. Having already been ambushed by a number of Dragna’s men, one of which is now dead and sloppily stuffed into the back of Jack’s car, Jack remains tight-lipped and armed, as he has good reason to not trust anybody he encounters during his mission. 

Taking place primarily inside of room 13, The Bag Man is a claustrophobic film that explores themes of paranoia and moral ambiguity in the kind of setting that will make your skin crawl. The motel lighting flashes in red and blue, which bears a striking resemblance to an approaching cop car (of which there are plenty), which only adds a sense of confusion to the narrative. When Jack does leave the room, he encounters the nosy wheelchair-bound motel owner, Ned (Crispin Glover), and two thugs named Lizard and Guano, who are all suspicious of his activities. 

A Thriller That Deserves A Second Chance

At face-value, The Bag Man has all the mechanics of a solid neo-noir film, but its third-act reveal leaves a lot to be desired. But within the oppressively small world this film takes place, there’s a solid story that is absolutely worthy of your time if you enjoy the kind of low-budget crime film that doesn’t get a wide theatrical release. 

Unfortunately, The Bag Man was not exactly what we would call a warmly received title despite the talent involved with the production. Critics and audiences alike were quick to brush this crime thriller under the rug, and their respective 11 percent and 23 percent critical and audience approval ratings on Rotten Tomatoes drive this point home. 

Not unlike season 2 of True Detective, The Bag Man isn’t as terrible as the reviews make it out to be, and you can place partial blame on expectations versus execution. John Cusack spent decades portraying extremely likable characters in various romantic comedies, and Robert De Niro’s range runs the gamut from serious mobsters in films like Goodfellas to the quirky but nightmarish father in-law in the Meet the Parents franchise. If you go into watching The Bag Man expecting performances that are reflective of Cusack’s and De Niro’s past work, you’re probably going to be disappointed. 

But still, The Bag Man is an interesting, dark and gritty exploration of a job gone wrong under questionable circumstances. If you want to find out what’s in the bag and the suspense is killing you, you can rent the title on-demand through YouTube, Apple TV+, Amazon Prime Video, and Fandago as of this writing.