Sam Levinson
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Imagine The Purge crossed with Heathers liberally dosed in more blood than Carrie and that’s a good approximation of Sam Levinson’s film, where a small American town turns on its young women for doing exactly what society has told them to do – until they fight back.
The violence, dialogue and mayhem cuts extremely close to the bone, with the final part of the film playing out as part home-invasion, partly like The Purge, and part revenge flick.
With that, the film instantaneously takes a turn towards the direction of “ The Purge ” as Salem’s attacks on the girls intensify, launching a full-fledged thriller where our vengeful heroines unavoidably arm up.
In the case of Sam (son of Barry) Levinson’s latest, a cross between Tragedy Girls and The Purge, the result is the self-conscious, self-righteous and sloppy Assassination Nation.
Levinson’s screenplay is bursting with wit, hilarity, and scorn, dragging society through a meat grinder while serving up commentative sociocultural cocktails (taking gruesome shots at the facade of “good-natured” neighborhoods, like if Shadow of a Doubt was assaulted by The Purge).
Heathers (1989)
Directed by Michael Lehmann
influenced Assassination Nation (2018)
Plot Themes Dialogue
Assassination Nation channels the conceit into horror rather than comedy (though certain aspects qualify as black comedy), but Levinson’s choice to up the ante by having half of Salem get hacked transforms what starts out as a Heathers-style satire into just another variation on the Purge franchise, with our heroes threatened by mask-wearing vigilantes wielding guns and knives.
Imagine The Purge crossed with Heathers liberally dosed in more blood than Carrie and that’s a good approximation of Sam Levinson’s film, where a small American town turns on its young women for doing exactly what society has told them to do – until they fight back.
Her dry remarks could be plucked straight out of Heathers.
I thought it looked slick and trashy and very, very snarky, like Heathers but updated for a generation used to social media and school shootings.
More Sucker Punch than Heathers, Assassination Nation still manages to get a few things right, including the way a mob (online or off) can come after the innocent.
The likes of Heathers were smart enough to invent futureproof slang, but there’s a touch of Juno syndrome here.
Despite all that hipness, this film lacks the wit and insight that made the extreme visions of youth in Joseph Kahn’s Detention, Gregg Araki’s Nowhere, and Bruce LaBruce’s The Misandrists such delirious, penetrating, and marvelous forecasts of cultural apocalypse.
Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975)
Directed by Terry Jones
influenced Assassination Nation (2018)
The film pushes itself to its painfully boring and underwhelming ending on fumes, and what initially looks like it’s going to be a super fun action sequence unintentionally echoes the ending of Monty Python and the Holy Grail, at least in the sense that they ran out of money and had to do something to finish the fucking thing.
Silver Linings Playbook (2012)
Directed by David O. Russell
influenced Malcolm & Marie (2021)
Characters
In that way she reminds me a little of Jennifer Lawrence, who also seemed to be digging deep into a past in her early films like “Winter’s Bone” and “Silver Linings Playbook.”
Unlike Paul Verhoeven’s rape revenge tale, Elle (2016), in which the image of Isabelle Huppert as a victim is limited to the prologue, the image of Odessa Young as a victim, of Hari Nef as a victim, is fetishised again and again.
This latest script, adapted by Sam Levinson ( Another Happy Day ; Euphoria ) and Zach Helm ( Stranger Than Fiction ) sticks close to the source material, even down to the curious details of Vic’s snail breeding in the garage.
Levinson’s stellar direction and command of his craft allow the shining aspects of veteran Marcell Rév’s (White God) spellbinding cinematography, and the cerebral editorial style of Ron Patane (A Most Violent Year) to excel in the most unexpected ways.
There’s plenty I’ve managed to avoid talking about in regards to the film, stuff like a brief supporting turn from Bill Skarsgård that might be more terrifying than his work as Pennywise in last year’s It or how editor Ron Patane ( A Most Violent Year ) dynamically cuts the picture with a stylistic precision that’s invigorating.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower (2012)
Directed by Stephen Chbosky
influenced by Another Happy Day (2011)
Wyckoff native Ezra Miller, for example, so spookily cold in "Another Happy Day" and "We Need to Talk About Kevin," is marvelous, with eyebrows that have an attitude all their own, and wit that's not so much a slashing sword as a not-very-good shield.
Ready or Not (2019)
Directed by Matt Bettinelli-Olpin
influenced by Assassination Nation (2018)
Themes
As with several other recent survival-horror features, there’s a half-baked satirical streak to the film’s ambitions: The Belko Experiment (2016), Assassination Nation (2018), and Mayhem (2017) (the latter also starring Weaving) all come to mind as comparable late-model films that attempt (and fail) to serve up cutting cultural insights.
The cinematography, done by Shults’ long time DP, may take visual influence from a Sam Levinson project like Euphoria (which he also worked on) and Assassination Nation—like the sweeping tracking shots to reflect the mind space of a modern American teen—but there are so many other sequences where it aligns perfectly with Shults’ vision, with long takes that are mesmerizing and add to the frenetic chaos of the teens’ separate lives.
Meanwhile, during Sundance 2018, Harrison appeared in three films that premiered at the festival — Assassination Nation , All Rise (formerly known as Monster ), and Monsters and Men .