A shot of horror from Neil LaBute

 Well, it's better than Out of the Blue, a recently released Neo-noir clinker.

 I’m referring to House of Darkness, the second movie from writer/director Neil LaBute to reach theaters within the last couple of weeks.

  LaBute's early triumph, In the Company of Men (1997), prompted many to accuse him of mining a strong vein of mysogyny. I didn't see the movie that way but LaBute's work usually paves the way for strong arguments.

  In House of Darkness, LaBute gives full vent to any desire he might have had to distribute a healthy comeuppance to insensitive men. 

  The result is a medium-grade horror film in which a libidinous but  shallow financial advisor (Justin Long) meets his match in the person of three sisters (well-played by Kate Bosworth, Gia Crovatin, and Lucy Waters). 

   The movie begins just after Long's Hap Jackson meets Bosworth's Mina Murray at a bar. Hap gives Mina a ride home, hoping the trip will lead to something more. He anticipates a conquest, so much so that he calls one his buddies to brag when Mina leaves him alone to prepare drinks.

    In this case, home happens to be a mansion surrounded by woods, a sure sign that Hap has as much chance of finding carnal bliss as one might have locating a Serena hater at the US Open — or anywhere else for that matter.

   For much of its 88-minute running time, House of Darkness plays like a creepy two-hander as Mina and Hap flirt, spar and try to out-maneuver each other. Mina, who initially seems like a push-over, quickly reveals a cunning side and we know that Hap -- poor Hap, if you will -- is in for it.

   But how much do we feel for hapless Hap? Not much, as it turns out.

   As played by Long, Hap varies his personality to fit whatever situation he confronts. He doesn’t inspire either high levels of identification or sympathy. 

   It's also clear -- thanks to a giveaway title -- that horror looms.

   To arrive at the movie's bloody conclusion, LaBute introduces a mythic fairy-tale element and pushes the story to gory extremes.

    More game-like than deep, House of Darkness keeps you watching. And say this: It's difficult to sustain interest when a movie creates little doubt about where it's headed. A strong cast -- hats off particularly to Crovatin -- creates enough tension to carry LaBute's revenge-driven effort to its inevitable finale.

Kevin Smith gets his weird on

Director Kevin Smith's Tusk isn't much more than a stunt.

Watching Tusk, it's difficult not to think that Smith has crawled into the dark hole of Human Centipede territory. Supplementing gross-outs and physical mutilation with splashes of pseudo-philosophizing, Smith tells the story of Wallace Bryton (Justin Long), a podcaster who seems to delight in making fun of people.

Bryton and his on-air sidekick (Haley Joel Osment) call themselves members of the Not See party, a bad joke from a couple of guys who don't seem especially funny, but who consistently crack each other up.

Glib and self-satisfied, Bryton travels to Canada to interview a young man who sliced off his leg making a Kill Bill-style video that went viral on You Tube.

When Bryton arrives in Canada, he discovers that his Kill Bill subject has committed suicide. In the restroom of a bar, a dejected Bryton sees a letter tacked to a bulletin board, inviting all comers to visit a remote mansion to hear adventure stories.

Badly in need of a podcast subject, a curious Bryton answers the call.

The movie adopts horror movie overtones when Bryton meets Howard Howe (Michael Parks), an eloquent man who gives him drugged tea and employs surgical procedures to turn him into (wait for it) a walrus.

At first, it seems as if Howard is a self-appointed avenger for Bryton's cruelty. But that thread unravels, leaving us to wonder whether Smith has anything more in mind than shocks bolstered by occasional ramblings about whether humans are nothing more than sadistic animals.

Bryton's girlfriend (Genesis Rodriguez) and his partner (Osment) eventually begin a search for the vanished podcaster.

En route, they encounter an uncredited star, who plays a French-Canadian detective with a variable accent. (It's easy enough to figure out who's playing detective Guy Lapointe. Just search around a bit.)

Smith tries to temper the movie's macabre tendencies with a bit of humanizing end-of-picture emotion, but if you stick around for the final credits, you'll hear the director discussing a possible ending with a laughing colleague.*

They're both mightily amused in a smug way that undermines any emotion Smith might have achieved.

Say this, though: If Smith buckled down, he might have some serious horror chops.

*Smith reportedly conceived of Tusk after a podcast in which he and his producer Scott Mosier discussed an ad they'd seen in which a man offered free living space to anyone who'd agree to dress up as a walrus. Smith then asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether this crazy idea should be turned into a movie. The "yes" votes won. The ad evidently was a prank.

Playing phone sex for laughs

A comedy with an indie spirit -- and dirty talk..

Just about anything can be a source for comedy -- and that includes phone sex, the central gimmick in For a Good Time, Call ..., a movie that tries to celebrate female friendship while taking a giggly approach to its risqué hook.

Here's the gist: Economic necessity forces two antagonistic young women (Lauren Anne Miller and Ari Graynor) to share the same digs, a spacious but pricey Gramercy Park apartment that Graynor's character took over after her grandmother died.

We quickly learn that Graynor's Katie supports herself with multiple jobs: She's both manicurist and phone sex worker.

After losing her publishing job, Miller's character -- named Lauren -- decides to help Katie make the move from employee of a phone-sex service to owner of her own operation. The two become partners in a story that begins to look like an advertisement for starting a small business -- with dirty talk added for ribald measure.

If you're looking for a movie that in any way explores the moral and psychological impact of being a phone sex worker, you'll have to look elsewhere. Working from a script by Miller and Katie Anne Naylon, director Jamie Travis has nothing much in mind other than turning out a gloss of a comedy that offers the female equivalent of a "bromance." Does it become a "she-mance" when women are involved?

I won't include spoilers, but know that the script revolves around a few twists that are ridiculously improbable and that it also provides the two women with a gay male friend, an obligatory presence in this kind of comedy. As the gay pal responsible for bringing the two women together, Justin Long battles cliche -- and I'm afraid loses.

Few expect realism in a giddy comedy, but the idea that Katie would meet with one of her regular callers (Mark Webber) makes too big a mockery of verisimilitude. And the movie's suggestion that there might be something more than friendship bubbling beneath the surface of Lauren and Katie's relationship seems ill-defined and confusing.

In this odd couple pairing, Miller portrays the organized woman; and Graynor -- who makes the bigger impression -- portrays the free spirit. The actresses work well enough together and whip up a few chuckles, but despite its phone-sex focus, For a Good Time, Call can't let go of convention: Girl meets girl. Girl and girl have a Big Fight. Girl and girl reunite as best buds.

Cameo appearances by Seth Rogen and Kevin Smith (as masturbating callers) do little aside from helping to establish the movie's comic and indie credentials -- and up the gross-out ante.