[TrueFaith77]

50.I Came By (Babak Avari); grade: D-

The Brits jumping on the race-based horror genre bandwagon (think Get Out and all its white-guilt indulging progeny) only demonstrates that they have slightly more wit than their American counterparts. In I Came By, the cleverness manifests itself in a few identity-politics genre twists. First, the white supremacist, homophobic, imperialist serial killer played by Hugh Bonneville at first appears to be a gay offing his exotic tricks. Nope. He's just British! (He barks into a black female detective's face: "I thought you were one of the smart ones!") Then, director Avari sneakily makes it seem as though middle-class graffiti terrorist George MacKay and, then, his mother Kelly Macdonald will take down the villain. It's a double-down on the gimmick that Hitchcock (and De Palma) would raise into profound art in Psycho and Dressed to Kill. Because those two actors were so memorable in, respectively, The True History of the Kelly Gang and Gosford Park, the spectator may not have guessed that it is unknown Zimbabwean actor Percelle Ascott who must avenge them. I was hoping his baby mama and then his child would have to carry the mantel to extend the joke. Instead, it's just more wish-fulfillment fantasy.