CITADEL
Dir - Ciaran Foy
Overall: MEH
A lot of up and coming filmmakers are offering up their debut ventures into horror over the last several years, which is a good thing on paper. Irishman Ciaran Foy's Citadel is apparently autobiographical, which is a bit unnerving in itself as the parts of the film that actually happened to him are quite terrifying. As far as the actual finished product being terrifying, that is a different story. There is a moment where a pipe is hacked open to let the gas leak out of it and this is a perfect analogy for the movie as a whole. The dilapidated setting is depicted in such an overblown manner that it loses believability. For a city where human beings supposedly live, there is a single bus route, cab service, a hospital, and we see less than ten actual people dwelling there. The opening scene is effectively unpleasant and generally the whole first act is well done with the agoraphobia of our main protagonist Tommy (Aneurin Barnard) being decently conveyed. Ever so gradually though, the dreadful air gets let out and the final act boasts some groan inducing character development and a quite unclimatic ending. This is very much an example of a horror film with plenty of potential, but one that took an unfortunate, mediocre turn with some all too common leaps in logic thrown in.
Dir - Adrián García Bogliano
Overall: GOOD
Leave it to Mexico to usher back the good ole camera zoom into horror cinema. Adrián García Bogliano's Here Comes the Devil, (Ahí va el diablo), is a surprisingly successful outing. Surprising for a few reasons. First of all, it only has a 39% rating on Rotten Tomatoes and also, the film's lead heroine Laura Caro was a Mexican pop star at one point and spends a good number of her scenes in the nude. In fact every female except one has their clothes off at one point or another and the film opens with a lesbian sex scene that is basically pornographic. There is also some brutal gore and a grindcore song plays during the closing credits, putting things more on the bombastic side. Bogliano makes a splendid effort to pack some wallops in with a leaning-towards-thin budget. There is a small handful of highly improbable incidents and one or two monologues delivered that will make you chuckle unintentionally, but this is nothing to undo the more over-the-top, blasphemous tone. Ultimately it is all about titties, blood, Satan, and metal and the film makes no apologies in being so.
The Conspiracy is a Canadian film and the full length debut from writer/director Christopher MacBride. It also serves as one of those faux documentary/found footage movies there always seems to be no shortage of, one that is clearly inspired by unsettling, Bohemian Grove theories. This is a clear example of the limitations and benefits of said genre pretty much evenly duking it out with each other. Things build up nicely for the first two acts, but the third is really when the horror components kick into serious gear. The most fantastic moments in the last thirty minutes or so were made fantastic by the single camera technique that only a found footage approach could pull off. At the same time, the decision to structure everything as a documentary ends up hindering the film as a whole. We the viewer know from the beginning that since we are watching the finished, edited, and scored product of the filmmakers within a film's "movie", that what we end up seeing is not really going to get all that crazy. So as a general rule of drama, if there is no true peril for the protagonists to face, then we cannot really worry about them too much. Even though it can only be so compelling by design then, it delivers some undeniable chills the likes of which few thrillers ever effectively pull-off.
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