WHAT WE DO IN THE SHADOWS
Dir - Taika Waititi/Jemaine Clement
Overall: GREAT
It comes as no surprise that Jemaine Clement of the Flight of the Concords fame co-wrote and co-directed a hilarious vampire parody film with What We Do in the Shadows. Friend and co-conspirator Taika Waititi is the other half of the creative team here and both are on camera as well, Waititi as the prissy, three-hundred and seventy-nine year old Viago and Clement as Vladislav, the eight-hundred and sixty-two year old who is clearly designed after Dracula himself. There are oodles of nods to classic film and literary vampire lore that any horror buff will be pleased by. The sadly not-used enough Petyr is modeled after Kurt Barlow and Max Schreck and arguably provides the most laugh-out-loud moments, per example. This is not to leave out a rivalry with a werewolf gang, a spontaneous mid-air brawl between the other head vampire Deacon and the dumb-ass noob Nick, and plenty of other things. Improvised, overlapping dialog, everyone bitching and being awkward most of the time, and the aforementioned references to vampire cliches from various sources all point to the entire cast being well versed in their subject matter. It is a testament to the talent involved though when something like not being able to get in a club, (because they have to be invited in, naturally), and Vladislav trying unsuccessfully to hypnotize an old man watching TV would be just as funny if all the protagonists were not undead. Thankfully they are and the results are just great.
LET US PREY
Dir - Brian O'Malley
Overall: MEH
Brian O'Malley's Let Us Prey is remarkably dumb at times and very vague in the plot department. He either had a hard time getting extras or in fact his version of Ireland is just supposed to be one big ghost town of a country. Be prepared to ask many questions as to where the hell all the people are at as the eight actors with dialogue seem to be the only ones alive. All that aside though, this is basically an action movie with a cliche-ridden, whatever-Bible-verses/redemption/avenging angel and/or Satan story that requires every character to one-up each other with terribly witty and obnoxious one-liners. It makes a deliberate attempt at badassery while at the same time taking itself very dark and serious. With all the heavy-handed, commonly lousy dialog, absurdly over the top action sequences, and violence galore, you would think the end result would be rather fun in a pure schlock-fueled way. Instead, it is sort of like the Boondock Saints of horror movies which is never, ever a good thing.
Dir - Adam Robitel
Overall: MEH
There are some likeable components in Adam Robitel's directorial debut The Taking of Deborah Logan. The story itself is pretty creepy and clearly a deliberate attempt was made to have some of the characters at least once or twice act outside the "morons in horror movies" norm. One such character bails midway through, telling everyone else to go "fuck yourselves" when things get horrifying. Elsewhere though, the film is extremely derivative of both the faux documentary, hand held camera variety and evil possession movies in general. Boo scares, shots of spooky people standing still while normal people watch them, no one turning the lights on and/or they do not work anyway, the camera man is black, (that particular re-occurring stereotype is quite baffling), and the finale which stumbles along with a near bombardment of stupid, "Keep the camera running...we're making a found footage movie!" excuses. Also, everything is nicely edited, scored, and follows a remarkably user-friendly, documentary format. Which of course makes us wonder who on earth was said documentary was for and have people in this universe actually seen it? Because everything supernatural that defies the laws of reality is clearly captured. With creepy music of course because horror movies.
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