Dir - Mickey Keating
Overall: MEH
Yet another deliberate homage of better, more famous horror movies from writer/director Mickey Keating, Darling is his attempt at something that could fit into Roman Polanski's "Apartment Trilogy", be it one that is ruined by its author's usual, ill-suited choices. Keating has proven himself to be a fan of the genre that he exclusively works in, channeling other filmmaker's works while adhering to lazy stylistic inconsistencies that undermine some otherwise effective elements. Lauren Ashley Carter makes for an alluringly quirky protagonist, who says little yet runs through the gamut of emotions as a new house-sitter for one of New York City's most allegedly haunted establishments. Shot in black and white with many symmetrically pleasing shots as well as an abundance of ominous atmosphere, it is a goddamn shame that Keating interjects so many arbitrary, subliminal cuts set to ear-splitting screeching noises while relying on incidental music to tell the audience that something creepy is happening instead of just letting us soak in the reclusive setting's natural silence; something that would be a hundred times more suspenseful and eerie. Also annoying is that Carter's character has no character; she is merely a mentally ill person, (or so we are desperately left to assume), who walks around, stares wildly while motionless, and breaks into spontaneous psychotic episodes until the whole thing ends on an undeserved ambiguous note.
Dir - Michael Thelin
Overall: MEH
An unpleasant and ergo annoying babysitter thriller, Emelie is the full-length debut from music documentary filmmaker Michael Thelin and screenwriter Richard Raymond Harry Herbeck. The opening scene sets the viewer on edge so that we know from the onset that something is up with Sarah Bolger's antagonist, but while there is no mystery to the fact that she is not a good guy, her increasingly concerning behavior provides the first act with some icky set pieces and firmly establishes where the danger lies at least. Unfortunately, everything unravels quickly from there, with glaring plausibility breaks that do not even take into account how the logistics of Bolger's end game are laughably shortsighted. We are given a brief scene to explain WHY she went bonkers, but she seems more on a suicidal mission of self-destruction than anything else, begging the question of why she prologues such a charade in the first place. Weak plotting and disturbing subject matter make poor bedfellows, but throw in an anticlimactic ending on top of the whole thing and this is a badly-executed mess.
Dir - Jason Stutter
Overall: MEH
No better or worse, (OK maybe a little worse), than your average ghost hunting supernatural yarn that was allegedly inspired by an urban legend, The Dead Room is burdened by both its formulaic ingredients and merely passable production values. Directed and co-scripted by Jason Stutter, it throws three paranormal investigators into a haunted house in the middle of the woods where the previous family left in a hurry, and they proceed to encounter poltergeist activity that is exclusively arbitrary. At first, the ghost only does mild things at exactly 3 AM like make a banging noise, repeatedly opening the front door, or just triggering the crew's motion censor cameras. Before too long though because the movie needs more things to happen, the invisible "tall man" gets more aggressive and goes after the unwanted human guests, which is both interpreted as a warning to leave and as something not at all dangerous so that they can stick around and document more. Each character is a different type of lazy stereotype, (the practical and cynical scientist, the gothy spiritualist medium, and the family man tech nerd), and neither their stock dialog or illogical behavior comes off as plausible. It also does not help that Laura Petersen is borderline awful as the sensitive psychic, though the material itself deserves the brunt of the blame. The twist ending is as hacky as everything that came before it, but at least the movie is less than ninety minutes and Peter Jackson's main man Jed Brophy is in it.
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