Dir - Lorcan Finnegan
Overall: MEH
The full-length debut Without Name from Irish filmmaker Lorcan Finnegan features occasional bouts of evocative dread, yet it fails to captivate as well as it should. Most of these issues stem from the nebulous story line which alludes to a deeper, otherworldly mystery that it gradually abandons in place of merely watching our lead protagonist loose his mind on a steady combination of psychedelic mushrooms and the traumatic effects of a dysfunctional domestic life. In fits and starts though, the psychologically ravaged journey is atmospheric. The sound design is loaded with calming ambiance that is simultaneously unsettling, the cinematography by Piers McGrail is lovely, and large portions go by where technically nothing is happening yet could at any moment. Alan McKenna turns in a solid performance as a doomed land surveyor who experiences strange occurrences where nature's very secrets seem to be pulling him in, yet his madness comes on more randomly than convincingly and the lackadaisical pacing ultimately gets in the way instead of serving the barren story properly.
Dir - Jim Hosking
Overall: MEH
Channeling John Waters absurdism with unwatchable grossness, (though no actual dog shit was consumed), Jim Hosking's full-length debut The Greasy Strangler blatantly goes for midnight movie WTFness and can be applauded by those who can stomach it. The type of film where everything "wrong" with it is intentional, the performances, dialog, plot, visuals, and a barrage of vomit-inducing, juvenile nyuck nyucks will make any sane viewer run to the hills within the first act since it only gets more combative from there. Deliberately unflattering in every capacity, there are schulbs in tight underwear, grotesque fake penises, full-frontal nudity from both sexes, disgusting food being eaten, farts, cartoony gore, and of course puke-yellow grease and squishy sound effects to slam home its nauseating, trying-way-too-hard aesthetic. At the same time though, any movie that is this aggressively quirky cannot help but to be laugh out loud hilarious at regular intervals and indeed it is. Also impressive is that Hosking and co-screenwriter Toby Harvard have managed to concoct a touching father/son dynamic completely in spite of the presentation of course since everything that happens is far too on another planet to connect in any conventional sense. One is just as likely to scratch their head as they are to lose their appetite for a week afterwards, but even if a single viewing is more than enough, it will stay with you as a thing that you have experienced alright.
Dir - Michael McQuown/Vincent J. Guastini
Overall: WOOF
Another example of a terrible film with a high Rotten Tomatoes score garnished from a mere seven reviews, The Dark Tapes rides the line between a humiliatingly inept, amateur filmmaking vanity project and a "real" movie that does a piss-poor job at every aspect of its construction. Written, directed, edited, shot, and presumably catered by Michael McQuown, (whoever that is), plus some other guy, the film is acted as badly as it is written, which is to say like high school play badly acted. People speak exclusively in sentences that no human at any time in the real world has ever spoken in and delivering them like they are doing so against their will. As far as the visual aspects go, it is a logical assumption that the crew simply hit up a Spirit Halloween store, snagged a few scary clown masks and yard decorations, and then did the digital effects on some cheap software that they had no experience in using. To check off one other misstep, this is in the found footage genre and could be the poster-boy for everything said genre can do to annoy people and consistently take them out of the movie. "Who's filming this?", "Why are they filming this?", "Who's editing this?", "Why are there titles?", "Wait, there's scary music too?", etc. In other words, proceed with caution. In other other words, do not bother in the first place.
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