Dir - Christopher Wesley Moore
Overall: MEH
An aggressively awkard slasher comedy that tries hard not to be both at the same time, Blessed Are the Children is one of many amateur productions from indie filmmaker Christopher Wesley Moore who seems to enjoy 80s throwback posters to go along with his low-end genre offerings. While there is a natural dynamic to the likeable enough characters who constantly joke around with each other as friends often do, the three female leads all exhibit oddball eccentricities that makes their interactions more absurd than relatable. One of them is a sassy lesbian, the other is recently pregnant and constantly talks to herself, and the other is old enough that her non-religious-based virginity should raise a few eyebrows. Most of the film sticks to a loose, goofy agenda where none of the actors are that good nor are they properly miked, but the low-rent, SOV presentation is forgivable to those who have seen this kind of production many times before. What sets the whole thing apart, (and not in an agreeable way), is the gradual interjecting of weirdos in those creepy crying baby masks that you see at Spirit Halloween every season, who brutally murder people out of nowhere in a manner that is not at all played for schlocky laughs. This makes for an absurd clashing of tones that is fascinating, yet also embarrassingly handled as it smashes two noticeably different lanes together instead of sticking to one of them in an attempt to do something fun, unique, or creepy that does not clumsily fall on its face in the process.
Dir - Javier Attridge
Overall: MEH
Close in structure to Bobcat Goldthwait's 2013 film Willow Creek, (which itself was close in structure to The Blair Witch Project, as are countless other found footage movies), Javier Attridge's full-length debut Wekufe brings the sub-genre into Chiloe, Chile where yet another pair of foolish college kids are venturing into the woods in search of a malevolent entity that is local to the area. On the plus side, Attridge leans into the redundancy of such a concept, making numerous meta jokes that poke fun at the found footage framework. One of his characters is investigating the myth of the rapey, ogre gnome called a Trauco and interjecting her own political activism into the mix, (long story there), while her boyfriend cameraman thinks it will be fun to use whatever they shoot to make his own horror movie. It is a lame premise that is played partially as a spoof, but problems arise in the fact that Attridge does not stick to this angle and makes it more and more clear that he is going for unsettling chills instead of laughs. This is unfortunate since the movie paints itself into a corner from the onset and it then takes forever to get any kind of disturbing payoff. Once the third act technically delivers on such a thing, it spirals into even more unoriginality, with dumb character behavior, creepy cabins, creepy caves, creepy noises, and occult nonsense that we have seem a bazillion times before.
Dir - Hiroshi Katagiri
Overall: WOOF
Loud, aggressive, hare-brained schlock, Gehenna: Where Death Lives is the debut from special effects man-turned-director Hiroshi Katagiri and is notable as one of the few full-length films to be shot in the Northern Mariana Islands of Saipan and Tinian. Fusing Eastern folk horror with people trapped in a haunted location, it features a small crop of obnoxious characters who are given only the most simple-minded traits to distinguish them. Simon Phillips, (no not the legendary drummer, sadly), may as well have "capitalist scumbag" tattooed on his forehead as he possesses zero redeeming qualities in his quest to sell some real estate while ignoring local customs and possible safety hazards, predictably becoming the first guy to scream and blame everybody else while trying to murder then when the supernatural rules dictate such a thing. Everyone else on screen is equally one-note and the plot unfolds as a checklist of cliches, culminating in a "twist" that only a braindead rabbit would not see coming. The practical make-up effects and gore are refreshing and better than most contemporary, low-budget B-movies would bother with, but Katagiri and his crop of ham-fisted actors are doing everything that they can to stupid-up an already derivative story and presentation. At least Doug Jones and Lance Henriksen collected a paycheck on it though.
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