Dir - Winston Azzopardi
Overall: GOOD
Guy Can't Catch a Break - The Movie a.k.a. The Boat is the full-length debut from Maltese filmmaker Winston Azzopardi and utilizes a gimmick of only one actor on screen, said actor being his son Joe Azzopardi. The stripped down presentation and elementary premise of a probably malevolent sea vessel hellbent on ruining one guy's life for a couple of days is a unique enough selling point. With virtually no dialog, the story has no choice but to unfold through gripping plot developments, each one putting the protagonist in one unfortunate situation after the other. All of these situations are given an intense aura of mystery; so much mystery in fact that some audience members may struggle to find any kind of point to it all, if indeed there was intended to be one besides simply chilling the viewer with a vague sense of nature's arbitrary, inherent danger. The more things unfold though, it becomes clear that our lone character has a giant target painted on his back for some reason, yet those reasons are eerily never explained. Frustrating to some extents maybe and largely a downer, but it is also wonderfully acted and suspenseful, as well as being something to make one question whether or not they ever want to go sailing the Mediterranean again.
Dir - Pascal Laugier
Overall: WOOF
More of note for permanently scarring actor Taylor Hickson due to alleged negligence on director Pascal Laugier and the production crew's part, (all of which logically resulted in a lawsuit), Ghostland, (Incident in a Ghostland), turns both the schlock and unpleasant meter up to eleven with insultingly miserable results. Coming from the guy who brought us the abomination that is Martyrs, the mean-spirited ugliness here should hardly come as a surprise, but parading such brutality within an inept story that is loaded to the brim with inconsistencies and hackneyed details is more unforgiving than anything else. Maybe the embarrassing dialog at least can be chalked up to this only being Laugier's second English-language feature since nobody speaks in a manner that is conducive to human behavior. Incessant jump scares, an overall aggressive sound design, psychological twists that an eight year-old would think are stupid, an asshole teenager whose mom just "girls will be girls" tolerates it, creepy dolls all over the place, a crossdressing psycho, a dim-witted ogre psycho, and a guy in unfortunate prosthetics playing H.P. Lovecraft for a cameo, this is a crud rock that just makes one angry at the guy who made it and sorry for the people who are in it.
Overall: WOOF
More of note for permanently scarring actor Taylor Hickson due to alleged negligence on director Pascal Laugier and the production crew's part, (all of which logically resulted in a lawsuit), Ghostland, (Incident in a Ghostland), turns both the schlock and unpleasant meter up to eleven with insultingly miserable results. Coming from the guy who brought us the abomination that is Martyrs, the mean-spirited ugliness here should hardly come as a surprise, but parading such brutality within an inept story that is loaded to the brim with inconsistencies and hackneyed details is more unforgiving than anything else. Maybe the embarrassing dialog at least can be chalked up to this only being Laugier's second English-language feature since nobody speaks in a manner that is conducive to human behavior. Incessant jump scares, an overall aggressive sound design, psychological twists that an eight year-old would think are stupid, an asshole teenager whose mom just "girls will be girls" tolerates it, creepy dolls all over the place, a crossdressing psycho, a dim-witted ogre psycho, and a guy in unfortunate prosthetics playing H.P. Lovecraft for a cameo, this is a crud rock that just makes one angry at the guy who made it and sorry for the people who are in it.
Dir -Aislinn Clarke
Overall: MEH
A frustrating film, Aislinn Clarke's The Devil's Doorway has an untapped, horrifically interesting real world backdrop, yet it is simultaneously derivative of many religious/possession/occult/creepy kids/found footage movies out there. Set in 1960 in a Magdalene Laundry in Ireland where neglected women were sent to live out deplorable lives as slave labor for the Catholic church, this historical footing is both more compelling and terrifying than any of the hack-laden supernatural nonsense. The more that the film goes on, the more that the agenda switches away from shining an unflinching light on organized religious atrocities that went on for numerous decades with complacent tolerance towards. Going for authentic, 16mm graininess in keeping with the period setting, the structure jives poorly as it hits every last beat and lazy trope of contemporary shaky-cam popcorn horror, with white-out camera pops, flickering bulbs, giggling ghost children, scary music on the soundtrack, and an aggressive amount of jump scares. Though his performance is excellent, Lalor Roddy's redemptive character arc is just as formulaic as every other plot point and detail, all resulting in a shame of a movie that wastes the majority of its running time, well, running away from what is actually scary about it.
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