Dir - Michael Mongillo
Overall: MEH
Imagine Invasion of the Body Snatchers remade with pocket change and that gives you an accurate idea of what Michael Mongillo's The Changed is. That may be an undeserved and harsh assessment considering that the movie seems to have its heart in the right place, going for something more poignant than cheap cliches or exploitation. The small cast give the heady material their all, delivering their simple-minded dialog as if the future of mankind depends on it, which indeed it does in a story about an ambiguous extraterrestrial threat, (or something), that transforms people via saliva because that is a lot less expensive to film than having fleshy cocoon pods. As opposed to every cinematic version of the aforementioned Invasion of the Body Snatchers though, Mongillo is forced to keep everyone in a single location for most of the time, and the script is ill-equipped to offer up anything interesting to say without exciting set pieces. By trying to build up a sense of ticking clock tension where everyone has a day to either conform willingly to their new alien hosts or be taken by force, sticking people in a basement to endlessly repeat themselves and argue without getting to the nitty gritty of what it means to retain one's individuality simply does not work. Tony Todd is always good, but that is about it.
Dir - Peter Brunner
Overall: MEH
On the surface, writer/director Peter Brunner's Luzifer is an ugly and sobering look into an extreme form of mental illness where people have been crippled by their own demons and sufferings to isolate themselves from a society that will not allow such detachment. Though despite the grimy aesthetic, rudimentary yet tragic plot, and squeamish moments between its two person cast, (Franz Rogowski and Susanne Jensen, respectfully), there is a palpable beauty in the visuals. Peter Flinckenberg's cinematography captures the Austrian mountains in its awe-inspiring majesty, with its characters willingly living off the land in continuous and humbling harmony with their creator. Supernatural elements are hinted at yet never made manifest, as if there are forces at work all around a doomed mother and son duo who persistently ask where the devil is. A form of an answer arrives, yet it is of the all too real variety of both encroaching capitalism and the inevitable outcome of a mentally stilted upbringing that leaves Rogowski's ignorant and confused son to try and hopelessly save what cannot be saved. The movie lingers more than it wallows, but it is still an exhaustive experience that paints a bleak picture when all is said and done.
Dir - Blaine Thurier
Overall: MEH
A tonal blunder of a movie, musician-turned-filmmaker Blaine Thurier's Kicking Blood drops the ball as a horror comedy and instead meanders in a type of mopey haze with actors who are void of charisma, nothing in the way of memorable set pieces, flat visual language, unsympathetic characters, and tripe dialog. The vampires as drug addict metaphor has been done plenty of times, so it makes sense on paper to bond a frustrated bloodsucker with a suicidal alcoholic, yet their chemistry is never convincing. Alanna Bale and Luke Bilyk seem bored in the leads as they wade through portrayals that are only matched in lukewarm disinterest by everyone else on screen. Worst of all character wise is Vinessa Antoine who encourages Bale to fall back off the wagon because that's the "real" him and she just wants a drinking partner, which is matched by another set of undead sticks in the mud who want Bilyk to stay on the straight blood and narrow just because the script needs to make obvious connections between everyone. It is hard to hate a film like this since the approach is somber and heartfelt instead of hackneyed, but it never commits to a compelling agenda and sucks the life out of its own story, which seems to be sucking the life out of the people on screen as well. Maybe it hits the mark exactly then, but with nothing and no one fun to buy into, it also wastes its potential.
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