Dir - Noah Segan
Overall: GOOD
For his full-length debut, actor/director/writer Noah Segan throws his hat in to the vast vampire romp ring with Blood Relatives, a movie that is harmless and no better or worse than the other eight-hundred million movies that take the piss out of blood-suckers. The film plays out in the guise of a father and daughter-bonding road movie, and because there are also plenty of those, it does not leave anywhere inventive for things to go. Thankfully, this is not as much of a detriment as it should be due to the likeability of Segan's Jewish, mild-mannered undead protagonist and his relatable, sassy teenage daughter, (played by Victoria Moroles), who barges into his life with her own level of awkwardness and frustration over their struggling partnership. The details can be spotted from previous sources left and right, but the combination of R-rated and cutesy charm helps even the various gags that fail to land. The whole thing gets in and out in just under ninety minutes without any life or un-death obstacles, and it ends more when Segan's script has run out of vignettes than when the actual story is over. Still, it sails its two pleasant characters off into the sunset agreeably and at the end of the day, that is what the film is after all; agreeable.
Dir - John Ainslie
Overall: MEH
The second full-length from Canadian director John Ainslie, Do Not Disturb wears its metaphors of trying to cut free from a dead end relationship on its bloody sleeves, yet it does so with mixed results. Set and shot in Miami, it follows a miserable couple who have spent years making half-assed excuses to stay together and as these last ditch effort vacations often go, such a retreat hardly saves their pairing. Instead, a mysterious drug-infused experience only temporarily bonds them in the most unhealthy of ways, (to say the least), and the errors of their faulty time spent going through the motions only become fully embraced once a whole lot of carnage has been unleashed. Writer/director Ainslie has a solid premise to work with and he pulls off a second and third act that is consistently tripped-out and brutal, but things are too ugly and monotonous along the way. In the leads, neither Kimberly Laferriere or Rogan Christopher are likeable, so spending the entire movie within their dysfunctional dynamic is a chore, even if Ainslie peppers some fleeting moments with jet-black humor. The ending is particularly drawn-out, which may be intentional so that we feel the claustrophobia of the characters who spend almost the entire film in their mid-level hotel room. By the time that the credits hit while still dishing out the aftershocks of such nastiness, we the viewer are ready for our own, (hopefully not as violent), vacation.
Dir - Grégory Beghin
Overall: MEH
A hybrid of Neil Marshall's The Descent and John Erick Dowdle's As Above So Below except with Nazis, Deep Fear underwhelms with the weight of its predictable beats caving in on themselves. This was the second full-length from director Grégory Beghin, a French/Belgium co-production that ventures into the Paris catacombs and on top of dead ends and claustrophobic tunnels that only idiots in horror movies venture into. Our band of dimwitted characters also find skinheads, Resident Evil CGI zombie dogs, and a sixty-plus year-old S.S. officer who has been living in a German bunker off of rats since World War II ended without his knowledge. While these hapless protagonists are a likeable bunch personality wise and we are given enough bonding time with them to care when they get hopelessly terrorized, Nicolas Tackian's script never throws any surprises at us. The opening scene spells out the danger that lurks underneath the civilized world, so the rest of the film is just a drawn-out ordeal where we wait for the people on screen to realize just how doomed they are. Setting the film in the 1990s is a wise move since it makes the premise of a survived Nazi soldier and the electricity in his bunker still working almost plausible, (and also does not allow anyone to have cellphones to call for help, not that they would work in such an underground context), but the whole film still hinges on a silly concept where people would go into a claustrophobic and uncharted no man's land just for shits and giggles. We know that they are in a horror movie, but they do not, so there lies the problem.
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