Dir - Oz Rodriguez
Overall: MEH
Prolific comedy writer/director Oz Rodriguez takes a stab at undead nyuck nyucks with Vampires vs. the Bronx, a film that is exactly what you think it is judging by the fetching title. On that note, the script follows nigh every beat of every movie that pokes fun at vampires which came before it, the hook being the urban setting which pits the local community of African and Puerto Rican Americans up against pasty, generic, and Caucasian blood-suckers who are moving into their neighborhood, buying the local businesses, and pitting everyone against each other to make the takeover that much more effective. In typical The Monster Squad/ Fright Night/The Lost Boys fashion, the only ones who actually know what is going on are teenagers that no adults take seriously. They explain the rules as if anyone in the film or watching it has never heard of vampires before, they present proof that shows nothing of course since the modern equivalent of "no reflection in a mirror" is not showing up on cellphones or security cameras, and they defeat their undead pursuers with no difficulty even though grown-ups fall victim to them repeatedly. What the script lacks (completely), in creativity it makes up for in charming performances, Method Man playing a priest, and a light tone that does not and should not take itself seriously. Still, the whole thing is so textbook that one can simply play it in the background while doing laundry and not miss a beat.
Dir - Bruce Wemple
Overall: WOOF
Basically Stephen King's 1408 except outside in the snow, writer/director Bruce Wemple's The Retreat has a mind-melting premise that is undone by a horrendous execution. Homoerotic undertones run rampant as two dudes decide to go hiking in the bitter cold mountains, (even though we do not see a single shot of anyone's frigid breath), only for them to decide to sip and/or guzzle peyote after hearing some local yarns about mythical wendigo creatures. There is enough to work with here, and we get plenty of backstory on our two best friend protagonists to make their complicated and unrequited bromance something that can be exploited by hallucinatory and malevolent forces. Yet the presentation is top to bottom wrong. Unnatural dialog, uneven performances, a laughably schlocky ending, and by far worst of all, the film may be going for a record as far as jump scares are concerned. Every last appearance of the aforementioned wendigo monsters are equipped with a deafening screech on the soundtrack, and they show up many, many times. This makes it borderline unwatchable, despite the movie's occasionally impressive forays into a topsy-turvy nightmare terrain where our lead character faces his own demons and continues to spin out of control in multiple realities.
Dir - Mehran C. Torgoley
Overall: MEH
The full-length debut Curse of Aurore from co-writer/director Mehran C. Torgoley comes close to being a traditional found footage movie, close enough that it both suffers and benefits from the well-trotted out motifs within the sub-genre. It takes the actual early 20th century child abuse case of Aurore Gagnon as direct reference material, setting everything in the same Quebec town where a trio of struggling independent filmmakers are scouting out locations and inspiration for their next project. Of course they uncover supernatural events, of course those events are divvied out in a gradual and arbitrary manner, and of course there is a poor excuse for everything to get caught on camera in the first place. There is also a framing device of a YouTube personality, (one that is actually not an obnoxious douchebag for a change), who unboxes dark web USB drives and broadcasts the results, but this proves unnecessary and merely serves as a differentiating quality than to just present the footage as is. As far as that footage goes, Torgoley was at least wise enough not to add ambient sound effects or scary music to it, plus he also finds a few reasons for our characters to put the camera down when dire things are going on. Sadly, nothing in the narrative and none of the freaky set pieces are unique. In fact the whole thing is detrimentally predictable, but at least the three protagonists are not as stupid or annoying as they could be, well at least not most of the time.
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