The Bad Ben Series - Part Four

BAD BEN: EULOGY
(2022)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: MEH

 

There are some fun moments in the tenth installment to Tom Fanslou's relentless Bad Ben franchise, but it also drags at regular intervals and overstays its welcome.  Some could argue that the entire series has overstayed its welcome by this point, and no one could fault anyone for dropping out before making it this far.  For those who keep checking in every year to see what more goofy, micro-budgeted nonsense Fanslou has conjured up in his ever-expanding narrative, Bad Ben: Eulogy offers another formula detour and an appreciated one following the previous year's paint-by-numbers Bad Bed: Benign.  At the end of that film, Fanslou's schubby paranormal investigator died and went to hell, this episode delivering on its title and serving as a compilation eulogy that cobbles together various footage from past clients of his, all of whom have less than flattering things to say about his ghost/demon/big foot-exorcism methods.  Many of these vignettes are amusing, showcasing just how much of a clueless dope Tom Riley is as he bumbles his way through one supernatural event after the other, usually making things worse for the people who call on him for his assistance.  A podcaster has cobbled together the footage in his attempts to understand Riley's legacy, ultimately leading to a finale that was predictably teased at and leads us right into the same year's Bad Ben: Undead.

 

BAD BEN: UNDEAD
(2022)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

Tom Fanslou has never made any claims to be a found footage Orson Welles, but his work here in the eleventh Bad Ben movie seriously raises questions as to his directorial abilities or more to the point, his lack-thereof.  Bad Ben: Undead rides that razor-thin line of a movie that has such major problems that one has to wonder, (or at least hope), that the lone creative voice behind it was in on the joke and merely pulling a con on his audience.  Namely, the pacing is so redundant that it becomes comical long before a segment hits about an hour in that is either one of the funniest elongated gags in film history or one of the biggest laps in judgement on the filmmaker's part.  It is an expository dialog dump for the books, one that manages to shoehorn in presumably every Bad Ben fan, financial backer, or buddy that Fanslou possibly could into a hysterically monotonous name-dropping sequence that goes on for nearly twenty goddamn minutes.  Whether or not Fanslou meant for it to obliterate any narrative momentum is up for debate, but in any even, this moment alone is worth the price of admission, something that puts the whole movie in the "so bad it's good" category.  Elsewhere, Fanslou's Tom Riley comes back to life, (it's a long story), visits a zoo, acts like a crotchety asshole, puts on a purposely amusing and ill-fitting pink shirt at one point, and roams around the woods with two other dipshits while people in, (very), cheap Halloween masks are supposed to be zombies slowly lurching at them.  Fanslou is taking the piss out of himself as much as ever, but how much comedy is here on purpose as opposed to how much is on account of him not knowing what the hell he is doing is the real question.

 

BAD BEN: ALIEN AGENDA
(2023)
Dir - Tom Fanslou
Overall: WOOF

 

Though he does not do it nearly as hilariously as he did in the previous year's abysmal Bad Ben: Undead, Tom Fanslou still egregiously shoehorns in his financial backers in order to balloon up the running time in Bad Ben: Alien Agenda.  An inevitable avenue to cross with these movies was giving them some kind of sci-fi angle since every other genre premise is getting checked off the list, but anyone expecting this to be a trek through the cosmos where Fanslou and his partner in boredom three movies running Scott Tomlinson run away from little green men while filming the evidence will be grossly disappointed.  Instead, Fanslou and Tomlinson arrive back on earth within the first few minutes after being abducted at the end of the previous film, only to just slum around the woods or his Morgan Freedman talking car, (voiced by Red Letter Media's favorite guest Josh Robert Thompson), while frequently cutting away to fans of the series who donated money.  Fanslou is getting more incompetent, lazy, and less funny as he continues to churn these indie franchise installments out, shooting long endless takes as he prattles on with lore, stumbles his lines, and forces Tomlinson to stand or sit there uncomfortably as he tries to act remotely interested.  Whereas the series was originally a clever send up of found footage/haunted house tropes, and Fanslou's average Joe schlubbiness has always been consistently hilariously, he seems to be begrudgingly churning this one out.  Even scrapping the barrel with the same shit different movie routine would be preferable to whatever zero effort agenda he has going on here, the longest and worst of the lot.

A Ghost Story for Christmas Part Four

MARTIN'S CLOSE

(2019)

Dir - Mark Gatiss

Overall: MEH

 

For anyone assuming that A Ghost Story for Christmas was going to get back on the slow boil and moody aesthetic of its bygone era when returning to M.R. James for the source material, (as opposed to the previous year's contemporary-set original segment The Dead Room), the ruinous tone of Martin's Close will squash those hopes.  This is the program's most overtly comedic episode yet, at least in comparison to everything that came before.  Writer/director Mark Gatiss tries to balance characters taking things seriously while others take them not at all seriously, always in the same scene and always causing a jarring viewing experience.  Elliot Levey's eccentric performance of a judge who cannot stop amusing himself while a young man is on trial for murder, (all while Peter Capaldi melodramatically prosecutes said young man and we infrequently cut to Simon Williams narrating things with a bit of Vincent Price campiness at his disposal), kills any and all atmospheric spookiness.  That is until the finale which drops one eerie showstopper, or at least it would be an eerie showstopper if the rest of the presentation was not so inconsistent.  Gatiss seems to be having fun by turning this into "The Cloak" segment from The House That Dripped Blood, so for anyone who does not mind the misplaced nyuck nyucks, knock yourself out.

 

THE MEZZOTINT

(2021)

Dir - Mark Gatiss

Overall: GOOD

 

It took seven episodes in sixteen years for the annual, resurrected A Ghost Story for Christmas program to deliver something that was not undone by its faults.  While 2021's M.R. James adaptation The Mezzotint still does not come close to the 1970s run of the author's reworkings in overall quality, it keeps its Amicus/Hammer camp at arm's length enough to achieve the proper menace that the source material relies on.  Mark Gatiss had been running the show for four entries at this time, and he wisely omits the glaring tonal issues that plagued his other installments while still offering up some throwback popcorn horror vibes, such as a ghoulish monster reveal and a hammed-up performance from Frances Barber.  The premise about a 19th century mezzotint with a mind of its own recalls the celebrated Night Gallery pilot episode, but Gatiss makes some well-suited additions to James' narrative.  These alterations raise the stakes and enhance an inevitable finish where not just Rory Kinnear's typical and scholarly James protagonist grows concerned over the supernatural predicament at hand, but his colleagues do as well, subverting the trope where only our main character is getting spooked while everyone else merely grows concerned for their friend's mental stability.

 

COUNT MAGNUS

(2022)

Dir - Mark Gatiss

Overall: MEH

 

While not aggressively goofy, Count Magnus does feature an eccentrically jovial protagonist played by Jason Watkins, one who allows for writer/director Mark Gatiss to keep things more on the popcorn entertainment side, be it of the still ghoulish variety.  This is not a bad thing, as A Ghost Story for Christmas had been cruising in such a lane through its modern incarnation, at least ever since Gatiss took the wheel.  It is just something to come to terms with if one is to engage in these annual spookshow yarns on their own terms while not endlessly comparing them to the stylistically different 1970s incarnations.  On that note, the show's original director Lawrence Gordon Clark had wanted to do this particular yarn during his tenure, but the BBC and their steadfast insistence on spending as little money as possible prevented the location shooting in Sweden.  No matter since this version was shot in England anyway.  Gatiss may love his M.R. James tales as much as he enjoys getting to adapt them in such a format after the BBC's small screen tradition had been retired for decades, but he has both a modern sensibility and an unavoidable itch to wink at the audience along the way.  Embracing such a tactic then, this one is acceptable if not remarkable.

 

LOT NO. 249

(2023)

Dir - Mark Gatiss

Overall: GOOD

 

The first A Ghost Story for Christmas segment to be based on a work from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Lot No. 249 nevertheless follows the pattern that Mark Gatiss has consistently set for the program ever since the writer/director took it over some years and entries before.  Gatiss is unapologetically making his own Amicus horror shorts with each of these annual throwbacks, yet the tale chosen here was also adapted in Tales from the Darkside: The Movie in a similar vein that mixes schlock and the macabre.  This interpretation sticks to the period setting of Doyle's original, emphasizes the gay subtext, and throws in a reference to Sherlock Holmes because the author apparently can never escape the shadow cast by his most famous creation, even in this case when resurrected Egyptian mummies are concerned.  Said monster looks fantastic, especially considering the fact that this was a typically tight-budgeted BBC production that was allegedly shot in only four days.  Kit Harrington makes a fine protagonist who tries to get to the bottom of and then stop the ghastly shenanigans that are going down at Oxford University, but Freddie Fox wears his villainous intentions on his sleeve in a performance that pushes things into camp terrain.  Even those unfamiliar with the source material will be able to predict every beat before it happens, but it is fine popcorn fodder for those who are not looking for anything wheel-inventing.

 

WOMAN OF STONE

(2024)

Dir - Mark Gatiss

Overall: MEH

 

Four years straight brought forth just as many annual A Ghost Story for Christmas installments, the most steady run since the program's 1970s heyday.  Woman of Stone once again steps away from the works of M.R. James, this time adapting Edith Nesbit's 19th century short story "Man-Size in Marble" which writer/director Mark Gatiss has gone on record as stating was the first supernatural tale that he ever read.  It fits the period and throwback agenda for the series, making it a logical addition as opposed to merely a passion project for Gatiss to shoehorn in.  The structure is faulty where Celia Imrie plays Nesbit herself, regaling her fanboy doctor with this particular tale which features yet another character regaling two other people with yet another tale.  Each timeline is bounced back and forth, giving this a disjointed and rushed feel on top of the predictable and macabre outcome.  Gatiss is still presenting these episodes with more tongue-in-cheek glee than any desire, (or ability, if one is to be cynical), to create an intoxicating mood of supernatural suggestion and mounting dread.  Some of his other to-date seven segments are more goofy, but this one is just underwhelming, proving that either some more evocative material or a new approach is needed to elevate these above being merely half-hour time fillers.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Nine

EVERYBODY DIES BY THE END

Dir - Ian Tripp/Ryan Schafer

Overall: MEH

 

Too bland to be egregious, the full-length debut Everybody Dies by the End from the filmmaking duo of Ian Tripp and Ryan Schafer is detrimentally predictable and has few if any redeemable qualities.  Issues arise immediately with Vinny Curran's quirky and pretentious B-movie director protagonist; an obnoxious and burly blowhard who utilizes jolly intimidation at top volume as if nobody can hear him.  At one point early on he apologizes for being so intense, but the intensity never stops as he comes out of retirement to make his self proclaimed magnum opus with a two-man skeleton documentary crew, (which includes director Tripp), who are brought on to capture the bizarre ordeal.  To say that Curran is a bit much would be an understatement, but his entire staff are similar levels of eccentric, and much of the movie's humor seems to stem from the odd situation.  As the title clearly spells out, the problem is that there is no mystery even though the film pretends that there is, so watching Tripp and his cameraman go through the motions as everything is plainly laid out, (with undercooked occult and/or supernatural elements thrown in), is a continuous bore.  In order for any of the nyuck nyucks to land, there needs to be characters to care about and sinister details to intrigue.  Instead, we just have an awkward waste of time.

 

KISARAGI STATION

Dir - Jirô Nagae

Overall: MEH

 

The 2004 2channel urban legend about a woman mystery winding up in a seemingly non-existent area via train ride and posting about her experience in real time before vanishing all makes for ideal J-horror material in filmmaker Jirô Nagae's Kisaragi Station.  While the pre-creepypasta story of the same name is more unsettling than the resulting movie which tweaks and fleshes-out many of the details, there is still enough bizarreness here as well as a persistently eerie mood to appease genre fans who are unfamiliar with the source material.  Nagae and co-screenwriter Takeshi Miyamoto take an adventurous approach, telling the initial tale in a hazy, blue/green-filtered flashback and mostly from a POV perspective where university student Yuri Tsunematsu is interviewing a fictionalized version of the initial 2channel poster about her experience.  Tsunematsu then of course takes it upon herself to see if the story is legit, at which point the third act retreads the same events as a series of checkpoints, many of which are bypassed to achieve a different yet still ambiguous outcome.  Nothing is resolved in any satisfying sense and the entire thing has the feel of being made up as it goes along, (plus the CGI effects are unforgivably poor for 2022), which makes this a missed opportunity despite its sinister aspirations.

 

MATRIARCH
Dir - Ben Steiner
Overall: MEH

It is difficult to pull off a movie with no redeemable or even likeable characters, and the protagonist in Ben Steiner's full-length debut Matriarch is problematic from the moment that we meet her, which does not bode well for her even more unsympathetic mother that enters the picture before too long.  A film that fails to deliver on what it builds up, (which is such a common ailment in horror that it is nearly a prerequisite), just as many things work as do not.  Both Jemima Rooper and the always rock-solid Kate Dickie are wonderful in their respective roles as a ludicrously dysfunctional mother/daughter duo, Rooper returning to her home village after twenty years with a nine ton chip on her shoulder.  Dickie was allegedly not the world's greatest mom, and we believe both the direct and indirect evidence judging by her curious behavior, not to mention the equally alarming way in which seemingly everyone else in Rooper's ole traumatic stomping grounds is behaving.  A folk horror aura hangs over the entire thing, and Steiner's script gives us many curious bits along the way, several of which are left lingering in order to indulge in some icky pagan strangeness that is more head-scratching than satisfying.  The third act falls apart spectacularly, biting off a lot to chew on in a rushed fashion that underwhelms despite its sincere attempts to shock.  This is a shame since the performances are so good and the mystery is so compelling, at least until a point where the gloves fly off, the old people get naked, the black bile spews, and the unconvincing CGI takes over.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Eight

THE DEATH OF APRIL

Dir - Ruben Rodriguez

Overall: WOOF

 

A poorly done and ultra-low budget found footage entry from prolific indie filmmaker Ruben Rodriguez, The Death of April makes top to bottom mistakes and hits most of the faulty found footage beats.  Done as a mockumentary with talking head interviews, on screen text, and scary music, it presents a scenario that grows increasingly implausible when a likeable young woman, (and we are told how likeable she is about seven thousand times by four different people), moves across the country to start her adult life as a teacher, only to become obsessed with a ghost that is doing ghost things in her apartment.  First of all, Katarina Hughes' protagonist seems to have a camera running during every second that she is at home, even before such rudimentary supernatural shenanigans start happening.  These include objects moving on their own, Hughes' entire personality changing as if possessed, her waking up to talk to disembodied voices, a seance gone awry, her brother's date arriving and having a psychic seizure attack, and other arbitrary events that lead Hughes to uncover that another woman around her age had been found murdered and also used to live where she now does.  Conclusions are drawn only because the script says so, and poor Hughes is gaslit by every other character even when clear evidence of her ordeal is presented in camera.  The film fails as an examination of mental illness since real paranormal activity is captured, the performances are uniformly weak, and all of the spooky gags are from the hackneyed grab bag.

 

PIGGY

Dir - Carlota Pereda

Overall: GOOD

 

The first solo full-length from writer/director Carlota Pereda, Piggy, (Cerdita), also serves as an expansion on her 2018 short film of the same name.  This is a relentlessly bitter watch, one that hinges its entire persona on the "bullies be bullying" trope that is found in many a tragedy, be it horror, thriller, comedy, or straight-faced drama.  Pereda's movie is almost entirely void of humor and instead stays in its miserable thriller lane, presenting us with a heavy-set and cripplingly introverted character who is bullied without end from her peers, while simultaneously being micromanaged, ignored, or also picked on at home by her mother, father, and younger brother, respectively.  It is a hopeless situation for Laura Galán's protagonist, the actor giving one of those fearless performances that asks a lot of her, yet still only a fraction of what her character must endure on the daily.  Wisely, Pereda throws a kink into the mix, eschewing the mere Carrie comparisons in favor of something that dips its toes into torture porn and slasher motifs, yet also steers just clear of those loathsome sub-genre's gratuitous schlock and nihilism.  This offers up a disturbing scenario where the brutalized go further inward than they already are, finding comfort in monsters who handle the vengeance for them.  The film is a success for what it achieves, even if it is too wearisome to visit more than once.

 

HOUSE OF DARKNESS

Dir - Neil LaBute

Overall: MEH

 

Justin Long's typecasting as a doomed scumbag continues with House of Darkness, the latest from filmmaker Neil LaBrute.  It is a movie that wields its one-note trajectory of comeuppance for the duration of its running time, pitting Long up against Kate Bosworth and her isolated Gothic castle after a night of hitting it off at a bar, though what part of America this is where such a spacious European abode is clandestinely located is never explained.  Right from the onset, audience members need to gear-up for a relentless stream of frustrating dialog where every sentence that Long utters is twisted by the woman, (eventually women), whom he is talking to.  As a guy that was just planning to have a few drinks and maybe get lucky under the sheets, Long is toyed with from the onset, stumbling over his half-truths while being playfully smirked at, all the while soldiering on like a clueless horndog who either thinks that he is reading the room perfectly or feels that his charm can win the day regardless.  The problem is that every person watching this will see exactly where it is going, picking up on all of the clues and genre motifs, as well as the simple fact that we have seen Long in so many situations like this before.  It is either perfect casting or awful casting in this regard, but at least any woman who has had to endure some "nice guy" awkwardly trying to get in their pants may get a kick out of its inevitable and bloody conclusion.

The Blackwell Ghost Series Part Two

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 5

(2020)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: WOOF

The first major misstep in Turn Clay's mico-budgeted faux documentary series, The Blackwell Ghost 5 makes the faux pas of dragging things out to redundant and unwatchable levels.  Continuing the arc of the previous two installments, (neither of which has anything to do with the Blackwell Ghost of the title), Clay jumps right back into the same Florida haunted summer house and also right back into the same ghostly shenanigans, as well as his way of trying the audience's patience.  What little information arrives could have easily been given to us in the two movies that proceed this one, (let alone the ones that follow), and Clay fails to come up with any interesting new bumps-in-the-night sequences on top of the narrative brick wall.  The phone still rings at 2:47 for nothing decipherable to ever happen on the other end, the banging on the walls is incessant, and the revelation from the last movie leads to nothing but another revelation before we are given a "to be continued..." tag.  Again.  A shower faucet turning on and a hole in a closet is hardly enough to warrant the seventy-two minutes that we spend here, plus Clay keeps piling on more scary music to break verisimilitude with each release, probably because he realized that nothing frightening is happening otherwise.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 6

(2022)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

 

A much needed break was taken in Turner Clay's Blackwell Ghost series to drop the arc of the previous three films which even though were left on yet another cliffhanger, are thankfully jettisoned to only partially reference them here.  The Blackwell Ghost 6 takes a bold move by killing off Clay's wife, leaving him with two toddlers to take care of and because ghosts, also gives him a new haunted house angle.  This time it is his own home that starts experiencing unexplained occurrences around his wife's old keyboard which randomly pops back into his life.  Though it is comparatively better than its skippable and immediate predecessor, it still suffers from the usual ailments.  The use of scary music was and is always a problem in found footage, and Clay indulges in it more than most, actually layering it over the naturally captured audio of the supernatural things going down.  Another persistent issue is the monotonous feel and dragged-out randomness of those supernatural things that are dished out maybe one or two a night, disappearing entirely for weeks, and then repeating themselves later while itching to a reveal at a snail's pace.  Clay's ethereal wife, (presumably), sure is taking her sweet time trying to convey whatever it is that she is conveying from the beyond, but at least the emotional hook is more prominent this time, plus it all seems to be heading somewhere that may be interesting if Clay would only trim the fat already.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 7

(2022)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: MEH

In the mockumentary framework that filmmaker Turner Clay has used throughout his Blackwell Ghost series, he has so far created enough plausibility to warrant each new installment as something that his fictionalized self would offer to the masses.  That all changes with The Blackwell Ghost 7, which takes a hard left turn and ups the ante with few if any supernatural occurrences, but instead has a masked serial killer who toys with our do-good narrator.  Which poses the immediate question; why in the hell would Clay's on-screen persona cinematically edit and then release a finished film about a psychopath harassing him and his kids?  It is a ridiculous pill to swallow and despite some gasp-worthy reveals, (as well as some predictable ones), as well as arguably Clay's best performance on screen to date, the entire thing collapses under its very premise.  The franchise is still keeping its toes wet in the found footage genre, but Clay's penchant for continuous scary music and more shots than ever which scream "Who is filming this?" interrupt the otherwise realistic agenda.  It is as if we are watching a fully-formed, professionally made true crime documentary done by the victim of the person committing the crime, as it is happening.  If one can ignore such an elephant in the room though, it is compelling enough stuff.

THE BLACKWELL GHOST 8

(2024)

Dir - Turner Clay

Overall: WOOF

Continuing in the about face taken in the previous installment, The Blackwell Ghost 8 pushes plausibility further than ever, which is saying something since this is coming after several entries where ghosts banged doors, made phone calls, and played with balls.  All of the issues that were front and center with 2022's The Blackwell Ghost 7 which ushered in a new serial killer angle are intensified here.  Not only is Turner Clay still making a documentary about the psycho who is sending him clues to where bodies are being delivered while simultaneously terrorizing his house, (which is absurd enough), but he, the killer, and the police all behave like buffoons.  Some could question the choices made by Clay and those whom he interacted with before, but in trying to tingle the spines of the viewer and deepen the lore here, he insults the audience.  Why would a guy put himself in constant danger of an admitted murderer?  Why would the police refuse to have his back at every step of the way with armed guards?  Why would the killer stand right behind the hapless dope in his own house, just counting on him not turning around, (which of course he fails to do)?  In addition to these narrative blunders, Clay bizarrely continues his trajectory of making sure that the viewer is questioning where each of the shots are coming from.  In one sequence, we have drone footage of him driving his truck, getting out of his truck, and walking up to a clue out in the middle of nowhere.  Good thing that he decided, (while terrified), to operate said drone on his investigation just to make sure that we have some cinematic scenery to enjoy.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Seven

BLOOD RELATIVES
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.

DO NOT DISTURB

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.

 

DEEP FEAR

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.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Six

SHE CAME FROM THE WOODS

Dir - Erik Bloomquist

Overall: WOOF

Leaning into the comedy while still having children and people's loved ones being brutally murdered in front of them, Erik Bloomquist and his co-writer/producer Carson's She Came from the Woods is a more problematic offering than usual from the duo.  This is because on top of its tonal issues, lame-brained dialog and plot maneuvers, (all of which have plagued their previous films to varying degrees), here they have unleashed a boatload of obnoxious characters in such a hackneyed setting.  Specifically, Adam Weppler's mulleted, thirty year-old counselor may be the worst person to ever exist in a movie, but everyone else gets their moment to either act like an asshole, a moron, or both.  Any bloody romp at a camp grounds is bound to get the slasher comparison to when these premises were utilized left and right in the genre's heyday, but the 1987-set tale that the Bloomquist's have come up with here is particularly eye-ball rolling in its laziness.  The script comes off more as something that was authored by AI as opposed to actual human beings, but considering that the brothers are of the age to champion throwback genre tropes, it makes sense that they have little interest in offering up any surprises.  Why they instead have concocted something so stubbornly annoying is just unfortunate.

COSMIC DAWN

Dir - Jefferson Moneo

Overall: GOOD

The sophomore full-length Cosmic Dawn from writer/director Jefferson Moneo is inspired by his own personal, alleged UFO encounter, which would explain its central theme of people that have experienced the unexplainable who finding solace with others who have.  Opening with a scene that introduces the inciting extraterrestrial incident in protagonist Camille Rowe's life, it then bounces between two time lines that consistently shift where the characters lie as far as their devout belief is concerned.  Moneo's story presents a type of eye-brow raising New Age hooga-booga that is as difficult to buy into for the viewer as it is for some of the people on screen, yet said people seem aware of this, even when it comes to the mysterious and smirking cult leader, (played ideally by Antonia Zegers), who likes to show off her multi-langue skills, give people balls-tripping blue plants, and burst into song.  The neon-colored special effects are properly psychedelic, and the musical score by Alan Howarth and MGMT gives it a midnight movie vibe that is fitting for something so inherently strange.  While it dances around the understandable cynicism associated with those who are "all in" on the whole UFO abduction thing, it ultimately leads to a positive place where regardless of what if anything is really out there, it sure feels good to bask in its healing properties.

BAD GIRL BOOGEY

Dir - Alice Maio Mackay

Overall: MEH

A clunky mess with its heart and ambitions in the right place at least, Bad Girl Boogey is the second full-length from the writer/director team of Alice Maio Mackay and Benjamin Pahl Robinson.  Slasher movies are and have always suffered from formulaic shortcomings and this is no exception, presenting us with yet another goddamn masked serial killer who picks off teenagers and gets an under-dramatic reveal in the closing moments.  Made independently and on a shoestring budget, it is an understandable mixed bag as far as presentation goes.  The practical gore effects are nice and squishy, the color scheme adheres to giallo flashiness, and the young cast give it their emotionally-ravished all.  At the same time though, the hand-held camerawork is irksome at best, the look and mannerism of the hoodie-wearing murderer is unimaginative, and there is an icky, mean-spirited undercurrent to the tone that is intentional yet exhausting.  Story wise, it suffers similar inconsistencies even as the queer agenda is admirable, pitting its boring killer against gay and lesbian victims while wearing a disguise that "frees" the wearer to indulge in anonymous bigotry.  That said, much of the dialog, characterizations, and sinister details are cliche-ridden, making it unintentionally silly as it tries to be hip, stylish, and gut-wrenching all at once.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Five

TORN HEARTS

Dir - Brea Grant

Overall: MEH

 

This contemporary psycho-biddy thriller from the Blumhouse Television division takes a stab at revitalizing a throwback genre, but it does so with a modern day sensibility that is dour and straight-faced instead of knowingly campy.  Almost entirely set at a spacious and tacky Nashville mansion that is inhabited by Katey Sagal's Norma Desmond stand-in, Torn Hearts has the right type of production design to examine the usual motifs of showbiz bitterness that comes with advanced age, intensified by sibling rivalry and other cliches that are dished out in the naturally dramatized mythology of the hard-drinking and hard-living, competitive country music scene.  The attention to detail is on point, but issues pervade elsewhere.  Sagal is perfectly cast with the vocal chops and intimidating presence to sell herself as eccentric country music royalty, but she underplays things to a point where the ridiculous script never comes to proper life.  Said screenplay by Rachel Koller Croft is front-to-back implausible with its title duo band, (played by Abby Quinn and Alexxis Lemire, respectively), behaving in insultingly loose and idiotic ways in order to move the hilarious plot forward.  Unfortunately, director Brea Grant never lets us in on such hilariousness, with an icy cold presentation that only highlights the absurd story in place of notifying the audience that we are also supposed to be amused by it.

ROOM 203

Dir - Ben Jagger

Overall: MEH

A Western adaptation of Nanami Kamon's novel of the same name, Room 203 is too hack-ridden in its presentation to impress, but it at least has some decent performances from its two leads.  This is taking into account that their dialog is laughably tripe at worst and just adorably lazy at best, coming off as the kind of stuff written by people who have seen too many horror movies and have their own preconceived notions of what young, single college girls sound like without actually knowing any.  Even worse though is the story itself which has a lame supernatural entity residing in a mysterious hole in a wall that comes to life when somebody puts on a necklace or something.  We also have a dorky asshole landlord that is clearly up to no good, a cute boy who is an aspiring journalist and doomed from the moment that we meet him, plus some ominous glass paintings that lead to looking things up on the internet.  Both Francesca Xuereb and Viktoria Vinyarska give the generic and uninspired material more than it deserves though, coming off as a believable and likeable best friend duo despite the screenwriting's tripe efforts.  Jagger's stylistic approach sticks exclusively to B-movie tactics, (constant jump scare punctuation, constant ominous music, grimy visuals, etc), which merely makes this a competent if forgettable waste of time.

INFLUENCER

Dir - Kurtis David Harder

Overall: MEH

Canadian filmmaker Kurtis David Harder's first American movie Influencer is a topical one that plays off of both the dubious fears of identity manipulation via deepfake technology, as well as the type of detachment that can befall those whose entire persona is predicated on their social media presence.  The former is a comparatively more prevalent theme than the latter, but Harder and Tesh Guttikonda's screenplay has concocted an icy cold villain whose on-going identity theft scheme could be motivated by a jealous need to live through another's internet following and adoration as much as it is propelled by the need to crush such an artificial lifestyle.  Cassandra Naud's antagonist is certainly benefiting from her malicious actions at the cost of others, but there is enough ambiguity here to make this more than just a depressing look into sociopathic tendencies.  This could be seen as either a positive or a negative since the characterizations are undefined to a point that the audience has to fill in the gaps, making it ultimately impossible to have any sympathy for the person that we are stuck with on screen for most of the time.  Not that such sympathy is necessary, and despite some plausibility errors and a mixed bag of an ending, the film hints at more than it spells out in a way that stays intriguing.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Four

SISSY

Dir - Hannah Barlow/Kane Senes

Overall: MEH

 

The second collaboration Sissy from the writer/director team of Hannah Barlow and Kane Senes rides the typical line for black comedies with emotionally distraught performances and ridiculous set pieces creating a persistent tonal clash.  Here, the emphasis is on a type of amplified social acceptance addiction as suffered by influencers.  Aisha Dee's central character runs a successful YouTube page full of sponsored ad reads and simple-minded therapeutic tactics that champion personal space, meditation, and self-worth.  This is portrayed both convincingly and silly, yet it becomes clear that Dee's well-intended bubbliness is directly connected to a childhood trauma that re-ignites itself when she runs into the old friends and not-friends who were involved.  What follows is a "worst day ever" scenario that goes from bad to worse and the humor stems from the violent details as well as the increasingly unhinged manner that Dee's desperately fabricated persona breaks down.  This causes a conundrum though since we feel bad for what our protagonist/antagonist is enduring even as her behavior goes into full-on wackadoo mode and the somewhat-to-full-on assholes around her hardly deserve the fate that they are given.  Then again, there lies the macabre fun.

WOLFKIN
Dir - Jacques Molitor
Overall: MEH

While filmmaker Jacques Molitor's Wolfkin, (Kommunioun), boasts a unique deviation from the typical werewolf story, it is not the most pleasant of viewing experiences by design and suffers from an uneven screenplay and presentation.  A co-production between the director's native Luxembourg and France, (both languages of which are spoken throughout), is has the common jumping-off point of a youngster who goes through his bestial change as a metaphor for puberty, but the addition of him having an aristocratic family lineage and the struggles that both he and his fully-human mother most undergo in order to adapt present an interesting angle.  Throughout, Louise Manteau is running on pure desperation once it becomes undeniable that her son is anything but normal, yet her baby daddy's lineage is deeply rooted in its own traditions that keep the lycanthropian urges at bay through dubious means that any mother would be hesitant to fall in line with.  Unfortunately, the story suffers curious tonal issues and cannot sustain its premise as we the viewer increasingly questions the extents that Manteau goes along with in her predicament, all while we grow aggravated with the alarming behavior of everyone else involved.  It leads to a clumsy and rushed finale that seems to spring up out of nowhere and play out as if someone hit the fast-forward button in the editing room, but there are at least some interesting ideas here.

SADAKO DX
Dir - Hisashi Kimura
Overall: GOOD

Thirteen films in across two different countries and the Ringu franchise finally decided to get intentionally silly with Sadako DX, a meta take on a tired formula that was long overdo.  Television director Hisashi Kimura and anime writer Yuya Takahashi are both new to the series and their goofy take on the material exaggerates the consistently convoluted and evolving lore within the "girl in the well" mythos.  Rightly assuming that they can do anything they want within such a framework at this point since taking this stuff seriously had long proven to be a fool's errand, the rules are turned on their head as the Sadako curse has gone viral in both meanings of the word.  Breaking down the details will induce headaches, (which is part of the fun), but it essentially boils down to the fact that you now have to watch the cursed video tape every twenty-four hours to NOT get killed by it, meanwhile the vengeance ghost will turn into your loved ones while slowly encroaching up in your business.  The cast of characters are all likeable, even the quirky and annoying ones as it is laugh-out-loud hilarious each and every time that someone calls Kazuma Kawamura a pussy, per example.  There are some tonal issues where it is still gingerly dipping its toes into straight-faced J-horror at times, but for the most part this is a breath of fresh air for a beloved property that may as well get the piss taken out of it from here on out.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Three

DARK NATURE

Dir - Berkley Brady

Overall: MEH

Canadian filmmaker Berkley Brady's debut Dark Nature may not offer enough unique ingredients to the steadfast "people go hiking in the woods" type of survivalist horror, but its small band of traumatized female characters remain compelling even if the freaky elements seem undercooked.  Shot in Kananaskis County, Alberta, it brings to mind flashes of Neil Marshall's The Descent if it was a self-help group of women embarking on a nature retreat instead of experienced spelunking friends foolishly venturing into an undiscovered cave system, though we ultimately get such claustrophobic moments here as well.  There are also more psychological elements at play, as the icky force that they encounter seems to conjure up vivid hallucinations that tap directly into their already ravished emotions.  It has a foreseeable outcome where Hannah Emily Anderson's protagonist stares her own all too real demons in the face in a well-deserved moment of empowerment, but it comes off as less hokey than it could have if this had a more schlock-peddling presentation.  Brady treats the material more nuanced and respectfully than that, which is a plus since nothing life-threatening transpires until the third act and once the otherworldly horror kicks into heavy gear, it comes off as more of a derivative afterthought than anything else.

NIGHTSIREN

Dir - Tereza Nvotová

Overall: GOOD

The contemporary folk horror outing Nightsiren, (Světlonoc), enigmatically explores close-minded superstitions, chauvinism, bigotry, the fear of outsiders, and most importantly, the trauma that befalls those who try and co-mingle with such suffocating clutches after years of escaping them.  Shot in the picturesque Slovak mountains, the locale is both intimidating and gorgeous as it melds the modern day with ageless scenery and vague, ancient mysticism.  Moments that toy with the supernatural can easily be interpreted as straight-up, drug-fueled hallucinations or a cinematic look into the character's subconscious fears, with co-writer/director Tereza Nvotová taking an explicitly arthouse route in providing no concrete answers to the images that she presents us with.  While such ambiguity will require further views and musings to come to terms with, what is unmistakable is the harrowing, anti-feminist scenario that both Natalia Germani and Eva Mores' characters have found themselves in, where wife-beaters, rapists, and all manner of disrespectful pigs of the male equation are not only tolerated, but nonchalantly embraced by their small, isolated community.  How a thinly-veiled tale of witchcraft intertwines with such things is inconclusive at best, but Nvotová opens a number of doors here that are worth peering into as well as being atmospherically engrossing in the process.

GLORIOUS

Dir - Rebekah McKendry
Overall: GOOD

A dark yet absurd Lovecraftian comedy from director Rebekah McKendry, Glorious has a fun and bare-bones premise, yet the effectiveness of its inherent tonal challenge is a mixed bag.  Utilizing few actors, the brunt of the movie falls on Ryan Kwanten's shoulders as a tortured man who seems to be fleeing the aftermath of a meaningful relationship gone wrong, only to come in contact with an ancient god in a bathroom stall.  Such a silly hook carries things through, and the script by Joshua Hull and David Ian McKendry manages to remain engaging even as we are stuck at a single location with Kwanten and the always engaging voice of J.K. Simmons throughout the entire ride.  The flashback/fever dream sequences never let on to the final act twist which arrives when the entire universe is facing imminent doom unless Kwanten's character makes a painful sacrifice, (the specifics of which are never explained nor important), but such a reveal sours an already increasingly bleak trajectory.  Despite the movie's title which is likely done with its tongue-in-cheek, this is a cynical story about mankind being oblivious to the monsters that inhabit and threaten it, but it is also an impressively inventive one done on a small scale even if the subject matter is grandiose in scope.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-Two

SATAN'S SLAVES 2: COMMUNION

Dir - Joko Anwar

Overall: MEH

For round two in what may turn out to be a franchise for the recently relaunched Rapi Films, writer/director Joko Anwar picks up three years after the events of the Satan's Slaves remake, delivering Satan's Slaves 2: Communion, (Pengabdi Setan 2: Communion), as an over-long and largely uninteresting supernatural trope fest.  With the surviving characters from the first movie returning and setting them up in a creepy high rise apartment building that has seen better days, Anwar creates an ominous mood throughout the two-hour running time as well as utilizing the slow build approach with little action in the first act in place of introducing new characters and side arcs that prove unnecessary or are even abandoned.  Unfortunately, the film basks in its mood for too long so that by the time that more and more arbitrary spooky stuff starts to actually propel things forward, there is little investment to be had within such a sluggish and weak story.  This is a horror movie where individual moments are impressive if taken out of context, (an eerie opening with mummified cult members in servitude position, a ghostly voice down a garbage shaft, a woman praying where it goes Silent Hill topsy-turvy every time that she flips her shall, etc), but everything together just makes for a mediocre mystery that could use some editing.

THE HARBINGER

Dir - Andy Mitton

Overall: GOOD

 

Writer/director Andy Mitton turns out a pandemic horror film two years after the fact with The Harbinger, which offers a thought-proving look at the initial COVID-19 paranoia that was still felt for months following the virus' outbreak.  More to the point, the story attempts to dig deep at the lingering trauma that was suffered by people who took the strictest precautions and felt cut-off from their loved ones and the world as a whole.  The real life backdrop of a recent time that is still fresh on the viewer's minds is fused with a familiar if still clever boogeyman story that utilizes the age-old concept of waking nightmares to explore the bleakest of outcomes, where people are literally forgotten after unwelcome forces have gotten them.  This is a clear and on-the-nose metaphor for the multitudes of people who succumbed to coronavirus complications and have in some ways gotten lost amongst the still-raging politics and divisiveness surrounding such an outbreak, but thankfully Mitton's treatment of the material never gets heavy-handed at the cost of a compelling and dreary outcome.  The supernatural concept is more scary than the presentation which does not elevate the bar for desensitized horror buffs, but the somber and often low-key atmosphere is a welcome change to many of the hackneyed genre tropes that otherwise could have offensively muddled up the proceedings.

THE COFFEE TABLE

Dir - Caye Casas
Overall: MEH

It is difficult to imagine who a movie like The Coffee Table, (La mesita del comedor), is for; the darkest of dark "comedies" that bites off an impossible task and leaves the audience exhausted and confused by what merit could be found in its horrendously bleak outcome.  Co-writer/director Caye Casas's first solo full-length has a perplexing agenda and deserves props for how ambitious of a tonal balance it tries to maintain.  Explaining the jaw-drop in the first act here would be egregious and such a move is what kicks things into gear when it is no longer cute to see Estefanía de los Santos and David Pareja's strained new parents simply bicker about the former buying a tacky coffee table after being promised that he could make such an interior decorating decision since his wife seemingly calls all of the other shots.  Things go awry quick and they go awry hard, leaving the majority of the movie to sit with an increasing strain of uncomfortableness as we wonder how in the hell it is going to get itself out of such a mess.  When we find out, the character's impossible tragedy has become overbearing so that we do not so much feel a sigh of relief as we do just sick to our stomachs.  By trying to make the film's predicament simultaneously funny, Casas simply asks too much of the audience.

2022 Horror Part Twenty-One

THE BLACKENING

Dir - Tim Story

Overall: GOOD

 

While the world needs another slasher parody as much as it needs another pandemic, the full-length adaptation of 3Peat's short film The Blackening gets by with its relentless stereotype skewing, kinetic pace, and consistently ridiculous tone.  Director Tim Story's filmography can politely be described as "uneven", but he proves to be ideally suited in bringing Tracy Oliver and Dewayne Perkins meta-heavy script to life; a script that takes the piss out of its chosen genre while laying into the African American-ness of every character on the screen.  Said characters are portrayed by a front-to-back hilarious cast, all of whom prove to be on equally clever footing while busting each other's balls and simultaneously having hackneyed heart-to-hearts with each other as deranged killers seem to be racially inclined to take them out with a crossbow. Sticking a crop of goofy friends in a cabin in the woods where the minuscule amount of other people around are white and ergo suspicious, it provides a perfect set up that is deliberately formulaic so that the quips about how stupid of a movie everyone is in can fly at a mile a minute.  Difficult to keep up with at times and one may argue that the "twist" is anything but, yet any cynical finger-waving must take a backseat to how genuinely funny the entire presentation is.

 

OX-HEAD VILLAGE

Dir - Takashi Shimizu

Overall: MEH

 

Filmmaker Takashi Shimizu's final entry in his "Village Trilogy" is more of the same, meaning that it indulges with another bloated running time and just keeps on going and going without any priority to trim the fat.  Ox-Head Village, (Ushikubi Village), drops in some YouTubers conducting a live stream in a creepy place while exploring an urban legend, (as was the case in the previous two entries Howling Village and Suicide Forest Village), before the mystery gets underway which this time concerns a vague ritual where one unlucky half of a set of twins is thrown into a hole with a cow mask on because reasons.  Since the movie is so sluggishly paced and over-long, (as well as loaded with stock J-horror scare tactics), Shimizu and co-screenwriter Daisuke Hosaka's story never musters up enough intrigue to overcome its shortcomings, which can be argued to be both indulgent and lazy.  Thankfully, the film looks great and though the characters are as uninteresting as they are in any of Shimizu's previous installments in this unrelated series, the performances are acceptable and there are no awkard tonal issues or accidental comedic moments besides some unconvincing CGI during one of those good ole "cut in half by an elevator" gags.

PENSIVE

Dir - Jonas Trukanas

Overall: MEH

A promising yet problematic full-length debut from Lithuanian filmmaker Jonas Trukanas, Pensive, (We Might Hurt Each Other), takes an unorthodox approach for what it turns out to be, yet what it turns out to be is yet another entry in a loathsome sub-genre that is littered with questionable choices here.  Broken up into two halves, the first of them establishes a handful of recently graduated high school kids who celebrate with one last hurrah at an isolated cabin, only with ominous and primitively carved wooden statues scattered around the place.  Trukanas and co-screenwriter Titas Laucius patiently let the viewer guess where it is all going, yet we know it will not arrive anywhere good for the lot of characters on screen.  There are convincing dynamics between everyone though and once things go awry, the agenda abruptly switches and stays on a course that is oddly undermined by tonal issues that may or may not be intentionally goofy.  The fact that Sarunas Rapolas Meliesius' protagonist has an aloof personality at best is directly addressed and his unsympathetic behavior offers a singular tweak and challenge for us to get behind, if we are even meant to.  It is interesting that the film tries to find a new angle within its cliches, but it sadly stumbles in such a task.