“In A Violent Nature” is a 2024 slasher film with a twist. The movie takes the killer perspective idea (Used so effectively in the intro of “Halloween” (1978)). The movie is written and directed by Chris Nash and is his feature length debut. Chris previous made short films including one entry for “ABC’s of Death 2”. Ry Barrett plays the killer “Johnny” and Andrea Pavlovic plays final girl “Kris”. The story begins with a group of teenagers taking a necklace they find hanging on the remains of a fire tower in the woods. This wakes up long dead killer Johnny who sets out to recover his necklace.
As the story progresses and Johnny starts to kill everyone in his way as he searches for his necklace we gradually learn the killers backstory. As a child he was tricked up to the fire tower where someone scared him and he fell to his death. Later Johnny’s father confronted the killers and dies in the ensuing brawl. The local folk law is that the vengeful spirit of Johnny has been responsible for two killing sprees decades apart. Eventually Johnny narrows his sights on a young woman called Kris and her boyfriend Colt (Cameron Love) who desperately attempt to fight back.
Not Every Idea Is A Good One
This is an attempt to bring some art and perhaps originality to the slasher sub-genre and I applaud the attempt, but for most part the art detract from the atmosphere. Since we are following the silent killer and not the victims, we don’t really get to know any of the characters. I didn’t find myself caring at all about any of them, including the killer. They are all about as generic as slasher film characters come. Some of the scenes are approached in interesting ways but none of this is consistent. We switch from observing a murder quietly from a distance in a detached way, to a horror effects guys wet dream a few minutes later. The ending even abandons the killers perspective gimmick, making it feel tacked on from another film.
While conceptually interesting, in practice this is a movie that falls flat. It feels like the writers just threw together every idea they thought was “Cool”. Then packed it with a vague Jason Voorheese knockoff story. As a result, some of the scenes in isolation are pretty cool (For various reasons). As a full movie however, it’s hard to really feel much of anything for it. While not a complete disaster it is a disappointment. “Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon” (2006), did the killers perspective better admittedly in a more meta and dark comedy way. This was more like someone watched the opening of “Halloween” (1978) and wanted that to be the entire movie. Had John Carpenter done that, I very much doubt we’d still be talking about that movie 46 years later. This is a narrow 5.5/10. It has some merit, but basically one to skip.
Heavy Metal Horror, “Black Roses” is directed by John Fasano. At this point in his career he was a relative unknown. Later he would gain some solid writing credits and become a popular Hollywood script doctor. Back in 1988 he had only one directing credit to his name. That was for another Heavy Metal themed horror called “Rock ‘n’ Roll Nightmare” (1987). Writing credits for this one went to Cindy Cirile (John’s now ex-wife). John was obviously a metal head and by the late 80’s that’s no surprise. This was the era where metal was mainstream. So heavy metal themed horror was inevitable and there are many examples of it throughout the 80’s.
Heavy Metal was also highly controversial in the 80’s. It was linked with the Satanic Panic and Court cases had been brought against the likes of Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne for allegedly encouraging suicides. In our story the band “The Black Roses” want to open their first US tour with an appearance in the small town of Mill Basin. Despite local opposition the band play a series of gigs, but they have a secret. The band actually are demons here to corrupt the youth. The only person that can stand in their way is local school teacher Matthew Moorhouse (Played by John Martin).
Ready To Rock
This is a movie I would describe as “Fun trash”. The budget for the movie was reportedly one million dollars. The directors previous heavy metal horror cost a mere $52,000 and ended up a big success. It’s notable that what made it work though was it’s trashier aspects. Many critics said it was unintentionally funny. So upgrading the budget for a similar film could have been a recipe for disaster. It’s hard to say if the film was financially successful. While it was originally due a theatrical release, it ended up going direct to video. In the 80’s however that market was booming. That inflated budget mostly went towards creature effects, which is one of the films strengths. These effects look dated by today’s standards, but they aren’t terrible.
Not all the budget was spent on effects though. A great deal was put towards providing the songs for the soundtrack. The band “The Black Roses” was made up mostly of members of King Kobra. This was former Ozzy Osbourne Drummer Carmine Appice’s band. While most of the songs on the soundtrack are by this group, there are also tracks from Lizzie Borden, Bang Tango and a few others. The movie makes sure to give you the time to enjoy each song, which makes it all the more unfortunate the tracks aren’t particularly good. Still, they do the job and the band are the villains anyway, so maybe the music didn’t need to be great!
Dirty Demons Done Dirt Cheap
When it comes to plot, this movie keeps it as straight forward as possible. It doesn’t waste much time or hold much back from the viewer. In the very first scene we see the band in full demon form (Notably different looking to when they transform later) and see the kids at the concert similarly transformed. We do get time to get to know some of the characters and while it’s very bare bones it does what it needs to. Things fully kick off fairly early (Compared to a lot of 80’s films) and they really do showcase a great variety of hellspawn. None of it really seems to have much purpose though and the truth is the kids are far more effective threats before they transform.
That is the big dilemma for this film. The creature effects are its strength but the lack of mobility for those beings really makes them seem almost comical and not a threat at all. This isn’t helped by the way Matthew manages to defeat all The Black Roses demons entirely by himself in a room full of monstrously transformed teenagers. So this is why we are back at “Fun trash”. You really have to shut your brain down a bit and just enjoy the ridiculous visuals. A few beers should make that pretty easy. I’m going to be generous here and give this one a 5.5/10. What can I say, I’m a sucker for movies that mix horror and metal!
“A Dark Song” is an Irish independent horror from writer/director Liam Gavin. This was Gavin’s feature debut having only worked on shorts previously and is his only movie credit. Mike Flanagan (Netflix’ horror series guru) was obviously impressed enough with his work to bring him on board as a director for his second series “The Haunting of Bly Manor”. The movie stars Catherine Walker and Steve Oram. Walker has clearly caught the attention of Ridley Scott recently as she appears in both “House of Gucci” and “Napoleon”. Oram meanwhile is a prolific bit part time actor with over 100 credits to his name. For an indie movie horror these solid names and the film will need them to be solid since the majority of the movie is just them.
Walker plays “Sophia Howard”, a bereaved mother who has rented an isolated house in rural wales and hired occultist “Joseph Solomon” (Oram) to perform grueling month long ritual. The goal of which is to cause Sophia’s Guardian Angel to manifest itself and allow both of them to ask it for a boon. The ritual requires total isolation for the pair, once started they cannot leave the salt circle that is around this isolated house for any reason until the ritual is complete. It will also push them to both their physical and psychological limits. We follow the pair as they embark on this very personal journey all the way to the end… Whatever that will be.
A Journey Into Darkness
A Dark Song has the feel of a 1960’s horror movie. It reminds me of various films of the era including “The Haunting”, “The Devil Rides Out” and “Carnival of Souls. It also reminded me a little of “Don’t Look Now” (1973) which was itself a bit of a holdover from the 60’s. This makes the style quite refreshing. Obviously when special effects are called for they are modern (Though relatively low budget), but don’t expect to see much for the vast majority of the film. Like those 60’s movies, it is a slow burn but with a thick and tense atmosphere. The small cast and the fairly contained location give the film a claustrophobic feel and no doubt kept the budget under control. When things do kick off, it is brief but satisfying.
Obviously with what is effectively a two person cast their characters, relationships and acting quality is what makes or breaks the movie. The acting was mostly good, with a couple of moments that felt a little off. It’s worth noting two people losing their minds in a claustrophobic setting is a big ask for a pair of actors to pull off. It is in that regard very similar to what Robert Pattinson and Willem Dafoe achieved with “The Lighthouse”. This pair are not as good as Dafoe and Pattinson, but to even be in the conversation with those is an achievement. Those couple of moments where it didn’t quite work passed by quickly and on the whole they were excellent. The characters themselves were very interesting and did provide a good dynamic between the pair.
A Path To Redemption
One of the impressive elements of this movie is the details of the ritual. These are legitimate rituals as practiced by Aleister Crowley and the Golden Dawn and that authenticity really assist with setting the dark atmosphere. It pushes the unreal to a place where it feels like it could be real. There were obvious challenges to how to represent this kind of realistic occult activity in a horror film and I feel they tackled this well. When the movie switches from subtilty to pure chaos it is at a point beyond what poor Sophia can handle. She is broken. So you are left with the question of how much of what the pair suffer is hallucination from a fevered mind and how much is real. Ultimately it doesn’t matter because it works as a great horror story either way.
The atmosphere is milked to perfection with touches of music that underscore the scenes but don’t overwhelm them (The opposite of something like “The First Omen” where the music IS the atmosphere). The vast majority of the film is deliberately subtle and there are nice little touches that not everyone will pick up on. For example in a later scene there are some ghostly headlights on the road, implying that a car is travelling on the deserted road but Sophia is no longer in that reality. The best thing about the movie though is you really feel the character journey Sophia goes on. The ending is somewhat of a twist I suppose, but it feels absolutely natural.
Judgement
If you are into more subtle horror, especially the character and atmosphere based horrors of the 1960’s then this is definitely one for you. On the other hand if you want a fast pace and brutal murders, you need to look elsewhere as this has neither. It is a clever and emotional horror. It’s not the most visually stunning, though the visuals work fine. The same goes for the soundtrack. Everything is subtle and understated. That’s not for everyone, it’s certainly not a Friday night drive in movie. But if you like claustrophobic character stories with a minimal cast and creepy atmosphere, you will love it. For me this is an easy 7/10. I hope Liam Gavin gets a chance to helm and write another horror some time.
This month we’ve got a bit of a mixed bag to sort through. We have one horror film in “Abigail“, previously known as “Abducting Abigail” (As listed in my January preview for this year); We have an over the top action comedy in “Boy Kills World“; and the most indie of indie movies, the story of a family of Sasquatches “Sasquatch Sunset“. No clangers this week, but two that didn’t quite land for me. Although only one of these ended up a recommendation, all these movies have positives and something to offer someone. Let’s dig in!
Sasquatch Sunset
This is a film that didn’t entirely work for me, but I can see where some may find it appealing. It treads the ground between artistic vision and gross out comedy. In my view it relies a too heavily on the latter, making it hard to enjoy the former. If I’ve learned anything about these fictional creatures it is that they are basically just grosser versions of humans. This is in some ways endearing and in others… Well, just unpleasant. This is the Sasquatch cycle of life. We witness mating, death and birth. In between we seem aggression, we see tenderness, anger, fear at the unknown, curiosity and uh, body excretions.
Despite featuring very emotional scenes, I struggled to feel empathy for these creatures. This all felt very mundane to me. Part of the problem is that the heavy makeup makes it difficult for the actors to emote. As Sasquatches of course they don’t speak either and instead just grunt. They compensate for this with a lot of body acting and it works to some degree. But I didn’t feel especially connected. Fun fact: One of the Sasquatches is actually Jesse Eisenberg. Of course he is unrecognizable and doesn’t talk, so you’d be forgiven for missing that.
Cryptid Writing
When you have cast that will struggle to emote, you really need the music to do the heavy lifting. However, instead the soundtrack is understated and ethereal with a dream like quality. To be fair, I actually liked the soundtrack quite a lot, but it didn’t drive the story emotionally. It’s possible it was intentional to give the film a dream like quality, these are mythical “Cryptids” after all. The soundtrack release for the movie actually contains a cover of one of the actual songs from the film, but with the lyrics replaced by grunting. Really, that sort of summarizes the features art meets silliness approach!
Conceptually this is interesting and it is why I watched the film in the first place. I was especially interested in the lack of dialogue (I’m a big fan of the series “Primal”). What I wasn’t aware of was how much the movie would rely so much on body excretions to entertain. That isn’t my thing, but if you like an artistic concept paired with gross out humour this may be for you. What I will say is the Sasquatches did look great. Visually the film worked really well and this was made for around $1m, so that is in itself very impressive. For me though on entertainment value it is a 5.5/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5.5 out of 10.
Abigail
Abigail tells the story of a group of criminals that have been given a high paying job abducting a young girl. They don’t know who her father is outside of them being wealthy. However, it turns out things are not as they seem and one by one they are being eliminated while they await news of the ransom. It turns out it really does matter who you kidnap. The movie comes from Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett and stars Melissa Barrera, Dan Stevens and Alisha Weir. SPOILERS for this one. Suffice to say this is a visually entertaining movie but full of cliches and heavily reliant on all the characters being stupid. If you still want to stay unspoiled, skip to the last paragraph.
The film gave away the nature of Abigail both in the trailer and many early synopsis’s. Hell, I knew she was a monster late on in 2023 back when this film was still going to be called “Abducting Abigail”. Child Vampires are not new and the movie even references Anne Rice, so I guess little Claudia was the inspiration here. She is done reasonably well and definitely the movies highlight. The visuals are in the “Fun horror” category where things are pushed to such extremes as to be sort of funny (Lots of “Red mist”). While the visuals are fun, I can’t help but find a lot of similarities between this movie and “Ready or Not” by the same directors. But that movie had something this does not: Characters.
Red Mist
Every character here is a hollow shell and everyone other than the final girl is mind-numbingly stupid. Joey (Said final girl), could not be more of a cliché. Her single flaw is that she is a recovering drug addict. She recently got clean. As a result is incredibly competent, a master of hand to hand combat, able to read every person she meets instantly and figure out their back story and is afraid of nothing. Yep, sounds like the kind of recovering drug addict who would be in on a kidnapping scheme…. Of the rest of the team only a couple even verge on competence, but ultimately fall short. Even with Joey, the group collectively make repeated dumb mistakes (Such as constantly splitting up).
Ultimately, this by-the-numbers horror features barely outlined characters who need to make constant stupid decisions to drive the story forward. It has some decent cinematography, generic but fun effects and reasonable pacing. If you want a popcorn horror it may suffice but it is a long way from “Ready or Not”, which was this directing duos one good movie. Most recently they made two bad scream sequels. This is better than those but not by much and I’m starting to realize how much “Ready or Not” relied on the talents of Samara Weaving to make it work. Unfortunately Melissa Barrera (Who was also in those bad Scream sequels) is not quite good enough to prop up a movie by herself. Anyway this is a 5/10.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐
Rating: 5 out of 10.
Boy Kills World
For the final movie is this months review roundup we have the directorial debut of Moritz Mohr with “Boy Kills World”. The movie is written by Mohr, Tyler Burton Smith and Arend Remmers and stars Bill Skarsgård as the unnamed “Boy”. Bill is playing a deaf mute here though, but his character has a constant voice over representing the voice in his head and H. Jon Benjamin (Bob’s Burgers/Archer) provides that voice over. The rest of the cast split fairly evenly in their supporting roles, but Famke Janssen stands out as the film’s big bad, “Hilda Van Der Koy.” This is a martial arts revenge film set in a dystopian future, but played out very much as an action comedy.
“Boy”, grew up in a Dystopian city ruled over by the brutal authority of the Van Der Koy family. The family has an annual tradition of rounding up 12 dissidents and executing them on live TV in an event dubbed “The Culling”. As a child, the Van Der Koy’s killed his mother and the families matriarch Hilda Van Der Koy personally shot his sister in front of him. Boy himself was to be executed via hanging, but was rescued by a mysterious Shaman (Yayan Ruhian). Since then the stranger has trained the deaf and mute child to be the ultimate fighting machine and given him a single task: To kill Hilda Van Der Koy. The child though never got to experience growing up naturally and so despite his skills maintains a certain childishness to him. He also is haunted by visions of his dead sister. Eventually though he must take on the evil family on the night of “The Culling”.
Smart But Stupid
This is a movie that I expected to be fun both for outrageous action and a bit of comedy. That was really all I expected and yet it managed to pleasantly surprise me. The story is both darker and more interesting than I first imagined and provided a solid twist towards the end that turns the entire story on it’s head. Meanwhile, I did indeed gain a lot of entertainment from the action and comedy. Most of that comedy (That landed with me anyway) was down to the deaf protagonist not being able to read the lips of one character properly, which ended up not just providing a few quick (Hilarious) laughs but actually became a pivotal part of the story. This is a clever film packaged as a dumb movie and it does both parts extremely well.
I don’t have a lot of criticism for this one. One issue is the film focuses so much on the protagonists’ point of view that we don’t really get to know the other characters well. This also means the world building is somewhat minimal. To be fair some of this is because the film relies heavily on mystery. You know this is some kind of dystopian future but not much more than that. While this is a flaw, it doesn’t really harm the film that much so it’s not a big one. We don’t spend much time with the supporting cast, but they are all without exception larger than life and feel straight out of a comic book. This means they are at least memorable. We learn everything we need to know about them, but nothing more. The over-the-top video game style voice-over may put some people off. However you will find a lot of entertainment value if you can get past that. This movie does just about enough to earn a 7/10 for me. Definitely recommended.
Back in the 1980’s, every teenager and young adult in the UK knew the term “Video Nasty”. We were into a period of boom for the horror industry and specifically for low budget direct to video horror. Producers like Charles Band would be pumping out two horrors a year (One for theatres and one direct to video). Italians were actively making films for international audience and video stores paid very little attention to certifications (I know this first hand, I wasn’t 18 until 1994 and I watched it all in the 80’s). Unsurprisingly there was a moral backlash to this which got big media attention. As a result a number of movies got banned in the UK and even today those UK release VHS tapes are incredibly valuable. Because they were band obviously we deliberately sought them out. It became a point of pride to have watched a “Video Nasty”.
Anyway horror film Censorship became a big issue in the UK. Largely down to campaigner Mary Whitehouse and the MVLA. But there were those that realised this was a huge marketing boost for people peddling anything that pushes the boundaries. Whitehouse and friends became an unwitting marketing tool. The result was more such content got created and it fed back into the boom. So much for censorship huh? Anyway, the independent British movie “Censor” from 2021 plays off that entire scene. This is from upcoming writer/director Prano Bailey-Bond and appears to be based off a short film she made a few years earlier called “Nasty” (At least the synopsis sounds really similar). It stars Niamh Algar (Raised by Wolves).
The Mary Whitehouse Experience
Enid (Algar) is a film censor that takes her job very seriously. She wants to protect people, and this stems from some childhood trauma where her sister disappeared, presumably being abducted. No one ever solved the case. While her parents have taken the move to have her declared legally dead, Enid is unwilling to move on. After being shaken up by having one of the movies she approved accused of inspiring a real life murderer she is asked to look at a film from a particular notorious movie director. In the film one of the actresses looks really familiar to her and she starts to wonder if this is her missing sister.
This sets Enid off on a mission to find out about the director and see this woman for herself. She starts to believe her sister is in genuine peril from these people and it’s down to her to save her. But is everything what it appears to be? Has a career doing nothing but watching the most violent of movies for the greater good damaged her? Eventually she finds her way to the movie set where they are recording the sequel to the film she saw earlier. Mistaken for an actress she is thrust right into the center of the action.
Video Nasties
The biggest problem with Censor stems from it being a feature length extension of a 15 minute short. This is something I’ve noticed a lot in similar films. The truth is what it takes to come up with a cool 15 minute horror isn’t necessarily enough for a feature length movie. Despite not being especially long, Censor really feels like it doesn’t have much to say. We have the basic idea of the video nasties and a damaged mind unable to separate reality from fiction and… that’s it. That’s the movie. You can tell this is a story that could have just as effectively been told over 15 minutes. It’s a problem with a lot of modern horrors. Writer/Directors go in with one good idea and just try and stretch that out.
As far as the sort-of tribute to video nasties goes, it’s a little shallow. There were some aspects of it I appreciated, such as how Enid’s rampage is shown to us in a similar fashion to the movies she was watching earlier. But this isn’t a clever meta film like Scream was to slashers. It uses the British backlash and censorship of these movies as a backdrop but doesn’t really go much deeper. There are is a sort of minor plot thread involving a murder that is thought to have been inspired by a video nasty that Enid had cleared, but that is somewhat detached from the main plot. Eventually it transpires the killer never even saw the film. Of course Enid has seen all those films, so it’s left unclear where the film stands on the topic. Indeed, it feels like the film doesn’t really care to examine it that closely.
VHS Nostalgia
I do appreciate that they went to the effort to make the film itself look like it was filmed in the 80’s and that part of the production is well done. The flickering of what looks like bad VHS tapes done for atmospheric and stylistic reasons and work well in both regards. This isn’t the most original concept and 80’s nostalgia is the most cliched nostalgia, but for me it’s a positive. That aside the film doesn’t really provide much in the way of memorable visuals and perhaps it could have done with making some visual references to more famous 80’s horrors. The soundtrack is pretty forgettable too and feels like a missed opportunity. A “Goblin” or Fabio Frizzi style soundtrack could have really elevated this movie.
There are some things I liked about the movie, mostly in the final act. Although the twist is obvious in coming, I liked the way it is presented. Really this sequence is the highlight of the movie and remains good right up to the credits. I also liked the ending of the scene where Enid accidentally kills the horror producer. The scene itself was nothing special and missed a lot of opportunities to demonstrate Enid’s bad mental state, but her polite exit after the incident was a good way to show her shattered mind. That is basically the signal point for the final act which is in all very solid. The trouble is the first two acts to get there are not at all interesting or compelling. Niamh Algar however puts in a very impressive performance as Enid and that certainly helps elevate that finale act.
Eject
This is a conceptually good, but mostly below average horror with a strong final act that narrowly falls short of redeeming the movie. The trouble is while the concept is interesting, far too little is done with it. Ultimately the entire film is just designed to get us to the ending and little interesting or worthwhile is provided along the way. It would however have made a great Creepshow episode. It’s not a complete waste of time though and British fans of 80’s horror will likely enjoy the references to some extent. Censor falls just short of “Good” and levels off slightly above average at 5.5/10
For tonight’s movie I’m hitting another independent movie, this time “The Signal” from 2007. This is an everyone-goes-psycho movie, but presented in an interesting fashion through three segments from three different characters perspectives and set in the fictional city of “Terminus” on what appears to be New Years Eve. Each section (or “Transmission” as the film refers to it) has it’s own director and with that it’s own style. David Bruckner (V//H//S, The Night House) directs the first section “Crazy in Love”, Jacob Gentry (Synchronicity) directs the second “The Jealousy Monster” and Dan Bush (The Vault) directs the final piece “Escape from Terminus”.
We interrupt this transmission to make you batshit insane.
After a brief swerve of 70’s style horror (that was just on TV) we start with the trigger for everyone going nuts, which is a signal breaking through to peoples TV sets and radios. Coming across like some garbled interference but it was pretty clear what it was going to do. The film wastes no time starting up and doesn’t get bogged down in explaining the why’s of the situation. Things are kept vague enough that you can bet there are a lot of theories on this one. That works for me.
The intro sets up the two key characters Mya (Anessa Ramsey) and Ben (Justin Welborn) who are a pair of lovers that are considering eloping. Mya is married to Lewis (AJ Bowen) and the marriage is clearly not happy, though since we don’t get to to see them together pre-signal we don’t get to find out why.
Crazy in Love
The first section “Crazy in Love” follows Mya’s journey. After leaving Ben’s place she comes across a man (possibly homeless) asking for help and covered in blood. The man claims to have been attacked. Another man starts approaching them menacingly and so Mya get’s in her car and drives off. She returns to her own apartment building to find people the hallway fighting and acting generally crazy. Disturbed she quickly heads to her apartment.
As she enters, her husband and two of his friends are trying to watch the big game, but because the TV is getting the crazy signal they are mostly standing around being angry. Lewis obviously suspects Mya of her affair and questions her with an accusation tone. I can’t really judge if Lewis is a bad person normally since Mya is having an affair and Lewis has been affected by the crazy signal, but here he is aggressive and domineering.
That Escalated Quickly!
One of his friends is waving around his baseball bat and out of nowhere Lewis starts to get mad about it, after the argument gets heated he ends up bludgeoning his friend to death. As the other friend wrestles with Ben, Mya flees only to come across another murder in the hallway. This leads to a series of violent attacks and fleeing that eventually sees Mya crash a car and shout at some guy that offers help to stay away and she’s going to terminal 13 to meet her boyfriend and get out of Terminus and don’t follow her. That leads into our second segment which switches gears.
The Jealousy Monster
Transmission two: “The Jealousy Monster” is probably the most fun section of the movie, changing into a black comedy horror, but maintaining the brutality so it doesn’t feel like a section from a different film. This follows a character named Clark (Played by Scott Poythress), the good Samaritan that Mya refused to let help him. He is sheltering around a neighbours house, a woman called Anna who was going to host a New Years Eve party.
Both of them have managed to kill someone in self defence and it remains questionable if either of them are affected by the transmission. Into this mix comes Lewis (Mya’s husband), looking for Mya and clearly with a very loose grip on reality. The trio tries to keep their sense of reality but for Lewis and Anna this seems to be a losing battle. Anna is mostly harmless, Mya’s jealous and possessive husband though, much less so
Escape From Terminus
The Final section: “Escape from Terminus” finally follows Ben’s journey. I don’t want to give away too many details here as it is the final section but suffice to say it involves him having a stand off with Lewis and finally discovering Mya’s fate.
There was a lot of positives to this movie. The three directors different styles and the change in pacing and character focus kept things feeling fresh for the duration. The actors all did their job well and I quite liked the score. The plot is pretty straight forward but it didn’t really need to be more complicated and it contains in it the big mystery of why this is happening. Is the signal an attack? Is Terminus purgatory or hell? None of this gets answered, but ambiguity and mystery isn’t a bad thing for this kind of horror.
Confusion, Mysteries, Balance and Madness.
That said, they probably should have examined the situation a little more that they did. The movie reminds me a bit of Pontypool, which came out a year after this in 2008, but Pontypool actually did dig into the mystery of what was happening a little more and they did it so well the movie became a real classic. They didn’t need to dig in much here, just enough to give the mystery a bit more meat, but they opted not to. It’s not a big issue, but I think if done right it could have added to the overall mystery.
The film has a good balance between the brutality, character moments and comedy. The later is used sparingly and mostly in the middle section, but seeps out a little bit after through one of the characters from that section and it’s just enough to make the transition smooth. The brutality is fast and effective and just graphic enough for it to feel brutal without just trying to gross you out. It’s also spaced out enough that nothing is wasted. They do a good job of blurring the line between those that have gone psycho due to the signal and those pushed to their limit psychologically by the world around them.
Conclusion
On the whole I’ve got to say I liked this movie. It’s the second movie close to opening up my 7/10 spot for films this year (Hatching being the first). It’s worth mentioning (If you haven’t figured it out already) I rarely give 7 stars or higher. The decision factor for that is basically “Do I like this enough to buy the physical media”, Signal isn’t quite there but I definitely recommend giving it a watch.
UPDATE: Having the benefit of a few extra days to reflect and a few more movies to compare it to, I have decided, this is actually one I want to own. So I’m bumping it up to a 7/10. It does absolutely deserve it. Now it’s up to the other films this month to try and reach towards an 8.
Tonight’s movie is an independent release called “Super Dark Times”. Helmed by debuting director Kevin Phillips and staring Owen Campbell (Boardwalk Empire, The Americans), Charlie Tahan (Gotham, Ozark) as best friends Josh and Zach
Living in the 90’s
We start of with a bit of shock factor, with a dead animal in a school, which is of no real importance to the plot, but it is a nice opener. Quickly we switch to a group of college friends chatting about stuff and messing around. Pretty standard stuff. I’m not really sure how old they are meant to be. They react to a bag of marijuana like younger teenagers, but Owen Campbell was 23 when this came out and he looks clearly in his early 20’s. I guess we’ll say “Teen” and move on.
End of Innocence.
Things quickly go pear shaped when a stupid fight between the kids ends up with one of them being killed in circumstances that would be hard to explain and so the kids do the whole “Vow of Silence” thing. That never works out well. At this point it’s clear that Zach is coping somewhat better with the events than Josh. Though by “coping” I mean he’s having nightmares and anxiety, which is fairly normal for having gone through trauma. Josh however is clearly withdrawing into himself. Skipping school and sort of moping around. Since they are hitting all the school shooter tropes, I’m surprised he didn’t buy himself a trench coat.
Coming of Rage (Spoilers).
Ultimately Josh goes full psycho. It doesn’t really feel natural because the film follows Zach and not Josh. I can’t help but feel the movie would have been more interesting following Josh as he loses his mind. Instead we just see things from Zech’s perspective, and Zach is a fairly bland character and it doesn’t really feel like the pair are genuinely that close. Either Josh has had a complete change in personality almost overnight or Zach just didn’t know him that well to begin with.
Assessment.
This is more of a drama than a psychological thriller or horror. The violence in the movie, while minimal is actually portrayed in a realistic fashion: spontaneous and clumsy. There isn’t a huge amount of suspense and no real sense of terror to really justify it as a thriller or horror. A few scenes had moments of promise, the odd camera shot, a bit of nice editing but it never really delivered on that promise. Outside of the solid (if irrelevant) opening scene. the films offers little in the way of visuals to talk about. The soundtrack is minimal and transparent, possibly deliberately to push the realism. The actors performances are passable and average.
Conclusion
It’s worth noting this was pretty well loved by critics and my guess is because it is a coming of age film and a trauma survival film in one, but for me I didn’t find the journey from trauma to conclusion that enlightening or entertaining. Maybe the problem was I wasn’t really after a drama. I’m going to have to give this one a 5/10 and mark it down simply as “Not for me”.
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