In the very Northern part of Canada, where not much happens and people do as best they can to survive and entertain themselves, two damaged but passionate souls in love are trying to make it and better their lives. Written and directed by Kim Nguyen, based on an original idea by Louis Grenier, the film follows the lives of two young adults fighting inner demons and rough past and trying to love each other and do what is best for each other. Their struggles feel rather real and the way they push and pull at each other grabs the viewer and brings them in. The characters built feel like actual people, filled with issues and difficulties, self-loathing and worries.
Monthly Archives: December 2016
If There’s a Hell Below (2016)
A young, ambitious journalist meets up with a mysterious woman in the middle of nowhere as she has a big revelation for him. She puts him through a lot before starting to talk and having things take a bad turn. Written by Nathan Williams and Matthew Williams and directed by Nathan Williams, this thriller gains from its simplicity. The setting is almost desolate with fields and wind farms as far as the eye can see and mountain background.
Curse of the Man Who Sees UFOs (2016)
Christo Roppolo is a former filmmaker who now sees UFOs. Through interviews with him and people around him and videos he took of what he claims to be UFOs, this documentary explores his history of UFO sightings, how it has affected his life, how he almost preaches about them, and how he is seen as he basically obsesses over these sightings and what they may mean. Roppolo reached out to director Justin Gear by sending him hours and hours of video from his sightings and investigations of them. Gear takes this footage and mixes it with interviews of Roppolo and his neighbors, friends, and people of his town to show what he sees or claims to see with experiences from others and feelings directly from the source.
The 5 Best Segments of the “V/H/S” Trilogy
After the 2012 horror anthology “V/H/S” fan reactions were mixed, but the opening segment “Amateur Night” garnered quite a following and even made a celebrity out of its star Hannah Fierman. After four years, Chiller Films decides to adapt the very popular horror segment and realize it in to a feature length film. Now on VOD, DVD, and limited release, “Siren” is a larger version of the original story with the gorgeous Hannah Fierman reprising her role. In honor of “Siren,” here are five of the best segments of the “V/H/S” horror trilogy. What are your personal favorite segments from the acclaimed found footage horror series?
SiREN (2016)
Gregg Bishop adapts for the big screen one of arguably best segments from the “V/H/S” horror anthology entitled “Amateur Night.” The original segment was the most memorable of the bunch and was filled with tension, disturbing gore, and a very memorable final scene. Thankfully, “Siren” grabs on to most of the original short film’s aesthetic, including a lot of call backs to the original segment. Wisely, the director and studio re-cast Hannah Fierman who has a haunting beauty that most viewers really will have a hard time forgetting any time soon. What made “Amateur Night” so haunting was that Fierman could be oddly beautiful and shockingly horrifying at the drop of a dime. Here she invokes the same qualities, playing arguably the same character.
The Demolisher (2015) [Blu-Ray]
Director and co-writer Gabriel Carrer’s vigilante thriller film “The Demolisher” is one of the highlights of my coverage of Fantasia Fest back in 2015. While the plot points here and there are sloppily constructed, “The Demolisher” is an overall very good and strong tale about grief, sadness, and delusion that can stem from ones own guilt, in the end. While Gabriel Carrer’s film struggles to find its pacing and momentum in the first half hour, “The Demolisher” does inevitably pick up steam to build in to one hell of an interesting revenge thriller.
Leslie (2016)
It’s really striking how well director Alejandro Montoya Marin understands the experience of being an artist, most of all a starving artist. You feel something of a fire in your belly to express yourself and show the world how much you can give to them in the way of art, and sometimes it’s so difficult to get by. Alejandro Montoya Marin’s is a pretty remarkable short drama that focuses on the life of a singer and songwriter named Holly, who is struggling to get a solid gig at local clubs to perform for audiences. She’s barely scraping by and is now experiencing the end of a very intense relationship with the love of her life.