Bachelor Games (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Emilie Black

Henry is about to marry the love of his life, so he and the guys go to Argentina for an epic bachelor party/trip. Once there, there’s booze, strippers, and drugs before a sobering hike in the mountains where they meet a mystical figure called The Hunter and things get bloody.

The film is written by Chris Hill and Sam Michell who created a believable group of friends with problems and normal lives. None of the five leads are perfect; they all have issues, giving them humanity when they could have easily been caricatures like in The Hangover series. These guys are close, or used to be, and it shows through their interactions. Of course, not all the situations they are put in are realistic given the Hunter figure but having built a believable setting with human characters, the mystical or paranormal works as well.

This script is brought to the screen by Edward McGown a mostly non-fiction director. His nature documentary eye shows in how he shoots the mountains in which the five men go on a hike. Here he crafts a movie that looks beautiful and is suspenseful once the creepy figure of the Hunter shows up. He also brings his actors together in a way that works, whether they are having fun or fighting.

The cast of Bachelor Games is good with a couple of very strong performances. Jack Gordon as the groom to be, Henry, brings many layers to his character that starts off happy and then shows conflict and worry. His character has possibly the most to lose and the most to learn in the bad situation they find themselves in. As Henry’s best man/friend Leon, Charlie Bewley brings layers of slightly off, slightly creepy, womanizing, party boy with no regrets over anything he’s done. That is until he starts fearing for his life and reconsidering what is important in life. Both of their characters have interesting arcs and their performances go with that.

The rest of the cast does well too, Jake Doolan does a convincing drug-addicted bro as Terrence, Mike Noble shows sensitivity as Roy, and Obi Abili brings us an attempting-to-be happy army man with potential PTSD. However, viewers should not be fooled by these performances as almost nothing is as it appears here. The film works as a drama and as a mystery/thriller, it even works as a horror film as it has a lot of elements of the genre in it. The Hunter figure is creepy and adds a chilling element while its design is beautiful. The film has some blood but no real gore to speak of. The blood looks really good and real, even in bright light. They do not shy away from it or hide it in darkness, the violence leads to blood as it should and is clearly shown.

Also worth noting for this film is the cinematography by Lucio Bonelli who brings extensive film experience to director Edward McGown’s documentary experience to get the film to look beautiful and creates an almost dreamlike feel to the images, particularly when in the mountains. Some of the images are a bit on the over-exposed side, but it works with the settings and with the mysterious circumstances, bringing more to them and showing that creepy and mystical creatures can be just as effective in bright daylight.

While Bachelor Games is not the scariest film, it’s well-crafted and entertaining. The story has a twist but it’s early enough to not be annoying or film destroying, it actually adds to the film. The performances are good to very good; the writing brings a potentially very basic story into a more interesting one. The film is shot beautifully and makes you want to travel even with the risks shown. The whole of the film is good and worth a watch for sure.

Bachelor Games is now on VOD.

Batman v Superman: Extended Cut or Why You Can’t Pour Perfume on a Pig

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Pearls. Again. Bruce Wayne’s origin. Again. Joe Chill. I’m presuming. Again. I can still hear the echoes of fan boys rejoicing that “Batman v Superman” wouldn’t be another origin story, and yet director Zack Snyder allows us the thirtieth origin of Bruce Wayne, all for the purpose of squeezing in Bruce muttering “Martha.” Which is his mother. And so a thousand memes were born.

Director Zack Snyder doesn’t allow us the benefit of young Superman or Clark Kent with his mother, also curiously named Martha, because that would make sense. Plus, Snyder never worked with Diane Lane or Kevin Costner. It would be funny though to see Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Lauren Cohan playing John and Martha Kent.

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Bulldog (2016)

Posted on June 30, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Sean is the definition of a self fulfilled prophecy. He’s a young man without a family, without a culture, and without much of an identity whose found that adapting other identities hasn’t worked for him nor has hating other identities, either. He doesn’t really find much to identify with his own culture, and can’t stand the current country he’s in. One especially poignant moment finds Sean being forced to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. This creates significant tension when he begins going to school and is mocked by some classmates for his Asian heritage.

This quickly becomes a point of anger since he can’t really relate to being Asian, thus some avenues are closed due to his race, already. Sean is a young man who has very little ambition and has become the result of the terrible death of his brother, which broke apart his family. Surely, they may not have been perfect before the movie began, but Sean at least had a foundation. Now with his mother committed to gambling, and his father drowning in his own company, Sean is consistently told he’s a punk and thug.

Without anyone to really guide him, and inviting all the wrong elements, Sean is at a point where he has no choice but to submit to his anger and frustration. Benjamin Tran’s drama is a compelling and unique take on the loss of culture and ambition and how lack of identity can cause confusion in someone in a foreign culture with its own ideas about growing up and earning respect. The cast give strong performances all around, including Vin Kridakorn who conveys the sense of confusion and frustration with his character well. “Bulldog” is a remarkable short drama and one I wouldn’t mind seeing turned in to a feature film someday soon.

Baskin (2015)

Posted on June 15, 2016 by Emilie Black

Five cops go on a very late night call to the middle of nowhere. On their way, their hit something on the road and crash close to the source of the call, as they head into the property, things take a turn for the very weird. Baskin is based on the short of the same name and is written by Ogul Can Eren, Can Evrenol, Cem Ozuduru, and Ercin Sadikoglu.

The way they built the film with dreams and flashbacks leads to a story that could have been muddled but isn’t as it works with them and integrates them well. Of course, this leads to a story that is not entirely linear and may not be everyone’s cup of tea. The direction by Can Evrenol demonstrates talent with only a few scenes showing that this is his first feature and that his directorial experience is not wide and varied yet. Most of the writers and the director are newer to completely new to making films, yet this shows only very, very scarcely, which is a testament to their pool of talent.

The cast here is also fairly new to the business with two standout performance by Gorken Kasal as Arda, the lead amongst a good group of actors playing cops going on an ill-fated call. Kasal gives a layered performance of a character with a childhood that is still affecting him, while trying to be the best cop he can be, he also shows a good emotional range. Also worth noting is newbie Mehmet Cerrahoglu as Baba, The Father, the cult leader Arda and the cops encounter. Kasal and Cerrahoglu play well against each other. Many scenes in “Baskin” are trippy and visually very interesting, leading to sometimes packing a lot in a quick scene which serves to disorient as much as engage the viewer.

As the film advances, things go from weird to seriously messed up and the gore factor goes through the roof. Blood, guts, everything gets thrown around. The effects for these are of varying quality. For most of the film, the effects are great, done practically and looking quite realistic, especially once put in a darkly-lit, fast-moving scenes. However, a few of the effects, seen in better light and for longer periods, look a bit cheaper, of lesser quality which can break the tension of the scene they are in. Adding to the visuals and the effects is the music which works well here, helping sustain the suspense and raising up the creep factor by underlining the fear felt by the protagonists.

Baskin is a movie once should see as it shows what short film makers can do when expending on one of their shorts such as what happened with Turbo Kid (but much, much darker here). It’s a tense film with scenes to make almost anyone uncomfortable. The story starts off with an effective opening, then keeps things more or less almost creepy until it suddenly amps up the creep factor and then the gore becomes prevalent making for a suspenseful experience with some gross out moments. By the end of the film, more questions have been asked than answered, leaving the viewer to think a bit and come to their own conclusions.

Bad, Bad, Gang! (1972) (DVD)

Posted on June 3, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

Back then hippies must have seemed like dirty go nowhere weirdos prone to smoking pot and having a lot of wild sex; because, well, they kind of were. But they were also prone to being the predators and sometimes prey for much of the seventies and early eighties horror and exploitation cinema. “Bad, Bad, Gang!” is a pretty solid porn film right out of the summer of love where bikers and goofy hippies clash to engage in a free for all of sex and rape.

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Belladonna of Sadness (1973)

Posted on May 11, 2016 by Emilie Black

“Belladonna of Sadness” is an animation film from 1973 which had not been released in the US until now for multiple reasons, one most likely being due to the nudity and sex. The style of animation is reminiscent of watercolor paintings with a touch of 70s/80s anime. The film is a mix of painted images being panned across and moving parts which makes for mesmerizing visuals. The restoration looks fantastic and the attention to details put into it show the work thousand of hours spent on it brought in terms of colors, visuals, and feelings.

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Bedeviled [Kim Bok-nam salinsageonui jeonmal] (2010)

Posted on May 9, 2016 by Felix Vasquez

I’ve never seen such a soul sucking and soul crushing film as “Bedeviled” in my life. That’s not at all a negative remark about Jang Cheol-soo’s drama thriller. It’s just my warning that if you go in to “Bedeviled,” be prepared for a film with absolutely no silver lining or hopeful plot twist. Like “Martyrs,” it’s a trip down the darkside of humanity, but you know, unlike “Martyrs,” this is a great film from beginning to end. It’s not often that Asian revenge pictures are given a sensationalist tone, but Cheol-soo’s drama is gut wrenching and really offers a glimpse at a small chunk of the world where sadness is pretty much a way of life.

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