The Endless (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Two brothers return to the alien cult they once fled to see the people still there.  Once at the cult’s camp, they discover that odd happenings are afoot and the cult may not be as crazy as it seems.

Written by Justin Benson who co-directed with Aaron Moorhead, The Endless is a slow slow burn of a film that takes its time to set-up the weirdness going on and creates a sort of mindfuck as it goes along.  The film takes a few known ideas such as cults and time warps and plays with them until they connect and make sense.  The co-directors having worked together on other features, they clearly know how to work together and this shows in how the film is directed, being a way that looks seamless between the two of them and what they each directed, something that is not always well done, but is great here.

Continue reading

Prey (Prooi) (2016) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

As a lion wreaks havoc on the city of Amsterdam, a zoo veterinarian gets involved in its chase along with her boyfriend and ex.

Written and directed by Dick Maas, Prey is a horror comedy film with its comedy very dark and its horror a bit light.  The film takes the wild animal on the loose premise and moves it to the city of Amsterdam where the idea of a killer lion on the loose is particularly ludicrous.  The way the film develops this and adds hunters, both experienced and not so much, who once paired with the local police becomes a bit of a mess in terms of lion-chasing but a fun watch in terms of horror-comedy.  The film shows an ability to pit characters against each other in a way that is entertaining while they all face the lion threat.  The comedy is often situational and takes advantage of the characters’ flaws in a way that works well here.  The direction is rather on point for the comedy and fairly good on the horror.  However, as a horror film, it has just about no scare factor.

Continue reading

The Night Watchmen (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

After a clown is killed by a virus in Romania, his corpses is brought back to the United States.  Not long after, an office building is under attack by vampires and humanity’s only hope is a ragtag crew of inept night watchmen.

Continue reading

The Bye Bye Man (2017)

It’s “The Bye Bye Man,” or as I call it “Honey, We Ripped Off Slenderman.” In all honesty, “The Bye Bye Man” actually looks like a weak Senator Palpatine cosplayer who died from toxic poisoning from his face make up and became a demon who likes to rip off his shtick from The Babadook, Freddy Krueger, and your every day mime. I’ve experienced scarier stories in young adult sections at public libraries, and could come up with a monster ten times more imposing, and with a name that doesn’t automatically inspire me to chortle under my breath. A movie this bad could only inspire me to gather my thoughts of bewilderment in an itemized list.

Continue reading

78/52 (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Anyone who knows me knows I’m a hardcore film and horror buff and one of the first shots of a horror movie I ever recall watching was the scene in “Psycho” where Marion Crane is stalked in her shower and mercilessly stabbed to death. It’s a scene I’ve seen at least a thousand times since I was a child and its effectiveness and impact have never worn off for me. Every scene, every second, every single shot is so deliberate and meticulous that Hitchcock creates an entity on to itself in a genuinely flawless horror film. It’s not often you’ll find a full length documentary about one shot in an entire movie, but the iconic moment with Janet Leigh is a sequence that warrants so much examination and analyses. It’s every bit the symbolism and metaphor audiences of the fifties weren’t expecting.

Continue reading

Tragedy Girls (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Did you see “Scream 4”? Do you remember the finale and surprise reveal, as well as the reasoning for the murderer’s devious deeds? Well, then you’ve seen “Tragedy Girls.” It feels a lot like Tyler MacIntyre loved the finale to “Scream 4” so much that he took that one twenty minute explanation, and transformed it in to a ninety minute movie that presents glimmers of brilliance, but stumbles quite often. While many will liken “Tragedy Girls” to “Heathers,” it’s actually about as smug and annoyingly self-satisfied as films like “Detention” and “Easy A.”

Continue reading

The Night Watchmen (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

Coulrophobics look out, “The Night Watchmen” is easily your worst nightmare come true, but it’s also one of the best horror comedies I’ve seen in a while. Director Mitchell Altieri delivers one of hell of a great horror gore fest that imagines the world overrun by vampire zombie clowns. “The Night Watchmen” is set primarily in an office, and Altieri makes great use of it, picturing the night shift from hell. You could make a sub-genre out of horror movies set in an office work place, these days, but “The Night Watchmen” has a great time making use of the back drop, with the various halls and corners of the office, and the typically monotonous setting.

Continue reading