Director Samuel B. Ruseell’s short dramedy about trying to fight the rising tide of nature is fantastic. Not just because it plays up its low budget with a purposely low tech aesthetic involving miniature props, and blatant green screen but because of its message.
Dan and Derek Morrow seem to be on the right track with their stop motion animated shorts. With a larger budget, their ambitious and touching narratives could become wonderful films for all ages. “Comet” was adorable, and “Token Hearts” really has potential to be widened in to a great Christmas oriented fantasy film.
It’s hard enough to produce a decent anthology horror film, but director Brent Sims composes a trio of horror tales with a fourteen minute window. You wouldn’t think it were possible since a lot of anthology movies get ninety minutes and botch it big time (ahem—“Tales from the Hood”), but director Brent Sims’ horror anthology short isn’t just a success, it’s an impressive horror film altogether. Filled with imagination, excellent plot twists, and incredible special effects, “Grave Shivers” is a dark horror comedy that delights in offering audiences the unexpected.
Director Lowell Dean’s indie horror actioner “Wolfcop” is probably one of my favorite superhero movies of the year. While it’s a loving tribute to horror schlock, it’s also an unabashed superhero movie filled with mythos, a bonafide origin, and even a customized vehicle that our titular wolf cop travels around to maul bad guys in. You’d think wolf puns and a Dirty Harry-esque vigilante with claws would be a complete and utter misfire, but director Dean embraces his premise and offers up a great horror action comedy.
Absurd as it may sound, it takes a special kind of talent to pull off a movie like “Zombeavers.” A movie with this premise could either be a flat affair, or so terrible it loses sight of its punch line. Thankfully, the crew behind the production has it in the bag. “Zombeavers” is a bonafide new kind of zombie movie, but one that pays tribute to a ton of classic movies from “Creepshow 2,” and “The Thing,” right down to “Die Hard.” And the good part is, if you hate the movie, you can at least count how many beaver jokes writers Al Kaplan, Jordan Rubin, and Jon Kaplan squeezes in to ninety minutes run time. “Zombeavers” may not be for everyone, but I had a blast. It’s clever, witty, and over the top horror comedy that mixes nature run amok movies with the zombie sub-genre.
It’s surprising and awkward that “Murder University” seems to feel like two really different movies. It almost feels like director Richard Griffin almost wanted to make a dark comedy about a loser in college, set to a pseudo-eighties vibe. And then somewhere along the line, director Griffin—or someone—had the bright idea to transform the entire narrative in to long in the tooth slasher about cults, devil masks, and a painfully stupid police officer. I mean, you can’t help but feeling like the horror was tacked on, when the actual horror element of the narrative takes twenty five minutes to be introduced.
Nothing about the movie is focused or completely developed, and most of the sub-plots are either half developed, or end on an abrupt note. I’d love to know why director Richard Griffin just completely abandons the film in the beginning and just runs on auto-pilot with an inconsistent film. There’s an opening that somewhat establishes the fact that we’re not only entering a horror film, but one with a ton of back story. Then there’s the really groovy theme song seemingly pulled out of the eighties. How does a movie with its own theme song a la the 1980’s suddenly feel so generic? Even the title could really jump off the screen, but is instead turned in to nothing but a stock summary of what the narrative entails. It’s a slasher set in a college. That’s about it.
It’s not enough to build a semblance of an eighties motif, along with a theme song, you really have to carry it until the end of the film, and Griffin can’t seem to figure out how to exploit the aesthetic for a nostalgic slasher film. Thus the movie seems to love the eighties, but damned if it ever feels like we’re actually in the decade. When the eighties devices are quickly abandoned, “Murder University” devotes itself to being a pretty stock college dramedy with a slasher backdrop. For reasons I can’t ever figure out, Josh is a new student at Greensboro College who happens to be beaten and picked on by just about everyone. Even during a wet T shirt competition, he’s beaten up by the boyfriend of a contestant despite everyone in the audience ogling said woman.
The whys of being such a perpetual punching bag only seem to be included to move the story along. Conveniently Josh ends up at a college that happens to be the grounds for a series of ritual axe murders, and no one seems to be interested in evacuating the grounds, or staging police officers in various parts of the campus. After a run in with the murderers, Josh survives and agrees to team up with a detective and his pretty daughter to infiltrate the campus and draw out the killers. The hows and whys of this plan are never fully verified, but not much of “Murder University” makes a lot of sense. For all intents and purposes, Jamie Dufault is entertaining as character Josh, director Griffin just can never muster any kind of tension or suspense.
The editing leaves much to be desired, the performances are abysmal, and the axe murders so shoddily staged, they’re distracting. At one point, an innocent bystander gets her head chopped off as the killer obviously just taps a really bad mannequin double prompting the fake head to plop to the floor. In the end, “Murder University” is a forgettable sub-genre hybrid with nowhere to go with the actual sub-genres.
For audiences that didn’t appreciate the year’s more subtle anti-found footage film “Willow Creek,” director Eduardo Sanchez offers a more action packed and frightening alternative involving the mythical monster. “Exists” is a creepy and vicious found footage horror film with a surprising amount of heart and depth to it, to boot. Surprisingly, director Sanchez works around the found footage gimmick, supplying a score and editing that make the film neater and less like actually found footage. This may irk hardcore enthusiasts of the sub-genre, but it’s a welcome change of pace from the typical format. Especially since Sanchez runs the risks of repeating the same beats from “Blair Witch.”