Tag Archives: Mystery

Vicious (2015)

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“There is no terror in the bang, only in the anticipation of it.” – Alfred Hitchcock

Oliver Park’s “Vicious” is a masterfully done short horror film that’s light on the exposition but packs in a powerhouse of a fright. I literally flinched back in my seat while watching “Vicious” and it takes a mighty good horror film to inspire that kind of reaction from yours truly. “Vicious” is indicative of a major directorial talent and Oliver Park deserves to go on to a bigger cinematic career. I think he can deliver a truly excellent feature length horror film if given enough resources.

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The Corpse of Anna Fritz (El Cadaver de Anna Fritz) (2016)

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(Mild Spoilers)

Ivan and Javi stop by Pau’s work at the hospital morgue on their way to a party.  Pau lets them in on a secret: actress Anna Fritz is lying in his morgue, dead.  The trio decides to go see her; to see how she looks as Pay says she doesn’t even look dead.  Once in the morgue, Ivan decides to touch her and from there gets it in his mind that a bit of necrophilia won’t hurt anyone.  However, he soon finds out that is not the case.

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Knock (2015)

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I have to give it to Joseph L. Martinez, “Knock” is a fun and scary Halloween treat that should be watched by folks that like their scares short but sweet. “Knock” is based around a simple premise but ends on a delightfully clever bang. Murielle just spent Halloween night with her friends in an abandoned mine. Said mine allegedly houses the spirit of an ancient witch who stalks you if you knock on the mine walls three times.

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Love’s Innocence Lost (2016)

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If I have one complaint about “Love’s Innocence Lost” is that I could have used at least five more minutes to catch up with the dilemma ocurring in Mike Clarke’s drama. There isn’t so much explanation as to what happened between characters Aaron and Dina, only that there were children involved, and the crime involved something where trust was severely destroyed. I wouldn’t have minded a lot more extrapolation with Paul McGowan’s script in to what was happening and even more hinting as to what went down that could prompt such a conflict of emotions between Aaron and Dina, in the end.

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Disturbing Behavior (1998) [Blu-Ray]

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I’d be hard pressed to call “Disturbing Behavior” a stellar horror film, but as an artifact of the late nineties teen horror boom, it’s a worthwhile effort by an “X-Files” creative mind. “Disturbing Behavior” fosters a fascinatingly looney tone that works in favor of the premise, even when it strives for inadvertent camp. James Marsden plays Steve, a newcomer to Cradle Bay who has just move in with his family and little sister. Steve is instantly accepted in to the reject crowd of the school, as led unofficially by Nick Stahl’s character Gavin. Despite the strange rift between cliques in the local high school, Steve writes off the separation as simple pack mentality, but is told by Gavin that the popular crowd also known as “Blue Ribbons” are actually more sinister than they seem.

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Darth Maul: Apprentice – A Star Wars Fan Film (2016)

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As a Star Wars fan, one of the biggest disappointments of sitting through 1999’s “The Phantom Menace” was watching the creation of one of the most amazing villains of the “Star Wars” cinematic universe, only for him to show up for about five minutes, be killed, and then never spoken of again. This character that was on mugs, and t shirts, and posters was almost non-existent in future films. “Apprentice” is a fantastic and dare I say perfect, fan film that shows what would have happened if George Lucas subtracted twenty minutes of screen time from Jar Jar Binks in favor of more emphases on the sheer danger and threat that was Darth Maul. Maul should have been the recurring villain in the prequels and could have salvaged the otherwise terrible films.

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Plan 9 (2016)

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There’s a huge problem when it comes to sitting through “Plan 9.” It’s essentially a remake of the infamous but hilarious Ed Wood disasterpiece “Plan 9 from Outer Space.” While Ed Wood never intended his film to be considered a comedy it ended up being accidentally one of the funniest movies of all time due to the ineptitude of its production. So how does a filmmaker with arguably more resources approach a remake of “Plan 9”? Basically director John Johnson tries to have his cake and eat it too, giving us a movie that’s literally all over the place. Sometimes “Plan 9” is a straight faced zombie movie with real stakes. Sometimes it’s a meta-remake with dark comedy. And other times it’s a pseudo-remake tha acknowledges the original film from Ed Wood exists in this universe. The latter idea makes no real sense when you consider the ideas presented in “Plan 9.”

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