LOST AFTER DARK (2017)

Unless you're someone who enjoys a nice slice of cinematic cheese every so often, the majority of audiences hope that whatever film they've chosen to give the next two hours of their lives will be good, or at least entertaining. No one ever hopes for a bad film. On top of that, certain films command certain higher expectations, either because of the pedigree of talent involved, the source material that's inspired the plot, or because of the gimmick being utilized. Lost After Dark is one of those latter examples. A film built on resurrecting the dead teenager flicks of the 1980s, Lost After Dark had its heart in the right place and its blood all over the walls, but it didn't quite nail the mood, look, and feel it was attempting to evoke.

Speaking of heart in the right place, one thing that can be mentioned in the film's favor is that its adoration for the genre is ever in place, and director Ian Kessner and his co-writer Bo Randsel know their shit. From the cast of characters being named after beloved horror icons (the guys after horror directors, the girls after their muses), to lines of dialogue lifted from famous horror film sequences, even down to the poster design that is pure Jack Sholder's Alone in the Dark, the love that Lost After Dark's creators hold for the slasher genre is palpable and cannot be questioned, but unfortunately that love did not put them on their own path to contributing a memorable edition to the genre, either as a film itself, or at the least as a successful homage.

And that's where things get hairy: straddling the line between successful homage and standalone film. Throwback horror has returned to the genre in a big way over the last decade, ushered in by the likes Ti West's House of the Devil, Jim Mickle's Cold in July, and the Tarantino/Rodriguez opulence fest Grindhouse double feature. However, what Lost After Dark's filmmakers have failed to realize is that titles like House of the Devil or Cold in July or The Guest have something in common: not only do they successfully preserve the era of horror history they are homaging, but even if that aspect sails completely over a viewer's head, on their own they're still excellent films. Your having failed to see titles like Race with the Devil or The Tenant won't lessen your enjoyment of House of the Devil because on its own it still works quite well. If you've never seen a John Carpenter film in your entire life (what a dope!), you'll still be able to enjoy the eerie lunacy of It Follows.

The same can't be said for Lost After Dark, which is depending on your having seen a healthy dose of '80s horror to "get" it, but not offering a fresh take on well-worn concepts. Typical character archetypes are certainly on hand: the virginal lead, the wholesome boy next door, the asshole prepster, his bitchy socialite girlfriend, and yeah, the token black guy, complete with gigantic fake wig and hair pick. Rounding out the cast are the overweight pothead clearly emulating Shelly from Friday the 13th Part 3 (nice touch) and Frank Cunningham, aka Mr. C, who embodies The Shining's Dick Halloran in the form of the kids' high school principal (played by an utterly wasted Robert Patrick). And the filmmakers took great pains to utilize an '80s-infused visual design and texture, right down to the print damage and white speckling (which, weirdly, only show up every once in a while) attempting to give it the appearance of a film that's spent the last thirty years in storage. But very few moments of praise are reserved entirely for when it does circumvent expectations (which can't be discussed without spoilage), but not nearly enough of this kind of free-thinking was on hand to warrant separating Lost After Dark from the rest of its well-meaning but vapid colleagues. 

The more romantic horror fan may find a lot to like about Lost After Dark, being that, as previously mentioned, its heart was in the right place and the dozens of odes to the horror genre (including a cameo from Rick Rosenthal, director of the pretty-good Halloween 2 and pretty-bad Halloween: Resurrection) will possibly make said horror devotee feel warm and fuzzy. As an homage, it ranks somewhere near the bottom of the pile, and as a standalone film judged entirely on its own efforts and not what came before, is hardly worth the effort or your time. Still, with it being a mindless, bloody and seldom clever ninety minutes of mayhem, sometimes for the less discerning horror fan, that can be enough. The throwback movement is still going strong, and thankfully has churned out some great titles, but unfortunately, Lost After Dark is left wandering around in the woods.

THE MIND'S EYE (2015)

The ’80s are back. What’s resurrected this era formerly mocked at every opportunity by the following decades will always remain a mystery — we could, perhaps, look at the increasingly complicated world around us and think that the ’80s were a simpler time populated by fellow humans who were easily comprehendable, but we’ll simply never know what’s kickstarted this recent wave of retro callbacks. It took Stranger Things for the movement to go mainstream, but — at least in the horror genre — the ’80s have been back for a while now.

Part of that movement is writer/director Joe Beggos, whose 2013 science fiction/horror hybrid Almost Human was made to honor that ’80s era of John Carpenter and other, more trashy video store fare — you know, the kinds that came in those extra large VHS cases. While not a particularly good film, it at least was an admirable one — made on a low budget and employing only practical, in-camera effects.

Much of the same team has returned for Beggos’ second feature, The Mind’s Eye, which this time is honoring ’80s-era David Cronenberg, very notably Scanners, along with Firestarter-era Stephen King. Made with the same spirit of Almost Human, the plot is very reminiscent of Cronenberg’s 1981 head-exploder, but tinged in a more simplistic grindhouse/EC Comics vibe. Whereas Cronenberg’s Scanners, as well as his other early “body horror” films had something philosophical to say about a variety of issues, be it politics, the self, or the even the sexual revolution, The Mind’s Eye doesn’t have much to offer beyond, “His WHOLE head came off!” And that’s fine. Not every trip into the horror genre need be rife with a social message or satire. Sometimes it’s okay that a film is just a violent, primary-colored romp into over-the-topness, and that, most definitely, The Mind’s Eye is.

Graham Skipper, who portrays unofficial scanner Zack Connors, and who looks too much like Brooklyn 99's Joe Lo Truglio, takes on an outlandish character within the outlandish confines of The Mind’s Eye and does as convincing a job as anyone possibly could have. Some of the dialogue he’s forced to render is unbearably silly, and one gets the impression even he feels silly having to say it, which can hinder his performance somewhat.

His scanner-girlfriend, Rachel (Lauren Ashley Carter), however, offers a shaky performance — one that tears you away from whatever intrigue The Mind’s Eye manages to establish. Forgiving that the absurd elements of the plot make it difficult to suspend disbelief, Carter has trouble making it feel real. She seems to be concentrating so hard on making her character believable that her sheer insistence is what calls out her performance is disingenuous.

Noah Segan, who has turned up in a nice helping of solid horror fare over the years (Deadgirl; Starry Eyes), offers a nice turn as Travis Levine, a Snake Plissken-eyed protege of sorts who serves as a henchmen with some scanning abilities of his own. Though his character is underused and proves somewhat ineffective by the end of his art, Segan once again proves he’s a fun actor to watch in films with out-there concepts.

And then there’s John Speredakos as Dr. Slovak, who offers a perfectly serviceable take on the villain until the end of the second act, during which he turns super-villain, at which point his performance goes from “prick” to “utterly, off the charts insane.” Seething, dripping, and echo-voiced (okay, that part makes no sense, but it just makes you appreciate an already hammy film even more), this version of Slovak bears his teeth like a fleshless skull at every possible instance. The sheer lunacy of this character transformation and the performance it inspires is one of the highlights that The Mind’s Eye offers.

By film’s end, in which the good guy and bad guy are making constipated faces at each other while covered in sweat as the camera shakes to make you feel the intensity, that feeling of “how seriously should I take this?” continues to be called into question,. If you want to take it seriously, fine — just watch it for all the cheese — but if you’d rather just enjoy The Mind’s Eye for what it is, you’re probably better off. Because it’s in watching The Mind’s Eye that you question just how much Beggos was in on the joke. Strictly as an ’80s-styled horror romp (except for the First Blood-style opening, which is very ’70s), he has succeeded quite easily, when keeping in mind that many, many horror films from the ’80s weren’t that good. But when there’s a sequence which cuts between Zack and Rachel having sex (in a variety of ways) with Dr. Slovak injecting himself, quite violently, with a syringe of magic scanner juice, it does leave you wondering — is Beggos having fun with us, or is he taking all this just a bit too seriously? I’d like to point to all the exploding heads and dummies being ripped in half as evidence to the latter, but the air of sincerity prevalent throughout The Mind’s Eye wants to suggest otherwise.

Though channeling Cronenberg and King, director Joe Beggos doesn’t miss the chance to slather The Mind’s Eye in Argento-style primary coloring, especially during the third act. It results in a wildly chaotic but beautiful image. The standout star of The Mind’s Eye, however, is the electronic musical score by Steve Moore, who previously provided similar sounds for The Guest, Mayhem, and Cub over the last couple years. If you were ever in doubt just how much an effective musical score can make or break a film, Moore proves it with The Mind’s Eye, and the movie wisely makes the score front and center in every possible scene. 

Issues aside, I enjoyed The Mind’s Eye. Inconsistent performances and an uneven tone aside, there’s a lot to admire, most of which has to do with Beggos’ style as a director and his insistence on employing practical effects whenever possible. When one character in particular is levitated into the air before being split entirely in half in a beautiful gooey red shower of blood and guts, I was smiling ear to ear. And that makes me sound like a psychopath, but really it’s because this is what the ’80s were about: excess. Having said that, ’80s this is, but Stranger Things this ain’t.

THE BARN (2016)

Halloween is the top day of the year for me. And when a filmmaker sets out to not just set his or her story on Halloween, but make Halloween a driving part of the story, looking back to its many myths and origins for its conflict, well, you’ve got my attention. And I want nothing more than for these filmmakers to succeed, so I may add it to my yearly pile of must-watch October viewing.

Strictly judged on this criterion, writer/director Justin Seaman succeeds.

The Barn, the newest in a long line of throwback slasher films, has its heart in the right place, which allows it to transcend the problems that most low-budget filmmaking inevitably displays. Featuring bit roles for ‘80s horror icons Linnea Quigley (Return of the Living Dead) and Ari Lehman (Young Jason from the original Friday the 13th as a hilariously strange television horror-host), The Barn takes place on Halloween night, 1989, and feels every bit like it. After its excellent opening, which lays down the legend of Hallowed Jack, Candycorn Scarecrow, and the Boogeyman (aka the Miner), we cut to “the present” and meet our usual group of kids who will get into kid hijinks and come face-to-face with an array of evil Halloween spirits.

If The Barn gets anything right, it’s the loyal devotion to Halloween. The first five minutes alone exude more October ambiance than all of Trick ‘r Treat, and the somewhat party store design of its movie maniacs easily call forth Conal Cochran’s trio of now-iconic masks from Halloween 3: Season of the Witch. When the screen is filled with costumed kids, cornfields, pumpkin fields, and those mid-western small town surroundings ripped straight from images conjured by the abstract term “Americana,” Halloween permeates through every square inch of the screen.

The Barn also makes good on its promise to present itself as a long-lost ‘80s horror slasher, from its VHS-warped opening logo, to the artificial grain and cigarette burns, to the Carpenter-ish synth score by composer Rocky Gray – but most satisfying, the wonderfully rendered practical effects. Heads are crushed, throats are cut – more people bite the big one in The Barn than in the first three Myers Halloween films combined. And every single death is done physically, in-camera. There’s no amateurish Final Cut Pro CGI to offend the eye. The last thing you should be doing when seeing a head get ripped off is smiling big-time, but damn it, the gruesome exploits of The Barn make you smile big-time.

Where The Barn falters is where many other low-budget films made by inexperienced filmmakers tend to falter. None of the performances are particularly note-worthy, with the few appearances of adult actors (including Linnea Quigley) coming off less convincing than that of their younger counterparts. (None of the cast seem to be teen-aged in reality, but they at least look the part, which is another plus.) This, along with the occasional overwrought line of dialogue, a lack of confidence behind the camera (some quick action shots don’t provide a clear picture of what’s going on), and some sequences of loose editing are what keep The Barn from being truly great.

Still, during weak performances or eye-rolling dialogue, what continues to keep The Barn powering through and overcoming these obstacles is its intent on being a fun and clever film and loyal to the holiday its honoring. It wants to be more than just another low-budget horror film, which by now feels like a rite of passage for any burgeoning filmmaker. Everyone involved with The Barn really, really worked hard, and that – above all else – comes across in every frame. And that’s what makes it consistently watchable.

The Barn may not stand toe-to-toe with its Halloween-inspired brethren, but it’s a worthy addition to the sub-genre and a more-than-welcome guest at the yearly Halloween party. With more money and resources, I am eager to see what writer/director Justin Seaman concocts next. I say check it out, and if you like what you see, throw some money toward the film crew as they embark on--you guessed it--The Barn 2.

REVIEW: THE MILLENNIUM BUG

The year was 1999. The Brooklyn Dodgers had just won their 17th pennant.  Dewey did NOT defeat Truman. World War II had just begun.

Just kidding, of course. The truth is, nothing happened in 1999 except the Y2K scare and the release of the feature film End of Days.

If you remember Y2K, you remember how stupid you felt the minute clocks struck midnight, welcoming the year 2000, and computers did not become self-aware and begin enslaving the human race. Either that, or they didn't shut down and wipe out our account balances and cease to remember how to function. I forget which was supposed to happen.

But the point is: all the people who had stock piled water, canned foods, batteries, flash lights, etc, felt really, really embarrassed. And they should have, because, seriously. If ever there were a more ridiculous fear campaign perpetrated by the media, I haven't heard of it.

Were there some folks who took it one step further and retreated into the middle of the woods, far from technology, just to play it safe? It's possible. In fact, more than possible, because I can say for certain that the Haskin family did just that. With their car packed to the brim with luggage, Christmas cookies, and good intentions, the Haskin family 2.0 - now featuring a new stepmother - have set off for their first New Year as a New Family. It is a quasi New Year celebration mixed with a honeymoon mixed with an escape of the alleged Y2K everyone's been talking about. It was supposed to be nothing but champagne, noisemakers, and stupid hats.

Until an inbred family of maniacs crash the party and kidnap the family. 

But wait! Seems there is a large mutant bug running around the woods as well!

But wait! Seems as if there is an archaeologist or a zoologist or some kind of ologist tracking the mutant and recording nearly every move!

But wait! Seems as if someone is giving birth to a mutant baby!

For having such a stupid concept, The Millennium Bug has a lot going on. We have the Haskin family venturing into the deep dark woods; we have a minute military presence wandering around those same woods; and we have a Texas Chain Saw Massacre-inspired family of inbreeds living in a cramped farmhouse in - you guessed it - the woods. It's natural that all of these subplots would soon meet as one, and the results are...odd. 

A large part of The Millennium Bug's marketing campaign has focused on the whole no CGI/practical effects only thing. Is that something to be proud of in 2013? Even with insanely low budgets, yes, it is. For far too long filmmakers have used CGI to tell their story - and I'm not even talking about low budget productions. So many of Hollywood's biggest films are nothing more than promo reels for the visual effects artists responsible for destroying the world, or resurrecting gigantic robots, or destroying the world by resurrecting gigantic robots. The magic is gone. Demands of "how did they do that?" have become irrelevant, as the answer is now boring, and one word: "computers."

That is where The Millennium Bug shines. It wears its humble influences lovingly on its latex-covered shoulder. Rubber heads, red-dyed corn syrup, camera tricks. The golden age of cinema - in both technique and concept - is temporarily back. But with it comes the unfortunate pratfalls that littered those "classics" as well, the biggest offender being the less than convincing acting. But this is throwback territory, after all.

At times it feels as if there is a bit too much going on. The Haskin family, the scientist, the weirdo inbred clan - though they all intermingle in a perfectly fine way, it still feels a bit too crowded. The scientist, for example, could easily have been lost and not affected much. He exists for no other reason than to provide exposition, which no one requires in a movie of this ilk, anyway.

The mutants of the '50s and the grime of the '70s are ever present. What we have here are two fairly straightforward and familiar horror tropes - the mutant in the woods, and the inbred crazy family - instead they've been joined together, and the events legitimately become unpredictable. Characters whom we're led to believe will be the hero...definitely aren't. Those we're sure will survive get bullets through the head, or hatchets to the chest.

We also get multi-nippled breasts, which no one ever expects. 

The actual in-camera effects are admittedly great. This deserves special attention, as this is definitely a low budget affair. The effects become less convincing when greenscreened in behind a fleeing character, but again, given its budget, it feels spiteful to point that out.

The best thing about The Millennium Bug is that it does not want you to take it seriously. A throwaway joke involving a man carving what looks like a penis until he turns it around to reveal it's some kind of holy relic pretty much solidifies that fact. It's there for no other reason than to make its audience laugh their best Beavis & Butthead laugh and say, "that's a wiener."

Will audiences be talking about The Millennium Bug in years to come? Probably not. But it certainly makes for some good present conversation, as there is currently nothing else like it.

REVIEW: WEREWOLF FEVER

How on earth does one properly review a film such as Werewolf Fever?

Because, just look at this:

 

Werewolf? More like…I dunno. Not a werewolf. (That looks nothing like a werewolf.)

Werewolf Fever is a movie I should be eviscerating. I should have hit the ground running here and made 30 jokes about how completely inept it was before I ever gave you a trite rundown of the plot. I should have said something like, “This movie is so bad it might as well have been some sort of pornographic film involving werewolves.” Or, you know, something zippy and fun, like that.

I don’t really want to do that, though. I’ll be honest: I enjoyed this farce. I enjoyed the extremely hammy story. I enjoyed the superbly terrible performances. And I enjoyed the gooey effects, consisting of a bunch of severed limbs, a terrible weasel-looking werewolf, and a lot of blood. All of Werewolf Fever’s on-the-surface shortcomings – the acting, the effects, and the awkwardness synonymous with low budget filmmaking – really did nothing but enhance my enjoyment.

Here is that plot rundown I mentioned earlier, which is as simple as it needs to be: A bunch of teens working at Kingburger Drive-In deal with a werewolf that comes stalking, killing any hapless individual that tries to escape. Arms and legs go flying, and people are turned into skeletons covered in chunky meat. Humor ensues – sometimes on purpose, sometimes by accident – but it’s always welcome.

What I most appreciated about Werewolf Fever is that it is most definitely a throwback to the creature features of the 1950s, when werewolves reigned supreme. And the idea of the Kingburger Drive-In – where waitresses sport roller-skates and vintage muscle-car shows take place – harkens back to that bygone era. Adding to this homage is a minor character whose heart has been broken by one of the Kingburger waitresses, and who rolls through the drive-thru to recite a poem he had "written" himself, which is stolen from Stephen King’s It (the bulk of which takes place in the ‘50s, and which also features a werewolf). Said character wears a leather jacket and carries a switchblade. All he needs is some greasy hair and several claims of harassment from male masseuses and he is literally Danny Zuko. For me, this recapturing of 1950s werewolf cinema was the biggest selling point and the most rewarding aspect of Werewolf Fever.

Director Brian Singleton had very little money to work with – that much is evident – and what money he did have went to special effects. In that regard I can't judge too harshly. But if it were possible, I would have excised a couple gore gags and put that money towards developing a werewolf costume that was more...indicative of a werewolf. The film comes dangerously close to looking like Pekinese Fever.

But at the end of the day, I can't complain too much. It really didn't affect my enjoyment of the film, so, there's that.

"Mind if we obfuscate?"

Low budget filmmaking – especially horror – can be extremely polarizing amongst genre fans. Some factions love the approach while others loathe it. I’ve always been somewhere in the middle. Time and time again it has been proven that a budget does not equate to quality, but obviously that’s not to say that every low budget effort, even if the filmmakers’ hearts were in the right place, was a slam dunk.

In terms of a general viewing, Werewolf Fever is neither a slam dunk, nor a condemnable piece of shit. It lies somewhere in the middle. But what I can say is that fans of low budgets and hammy monster costumes will find a lot to enjoy about it. It’s completely disposable entertainment, but that’s okay. So long as we enjoy ourselves.

Plus, I love that poster.

I AM A GHOST (2012)

I Am A Ghost is not your typical ghost movie. You should definitely know this before sitting down with it. It emphasizes the expression “slow burn,” and very little action propels the story forward. But that doesn’t mean it’s not an engaging watch, because it definitely is.

Emily is a young ghost haunting her former home. Years ago (how many exactly we’re never told) she was murdered in her room, stabbed to death on top of a carpet at the foot of her bed. A large portion of the movie is comprised of snippets of her day-to-day life. She wakes, stretches, makes breakfast, looks through drawers, gazes at photographs, and stares into the mirror as she cries out in pain, her wrapped wrist spotting blood. Occasionally she takes trips to the nearby market place. Every so often she’ll look into her bedroom and see something ghastly – enough that it sends her running down the hallway, her mop and bucket abandoned on the floor behind her. We’re not sure at first the relevance of these scenes, or why we’re seeing them repeated as often as they are. But it soon all makes sense…which worsens Emily’s post-life in unfortunate and horrifying ways.

The time period in which the story takes place is kept purposely vague, but based on the décor of the home, the photographs we see, and the lack of any electronic gadgets whatsoever (no computers, no TVs, and definitely no cell phones) intimates that this story is set in the past. Emily’s housedress is antiquated in its design, and the nearest clue we have to a time period is the old tabletop radio that she listens to while preparing her breakfast.

I Am A Ghost is a rarity in that the audience spends their entire time with a ghost. There is no cutting back and forth between her and the family that resides in that same house and wants to see her go. And there is no Sixth Sense/The Others third-act twist that let’s us discover she’s been dead the whole time. We know this pretty much from the start, especially when the disembodied voice of the very much alive Sylvia, a clairvoyant, sounds through the house and demands that Emily repeat after her: “I am a ghost…I am a ghost…I am a ghost.”

Working on behalf of the family, Sylvia wants Emily to move on, and by actively communicating with her, she is attempting to collect enough information to trigger a connection. She needs Emily to realize that not only is she dead, but there’s absolutely no reason for her to stick around. It would be best for both her and the family in the living world that she move on. A tough conflict, to be sure, but once Sylvia gets things in motion and begins to communicate with Emily more and more, a revelation rears its head that threatens to make the removal process much more complicated. This twist is often used to death in more mainstream fare, so at first it was a momentary let down in the sense of “oh, they’re going to do this now...”

But that disappointment lasts only so long, because it soon shapes the events for the remainder of the film, and in a strangely abstract way makes perfect sense. And once the physical embodiment of this twist materializes, well…look out. It’s unexpected and definitely creepy. This is when I Am A Ghost transcends the experimental character study into full-on horror.

Anna Ashida as Emily has a tough job. She spends 99% of her screen time talking to a ceiling. She has very little interaction with other beings, and no one really to bounce emotions off. It’s, for all intents, a one-woman show. It's difficult for performers to attempt an emotional connection with their audience when they have very little opportunities for character interaction and exposition, but she makes us care for her plight all the same.

What writer/director H.P. Mendoza was able to accomplish on a shoestring budget is something to awe over. While there are no immense set pieces or special effects, his ability to effectively capture on film such an unusual approach to a horror film is a thing worthy of praise. It was a "what if?" movie. And it works.

While the patches of film that contain dialogue are few, the dialogue itself is engaging, natural (despite the situation), and occasionally amusing. All of our exposition comes from the information swapped between Emily and Sylvia; along with everything we’ve observed about Emily thus far.

The film is described as being an experimental horror film, and while I suppose that’s true, I Am A Ghost remains very accessible. It might not quench the thirst of the hardcore exploitation crowd, but willing fans of Kubrick and Polanski will be highly rewarded with an oddity of a film. In keeping with the current trend, I Am A Ghost is shot to look like a 1970s low budgeter. Beyond simply an attempt to associate itself with the films of those aforementioned filmmakers, I wonder why Mendoza made this decision. Perhaps one day I'll have the opportunity to ask him.

I Am A Ghost is currently playing the festival circuit, and as far as I know, has not secured any kind of distribution, which is a shame, but one I’m confident is a temporary problem. For developments, keep an eye on the film's Facebook page, and subscribe to H.P. Mendoza's status updates.