ONE SCARY NIGHT...

REVIEW: LUNOPOLIS

While I am a sucker for found footage/mock documentary horror films, too often fledgling filmmakers jump on this bandwagon to make a movie with next to no budget, all the while forgetting they’re supposed to put some thought into the actual story to make it compelling.

Admittedly, when Lunopolis began, I was intrigued, but at the same time, wondered if the movie was about to fall off the rails at any moment, as is so often the case with low budget genre pictures. The setup was, again, intriguing, but seemingly rather simple: a group of guys and a camera crew checking out a creepy boathouse. What would happen next? Would they become trapped within and threatened by alien monsters? Would they somehow be separated and have only their cameras to survive against their adversary? That’s what I was expecting, and I was very pleasantly wrong.

Instead, our characters find a strange object and are chased out of the place by an even stranger figure (in a very well executed sequence). What this strange object is our characters do not know, but when one of them slips it onto their shoulders (the object itself is some kind of harness), flips the switch, and vanishes into thin air for a microsecond before reappearing, they know they have something special in their possession. The true investigation begins.

Lunopolis is clearly satire on the Church of Scientology, and its founder, L. Ron Hubbard (the religion within the film is called the Church of Lunology, and founded by J. Ari Hilliard), but if it were that and only that, it still could have worked as a film…just in a different way. But Lunopolis goes even further to inject actual thought into the proceedings, and I’ll go as far to say that it’s one of the most intelligently-written low-budget sci-fi films that I’ve ever seen. It’s a striking combination of The X-Files, Asimov, The Butterfly Effect, and Michael Moore investigatory journalism, and it works.

The film consistently maintains the “guys with a camera” aesthetic until meeting a man named David James (Dave Potter), who seems to know an awful lot about Lunology and its founder. And this is where the movie is at its most fascinating and dumbfounding. For the next ten to fifteen minutes, we step out of the first person POV and into a sequence that would not look at all out of place on The History Channel. To attempt to recreate the explanation would be near impossible, so I will instead say this: you’ll never look at Ben Franklin, Thomas Edison, and Elvis the same ever again.

The movie ends with a twist that you may or may not see coming, which frankly doesn’t even matter—the story is so well-told and the twist so appropriate to the story that all it does is lend credence to the theories of Lunology and its potential dangers.

The acting is consistently believable, and in the case of Dave Potter, quite effective. He is a heavy presence whenever on screen, and his performance perfectly captures fear, conflict, and regret.

Alas, like any low budget genre film, there are problems. Some of the antagonists who run around in suits and sunglasses straddle that thin line between threatening and silly. There are some pacing issues, mainly in the beginning of the film. Of the few scenes containing visual effects, one of them involving a car just doesn't work. Lastly (and this is more of a marketing thing) that tagline, "There are people on the moon, they're from the future, and they changed history," is unforgivably cheesy.

Despite these very minor quibbles (and they are minor), Lunopolis is more than worth your time.

It’s a damn shame that a movie as intelligent as this one is reduced to festival screenings and DVD, whereas garbage like Apollo 18 receives a wide release (and little critic support). Like all things deserving, I’m sure the movie will gradually find its audience.

GRADE: A-

Lunopolis hits video October 11.

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ON A PALE HORSE

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Oh, Death, оh Death, oh Death;
Won't you spare me over til another year?

But what is this, that I can't see
with ice cold hands taking hold of me?

When God is gone and the Devil takes hold,
who will have mercy on your soul?

Oh, Death, оh Death, oh Death;
No wealth, no ruin, no silver, no gold;
Nothing satisfies me but your soul.

Oh, Death;
Well I am Death, none can excel,
I'll open the door to heaven or hell.

Oh, Death, оh Death;
my name is Death and the end is here...

If you are not watching Supernatural, I pity you.

MOCKING BIRD

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PHANTOMS OF THE HUDSON VALLEY

Monica Randall's evocative, sepia-tinted photographs capture the architectural splendor of twenty-six palatial estates that loom as mysterious ruins along the Hudson River. These stately mansions recall the aristocratic luxury of a bygone era, with their turrets and spires, rambling porticos, gleaming columns, and glaring gargoyles. Through her masterful photography and darkroom work, Randall has created some of the restless phantoms she learned about while interviewing the current owners. Pairing the visual spectacle of these ruined mansions with tales of the ghosts that haunt them, Monica Randall celebrates the glamour and mystery of these glorious old estates in this lavish book.

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HAPPY SEPTEMBER

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KEYHOLE

A professor was working late one wintry night when a sudden storm came, dropping over a foot of snow on the ground in record time. The professor, seeing that he had been essentially snowed into the building, readied himself to spend the night.

He alerted the university's security guard that due to the weather he was going to be spending the night. The security guard nodded, but then warned him of the things  he might experience during the night, such as knocking and footsteps, as well as the ghostly figure of a girl who is sometimes spotted roaming the halls late at night.

The professor found the security guard's claims dubious at best, but eager to get back to work, merely said he would keep an eye out.

After several more hours of grading papers, the professor saw that it was approaching three a.m. and decided it was time to turn in for the night. He stretched out on a couch in his office and had just fallen asleep when he was woken up by the sound of someone knocking at his door. The professor, remembering the security guard's warnings, became frightened and tried to ignore the sounds. 

As he tried to go back to sleep, the knocking came again. Wondering if maybe it was the security guard himself, he got up. To make sure it was the guard before opening, he peaked through the keyhole of the door. All he saw was the color red, and assuming that a person wearing that color was standing in the hallway, he opened the door.

No one was there.

He closed the door and went back to bed, tossing and turning for the remainder of the night.

When morning came, the professor located the security guard and told him of his strange experience, and how he had peered through the keyhole and saw a close-up of red - what he had assumed was someone's clothing. The security guard merely nodded, not surprised by the professor's description. The guard went on to explain that the spirit said to haunt the university was of a young girl - a former student - who had been ritualistically killed several years earlier. 

Her eyes had been carved out of her skull, leaving behind red, bloody holes.