All genres of suspense, terror, and horror will be reviewed by Richard Gary. His address to send preview copies supplied upon request to rbf55@msn.com.
Text by Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016
Live image (c) Robert Barry Francos, FFanzeen Productions, 2016
Lewis, at a Chiller Theatre Con in New Jersey, early 1990s (pic: RBF)
The great cheese and gore director, as well as Direct Marketing maven Hershall Gordon Lewis has now passed on, well into his 80s. If you are not sure who he is, or have never seen one of his films, well, you're lagging. This is especially true if you are a genre fan.
Steve Rudzinski is certainly not the
most prolific of directors, but when he puts out a film, be it more serious (though still having some humor; e.g., Everyone Must Die!, from 2012, reviewed
HERE) or even more hysterically absurd (e.g., Captain Z and the Terror of Leviathan,
2014, reviewed HERE), the viewer is in for a quality show. Here is the thing about absurdist humor:
it can be really, incredibly stupid (e.g., anything by Seth Rogan), or it can
be way smarter than it appears to be (e.g., anything my Monty Python),
sometimes by mocking the genre’s own familiar tropes. Fortunately, Rudzinski’s
work falls on the side to the latter.
Se Marie
Here is the basic premise: a carousel’s
wooden unicorn, Duke, becomes sentient (or “wakes up” as they call it here) after
an obnoxious kid, Larry (Teague Shaw) wipes some snot on its snout and kicks it
a few times. Of course, that means the kid must die. His insufferable “#hotbitch” (her words) sister, Laurie (Sé
Marie) drags him to a party at her friend’s house, where all comers, likeable
or not, are fodder for the unicorn from (possibly literally) hell.
The film is so goofy, and yet remains
consistently hysterical. I’m not talking about a couple of scenes here and
there, I mean straight through. But pay attention for all the references. While
you really wanna punch out this little bratty kid and his big even brattier (is
that even a word?!) sister, but the
people at the party are as much fun to watch as the arcing story. One of the
running gags is a variation of the whole “Bronie”movement (male fans of My Little Pony,
as in Bro/pony), focused around…well, you should have figured that out by now.
Duke
We, the audience, hear Duke’s both
inner (thought) and outer (oral) “voice,” and his comments are as snide and pun
filled as a certain red and green sweater-wearing dream killer. Other people
can hear it, too, as the trailer below shows. Yeah, there’s a lot of profanity,
and there is more than a few “bitch” references, but Steve Rimpici does a fun
job of it, as he’s done in other voice roles. While there is little subtlety,
and certainly no pity towards Duke, there is absolutely many reasons to laugh
at both the wooden horse’s (I mean unicorn’s) words, and even – believe it or
not – actions: his “hiding” scenes towards the end had me rolling.
Steve Rudzinski
As with many of Rudzinski’s films,
there are self-referential moments to his previous films, such as a bottle of Captain
Z’s Totally Accurate Pirate Wine, or the off-hand mention of his Web series, SuperTask Force One. Also, Rudzinski uses the film not just to get his ideas across, but also as an
acting vehicle for himself, not as the main character but a supportive-yet-pivotal
role. His style tends to learn towards the Edgar Kennedy school of
slow-burn-to-righteous-explosion. Rudzinski’s skill is pretty varied, as he’s
shown in previous films, but this method is among my favorites.
There is not much nudity in the film,
most of which is a response to one sleazy character’s (Chris Proud) cry of “show
me your [pick a word for female breasts] for a beaded necklace” at the party.
That being said, there is definitely one scene with the elfin cute pierced and tatted
Haley Madison that goes beyond what you may expect even from an indie…or
perhaps not, all things considered.
Haley Madison
The gore, however, is another story.
Some of it is kinda (purposefully) cheesy, but man, there is a lot of it, and most of it look
incredible for its budget. Duke seems to have access to any one of a number of
deadly weapons, from throwing stars to machetes, which draws a very funny
throwaway panicked line from the Pizza Boy (Rudzinski). I actually had to pause
the film to laugh, as not to miss anything. Come to think of it, there was more
than once I stop to rewind just a bit to either see or hear a bit again because
it was (a) WTF, (b) so beautifully done, (c) to laugh, or (d) any combination. It
should also be noted that there is a very large body count, so those into this
kind of film should find that fun, as I did.
CarousHELL
doesn’t answer a lot of question, which I think is fine (such as how this magic
horse… I mean unicorn, came to be). This is the kind of film that you just say “fuck
it” and watch it for what it is, without any guilt. If you actually sat down to
mull over it, there could be a lot of
questions that need to be answered, but the genre overrides the need for queries.
Cowboy Cool, aka PJ Gaynard
One of the more bizarre characters is
Cowboy Cool (PJ Gaynard), who not only swaggers in a John Wayne style, but
never removes his huge, mascot mask covered head. He seems to have the only gun
that can kill Duke (who is, I suppose, ironically and purposely branded after
Wayne’ nickname?). I think my fave characters are, however, the icky siblings
Pierre (Josh Miller) and Margot (Sarah Brunner), who have the worst French
accents possible (it sounds more German, actually). They are just so obnoxious, playing on the Francophone
stereotype.
Rudzinski is a bit of a meat and
taters kinda director. You’re not going to see many weird artistic flairs,
which personally I find can be really tiring, especially for this genre. He has
a message, and he gets to it. That’s a large part of the appeal. He takes the micro-budget
that he has and makes the most out of it. But at the same time, it doesn’t feel
claustrophobic in that it’s not all shot in one place, but rather in some nice
locations, including, yes, an amusement park (the same one from 2015’s Scream Park [Conneaut Lake Park, PA], in
which Rudzinski acts but not directs)? Oops, there goes those questions again… [The director responds: "It's not the same park. Conneaut was too far away and now multiple movies have shot there. So we went to an even smaller park in Southwest PA called Wildwood Highlands, which is more of a go-kart/putt-putt/arcade with a few rides. But it was Western themed so it worked beautifully.]
Rudzinski tends to make a film or two
every year for the past few years, but his quality has never dipped below
extreme fun. His characters tend to be not necessarily the same high school stereotypes
you usually find, and he goes through a lot of them. He also manages to find
actors who are well suited for their roles (for example, Marie just aces hers),
so I’ve seen most of the last batch, and have never been disappointed. That
says a lot, considering he works in the Pittsburgh area (I kid…). Seriously,
this comedy is worth a view on many levels for genre fans. Just don’t expect
anything super deep (or super shallow), and enjoy the references as they fly
by. Grab a bag of popcorn and have a blast.
Naming a film to jump on the success
of another that is unrelated is hardly new, especially since the 1980s. Even recently,
how many have started with A Haunting in…?
It’s no real stretch to guess the theme implied here, or where the name comes
from. Actually, if the film holds up, I don’t care what it’s called. But we
shall see, eh wot?
In retrospect, despite the name, they
seem to try and go a bit more for the style of Paranormal Activity (2007) in that it takes until the last 20
minutes for anything to be of
interest, but also keep with the incessant handheld found footage of The Blair Witch Project (1999). It seems
like any time the wording at the beginning starts with something like “They
were never seen again,” I have found it’s better to… run away!!!
We meet an attractive Latina family
who have moved to some mountain resort town in California. This is their first
day there and everything is already unpacked and pretty tidy (has anybody on
this film ever moved before?). There is the handsome and muscular father, Bruce
(Steve Jacques) and beautiful mother (Sophia Louisa), their typically emotional
beautiful teenage daughter, Kacie (Alana Chester) and her handsome and
model-type boyfriend Mark (Tomas Decurgez) who is there to help, and a young
teen son Manny (David Mendoza).
Using a single handheld camera, they
tape each other incessantly through the most mundane stuff (cooking burgers on
the grill, sitting around the kitchen, and like that). This includes some
personal conversations forwhich no one in their right mind would have a camera
on (or remain married for long in real life), making some of the characters
kind of unlikeable (especially Bruce), which I am going to assume was not the intention of the writers or
director.
Intercut in the first two-thirds of
the film are interviews with friends, family, and locals, including the sheriff
and mayor of this town. Unlike Blair
Witch however, these people definitely are
actors, not just local non-actors ad libbing. Some are convinced that the family
was killed by one of its members, others that it was some outsider (hence the
hinting of the movie’s title), and those that are sure it’s something supernatural
(conspiracy theorist types).
I’ve seen lots of these kinds of
films before, so I found myself looking at backgrounds as much as the
characters, such as “Is there something on that hillside?” or “Is that door
handle about to turn?” or “Is there a reflection in that mirror?” But no, most
of it is just the family being a family, having family conversations (and
arguments), living family lives. And yet, there is very little exposition about the characters. You get some idea
of their nature, but not the motivation behind it. For example, pretty-boy boyfriend
says “I like to draw so maybe I’ll be an architect.” Hunh? Sadly, I know people
like that, but that doesn’t explain why
he’s so aimless (commentary on his generation, perhaps?). So essentially, the
first hour is like watching someone else’s home movies. Wooo-hoooooo.
My annoyance, however, is with the
little things that make no sense. Usually I can avoid a couple of anachronisms
or errors, but these seem to be a confusion that stands out perhaps because of
the slow nature of the film, which makes it stand out more. For example, there
is a blackout in the house (all lighting used is off the camera), and yet in
the kitchen you can see the blue, electric digital clock on the fridge. Another
is the mention that this happened “several years” ago, and yet the key to the
car is one of those recent square ones that pop out like a switchblade, and
cell phones are spoken of once though never seen; attractive teenage daughter
without a cell phone every five minutes? Wow. And does this outage affect any of
the other surrounding houses, which don’t really seem that far away. If the car won’t start, run to one of the houses if
their lights are on… or even if they’re not.
The one that confuses me the most is that
the footage starts with the usually VHS kind of PLAY wording-on-blue-screen and
there is a lot of video-style stereotypical “noise” of lines and fading in and
out, and the like; however, it’s clearly a camera not a camcorder, and with all
the other modern extemporania, such as the aforementioned car keys, it just
doesn’t make sense.
I totally respect that Sandoval did a
“Robert Rodriguez” and used a largely Latino cast, and mostly they are good at
what they do, but considering there are three writers and I’m sure tons of ad
libs, there really is no plot, nor narrative, which is what brings this release
to a standstill from the get-go. A couple of good bloody scenes and a nice
touch and the end, however, aren’t enough to save this, I’m truly sad to say.
If you look at my history of
reviewing, I champion indie filmmaking (hell, it’s in the title), but I am also
honest (well, what is truthful to me). That being said, Sandoval was about 23
when he made this film. Yeah, he won a district award at high school for a
short he directed, so perhaps there is promise there. If perchance he reads
this, I am hoping he takes this as sincere criticism, not snarkiness. Let’s
consider this film an exercise, and hope that he learns the techniques he needs
to make the next one a killer.
