Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016
Images from the Internet
The Purging Hour (aka Home Video)
Directed by Emmanuel Giorgio Sandoval
Vicious Apple Productions / Ruthless Films / MVD Visual
80 minutes, 2015 / 2016
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.
No comments:
Post a Comment