Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020
Images from the Internet
Heartbeat
Directed by Gregory Hatanaka
CineRidge Entertainment; Cinema Epoch; Mad Sin Cinema
73 minutes, 2020
www.madsincinema.com
For his third feature
release of the year (with another one, Quarantine Girl, expected by
year-end), prolific director Gregory Hatanaka has gathered his standard troupe
of players and delivered a bit of a different twist of a thriller. There is so
much cast overlap with his last film, Choke (reviewed on this blog), I
wonder if they were filmed concurrently. The reason I believe that is quite
often the smaller the role in Choke, the more prominent the one in Heartbeat,
and vicey-versey (yes, I’m leaving it that way).
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| Nicole D'Angelo |
Jennifer (Nicole
D’Angelo) is a hard-bitten and prickly news journalist who has written about a
company recently, whose employees and owners are getting whacked. We get to see
one of them in the prolog, which is beautifully done, though the victim (Sarah
Brine, the star of Choke), is stabbed with a barber’s razor? This type
of instrument is meant for slashing, not for stabbing, due to its blunt, flat
top, but I’m nit-picking.
 |
| For slashing, not stabbing |
What I find
interesting, and I mean this not as a criticism, is that for an award-winning investigative
journalist, Jennifer doesn’t really seem to be very inquisitive. When a photographer,
Rick (Shane Ryan), tries to show her the connection between the murders and the
article she wrote, even with evidence, she brushes him off. I feel that a good
journalist would see this as another article, possibly award winning, and would
jump on it. Our gal is too aloof. She has trouble even entertaining helping the
local police detective on the case, Santoro (Chris Spinelli).
She’s also that way
with an ex-boyfriend, the Norwegian-named Torsten (Scott Butler) – which means Thor’s
Hammer, or literally, Thor’s Stone – who is a bit aggro with her
boss, so I can understand why she dumped him, though they are pretty similar in
the bellicosity department. Jennifer, albeit the protagonist, doesn’t really
seem to try to ingratiate herself with the audience, but perhaps as the plot
thickens, she’ll become less hostile like a good heroine (I’m 20 minutes in at
this point); she seems to lead an extraordinarily lonely and mundane life for such
an exciting profession. Though, I must add that the fact that she doesn’t
follow the expected lead’s stereotypical pattern is a brave step, and I applaud
it.
As the death toll
rises, it circles around Jennifer until it is bound to be directed at her, much
like the Saltsraumen Maelstrom, a strong eddy that whirls around her, dragging
her into the fray.
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| Chris Spinelli |
The film has an
Italian giallo feel, sort of like Dario Argento’s Bird with the
Crystal Plumage (aka L’uccello dale piume di cristallo, 1970), though
the whispery voice on the phone, especially for the first kill during the
prolog, sounds a bit like the quacky one from Leo Fulci’s The New York Ripper
(aka Lo squartatore di New York, 1982).
The acting of the
leads, or at least the usual suspects of what I’ll call Hatanaka’s troupe,
is rather good. D’Angelo, despite her character’s bristle, does well in the
lead role, making her interesting even if not overly likeable, which is a
decent balancing act. Spinelli is pretty solid as the detective, easing his way
into Jennifer’s life. Ryan plays against type by becoming a nerdy, almost
simple-minded photographer who takes candid pictures (snap-snap, grin-grin,
wink-wink, say no more) of events and people through their window, obsessing a
bit on Jennifer.
With a few of the
minor roles, the actors sometimes seem to stumble over their lines. Ah, the
joys of indie film making; as usual, you get a mixed bag. It is part of the fun
of watching these kinds of films, actually. You want perfection? Go watch an A-List
overdone production, not one with a heart, like this one. But I kinda digress…
For an indie,
low-budget film, this is certainly well populated with characters, which is
noteworthy. And with all these people floating in and out of the story, thirty
minutes in, I had it down to three suspects. Though despite the gruesome murders,
like most giallos, this is essentially a crime drama about the Chinese mob
and, well, I won’t go into it and give it away.
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| Share Ryan |
The kills never come
as a surprise. They are always telegraphed by POV shots and, well, the plotlines.
Despite the blood, there is nothing actually gory and this relies more on the
story and the fact that people are murdered to further the action, rather than
just relying on SFX splatter, like Argento and Fulci did in the 1980s. Also,
again, there’s that budget.
At 40 minutes, I was
back down to one suspect, the first one I picked. I won’t give away who it is
nor who it isn’t, as I’m not that kind of reviewer, but I will say I was right.
The location of one of the murders was the giveaway for me. But that’s okay,
and honestly, that’s part of why I like these kinds of films, trying to figure
it out along with the protagonist.
If there is one real fault
I would pick, it would be that the soundtrack is sometimes turned up too high, which
at times makes it hard to hear the dialogue, such as in the final reveal. I had
to watch the ending a couple of times to make out what was being said over the
plunking piano and high-pitched screech on the music track. I wish I could have
had some subtitles.
The story is both simple
and complex at the same time, which is part of what works. It’s simple in that
it goes in pretty much a straight line, and doesn’t get bogged down in
complexity, even as the viewer wonders why something is happening (that will be
eventually explained). The complex part is the myriad of characters, including
some mandatory red herrings, that get thrown at us to help try to throw us off
the track.
Is it a good film?
Yes, and an enjoyable way to spend some time if you appreciate this genre. It’s
a noble homage to the Italian crime giallo cinema of the 1980s, and it
works in style (love the stop frames) and formula. Does it match the likes of
Fulci and Argento? Well, my answer to that is, does anyone? As a fan of giallo,
I kept finding myself unconsciously nodding when Hatanaka hits the right note,
which was often.
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