Review: Ouija Death Trap

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet

Ouija Death Trap (aka Spirits)

Directed by Todd Sheets
Extreme Entertainment / Jackalope Media / Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Entertainment
74 minutes, 2014 / 2018
www.zombiebloodbath.com
www.wildeyereleasing.com
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Back in the 2010s, director Todd Sheets had a health scare that put him out of commission for a few years. He’s been back for a while now, and I personally think his newer films are better than ever. This found footager was one of his early “return” releases. While I’m not a found footage fan, I am one of Sheets, and decided to give it a try.

S

Dakota Lassen, Raven Reed, Jessica Hopkins

tarting life under the title Spirits, the new name is reflective of supernatural goings on, of course. For our story, high schooler Raven (Raven Reed) has an internship at ShadowView Manor (great name), which has a reputation for being haunted. So, natch, she and her school pal friends – Jessica (Jessica Hopkins), Kota (Dakota Lassen) and William (William Christopher Epperson) – sneak into the office complex building, each with a camera to explore.

Like many films where there are a group heading out to a mysterious place, there is the older guy to fill in the back story, in this case the janitor (John O’Hara, looking and playing very different and almost unrecognizable from Sheets’ later film, Clownado). He’s kind of creepy in his telling of how the building used to be a brothel and how a priest came in and killed everyone; in fact, this is a de facto sequel to Sheets’ House of Forbidden Secrets (2014), and if I am right, it even takes place in the same structure (which I recognized from the earlier film).



John O'Hara

One of the positives about this is the high school kids actually look like high school kids. No thirty year olds pretending to be seniors. I’m grateful for that, because when it’s actors who are older playing younger, I find it distracting – and annoying.

 

So our intrepid quartet meets the janitor, and then starts to roam around the joint, and sure enough strange things begin to happen. People pop in and out, dolls and furniture move by themselves, and before long, our intrepid ghost hunters are terrified, jumping from floor to floor on the elevator (there’s three storeys, according to the buttons). Then they start getting dragged off somewhere by some mysterious beings, the spookiest of which is a girl who looks to be around their own age.

As I said, I’m not a big fan of the found footage genre, and this definitely has a bit of the best and worst of that. For the worst part, it’s the running around with the cameras in the dark, which is really annoying to view. Also, we get glimpses of things that scare them, and they react before we get the chance to see what terrified them in the first place; the oft response, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” does not answer what they are screaming about. They spend most of their time screaming at the top of their lungs. They’re afraid, I get it, but the screech level gets to ya after a while, y’know?



Jessica Hopkins, William Christopher Epperson 

As for the best of, thankfully Sheets works that well, with doors opening by themselves, or releasing hiding spirits; and things moving on their own are creepy. Sure, you know every time the elevator door opens, there’s a chance that there may be something supernatural to meet them, and sometimes there is but not always (another smart move), so it keeps the audience on their toes, as well. For me, the scariest thing in horror films is a closed door that’s about to be opened.

 

Another nice touch is that this appears to be happening in real time, so the events are in the less than 90 minutes time frame. This gives it a bit of a framework, though I’m not sure who was supposed to have edited the four simultaneous cameos (Sheets edited the film). What I also liked is that while this may be a sequel, it also works as a standalone, so you don’t need to know the previous film at all, House of Forbidden Secrets, even though I strongly recommend it as it is quite enjoyable.

The actors definitely come across as honestly scared, which is nice. According to the ending credits, they didn’t know what they were facing when they agreed to film it so they were genuinely frightened. This may be true or not, but it was effective in the screaming and whining. This was also all of their first films.

I realize I’m all over the map about this, whether I liked it or not, but that’s okay. For a genre that tends to bore me, Sheets managed to keep my attention until about 50 minutes in, when I started to weary a bit of the running and screeching. However, it became more interesting close to the end, so I was able to snap back into the story. I’m grateful for that.

The only extras are some Wild Eye Releasing trailers, which are always fun. Meanwhile, Sheets keeps getting better, and I certainly look forward to seeing a lot more of his upcoming films. And while you're at it, especially check out his werewolf release, Bonehill Road.

 

Review: Bonehill Road

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2017

Images from the Internet

Bonehill Road

Written, directed and edited by Todd Sheets

Extreme Entertainment / Eclipse Video /
Fuzzy Puppy Filmworx / Lycanthrope Motion Pictures / MVD Entertainment

89 minutes, 2017

www.facebook.com/BonehillRoad

www.zombiebloodbath.com/bonehillroad.html
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After a health hiatus, long-haired director Todd Sheets came back stronger than ever with the likes of House of Forbidden Secrets  (2013) and Dreaming Purple Neon  (2016). Now he’s dipped his toe into the waters of the even shaggier werewolf genre.

I haven’t seen many decent lycan films since Ginger Snaps (2000), though there have been the occasional ones like Sheep Skin  (2013) and Bubba the Redneck Werewolf (2014). No, I do not count the Twilight series as werewolf films, nor decent (though the first Underworld [2003] was okay).

My theory for the reason why werewolf releases are far and in-between is the cost of either the costumes or making digi versions. Most are full body suits, which tend to be cumbersome, or if digitized, take a full team to make it look good.

For this film, Sheets takes an interesting approach, asking us to question which is worse, the big bad trio of wolves outside the door, or the human monster inside with the knife and sadistic attitude. That is the predicament in which Todd has placed his main characters.

Anna Rojas-Plumberg and Eli DeGeer

Emily (Eli DeGeer) and her teenage daughter Eden (Anna Rojas-Plumberg) are on the run from one human monster, an abusive husband (Aaron Brazier, who has some great tats on his forearms, including Karloff’s Frankenstein’s Monster and Johnny Rotten Lydon). When their car is toast, in part due to the hairy trio, they wind up in a house with serial killer Coen (Douglas Epps) and his hostages, Tina (Millie Milan), Lucy (Dilynn Fawn Harvey), and Suzy (an extended cameo by Linnea Quigley).

Between our furry friends outside and the less hairy one inside, there is a lot of damage that happens to everyone involved, leading to tons of carnage and gore. Luckily, both of those are Sheets’ specialities, and so is a touch of nudity for which Harvey amply lends a – err – hand in that department.

Douglas Epps

While presented more as a werewolf flick, there is equally, if not more so, the dichotomy of what happens inside the house with the human monster as with the beasties without. That’s part of what makes this so interesting, rather than being just the dangers of a straightforward supernatural or shaggy human creature.

Also at the heart of the whole visual is that all of the effects and wolfie-poos are practical SFX rather than digital. Sure, the wolves kinda appear as people in full body costumes, but they actually look really good most of the time. The masks are also easily identifiable individually, so you know which is which. You can tell a lot of effort was placed into the costumes, which made me smile. As for the gore, other than sometimes the occasional innards looking a bit like pasta, the effects are quite well done. Sheets tends to show the carnage in extreme close-up, which is both fun for the viewer and I’m sure makes it easier for the filmmaker to use body doubles (which is totally forgivable if it works, which it does in this case).

Linnea Quigley (on the right)

Most of the acting is quite powerful. Other than the occasional over-emoting, such as Epps sporadic high-pitched maniacal laugh, the cast – including Epps – is pretty solid. As the two leads, Plumberg and especially DeGeer hold their own as strong women who are put in extraordinary circumstances. Even Quigley, who on occasion has had trouble with her boundaries (under- or overacting, as do her contemporaries, Brinke S. and Michelle B.), nails it here.

Generally speaking, there tends to be two types of werewolf films: the first is when the bearer of the curse becomes an out of control animal, such as in An American Werewolf in London (1981); the other is where they keep their wits and just like to screw with their prey, no matter what the form, like in The Howling (also 1981). This one falls into the latter category. While the werewolves, who were able to break through doors and rip a tire to shreds with a swipe of its claws, apparently could not seem to break through the windows of the house, even when banging on the glass – when I saw this, I said an audible, “Hunh?” – it was then pointed out to me by Sheets that the monsters were playing "cat and mouse" with the occupants. That makes a lot more sense to me.

IThe rest of the film looks great, with sharp editing and visuals. There is nothing really fancy here, no “artistic flares,” which suits me just fine. A meat and ‘taters creature feature is just what the witch doctor ordered for this Halloween.

If I had a wish, it would be the occasional dark humor here and there, but you know what, that’s my own thing and not the film’s fault. There are some nods, though, such as Quigley’s tee, a character named after Stephen Biro from Unearthed Films, another for Rolfe Kanefsky who recently directed The Black Room, and one called Tucker Woolf  

Of course, watch after the credits as an epilogue has become as nearly omnipresent as a prologue. As werewolfian cinema goes, this is pretty impressive and another positive notch on Sheets’ cinematic rap – err – sheet.

Trailer is HERE

Review: House of Forbidden Secrets

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

House of Forbidden Secrets

Written, filmed, directed and edited by Todd Sheets

Extreme Entertainment / BD Productions / Full Moon Productions /Unearthed Films / MVD Entertainment

93 minutes, 2014

www.facebook.com/houseofforbiddensecrets 
www.unearthedfilms.com

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Although this film was released less than three years before the last one I saw by the director, Dreaming Purple Neon (reviewed HERE), I watched this one shortly after it, and it was interesting to see the differences, and especially the similarities.

Even at this point, Sheets is not new to the director’s table, and that experience and know-how shows, even with a micro-budget. Yeah, this is VHS-1980s-type fare, but it is also no surprise that this has been accepted and shown at dozens of festivals in its nearly four years of existence.

Antwoine Steele

The story starts with it being Jacob Hunt’s (Sheets go-to guy, Antwoine Steele) first day on the job at an office building as a night security guard. Meanwhile, in one of the rooms, a medium named Cassie Traxler (Nicole Santorella) is holding a benign séance to bring back the spirit of a customer’s husband. Instead, she manages to unleash the evil spirit of a demonic priest (the excellent Lew Temple, who has been in a slew of stuff, including The Devil’s Rejects, 31, and a run on The Walking Dead) and the restless souls of those he has killed.

By Cassie’s action, the building’s basement has now turned into the stomping ground of the murdered and angry spirits of a 1930s brothel which we see in flashbacks, that was run by a couple played by the one and only Dyanne Thorne (here not-ironically named after one of her most famous characters in 1977’s Greta, the Mad Butcher, and her husband, Klaus (Howard Maurer, Thorne’s real-life husband). This is Thorne’s first role in nearly a quarter century, and it’s great to see her in all her eye-raising, inconsistent accent acting. This may sound like I’m being negative, but she is amazing and an important touchstone in modern horror history. Plus, she’s still lovely at 70 years old; the Las Vegas air has done her well. As a side note, when I met her in the early ‘90s at a Chiller Theatre in New Jersey, she was very open and sweet.

So our two main characters and a bunch of others (i.e., the fodder), such as the building maintenance guy, a film crew, and Cassie’s assistant, go a-roaming through the endless basement, picked off one by one in a number of gruesome manners, including crucifixion.

Actually, there is a lot of religious overtones throughout the film, including a lustful and murderous priest, and the psychic can be seen as sort of the flip slide of the Christian dogma, but still being a kind-hearted person, i.e., it can be interpreted as someone Christian may be “evil, and another who is pagan can be “good.” Personally, I believe this is a positive thing, because in my book, dogma (formalized religion), especially in today’s Trump-ified United States, shows that belief does not necessarily = peace and love. While I don’t know what the director had in mind, that’s what I read into it.

This certainly is a nicely wet picture, with a few wonderful moments of explicit gore, including a face dismantling, and much of it appears to be appliances. In one of the differences between this and the later film, there is less of a latex look here to the visceral shenanigans and, well, is that the same large intensive? I ask that as a hypothetical question. There is some female nudity, usually with blood splashed on the breasts, but no male, though there are all gendered bits in the later film.

As for similarities between the two pictures, well there definitely are some story motifs that overlap. I’m not implying that one is a remake, or that there is a rip-off, just some interesting turns in an auteur kind of way. For example, both buildings (shot in the same complex, by the way) have unending basements that hold terrors of malevolent and demonous denizens, with a group of fodderites trying to find a way out. And this may be a bemused stretch, but they also both have a strong character whose last name is Cane/Kane.

Nicole Santorella

The acting here is pretty decent, with the zaftig Santorella leading the way. Okay, occasionally there’s the over emphasis here and there, but the cast fares really well. It’s amazing the difference in characters played by Steele here and in Dreaming Purple Neon. The hammiest role award, however, definitely has to go to Lloyd Kaufman in one of his typical vested (does he own any other clothes?) rants, even though this one is “drunken.” Lloyd is always a hoot as the buffoon and humor content, and I hope he keeps on doing it, and there are a couple of nice quick nods to The Toxic Avenger included. I’m just shocked that if Lloyd is here, where is Debbie Rochon? But I digress…

There is an abundance of cameos here that is quite impressive, such as the aforementioned Thorne and Temple, and then there’s the likes of Ari Lehman (the first Jason Voorhees, as a kid), George Hardy from Trolls 2 (1990), and Allan Kayser (from 1986’s Night of the Creeps and TV’s “Mama’s Family”).

The lighting is just right, which is no small thing, as I’ve seen too many films that take place in suspicious and dangerous places where it’s so dark, you lose the action: “Wait, I know there’s something happening, but what the heck, it’s hard to see!” Here it’s pretty clear from beginning to end. The basement set design is also quite well done.

But the most important thing these two have in common, however, is that they are both incredibly watchable and damn good fun.

Review: Dreaming Purple Neon

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2016

Images from the Internet

Dreaming Purple Neon

Written, filmed, directed and edited by Todd Sheets

Extreme Entertainment / MVD Entertainment

111 minutes, 2016

www.dreamingpurpleneon.com

www.facebook.com/DreamingPurpleNeon

www.zombiebloodbath.com
www.mvdb2b.com

Fanzine publishers know it. Self-recorded musicians know it. So do indie film producers and directors. It is the knowledge and experience that sometimes you just have to go all in: take out the credit card, empty the bank account, fuel your dream and take a shot. It’s about putting into reality what you visualize in your head.

Thus is the micro-budget Dreaming Purple Neon, which went from Todd Sheets’ wallet to being available on VoD since Halloween of 2016. The thing is, experience has shown me that when it comes to indie…well, anything, some people know how to make the best of their finances by stripping down as much as possible (single room, minimal number of actors, shot in their own houses, for example). Others try to overdo it, making up for what can’t be afforded to be made up for more readily in digital post-production. Then there are the Todd Sheets of the world, who know how to work the balance between the simplified and the over the top digitalization.

Man, I don’t know how they did it with such a small budget, but there is a hell of a lot packed into this film, which looks way more than its budget suggests. Sure the acting is somewhat questionable (as with many indies), but the sheer size of the cast is amazing. The body count alone is bigger than most productions. Sure there is a lot of digitalization in the last 5 minutes (which looks great, by the way), but most of the gore – and there is a hell (pun intended) of a lot of it – is appliances and real liquid (as opposed to digital spray).

I’m kind of jumping ahead of myself here, but let’s get back to basics, namely the plot. There is a new recreational drug on the market called, of course, Purple Neon. But its root is even more nefarious and diabolical than just greed, which we also see in abundance. The focus is on a couple of drug dealers (while I’m not happy that they are Black, which can be interpreted by us PCers as stereotypical, they are not the only actors of color, so I’ll let it slide) in Kansas City, who are after someone who nipped their stash. [Postnote from Todd Sheets: "Ricky (Farr) was a manager at a chain store and he had a dream of playing that character, so I kind of tailored it to him, and Antwoine (Steele) has worked with me for 25 years and he wanted the part of Ray Ray to prepare for a similar role in a script he has been writing for a few years that I am going to produce for him."]

The dentist, the drug enforcer, the best friend
and the love interests

In a separate story, which you just know is going to link up with the other, poor lovesick Dallas (Jeremy Edwards) has returned to town, mooning over his lost love Denise (Eli DeGeer). I’m assumed he’s named Dallas because he wears a wide-brimmed hat, which is weird considering he’s from KC (though the name of the town is never mentioned). Anyway, with the help of his bestie, Chris (Grant Conrad), he’s out to see how she’s doing.

The catalyst of all the action, or the fork in the road of where the stories converge, is a demon-worshiping cult in a magical and unending basement that reminds me of a theme from Grave Encounters (2011), which is a link to hell. There are some other homages as well, to the likes of Hostel (2005), Demons (1985), and even arguably Goldfinger (1964), but nothing that really feels like a rip-off.

Even with the rubbery looking internal organs (there’s one intestine that looks like it was used a few times), the gore effects look pretty decent, and I’ll always go for appliance over digital. Lots of blood and gnawing and tearing with teeth give it a smile-inducing factor (for me). As the film flows on, the level of blood (and other secretions) pours even more.

Usually, I posit that indie films that are over 90 minutes really need to do some editing to keep interest keen. Now, at 111 minutes, this film could arguably use some trimming, but to be honest, it went by pretty fast as the pace of the film – especially the second half – is pretty consistently on a fast track.

Just for the heck of it,
a publicity shot of Millie Milan

Points of contention? Well, as I said, some of the acting is not very strong, and the two romantic leads are lacking in the chemistry department, but I like that most of the cast look like everyday people as opposed to prom queens/kings (one of the exceptions being the sultry Millie Milan, whose character is key to bringing all the storylines together). There is also one plot question which baffles me, and I’ll try to say this without giving away anything substantial: when a character leaves behind some drugs, why not keep the guns, considering the situation? Now, if that’s the worst I can come up with, well, this film is more than just leaning into the positive side.

I didn’t know what to expect walking into this release, but I was more than pleasantly surprised by how much fun it is. From the first scene, which always has to have a bit of violence in it to bring in the modern, jaded audience, we are pulled in, and even most of the expositions move at a decent pace.

The sets are interesting, as well. It’s obvious the scenes in the Dentist’s office (said DDS, played by Nick Randol, is possibly my fave character: unassumingly nerdy – despite the numerous tats – with the heart of a warrior) is an actual location, as the real dentist’s name is still on the door; I Googled it, which is how I knew it was in Missouri. The basement sets are cool and dark, but with decent lighting so you can see the action. The editing is sharp, with the occasional extreme-close-up that hides the ultra-violence, but again, overall it is very well done.

Other than a couple of moments here and there of “hunh?” dialogue, most of the storyline works well together, bringing it to a satisfying conclusion (watch past the credits for some eggs). The pace, as I said, is just right, which makes the few weaknesses here and there less egregious and forgivable.

There’s a fine line here walking the artiness of the whole gizmigollogy that still maintains its meat’n’taters horror base, which is where I like to go. Yeah, stripped down has its place, but when you add a flair to it, especially when dealing with a single camera, it’s the mark of a decent director.

If this is the kind of output Sheets can manage with a micro-budget, with some decent funding I bet he could open up the seams even more, and give a great bloodletting story that would soak your socks.

Link to trailer: HERE