Review: Nightmare Symphony

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2023
Images from the Internet

Nightmare Symphony (aka Nightmare Symphony: The Peacock’s Tale)
Directed by Domiziano Cristopharo and Daniele Trani
Enchanted Architect; 8-Films; DiabolikDVD; Reelgore Releasing; MVD Visual
78 minutes, 2020 / 2022
www.mvdvisual.com

The main director of this film, Domiziano Chrisopharo, is a name that is familiar to me, as I have reviewed three of his many previous films: House of Flesh Mannequins (2009), Museum of Wonders (2010), and Red Krokodil (2012) 

His work is seriously underappreciated, and from what I have seen, his name should be as familiar as Argento or Fulci. They are odd, dark, and eminently enjoyable, on the side of weird and highly influenced by giallo. Hopefully, this one will live up to my expectations.

This was filmed mostly in Pristina, East-Central Kosovo by and Italian crew, but recorded in English (DTS_HD Maser Audio 2.) with some Italian and Albanian, and a German overdub is also available on this Blu-ray. The subtitle choices are English SDH and Swedish. That this us steeped in a giallo, right down to the theme music by Fabio Frizzi (Fulci’s A Cat in the Brain and The Beyond in 1981 among others; Kill Bill Vol. 1 in 2003), should be no surprise as this was written by Antonio Tentori (who penned Fulci's 1990 A Cat in the Brain); this release has a similar theme.

Frank LaLoggia and Antonella Salvucci

After an opening prologue in Rome with a gratuitous and ferocious shower scene (Antonella Salvucci) that is steeped in giallo lighting and mood – and violence – perpetrated by someone in a peacock mask (Federico di Pasqual) – who has no crystal plumage – we are introduced to our central character, struggling film director Frank LaLoggia playing a version of himself (who looks a bit like my dad at a point in his life), an American living in Italy (with a red passport rather than blue) as he travels to Kosovo, giving him a chance to let us know about his charity of spirit (how the film got the rights to a Disney film clip, I do not know; is Mickey now public domain?).

Poison Rouge and Hasan Lushi (foreground)

In a meta-film storyline (the film shoot within a film is getting to be quite common these days), Frank is a director who is trying to finish up a project, The Peacock’s Tale, and make his investor, Fernando (Hasan Lushi), who arrives with his girlfriend Lola (Poison Rouge, who also directed the cult classic body horror, American Guinea Pig: Sacrifice, in 2017) and the screenwriter, Antonio (screenwriter Antonio Tentori), happy. The problem is they both want different things, and Frank is in the middle. He has come to Kosovo to do the post-production work, including with editor Isabella (also Salvucci). LaLoggia actually was a director of a trio of cult classic films in the 1980s and 1990s. We get to see some footage (including backstage) of his Fear No Evil (1981, though he claims it as 1970 in this film). That was a cool addition,

Merita Budakova

Frank is constantly being set upon by a drunk neighbor (Iimi Hajzeri), a hyper-aggressive actor looking for work, David (Halil Budakova), or being stalked by a mysterious woman (Merita Budakova; she could definitely play Monica Lewinsky). As we meet all the characters around Frank, someone else in a peacock mask (Blin Budakova…yes, there is a number of cast members with that surname) is starting to kill people who surround Frank, some close associates, some not as much. But each one is appropriately gruesome, and in various ways, as is befitting a giallo. As for the killer, there are numerous nice red herrings throughout.

Of course, this is a giallo, so the question is bound to come up: what is real, what is not, what is psychosis? Pressure can sometimes make that distinction a gray area left open for the viewer to decide. Lucio Fulci (d. 1996) was famous for opaque endings that did not harm the story proper. Note that this film is dedicated – and rightfully so – to Fulci. After all, the title of this film is a nod to the French name of Fulci’s A Cat in the Brain, which was called Nightmare Concerto.

But more after this commercial break: There are a few extras on the Blu-ray, but nothing too overwhelming. First is the Making Of, which is actually a Blooper Reel (9 min) which was okay, albeit mostly in Italiano. This is followed by a couple of interview tracks. The first is with director Chrisopharo (14 min), which is in accented English. He discusses, among other things like narrow budgets and the growth of the film’s idea to fruition, the influence of Fulci. The other is with screen writer Tentori (6 min), which is in Italian with subtitles. He talks about the actors, and naturally, Fulci. I found the second one more engaging, without taking anything away from Chrisopharo. Along with the soundtrack I mentioned earlier, the last two extras are the Teaser and the Trailer.

Okay, getting back to the meat of the matter, having Americans as leads in Italian giallo films is certainly not new. For example, there was John Saxon (d. 2020) in The Scorpion with Two Tails (1982), and Jennifer Connolly and Donald Pleasance (d. 1995) in Argento’s Phenomena (both these films to be reviewed here, soon).

The cinematography by co-director Trani, is exquisite and arty without being overdone. The scenes of the city, and the like are just lovely, even the slummy areas. Long tracking shots abound, rather than MTV-ish quick-cuts that have become the norm, sadly. Giallo has proven that Sergi Eisenstein (d. 1948) is only sometimes right, that editing equals action, but not always, or here.

There were two distractions for me. The first was that so many of the scenes were filmed either at night or in an unlit room, using a dark blue filter, which made the action (and some killings) hard to see. The second, and I do not really blame anyone because it helps with the budget, there were obvious product placements, such as a particular soda-pop, whose logo is seen prominently in a number of times in more than one place.

This release gives me every reason to stay a Domiziano Chrisopharo fan.

IMDB listing HERE

Review: Maniac Driver

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2023
Images from the Internet

Maniac Driver
Directed by Kurando Mitsutake
Akari Pictures; Reelgore Releasing; 8 Ball Films; DiabolikDVD; MVD Visual
75 minutes, 2020 / 2022
www.mvdvisual.com

Although this film is Japanese in origin and language (with subtitles), it may be inspired by the real Hong Kong serial killer portrayed in Dr. Lamb. He was also a taxi driver serial killer.

The opening credits’ title states this is a “Japanese Giallo.” Well, the opening sequence screams of it, as a woman in a spandex bathing suit sensually strips in a shower, and is murdered by the titular, Fujinaga (Tomoki Kimura). The color palate (by Shuji Hamamoto and Mitsuo Kojima) is correct for a Giallo, with lots of primary colors, a knife, and a helmeted killer. Actually, what the opening made me think of was a cross between Italian Giallo and the ending credits of What’s Up Tiger Lily? (1966).

Tomoki Kimura, Iori Kogawa

The tone of the over-thought narration describing the city definitely smacks of Taxi Driver (1976). Kimura even looks a bit like a younger DeNiro; heck, there is even a scene with him in front of a mirror holding a weapon and giving the whole “You talking to me?” speech. I have no doubt this was meant as an homage, rather than a rip-off.

While this definitely has a retro-Giallo feel, there is a Japanese spin on it. For example, as a businesswoman is being chased, she takes off her jacket so the film camera can get her braless bouncing, there is a close-up slo-mo shot of her backside where you can see her underwear beneath her overly short skirt, and, of course, by the end of the scene, her top is exposed. To be fair, in the body of the film (pun not intended), there is also male nudity.

The driver is depressed after his wife was murdered and he was stabbed in a home invasion by someone with the same helmet as him. This sours him on society, and both wants to die and to kill. But, how much of his killing his customers is real and what is fantasy? This is a territory touched on in American Psycho (2020).

The nudity and sex is a-plenty here, so it is no surprising that many of the women/victims in this film come from the world of adult cinema, such as Saryu Usui, Ayumi Kimito, and Ai Sayama (as is stated on the back of the Blu-ray box. Through fantasy and memory, this turns out to be quite a softcore flick. There is also extraordinarily little actual dialogue, with most of the philosophizing happening in the driver’s head. It ranges from injustices, to positive feminism, to despair.

Slowly, as his anger as desperation grows, he starts looking for a victim to take out his perceived vengeance on society and to end his own miserable life. Meanwhile, we see him taking customers in his cab numerous times, through a cab-cam with somewhat blocked faces. Did you know that DeNiro drove a cab in New York for two months to get a better idea of what the character goes through?

There are a lot of shots of Tokyo and the editing (John Migdal) and cinematography (Makoto Hayashi) is noteworthy, such as the city reflected through the moving hood of the dark taxi. Most of the shooting is normalized, but the fantasies are in high-art Giallo colors and lighting techniques. The music during these sequences are also interesting, in a distorted way.

Things pick up when he meets his (adult) “Jody Foster” in the form of injured Mayumi (Iori Kogawa), and he finally sets in motion to carry out his idea for a murder/suicide. Heck, there is even a long-haired villain (Yoshiki Kondô) who is reminiscent of Harvey Keitel.

When the reality is revealed and the facts are finally shown, well, some of it took me by pleasant surprise. The ending nicely sums it up, but I won’t tell…

The extras on this Blu-ray are as follows: an Audio Commentary by the director, Kurando Mitsutake, who fortunately is very fluent in English, so no subtitles needed (born in Toyko, grew up in Fresno, CA). He skillfully goes back and forth between descriptions of what is happening on the screen, and anecdotes about the whole process and the cast/crew. Worth at least one listen. We also learn that the title is a mash-up of insane serial killer flick Maniac (1981), and said Taxi Driver.

The “Maniac Driver: Behind the Scenes”-featurette (30 min) is exactly that, mostly setting up shots (and then we see what they filmed), and includes some brief interviews with the main cast. It is very basic but kept my interest. Finally, there is a Trailer (in English) and Slideshow, along with a nice 4-sided box insert cover with images of the film’s original posters. There are also subtitles available in three languages.

There is a prestigious amount of nudity, sex, and violence, not to mention blood and some gore (SFX by Yoshinari Dohi). The story is a bit weak and repetitive at times, and seems to circle around the point, but by the third Act, it is quite a ride.

IMDB listing HERE

For some reason, the trailer on YouTube is captioned in German:

Horror Shorts Reviews: December 2022

Horror Shorts Reviews for December 2022

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2022
Images from the Internet

These films are not in a numbered and ranked order, but rather alphabetically listed by first letter.

 

The Changing Room
Directed by Sam Evenson
Grimoire Horror
4:25 minutes, 2022
The lesson of the film is: obey signs in stores. A woman (Jamie Taylor Ballesta) finds a dress she likes in a shop and goes to the changing room to try it on. The out-of-the-way changing room has mirrors on facing walls, so you can see infinite versions of yourself. But, someone or something (Alan Maxson), who moves like the ghosts in Japanese horror films, appears in an unlikely place, and that’s where the terror begins. I had a smile at the end of this. Ballesta does a great job of showing fear. Also, the SFX was impressive. If you are interested, there is a really cool “Making of” video (which is around 6 min.) linked at the end of the film that I really enjoyed, as well.
Full film HERE

 

Deep Shock
Directed by Davide Melini
LV Hair LTD.
29:19 minutes, 2019
www.facebook.com/DeepShockDavideMelini
It should come as no surprise that this film just screams Italiano giallo. The director worked as AD on a few of Dario Argento’s releases. In typical giallo form, some of the actors are British, and some are dubbed over from Italian. It is full of the kind of imagery you would expect, apart from sharp, primary colors; here the are muted like the mental fog of the main character, troubled Sarah (Muireann Bird). She is in an unstable state over the death of her grandfather and sister, and is being taken care of by her other sister, Caroline (Lorna Larkin), a family friend, Marius (Francesc Pagé), and the brogue-speaking priest (George Bracebridge) at her family’s huge estate on the sea (filmed at Alhaurin el Grande, Malaga, Andalucía, Spain). In her dreams she is seeing the dead, but perhaps it is something more sinister? As with some of the Argento/Bava type giallo, there is extreme violence and some nice-looking gooey gore, as well as the mandatory nude bathing scene. There are lots of surprises in a direction I did not see (though should have considering the influences), and the imagery is quite breathtaking.
Full film HERE
Free Trailer HERE

 

He Knows When You Are Sleeping
Directed by Henrique Couto
Weekly Spooky
5:52 minutes, 2021
A festive genre film, as we see a woman (Iabou Windimere) snug as a bug in a rug. Well, on the couch, anyway. It’s Christmas Eve and something is stirring. She is in for more than one shock that night, and we get to see it play out…well, most of it. Other than some laughing and screaming, the film is silent (ever notice how many shorts have no dialogue?), but effectively creepy. The switch to porn-type music in one scene had me laughing. Short and to the point, the viewer is bound to get their jolly’s worth.
Full film HERE

 

The Manor
Directed by Blake Ridder
Ridder Films
13:44 minutes, 2021
 https://igg.me/at/manor
An American film crew goes over to England to find a shooting location, arriving at a stately, castle-like Victorian Manor that is, frankly, stunning. It is empty as the four go walking around, getting separated along the way. Before long, it is obvious that there is something in the house that can copy them, and also be deadly. There are several good jump scares in here, and frankly, I was a bit jealous, because as they are walking around taking pictures and videos of the place, I wanted to be there doing the same (I love taking pix of decrepit places). With a haunting score, the foursome gets lost as time becomes immaterial, and the rooms just seem to go on forever, reminiscent of Grave Encounters (2011). Both creepy and spooky.
Full film HERE

 

River City (E1, S1: Welcome Back)
Created by Jal Michael
Blind Cat Creations; MB
16:26 minutes, 2021
www.rivercityshow.com
In this animated horror comedy series geared to adults, Edwin (Cricket Cornelius) has the misfortune of his truck breaking down just outside of said City. Strangely, everybody there seems to know him (see the episode title), though he supposedly has never been there before (I have my theories about that). He is squared away at an apartment and befriends his blind and crusty neighbor. The duo head out to the bar and meet some of the sketchy (pun intended) patrons. There are zombies, werewolves, and other horror creatures large and small that populate the area. It was quite amusing, and vulgar, I am happy to say, with a lot a-cussin’. The second episode is due out around Xmas-time. Not to be confused with the Scottish BBC soap opera with the same name.
Full film HERE

 

Sighs from the Depths
Directed by Richard Griffin
A Reasonable Moving Picture Production
12:57 minutes, 2022
Imagine if a psychic had the power to tell you about how long you have to live, and what terminal disease will cause it? What would you do? This short examines this idea with three strangers close to their time. She has a solution, or does she not? And does this power come from somewhere light, or is there a darkness involved? All of these are explored in Griffin’s new compelling short. Mrs. Lathem (Susan Staniunas), with her assistant (Bruce Church), lead the trio on a “journey” that is full of fear of mortality and a hope for, perhaps, a cure. Beautifully shot, the length of the film flies by incredibly fast. It is nice to see Griffin work his “short” magic on this dramatic telling of facing mortality, and its common, desperate threads.
Trailer HERE

 

Take a Look
Directed by Liam Banks
Superfreak Media
12:59 minutes, 2021
Having recently moved into a new house, Katie (Tonia Toseland) finds a strange box in the attic that contains, among other things, an incredibly creepy baby doll that, when the string is pulled, says, “I see you.” From there on in she is haunted and taunted by a spirit (Charlie Brentnall) similar in idea to Ju-On/The Grudge (2002). No matter how she tries to get rid of the box, of course it returns. The film takes some older tropes and makes them work for this story to be effectively creepy. The spirit’s make-up by Alex Bourne is a bit “cakey,” but works. Katie definitely does things I would not, but even she says to herself, “Why am I doing this?” Toseland does well in the role, making her a sympathetic everywoman. Fun stuff.
Full film HERE

 

The Telling
Directed by Julia Alexander
5:37 minutes, 2016
A young couple, Andy (Shawn McLaughlin) and Alice (Molly Church), meet up with a psychic, Cassandra (Renee Erickson), in a park. Andy knows Cassandra, and brings Alice there for a reading about her future, and other matters. It is an interesting story for its time allotment, and has a really wicked – well, actually a couple of them – turns at the end. Very subtle and surprising at the same time. It was fun, and not just because I used to go see Church in a lot of off-off-off-Broadway plays in the mid-2000s. 
Full film HERE

 

The Tunnel
Directed by Andrew Clabaugh and Alex Spear
5:56 minutes, 2022
Jacob (Jordan Frechtman) is a joggin’ man, running for the exercise of it. He comes to an underpass tunnel that is well lit, and looks like any other underpass tunnel, but once he enters it, it changes his life, because no matter how hard he tries, he can never reach the end or the beginning. The film follows the psychological effect it has on him, as we watch him struggle with his sanity. Simple and to the point, with minimal subtext and a short amount of time, we feel his terror. While the story is a not complex, its direction and acting make it an effective thriller. Run to see it.
Full film HERE

Review: Heartbeat

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

https://cinemaepoch.com/

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).

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.

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.

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.

Review: A Drunk Scorpion Will Sting Itself to Death

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

A Drunk Scorpion Will Sting Itself to Death

Directed by Denton True

A Hard Work and True Storys Production

76 minutes, 2029

www.imdb.com/title/tt12244776/

My home town of Brooklyn is represented in Denton True’s sophomore film, though honestly, it’s not a Brooklyn I recognize from the middle class Bensonhurst from which I come. The title of the film may sound like an Italian giallo film from the 1980s, but it is solid local drug denizen territory.

As with his first film, American Male (2018), which I have not seen, True both directs and stars as its main character; in this new one, he’s Dean, a drug addict who is trying to get himself clean. Note that he was played a junkie in the first film, so there seems to be a motif going on here.

Denton True

Hanging out with his crew on a rooftop along Broadway in Williamsburg near the EL (you can see the old domed Williamsburg Savings Bank on Driggs in the background), including somewhat girlfriend Diana (Eva Maria Wojcik), and getting higher than the building elevation, he ODs and falls off the roof, breaking his nose, and with a prominent black eye. This isn’t a band of brothers (and sisters), they are bonded by what they smoke, which is a tenuous and untrusting connection at best.

Through a confrontation on a train, he meets Maria (Chanel Mack), dressed in red as she is one of right-wing Curtis Sliwa’s group of subway vigilantes, The Guardian Angels. It’s appropriate as its apparent there will be some sort of relationship between them as he tries to get straight, becoming his personal guardian angel in more ways than one.

Perhaps it’s real life, but there is an extremely liberal use of the word “Fuck” throughout the entire run time. I’m not offended by the word in any way, but eventually it starts to become distracting, and the dialog gets lost in it. As a metaphor, remember when Rocky was fighting the Russian dude, and he just kept wailing away at one spot until the bigger and stronger guy starts to wince? It’s kind of like that. It’s not the word itself, but the constant contextualizing of it. Eventually, it’s all you hear, and the dialog gets lost in the flood of any one word or expression, such as “like,” “y’know” or “dude”; I actually heard someone say “Dude, this dude doesn’t know, dude,” on the streets of Berlin.

Chanel Mack

There are some interesting twists and turns here that make this more than just a “get-straight” narrative, and brings it right back to the American giallo. The thing I know about getting clean, even being straight-edged, is that one of the hardest things to getting free of drugs (and alcohol) is the friends you keep. Part of any 12 Step Program is to stay away from those who use. Well, thanks to Maria, Dean finds a more permanent way to do that, that is actually pretty hardcore for what you may be expecting for this kind of film.

While the relationship between Dean and Maria is hazy other than sponsor and roommates, it is clear there is some twisted version of caring between Dean and Diana, who has a different vision of her future, much like The Days of Wine and Roses (1962), where one partner wants to get out and the other doesn’t. But can Dean actually do it? He definitely shows some ambivalence, but this is more a destitute lifestyle paradigm shift rather than just paying to go to rehab, which is new and different from Dean’s life up to that point and has been for at least a decade.

Brooklyn, for this story, is not exactly shown in the best light, with littered, wet streets, that is more reminiscent of Taxi Driver (1976) than the glorification of the city in, say, They Might Be Giants (1971). But considering the texture and tone of the film and it’s subject matter, it is quite appropriate.

The sound quality, like Dean’s thought processes, can be a bit chaotic. As there is an attempt towards clarity, the dialog is often matched with dogs barking, people talking, being on the subway, or just street noise as many scenes take us along walks among Brooklyn’s streets. The soundtrack is as muddled as Dean’s brain trying to function.

True’s filmmaking style is reminiscent of John Cassavetes (d. 1989), with a nearly documentary style, lots of close-ups, and a tendency to go in and out of focus momentarily here and there. But this style works well both for the story, for the characters, and for Dean’s thought processes. The big mystery is if can he succeed with so much violence in his wake.

Review: The Black Gate

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

The Black Gate

Directed by Guillaume Beylard, Fabrice Martin

Montpellier Underground Pictures

78 minutes, 2017 / 2019

www.facebook.com/The-Black-Gate/

First of all, let me be clear that despite it’s name, this feature has nothing to do with The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), even if the theme of the troupe of main characters are on a journey to return a book, rather than a golden ring (more Evil Dead than Frodo).

I’m going to be honest with youse. When I initially took a gander at some of the stills from this French film (with subtitles), I was somewhat concerned. It looked a bit like some 1980s kid thing, like The Gate (1987; don’t get me wrong, that was a decent film for what it was). Lots of swirling lights and demons with faces that were also swirling, glowing spheres. I am happy to say that I was flat out wrong.

Two siblings, Sarah (Jeanne Dessart), an archeology student, and her brother David (Nicolas Couchet) come into possession of said mysterious book of mystical incantations through their late uncle, who accidentally opened up the Black Gate, which connects this world to another that is keen on possessing human’s souls and turning them into literal George Romero-style (slow) flesh-eating zombies.

Jeanne Dessart

After you get past a certain point of the fantastic and start into the horror in the second act, the pace picks up incredibly fast, furious, and gory. It does take a moment or a few to get used to the pace of the film, which looks like a music video with swirling cameras and quick edits. If you have not noticed by my previous comments, there is a lot of swirling.

In a separate story, three bank robbers are on the run, and their car breaks down just outside of where Sarah and David are situated with some hooded ghoulies (it’s probably okay to call them demons, I guess) coming after them. Joining the sibs’ quest is one of the robbers, the hot-headed Jeff (Jonathan Raffin). Their mission will be filled with danger, zombies, demons, guns, swords, a mysterious man in black wearing a leather cowboy hat (I kid you not), and of course, the Book.

Nicolas Couchet and Jonathan Raffin

What really makes the film for me, is just how deeply Leo Fulci, Mario Bava, and the Italian horror cinema from the 1980s is referenced in imagery throughout the whole picture, right down to maggots on the face of a zombie, and close-ups of their faces. In fact, I believe that if this was released back then, it would be part of the canon by now. During the end credits, there is a nod to several directors, including Fulci, Argento, Raimi and Carpenter.

The music is also very Italian cinema style, right out of Gremlin, with electronic Phillip Glass type of repetition of notes series. It made me think of Argento and Bava’s works. Lots of dissonant notes, shrill and, once again, swirling.

The locations are fantastic, either being a small town or an estate filled with ancient stone and brick buildings and edifices, giving an atmosphere that plays well into the story of a timeless evil. As for the titular doorway itself, the black gate proper seems like a giant vagina inspired by HR Giger.

Speaking of the look of the film, the cinematography is purposefully a bit strong on the eye, with many shots overexposed to wash the images out a bit, making them dream-like. It has a look making the viewer feel like they are having a sun-stroke. It is an interesting effect that works well for the story and the overall theme of images.

The gore is really enjoyable, in a cartoonish way, much like (again) the Italian films of said genre. Hearts, rotting corpses, and gun splatter, are just a few of the methods in the SFX tool kit here. The demonic creatures in the robes are kind of campy, but the physical effects on the kills and the zombies made me smile. There is a mixture of physical and digital SFX. The digital ones look like a throwback to pre-HD CGI when it was more in its nascent form, but it is the physical make-up that is the attention-getter. I am not necessarily one who prefers one over the other (make-up vs. computer-generated), but here the zombies are the winner.

As for the acting, it’s a bit over the top when the action level rises, but that’s the genre they’re modeling themselves after, and in that way they are successful, but it really does feel like this should be on VHS rather than digital; that being said, I am grateful for the modern clarity of image. Dessart is rather attractive, Couchet looks like a football/soccer ruffian, and Raffin is dashingly handsome, even if his character is more anti-hero.

This is a film that may be under the radar for many horror fans in the West, but it’s worth seeking out, especially if you are a fan of the 1980s Italian zombi and giallo styles. Somewhere Fulci is either happy or garrulous, as was his nature.