Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020
Images from the Internet
The Barn
Directed by Justin M. Seaman
Nevermore Productions / Scream Team Releasing / MVD
Entertainment
98 minutes, 2016 / 2019
If you’re a horror
fan, especially of a certain age, you remember how cool the 1980s were for the
genre, and appreciate it for what it added to the canon. Special effects (SFX)
were mostly appliances rather than digitally added, the latter of which looked
really cheesy back then and tended to be reserved for electricity, lasers and
supernaturally excites atoms; the paranormal digi appears here as well. The
stories didn’t really need to always make sense, the acting wasn’t necessarily of
“prime-time” level, and they were just freakin’ fun.
Nostalgia for these
kinds of films are becoming more common, almost in response to the high level expected
on the theater, television or computer screen: over the years, the gore and
body horror have become ever more extreme, clinical and cynical. These can be
interesting, but are not “fun” in the same way the ‘80s releases often tended to
be, even when they were very bloody.
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| Lexi Dripps, Will Stout, Mitchell Musolino |
Many indie filmmakers
today are trying to bring back some of that excitement, such as with this one.
The “throwback” aspect of The Barn is in many reviews and especially in
the press releases I have read about it. But this one uses a trope that I
really enjoy as an indicator of what they are trying to project: after the
flashback scene that introduces the story (here taking place in 1959), rather
than a title card saying something like “now,” it refers to the era it is
trying to posit, in this case, 1989. That’s a cool thing which I appreciate,
and the fact that there are no cell phones is also one less thing to worry
about as far as being “realistic.” Every film that takes place in the now
seems to rely on “we’re out of range” to explain away the phone.
On the Halloween Eve
and night when this film mainly takes place, we are introduced to two smart
asses who are seniors in a fundamentalist high school, Sam (Mitchell Musolino)
and Josh (Will Stout). They butt heads with a conformist parent and especially
the ultra-conservative church leader, Ms. Barnhart (get it?), who is played by the
Cameo Scream Queen herself, Linnea Quigley.
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| Candycorn Scarecrow, The Boogeyman, Hallowed Jack |
Together with some
friends and possible love interests, such as Michelle (Lexi Dripps), who work
at the roller rink (did they still exist in 1989?; they didn’t in disco-laden
Brooklyn where I grew up), they sneak off for a concert on Halloween night,
stopping at a town to get some trick-or-treat sweets for the church to shut
them the hell up (oxymoron intended). The audience will know by the (sometimes
literal) signs that they are not stopping in a good place, as this is the home
of the titular barn.
Sam has rules for
Halloween, similarly to Matthew Lillard’s character about horror films in Scream
(1996). We get to hear some of them before the end of Act I, when we get to…
(dum-dum-dah-dum) the barn. We learn early on that there are
three demons who appear when the barn door is knocked, and you say “Trick or
Treat” on Halloween. One demon is a scarecrow who eats eyes, another that
carves out your skull that has a jack o’lantern head with a really cool flame inside
his noggin, and the third is the miner, aka the Boogeyman (played by the film’s
director), who uses his sharp nails and pickaxe to do some physical damage.
By letting loose the
demons from hell – who seem more human than anything else in their reactions,
albeit non-verbally – our intrepid gang have put themselves and a large number
of the local town in danger. Luckily this means a high kill kount [sic],
mostly via SFX, so there’s some great bloodletting that is fun to watch and
cheer. Since we don’t know most of them, and thereby have no emotional
attachment, it’s killed-for-kill-sake and lots of “woo-hoo” for the viewer.
For the extras
section, there is a full length commentary track with the director and the lead
actor, Musolino. It’s quite good as far as telling anecdotes of filming,
digging a bit deeper on the meaning, and the epistemology of the story: apparently,
this started out as a comic created by Seaman when he was just 8 years old, and
this film is his lifelong dream (up to now). This kept it interesting from
beginning to end. This is what a commentary track is supposed to be, in the cinematic
home release world. Seaman backs up his history with this story by including “All
Hallows Eve,” a 5:30-minute student film he made in 2002 that introduced the Boogeyman/miner
character (placing himself as the victim).
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| Linnea Quigley |
There are lots of
other extras, too, including the film’s two trailers, a commercial for the
video game, a music video by Rebel Flesh, four deleted scenes that were both
fun to watch and rightfully excised, the Indiegogo Film Pitch (with the first
Jason and Cameo Scream King, Ari Lehman, who also briefly appears in the feature),
and more.
One of the comments
Seaman makes in the commentary is that the acting is quite extraordinary for an
indie feature. And you know what, he’s right. Musolino easily carries the
picture without losing his boyish, devil-make-care air, and the supporting cast
does quite well as – err – well.
From what I
understand, the The Barn II sequel is in the works, starting some time
this year. I look forward to it. This was an enjoyable film straight through,
with few and min lags and just the right length. If you like films like The
Gate (1987) and Night of the Creeps (1986), this may be right on
your sights.
