Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019
Images from the Internet
HI-Death: Unrated
Directed by Anthony Catanese; Amanda Payton; Tim
Ritter; Todd Sheet; Brad Sykes
Nightfall Pictures / Wild Eye Releasing / MVD
Entertainment
111 minutes, 2018
The anthology film HI-8: Horror Independent
Eight (2013) was a bit of a success, so it’s not surprising that a sequel
would be underway… And here it is!
With five different directors and shorts
cobbled together, we are presented a collection with some of the better-known
indie film directors, like Todd Sheets and Tim Ritter. The name of the film is
a nice word play: the “HI” part is an acronym for “Horror Independent.” The
first HI-8 was low-rez, shot on video shorts, but this one is in High
Def(inition), so it ends up as HI-Death. Smart.
The wraparound story, directed by Brad Sykes,
has two women (Kristen Adams and Kate Durocher) visiting Los Angeles who opt to
take a film hop to a batch of horror short films playing around the city, and
thereby seeing the locales along the way. One is more reluctant but goes along
for the every increasingly disturbing views.
In the first short, “Death Has a Conscious,”
we have an artsy, nearly psychedelic view of a young woman who is obviously a
junkie, living life on the edge no matter what the circumstances. We follow her
around as she does her thing, and when she goes too far, we meet the titular
boneyard creature who after centuries of taking people to shuffle off their
mortal coil, is despondent about his position and discusses it at length with
the soul he takes and the viewing audience (i.e., us). Lots of masks and
rumination abound. It’s a good story and director Anthony Catanese presents it in a palatable fashion with bright
primary colors and close-ups in his 12 minutes.
Following this is cult low-key director Tim
Ritter’s “Dealers of Death.” Ritter is kind of like the American Jesse Franco
in that his work is filled with bizarreness, questionable acting and some
decent effects. The story, however, I found quite interesting, focusing on a
junkie (he even wears a shirt that proclaims the descriptor right on it) named
Marty (Todd Martin) who is also a collector of serial killer memorabilia. He is
obsessed with this as much as the drugs, for which he will do anything to
obtain, including ripping off his own dealer, Rockoff (Thomas Kindler, playing
a character that seems to be right out of a Dakota Ray film) to pay for it. There
are some nice twists and turns it in as Rockoff confronts Marty and his
girlfriend Pamela (Trish Erickson-Martin). I won’t give away the punchline, but
it was a well-deserved comeuppance, even though the short felt a bit longer
than needed at 25 minutes.
Next up is “Night Drop,” directed by Amanda
Payton. It is short at 11 minutes, but sweet on tension. Trevor (Christopher
Preyer), a new employee at a video store (wait…what?), is locking up for the
first time when a mysterious DVD in a red case shows up. There is no doubt that
there is an influence of Ringu/The Ring running through this (watch it
and you die!), but Payton does a really decent job of keeping up the
apprehension level all the way through, so kudos on that. Some of the characters
that come in and out are a bit over the top, such as a nutzo homeless person (Dylan
Thomas… no, not the poet!), but it’s easily forgivable filler and produces a
nice jump scare. So far, it’s been my fave piece, but usually the best is held
for last, so I reserve my judgement for now.
Taking place in Hollywood, it only makes sense
that at least one of the stories deals with the film industry (not counting the
end-user of the previous tale). For that we are given Sykes’ “Cold Read,” a 19-minute
look at the audition process. Nervous Julianna (Fabiana Formica) is late for
her read for a part. The director (Jay Sosnicki) and his assistant (Julia
Vally, who reminds me of Abigail Hawk from “Blue Bloods”) are not sympathetic
to the process. What was enjoyable for me was thinking that they show both
sides of the audition process, namely what it is like to deal with a difficult
director and crew, and what the director and crew must do to deal with
difficult actors. Sykes’ manages to keep the creepiness going throughout with a
good story with a nice twist ending.
The last and most esoteric story at 18 minutes
is “The Muse,” which is hinted at in the wraparound story via marquees and the
like. It is directed by cult classic director Todd Sheets, who brings along many
of his regulars, who are always nice to see as they work so well together. By
far the goriest and nudity-laden of the batch, Sheets presents to us a painter (Nick
Randol) and his demon muse Darkness (Eve Smith), as well as bringing us into
the HP Lovecraft universe. It’s a dark tale, for sure, but it satisfies.
For extras, there are a bunch of trailers: the
Teaser, the Official, the Original, and the one for the first of this franchise,
Hi-8. Next up is a 17-minute “Anatomy of a Scream: The Making of COLD
READ.” It’s mostly watching the crew filming the scenes, and there is nothing
gained or lost by watching it. It is interesting to see the volume of people
they could put in a small room and still make an effective film.
.
There are two commentary tracks, one of which
is with Brad Sykes and some of his crew discussing how the idea of the anthology
came together, how they shot his segment and the wraparound, and the way the
film was “gathered” from the other directors. There is also some discussion about
each of the filmmakers. The other track are the directors and some crew of each
individual short, who go through their tracks on the making of the film, anecdotes,
etc. Todd Sheets, a master of this kind of thing, gives the most effective and
fluid talk of the batch.
As an anthology film by multiple directors/writers,
this is generally better than many others I’ve seen in that the consistency of
the quality of the stories being pretty engrossing. Many are arty, but don’t
fall into the oblique and cryptic. Nearly across the board, they tend to lean towards
the use of primary colors for emotion (see Creepshow [1982] as an example).
Also, in most of them, the acting is stronger than usual in shorts. HI-Death
is a good way to continue – if not step up – with the franchise, and I look
forward to it continuing.
