Review: Killer Nun

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2021
Images from the Internet

Killer Nun (aka After Midnight)
Directed by Roberto Albanesi; Luca Bertossi; Davide Cancila; Francesco Longo; Daniele Misichia; Nicola Pegg; Davide Pesca; Eugenio Vallani
Demented Gore Productions; Moonlight Legacy Productions; Wild Eye Releasing; MVD Visual
85 minutes, 2018 / 2021
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.MVDVisual.com

The original name for this Italian (with English subtitles) anthology is After Midnight, but it is certainly no surprise they changed the name to Killer Nun, considering the success of The Nun (2018), from The Conjuring franchise. I am totally fine with that. However, the one problem is it is too easy to mix up the title with the also-Italian giallo film, Killer Nun (1979; reviewed HERE). There is also a series of videogames with the same name. 

The opening piece is by Daniele Misichia, who gives us “Vlog: L’ultimo video di Sara (“Vlog: The Latest Video of Sara”; 2016). We meet a fast-talking vlogger Sara who is responding to her needing to block some of her viewers due to some sexist remarks. The rest of the film follows what happens after that. It’s a bit bloody, but there are some nice jump scares thrown in. Simply presented with a single camera in almost real time, it’s compelling, though read the captions quickly because she speaks fast. I really like when the topic of technology is current, unless it’s a “throwback” film.

For “The Taste of Survival” (2018), Davide Pesca presents us with a post-apocalyptic world after “the bomb,” where there are few survivors. One of them, a woman, is being chased by a trio of radiation scarred men interested in, well, you know. Is there a saviour for her, and if there is, what is the motive? One can easily guess, but the gore is graphic and well done in a Spaghetti Western motif (one character even has a bit of a Lee Van Cleef vibe). The look of the film is a bit washed out with a muted red lens, making everything nearly monochrome. This is both a mood piece and a gore-fest, so many should be pleased. I was.

There is a very good reason why the main character has “Nyctophobia” (“Fear of the Dark”; 2017). Francesco Longo offers a non-verbal (other than laughing) tale of strange hauntings around him, and eventually explains why. It is a mystery that is fun to try and figure out, and the make-up is quite spectacular for an indie short release. With sharp editing and a blue night filter, we see his fear and come to understand it over time. A couple of nice jump cuts and scares, and some really nice false endings are also prominently featured. It’s nicely atmospheric.

“Nel Buio” (“Into the Dark”; 2018), by Davide Cancila, boons us with a woman who has PTSD after… well, I won’t say, but her diligent brother has been taking care of her for a year. But as they must in genre films, the past has a way of catching up, whether it is memories or the shadow of things that were, and this jump-scare laden tale does a decent, if somewhat convoluted, way of doing just that. This story also tends to use the blue filter night lens that is almost monochrome.

The demonic nun finally comes in with Luca Bertossi’s “Io non le credo” (“I Don’t Believe Her”; 2017). Evil nuns, demons or priests do not surprise me in an Italian film, where the Vatican understandably still has hold, and tales of possession, devils and demons are part of the core of the Catholic culture. Have you ever seen an Episcopalian Exorcist or a Lutheran Devil film? I have found only the Baptists and especially the Evangelicals are as obsessed with evil creatures as the Catholics. This piece is short, but it is beautifully shot with almost still-picture-quality posing. And, yes, a blue night lens. A man feels his house is haunted by demons, and he calls in a priest to cleanse it. But will the priest be able to find and face the evil? Watch and see.

This time with a sepia-tone or blue monochrome – and sometimes none! – a woman is kidnapped by someone in a mask and an apron in “Escape from Madness” (2018) by Nicola Pegg. In a scene reminiscent of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, she wakes strapped to a chair at a table while someone cooks some questionable meat. In fact, there is a lot that is, well, let’s just say a homage to the Saw. But adrenaline is high for the entire story, and the ending is satisfying. While I would not make the choice in real life that was made by the central character, and would have stuck with the rock-paper-saw original plan (not going to give it away), the way it’s done is a lot bloodier, so I also aesthetically approve.

To be honest, when I first started watching Roberto Albanesi’s “Che serata di merda” (“What a Shit Night”, 2018), I thought it was the weakest of the batch, but at the halfway mark, when the film becomes meta-existential, I understood what I missed in the first half, and it became one of my favorites on the reel. Go figure. An annoying couple is being visited by a vengeful ghost, who has a hysterical conversation with one of the couple’s friends, the director playing himself. I actually went back and watched this whole short over and appreciated it a lot more. No color filter, too.

The final tale is “Haselwurm” (“Hazel Worm”, 2011), presented by Eugenio Vallani. For clarification, a hazel worm, or slow worm, is a legless lizard, that is not a snake, and not poisonous. For this story, it is so much larger, like a Komodo dragon, and has attacked a couple, biting the man. While not poisonous, that’s not to say that the bite doesn’t have an effect, which I will not reveal, but it does produce some nice SFX work. The story is a bit slow-and-steady paced and kind of predictable somewhat – though the ending was better and slightly different than I expected – the cinematography of what I assume is the Alps and in general is beautifully done. And yes, there is use of blue and sepia filters.

Many stories have to do with the nighttime and use monochrome filters, as I have said before repeatedly. If you watch the trailer below, it almost seems like the film is in black and white… or blue and white.

Even though it is inaccurate to the contents within, there is a great piece of horror art on the DVD cover. The extras are three company trailers (not for this film, though), and chapter choices.

Some of these shorts have existed independent of this collection, while others seem to be created specifically for the anthology. It’s all good, of course. What is part of the fun is that while some of these stories have been done before in some form or another, the Italian touch and influence makes them different just enough to make it almost like a fresh coat of paint on an old car: you’re driving in a similar direction, but everything feels shiny, with muted colors.

Review: Survival Knife

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

Survival Knife

Directed by Mike McKown

Robot Monkey Studios / Wild Eye Releasing

102 minutes, 2016

www.wildeyereleasing.com

Even before I start, this is an interesting premise, if one looks at the time framing. In most films, especially the slasher genre, it usually takes 20 minutes (not counting the ubiquitous prologue) for the action to build (Act 1), another 40 minutes for people to start up getting killed (Act 2, or, the ramp-up), and then the rest of the film is where the action is packed and the killer is exposed and sometimes done away with, usually by who is often known as the “Final Girl,” a term I believe was framed by Carol J. Clover in her amazing book, Men, Women, and Chainsaws: Gender in the Modern Horror Film, which can be found online as a .pdf.

Well, this film picks up where Act 3 starts as its Act 1 (or perhaps one could call it an extended, 8-minute prologue since the credits run over it; it’s all semantics, so I’ll leave that up to you, dear reader). Right off, you can see some nods to previous films as a homage, such as A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984) where the masked killer, the Survivalist (Jesse-Lee Lafferty) runs his knife along the wall (who would do that in real life?) in an abandoned factory (that makes a great film set) like Freddy did with his glove in the furnace room, and the one-eyed, eyepatch vengeance seeking lead in the Swedish classic, Thriller: A Cruel Picture (1973).

Though the Survivalist is mort and his body fried and now fertilizer, suddenly there are more killings in the woods in his style, while our final girl Penny (Danielle Donahue) is having vivid dreams of violence. Unlike One-Eye, there is no vengeance to seek with her masked slasher gone, so the question is whether our PTSD-ridden heroine, like the lead in Ms. 45 (1981), is fulfilling a need for action triggered by past events? Needless to say, Penny is angry, and why wouldn’t she be? No longer able to work (as a stripper, natch), her fiancée and all her friends were the Survivalist victims, and the press is hounding her – well, one reporter, anyway (Kaitlin Schoeb).

She also has to deal with the likes of a too-personal psychologist (psychiatrist?), Dr. Lentz (Bruce Lentz), a empathetic police detective, Jake (Lonnie Thomas), and a less than sympathetic one, Kim (the wonderfully named Melissa Troughtzmantz), who are the procedurals on the case to find the murderer. Speaking of which, I figured out the key element of the murders just before the half-way point in the film (that is my procedural).

Overall, this release is pretty bloody and violent throughout, sometimes in the present and others in flashback, but most of the time (as in other than one time), it is without gore. There is, however, a few scenes of gratuitous nudity (all female), and even a shower scene, which at one point was practically a given in slasher films. And then there is the occurrence in the strip club, focusing a lot on the action at the poles, beyond the storyline occurring at the bar.

The film uses mostly a muted color palate early on, with dull hues tones, such as dark blue striped shirts, or pillows with black and white patterns; there are no bright colors like reds or yellows. Even the walls and plush chairs have gray tones, and the apartment rooms are sparse. The flashbacks are shot through a sepia-toned filter. Even Pittsburg, where it is filmed, looks a bit washed out in long shots in a bit of haze of smog. I was impressed with the filming within the abandoned factory, which is a mixture of bright sunlight and deep shadows. Occasionally the people in the sunny bits look a bit washed out, but overall, I was struck.

The acting is mostly passable, with some of the secondary characters being a bit wooden, but you definitely can feel Donahue’s anger through her clenched, very white teeth, which is how she talks most of the time (anger issues, remember?). The electric soundtrack sounds decent without it being overly synth-sounding (I’m not a synth fan; too 1980s even for me).

The story was written by Jim Towns, who actually did a great job with this complex plot, even without much exposition as to what life was like before the killings (other than Penny’s engagement). What makes this a good tale? Well, just as it doesn’t start where most films do, neither does it end there, as it continues beyond the point of where one would expect it to be; plus, there a few false endings, and that is decent writing for this release.

That’s not to say there were not a few weak points: for example, Penny keeps kneeling and bending on a bad knee (something I live with), getting up with relative ease. Also, there is a distracting overdubbing in one scene that is really bad, involving the name of a strip club which was obviously changed at some point after filming (for legal reasons?). I’ll chalk that up to budgeting, so I will forgive that.

Mainly, the film is a bit long, and could easily have about 10 to 15 minutes excised (that’s what the “Outtakes” feature on a disc is for). That being said, overall, I would say it’s a well done slasher and psychological thriller that has some nicely done twists and turns.

Review: American Mummy (3D)

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2017

Images from the Internet

American Mummy (3D) [aka Aztec Blood]

Directed by Charles Pinion

TX-2 Productions / Fusion / Inferential Pictures

Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Visual

82 minutes, 2014 / 2017

www.wildeyereleasing.com

www.mvdvisual.com

I have absolutely no doubt that this film, originally titled Aztec Blood a few short years ago, is being rereleased under its new title because of the re-tick of The Mummy series with the diminutive Tom Cruise. If he find out, will he dance in his undies to “We take those old films off the shelf / Rename them to promote ourselves…”?

Tezcalipoca mask

Honestly, I have no problem with any indie, low-budget film doing that (though it may be irksome if a major did it). The possible problem I do see with this, though, is part of me is wondering if it smacks of appropriation. This is supposed to be about finding a remanence of an Aztec culture, a civilization pretty much wiped out through European intrusion in the 16th century (I suggest reading James Michener’s excellent and massive centuries-spanning 1992 tome, Mexico). In this case it’s regarding a god named Tezcalipoca and of… well, I’m not sure if it’s supposed to be the mummy of Tezzy himself or one of his priests The latter would actually make more sense considering Tezzy was one of the four creators of the world; it’s nice they made a film about him rather than the feathered serpent god Quetzalcoatl, another of the four who gets way more coverage.

Suzeiy Block

Anyway, this film should be noted as one of the few I’ve seen to have two prologues that set up the story, which is, essentially that an archeological class from Monroe College (thank goodness they didn’t use the overdone Miskatonic name) is out in the desert somewhere on a excavation, which I’m assuming a Southwestern state considering the film’s title [The director, Charles Pinion, wisely pointed out post-publication that: "Regarding 'American,' I'd like to flip that to the presumption of 'American' only including the United States. Mexico is in fact on the American continent. United States' imperialism (the name Monroe College alludes to the Monroe Doctrine) is central to the under-arching theme, if you will. They find something, they claim it, and they plant a flag there."], after a couple of students come across said mummy. The dig is led by the totally inept Professor Jensen (Suzeiy Block), so it’s a good thing she’s cute; had a boss like that once, but I digress…

Of course, there’s that one student – in films like this anyway – that has an ulterior motive: Carmen (Esther Cantana) is trying to raise the mummy using an ancient Aztec book of the dead. At this point it may be worth noting that there are a bunch of themes used from other films, such as the cabin in the woods/camping in deserted areas tropes, of course the mummy series, and mostly the Evil Dead (1981). Another to add on could be the viral zombie mini-apocalypse, or even Bava’s Demons (1985) and [*Rec] (2007). One could argue for The Thing (1982), but I would disagree due to lack of shape-shifting.

Erin Condry

I will applaud that they do try to build up some context through exposition of the characters, rather than them being merely fodder. Yet it’s still tough to feel deep sympathy, never mind empathy, for most of the characters, though I did for at least one named Connie (Erin Condry, who I’m pretty sure I’ve seen elsewhere in a genre pic that’s not listed on IMDB).

That’s not to say there isn’t a certainly level of accuracy about the characters. I mean, I’ve been to a few academic conferences, and there is a lot of hooking up and abuse of substances that goes on in that world, never mind in the middle of nowhere. In films like this, I’m happy to say that leads to a lot of nudity, though most of the sex is implied. They even manage to have a shower scene in the middle of a desert. For that alone, they get some extra points. Thankfully, it’s an attractive cast.

As Dylan said, “The line it is drawn / The curse it is cast,” and you know that one-by-one the demon fever (or whatever it is) will spread through the group via blood and green tongues. The effects are pretty nice, with lots of blood and even some unbelievable bits look pretty good. It seems most of the SFX are appliances rather than computer generated, and that’s another check mark in the plus column.

Esther Cantana and her green tongue

The acting isn’t necessarily stellar throughout, but there are some fine moments and decent characterizations, though some are a bit over the top; an example is the seemingly unnecessarily thickly-accented Dr. Lobachevsky (Greg Salman, who is also a producer on the film). I could never find a reason why he was Russian in the story, or what his true purpose was to the story as a Russian, as opposed to a scientist of any other nationality.

One aspect I find interesting is the actual lack of motion of the titular character, other than some limb wiggling. As a side note, I think calling it an “American” mummy when the mummy-proper dates back before the Europeans even came to the New World is presumptuous and a bit settler colonialization (or, as I up it at the beginning, appropriation; this is the same mentality that uses the term American Indian, rather than First Nations, as do the Canadians). Getting back to the point, it does sort of leave it open to the interpretation of the viewer whether it’s some kind of genre viral infection (such as was true(r) with the Tomb of King Tut’s “curse”), or the actual mummy having some mystical power raised by the fanatical student and her sycophant.

There are definitely a few holes in the story, the biggest perhaps is why Carmen was so determined to raise the mummy – or his curse, anyway. In other films, such as various Universal Monsters’ version of the Mummy, at least we were told that the person performing the rite was part of a cult following of the person/god/mummy. Well, even from early on, it’s obvious she’s eager to find the thingy, so that’s something.

There are a bunch of extras that come along with this Blu-ray, such as both a 2-D and 3-D version, some minor and quick outtakes and behind the scenes that don’t really add up to much, and a couple of different generations of the trailer. Being a Wild Eye Releasing – err – release, there are also a bunch of other trailers.

This film isn’t brilliant, but it’s certainly enjoyable, and the second half certainly is bloody and has a decent body count. Plus, there is a lot of decent research on Tezcalipoca and Aztec sacrificial procedurals that make it even more interesting. It did keep me pretty entertained all the way through.

Review: Caesar and Otto’s Paranormal Halloween

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

Caesar and Otto’s Paranormal Halloween

Written, produced, directed and edited by Dave Campfield
Fourth Horizon Cinema / R and Productions / Wild Eye Releasing
89 minutes, 2015
www.CaesarAndOtto.com
www.WildEyeReleasing.com
www.mvdvisual.com

This is not your father’s Caesar and Otto. Let me ‘splain.

The Caesar and Otto franchise is like the Abbott and Costello collection (and I certainly am not the first to make that comparison) in that they are a series of films about the same two characters; here, they are half-brothers who share a dad, and have a deeply conflicted love-like-hate relationship.

Caesar (Dave Campfield) and Otto (Paul Chomicki)

In previous films, Caesar and Otto’s Summer Camp Massacre (2009) or Caesar and Otto’s Deadly Xmas (2012), Caesar Denovio (Dave Campfield) was pretty unlikeable, kind of like Stinky Davis (a pre-Three Stooges Joe Besser) character from the “The Abbot and Costello Show” (1952). The character also had a weird, halting, annoying voice. Well, here’s the change: Caesar has matured – a bit – and some of what made him so criticized has been taken away. He’s not as one-dimensional and shallow, he’s not as mysteriously girlish (despite the opening sequence), and he’s definitely not as mean. Don’t get me wrong, Caesar’s not a guy you necessarily want to hang out with, but Campfield has done a spectacular job revisioning him as a fuller, more realistic character, and occasionally likeable, which makes it easier to identify with him without taking away what makes Caesar Caesar. Oh, and that voice is mostly gone. From the commentary, that also works well with/for Campfield.

Less is changed about Otto Denovio’s (Pau Chomicki) slovenly demeanor, but he is also softened a bit. He was always likeable, but here he becomes more of a big, smelly (wash that orange shirt already!) teddy bear, still looking for love, or for this film, his long-lost, thought-to-be-dead mommy (Beverly Randolph, one of the leads in 1985’s The Return of the Living Dead). One thing that hasn’t changed I’m happy to say is that Otto’s voice, or rather his Lon’Gyland (aka Long Island) accent, is still front and center.

With many horror comedy films, you can view this as just plain silly, but if you are wise to the ways of indie spoof horror, you will recognize just how smart a film it actually is; definitely the strongest of the series to-date. I may be giving away too much too early, but I enjoyed all of this film.

One of the smartest things about the premise, which I’ll get to shortly, is that Campfield breaks down the fourth wall to make many meta comments, such as the fact that in most of the Paranormal Activity franchise, nothing happens, until the very end, the rest being dull. But the meta part is the indication that like reality television, the found footage subgenre is actually a sneaky way to make inexpensive films with little crew (e.g., no camera people because it’s either the actors who are doing the shooting, or the cameras are just mounted on walls), yet tend to bring in decent bucks.

Another finger to the side of the nose is the in-jokes that follow through all of the CandO films, such as Avi K. Garg’s Police Chief character getting seriously hurt but being okay, and losing limbs that are just resewn on again and agan (his “Oh, come on!” line reading is hysterical; oh, and shhh, check out the Easter Egg commentary by him). Additionally, there is the main villain, the nearly Satanic Jerry (Ken MacFarlane) and his minion, Roberta (Samantha Barrios), who return from previous CandO excursions. Also, CandO themselves have some shticks they repeat, such as jumping out of a moving car when mad (it’s a humorous bit).

JamieLee Ackerman

The plot is, well, bizarrely fun and a bit all over the place, as is almost always true in spoof comedies because there is so many references (more on that later). Our hapless bros and their scene-stealing father, Fred (Scott Aguilar) take a job housesitting for Jerry’s mysterious mansion for the season, where lots of weird and Ooo-WEE-oo (hear that as played by a Theremin) paranormal activity seems to be happening. There are also two servants, one a lovely lass gardener named Gilda (Josephine Iannece, aka JoJo, aka Campfield’s real-life girlfriend), and the other a quiet and kind of scary chef, Kyla (JamieLee Ackerman, posessing a lovely Irish lilt), who always seems to be carrying something sharp. Next door to the abode are a couple of high IQ’d retired Playboy bunnies, Jamie (Troma queen Tiffany Shepis) and Judy (Stef Barkley).

Like most of the CandO franchise, it always feels like it’s a mix of horror and a kind of twisted 1930’s farce in that the action and the dialog happen really fast (thus I recommend more than a single viewing since I had noticed things all the times I watched it). It’s important to pay attention, because things come and go so quickly around here. This is true of the especially subtle bits, such as someone getting slapped and the sound is off-sync’d, or words and hints that are written in the background with magnetic letters.

Some of the references are pretty obvious (Halloween [a mix of 1978 and 2007], Paranormal Activity [2007], The Shining [1980], etc.), but picking out some of the hopelessly obscure ones are also fun. For example, and I’m not sure if this was intentional or not, the half-circle openings on the porch reflect nicely on the “eyes” of the house in The Amityville Horror (1979), also referenced within the story. Adding a clip from the Campfield short Piggyzilla may also reference the pig seen in the window of the original Amityville. Perhaps I am overreaching?

Brinke Stevens and Brinke Stevens (check your pants)

Every opportunity is taken to inject some humor with a nod and a wink, such as some title cards; for example a church called Our Lady of Low Production Values. Most of the dialog is filled with nuggets: Jerry mentions that previous caretakers at his house went crazy from isolation (sound familiar?), but when we see the house, it’s just on a suburban street. Or there is a brief commercial for stronger deadbolt locks, reflecting on an earlier, funny gag. Another throwaway bit, again about previous housesitters, is mentioning “that guy who resembled James Brolin and tried to kill his whole family, and then married Yentl.” Then, as the Fred tells Otto, “…Your mother died a couple of years before you were born.” Did I mention that two grave diggers are named Lenny and George (no mention of rabbits, though)?

There is also a very sly bit with an exorcist priest named Fr. Jason Steiger, named after two horror priest actors, Jason Miller (d. 2001) of 1973’s The Exorcist and Rod Steiger (d. 2002) of The Amityville Horror (joyfully played by CandO regular Deron Miller), where he’s turn over to the “Vatican Police” by a fellow priest named Jude (John Thomassen) for $30. These lines are spoken so fast, it’s easy to miss some of these gems. And if you think I have said too much, I have barely put my paddle to the water.

Maximo "Frank" Sorrentino and Felissa Rose

An additional gem is the maaaaaany cameos that show up frequently. To name drop just a few, there is the ever lovin’ Debbie Rochon (too many great films to credit just one), Andre Gower (lead kid in The Monster Squad [1987]), Sean Whalen (Twister [1996]), Vern Wells (the main mohawked villain of Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior [1981]), Brinke Stevens who is one of foremost scream queens of the modern VHS-and-beyond era (as a twin wallet-stealing ghost; again, too many credits to pick), and Paul Guay (creator and co-writer of 1987’s Liar, Liar). In a really nice and thoughtful placement as a media-minded married couple who deal with psychic interactions, are Maximo “Frank” Sorrentino (of the TV show “The Sorrentinos,” and brother of “Jersey Shore’s” “The Situation” Sorrentino) and  Felissa Rose (actor / producer of indie films). Why is this so exquisite? Because they were both together in the early slasher classic Sleepaway Camp (1983); Rose was the lead.

There is some well-done gore (e.g., head smashed under a car wheel) as well as some cheesy stuff (a mannequin head, for example, in a fantasy sequence). For nudity, as is consistent with a CandO film, there is a single acknowledgedly gratuitous topless generic scene (in Deadly Xmas, it was in a shower, here it’s at a strip club). Doesn’t matter, it’s the story that still keeps you in your seat.

Now, let’s talk about some of the extras on this loaded disk. First, there is an interesting commentary with Campfield, Iannece and Ackerman. A second commentary has a number of cast and crew, including Chomicki and Aguilar; it gets a bit hectic telling who’s who, and there is some talking over each other, but there’s lots of good info, as well. The viewer also gets a short Blooper Reel, a Facebook promo video with Campfield and Ackerman, a really nice tribute to the late cult actor Robert Z’Dar (d. 2015), a 50+-minute on-set audio podcast interview with Campfield and cast members (including Rochon), and the complete “Son of Piggyzilla Trilogy (commentary available), which lasts 6 minutes. Of course, this being a part of Wild Eye Releasing, there are a number of cool trailers, some of which I’ve had the pleasure to review.

For everything I whined like a little bitch about the last film, that’s how much I liked this one. It is a really good laugh, a well-researched film, and an attention keeper – especially for those genre geeks – from the first second to the last. There have been plenty of horror spoofs, such as the Scary Movie franchise, A Haunted House (2013; the sequel was in 2014) and Vampire’s Suck (2010), with the exception of the first Scary Movie (2000), they all fall to the wayside in comparison.

So make sure you stick around for the final credits, as always with a CandO film, and I’m looking forward to the reported next film in the franchise, Caesar and Otto’s Spring Break of the Living Dead.

Two Real Crime Film Reviews: House on the Hill; My Name is A, By Anonymous

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2015
Images from the Internet

The reason I have put these two reviews together is because they both deal with infamous crimes from unlikely killers, one the slovenly serial murder Leonard Lake, and the teenage child murderer, Alyssa Bustamante. They also take different perspectives of the crime, but mix either real or aped images of the criminals involved.

House on the Hill

Directed by Jeffrey Frentzen
itn distribution / North 40 Productions / Options Entertainment / MVD Visual
83 minutes, 2012 / 2014
www.mvdvisual.com

The story this film is based on is well known and documented. In essence, during a year or so in the mid-1980s, shlubby, bearded and balding 40 year old Leonard Lake and his “soul mate,” also chubby and rumpled Chinese national Charles Ng lived in a rural and deserted area outside San Francisco.



The real Charles and Leonard

In their compound, they built a cell to hold women and a torture chamber attached to the house to, well… It’s estimated by the amount of bones found on the property that they had killed and buried approximately 15 to 25 people, both men and women, straight and gay. This included some entire families. Usually the men and at least two infants were done away with right off, and for the women, it took a lot longer.

 

Though quite obviously effective, poor Lenny and Chuck never had the pop sensation cool factor of, say, Ed Gein, Jeffrey Dahmer, or John Wayne Gacy. These guys were unattractive inside and out.

Now, nearly everything I’ve learned about Lake and Ng (L and N) is found online on Wikipedia and sites like that (yes, I read them before seeing the film). Apparently, every victim in this film is either given another name as they aren’t included in the list of known victims, are multiple stories concatenated into single people, or are the conjecture of the filmmakers. This includes the two women who are the main focus of the story: first, there is Sonia (Naidra Dawn Thomson), the only victim who lives to tell the tale (indicated early on in the film, as the main action is told in flashback), and Karianna (Shannon Leade), both of whom are drugged at a party and awaken in the bad place. They are kept around by L and N for cleaning, frequent rapes and other physical abuse, and for Sonia to videotape all the mistreatments and demises.

Yes, we get to see quite a bit of brutality, very little sex, and even less nudity, which confused me. Anyway, people are stabbed, drowned, beaten to death, etc. in sort of a parade fashion. We are introduced to a character with a photo of the actresses’ face and a name / date who they supposedly play went missing. Then comes the abuse, with lots of talking in between, threatening, demanding of money, and then death. Why Sonia and Karianna are left to live so long while others are dropped around – make that in front of – them, is not really explained.



Stephen AF Day as Leonard

Actually, there are a few issues I have with director Fretzen’s first time out in a feature. For one thing, he can’t seem to make up his mind if this is a roughie or an art project, as sometimes the camera will just stay on the subject, and other times, we get the odd angles, the filtered lighting, and the switch between color and black and white depending on the time period. For example, there is some artistic albeit sledgehammer symbolism, such as a dripping faucet being a metaphor for a life slipping away.

 

The actors who play Leonard (Saskatoon-born Stephen A.F. Day) and Charles (Sam Leung) play their roles excellently, but they are, quite frankly, too good looking for the roles. Rather than roly-poly dorks who look harmless, Day and Leung look intense, with Day appearing too young for the role and ruggedly handsome, and Leung seems kind of like a dashing “badboy” hoodlum from a TV show like Buffy. The real killers are much creepier because of the unassuming way they looked.



Sam Leung as Charles (with Erin M. Young)

There are also little anachronistic things like the camcorder that is used is more modern than the correct time period. In 1985, when L and C were captured, I bought my own camcorder that was then top of the line, which was $700 and weighed 7 pounds that rested heavily on the shoulder. The one in the film, if I’m not wrong, is a much smaller s-VHS that was introduced in 1987 (man, I love the Internet!). Also out of sync is that Sonia’s (Thompson’s) back is full of tattoos, and that certainly didn’t become mainstream before 1985.

 

What drove me most crazy was mixing the history up, such as how they got caught, which is mostly right, but a key point is off (i.e., they were not in the same place). That isn’t that bad by itself, I admit, but it seems to be an issue through a lot of the actual events, rather than the conjecture of the killings we see; as Ng was found guilty of seven deaths because the other bones were not identified, there is more we don’t know about victims than we do, giving the writers ample room to stretch that part to fit the film. Again, I don’t have an issue with that, but dicking around the known parts is what I find…off-putting.

One of the things I really liked about the project is that interspersed through the film is actual footage of Lake, videotaping himself admitting about building the cell room, what he expects from his women / slaves, and this gives us an insight to the real twisted thoughts of this unkempt killer.

While I know I’ve been hard on the film, I would also like to point out, again, this is the director’s first time at the helm. Sure, he and much of the crew and cast have been involved in serial killer films before, such as the Frentzen produced Killer Pickton (2006) and Black Dahlia (2006), but that’s not the same as being in control of the product. It’s good that he has found a niche in the serial killer subgenre, and I look forward to his growth in bringing us more mayhem.

 

My Name is A, By Anonymous

Written and directed by Shane Ryan
Mad Sin Cinema/ Rainy Day Parade Productions
Wild Eye Releasing
90 Minutes, 2012 / 2014
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.mvdvisual.com

I shot a man in Reno, just to watch him die.

–        Johnny Cash, “Folsom Prison Blues”

This is certainly not the first film about real life teen thrill killers, nor is it the first to use an artistic frame for it. For example, there was Hitchcock’s Rope (1948), a fictionalized version of the teen Leopold and Loeb murderers, and Peter Jackson’s Heavenly Creatures (1994). This is also not the first movie to use a pseudo-documentary (i.e., handheld cameras) to give a realistic feel to the film. However, that also does not mean this film is either repetitive or derivative.



Kate Marsh as Alyssa

The true story is about Alyssa Bustamante (Katie Marsh), a bored 15-year-old girl from a rough background who viciously murdered a 9-year-old girl, Elizabeth (Kaliya Skye). Her story made the headlines around the world in 2009 for two reasons: first, of course, is the shocking brutality of the assault of a young life, and second, that in a technological world, so much of her life over the previous year had been recorded on the ever present cell phones.

 

If you look up Alyssa on YouTube, you can see a lot of that footage, from which some of the film is based upon (i.e., copied), such as the touching of an electrified cow fence wire (a safeguard system much more intense, I might add, than one for constraining horses), or donning Alice Cooper inspired make-up and pointing a finger-gun to her own head while sticking out her tongue. In a 24-hour televised news world, the original selfies were played on major outlets repeatedly for weeks as her trial was followed as intensely as was Andrea Yates, who drowned her five kids in Texas and found not guilty by insanity, or Casey Anthony, found not guilty of murdering her toddler daughter.

We see the incessant relying on the need to film oneself to make oneself real, whose reality is a mixture of David Cronenberg’s Videodrome (1983: “Television is reality, and reality is less than television”) and Gus Van Sant’s To Die For (1995: “You aren’t really anybody in America if you’re not on TV”). This film also gives breath to a feeling of ennui of its characters: no matter what is happening or how hard life is treating them, there is a feeling of Other that permeates the day-to-day narcissistic filming. These are life issues and possibly cultural mental illnesses that Bustamante had in common with Leonard Lake and Charles Ng, though the body count differed substantially.

There is an interesting mix of self-shot filming (i.e., supposedly shot by the characters of each other) and other times recorded by an unidentified “third person,” mostly likely just meant to be cover shots of both of the main teen actresses, although the hand-held shakiness remains the same.



The real Alyssa

The film follows three concurrent storylines, as it were. The first is Bustamante and The Sidekick (Demi Baumann), and occasionally Alyssa’s brother, as they ramble through their lives, Bustamante bullying her friends and relations in small ways that would eventually explode into self-destruction through the annihilation of another. We don’t realize we can see the state of her mind, as in real life, she came from a family of poverty, violence and substance abuse.

 

A second story follows The Performer (Teona Donikova), a sad teen who imagines herself in the limelight as a highly stylized singer (we are shown an entire imaginary music video from her mind), rather than the suggested abusive relationship with her dad (no moms are seen in this film). The third follows The Angst (Alex Damiano), who is full of anger both towards the world and herself. We are shown that through her bulimia, her self-derisive selfie-videos (vidfies?), and a monolog aimed at God. We also see in bitter detail the sexually violent relationship she has with her dad.

Of course, all these stories come together at an important story intersection. Hints of the level of personal destruction are shown throughout, and realized in the third act (titled “The Final Chapter”). I have to say, I figured out where the director was going with the ending about 10 minutes before the answer, which is probably around the time the viewer is expected to have that aha moment.

Both these films and all four stories here deal with an either an ideal or a nadir of one, expressed through the ego machine of a cell phone camera and small cameras, as characters perform for themselves and for others. It’s personalities that are more performativity than “real,” often without the participant even realizing how shallow their vision of the world becomes, full of ego and the Self. Running through all is also a banality of evil, instilled by the overwhelming technological desire for both information input and output (feeling the almost addictive need for selfies is an example of both).

As with House on the Hill (see above), there is some speculation and changing of the story to fit the film; it should also be noted that this is “Inspired by the true crime.” During the end credits, Director Shane Ryan does acknowledge that people were blended and liberties were taken. For a piece of cinema that was filmed in four days on $300, and was largely shot by the cast, it does have both a chilling aspect to it (especially the abusive scenes, be it inter- or intrapersonal), mixed with an almost facile feel to the everydayness of some of the actions between the characters. It’s the contrast, in part, that makes this so compelling, and for me more so on a second viewing.

Extras abound on this DVD, running nearly twice as long as the film itself. Along with a deleted scene and some alternative scenes, there are trailers for it and a bunch of other films, such as Portrait of a Milk Carton Girl and Abducted Girl: An American Sex Slave. The highlights though are two different version of the piece, including a 20-minute early cut from 2011 that is mostly without dialog called “The Columbine Effect” (under the directorial pseudonym of Bone Shin) that is mostly confusing if you haven’t seen the full feature, and an hour form of it as well called “Me, Myself and Us.” It’s a completely different cut and order of events (except the ending chronology), and while it’s decent, it’s not up to the full feature, and is rightfully and thankfully in the extras section.

Then there are two earlier short films directed by Ryan. One is the nearly 5-minute effective tribute to Japanese gore from 2011 called “Oni-Gokko” (translated as “Tag”), which could be seen as a tribute to Japanese director Takashi Miike, or possibly the “Guinea Pig” series, with just enough gore and artistic merit to raise some eyebrows. The other short is the 16-minute “Isolation” from 2001. It’s a moody piece mostly in black and white about poor 16 year old Billy (played by Shane Ryan in his directorial debut; I’m guessing a student film). Missing his mom who was murdered when he was younger to the point of depression, we follow him and his thoughts as he walks through a desolate town, possibly bleaker because of his emotional state. You can see a lot of a theme going here if you compare the short with the feature.

Ryan seems to specialize in Kids (1995; I’m certainly not the only one who had this connection as I have since found many reviews comparing them) style films dealing with teens in trouble, including pedophilia, the sex trade and other forms of teensploitation – honestly, none of which I’ve seen, so I won’t comment on them directly – but here he has found a niche of teen murders that works well. This has a very ordinary-everyday Creep Creepersin feel to it (he is thanked in the credits), and is all the more scary for both the actions and lack thereof, and especially for the viewers’ reaction to the mixture of the two.

 

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSTyvCk7zvU