Review: Blight

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

Blight
Directed by Jeff Van Gerwen
Strange Door Films
75 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/BlightFilm

When starting out as a filmmaker, as this is Van Gerwen’s debut feature after a music video for Joystick and a few shorts, the style he employs makes total sense. Blight is essentially broken into three intermingled parts.

To start, there is the found footage type of style where a gaggle of seven twenty-something friends get together to go camping on the subtext of hopefully seeing aliens because there is to be a solar eclipse. The second, in spurts, is that same scary night and whatever happened then to members of the group. Then the third, and main body of the story, is a coming home party for Logan (Ashley van Kirk), who had mysteriously disappeared during the camping trip for a while, spent a year in an asylum, and has now come back as a shell of her former outward self. This section is not found footage per se, but it is obviously done on a hand-held camera.

Our initial grouping is: Logan and her boyfriend and the person doing the found footage filming, Luke (Joel Crumbley). The obnoxious self-leader of the group is Mark (Tripp Karrh), whose girlfriend is Tara (Kalee Griffin). Then there is Harrison (Kristin Calhoun), whose musician boyfriend is Tien (Han-Sam Jung). The seventh-wheel to start is Harper (Erika Ramirez).

Ashley van Kirk

This group is loud, obnoxious, and full of themselves, but they are also curious about what happened to Logan, who is reticent to disclose both the events of that night, and what has been going on since. And when she gets upset, things begin to happen, like lights flickering and the house shaking, for a start. I was amused when Mark asks “Was there a launch?” This wasn’t really explained, but I knew what he meant because, according to IMDB, it was filmed at Cocoa Beach, FL (does Jeannie and Major Nelson live nearby?).

To be honest, at first, I was a bit dismayed by the whole found footage part, and even the welcome home party dragged through a game called “Mafia,” but then it started to pick up nicely into the second act, until being really taut and suspenseful for the third act. So, despite the slow start, it really revved up by the half-way point. Being a relatively short film, that isn’t too long a wait.

Most of the cast are relatively new to film, but they all do a good job, especially considering that most of the dialogue is ad libbed. The range of emotions is wide, and they all certainly hold their own. That helps the film enormously.

Joel Crumbley

I have always wondered why on found footage releases, the camera keeps cutting out with digital noise. Mine has never done that. Is it supposed to be an indicator of its own style? As the director has stated, the film was shot over a 4-night and single afternoon period, with only 20 minutes of dialogue pre-determined. It was finished as the 2020 COVID lockdown began. Being locked in your house is a good way to get through post-production (every cloud…).

This is part social construct between these friends, part mystery, part horror. There are a couple of really nice red herrings leading to a thrilling tie-up that may not be what one is expecting; I saw it coming, though, but it did not hamper my enjoyment of the second half.

The film is available for free on TubiTV.

IMBD Listing HERE 

Review: Holes in the Sky: The Sean Miller Story

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

Holes in the Sky: The Sean Miller Story
Directed by Ash Hamilton
Moon Makers Media; Horror-Fix Films
114 minutes, 2021
www.facebook.com/HorrorFix

Some may call this found footage but it actually falls into the separate sub-category (though occasionally overlapping) of mockumentary. I realize most people think of that term as comedy, such as in those directed by Christopher Guest, but it goes beyond that narrow margin. In this case it is a realistic documentary style, albeit fictional.

Taking place mostly over a five-day period in Illinois, the topic of this release is more science fiction-based, though it uses the real names of the people involved, including the first-time feature director, Ash Hamilton, his wife Chanell Hamilton, who helped produce and was part of the crew, director of photography Brett Pearson, interviewer Douglas McDonald, producer Laura Richter, and others along the way, including well-known author and spook historian Eric Woods.

As the tag line explains, Sean Miller disappeared for four days in 2013, and now in 2020, a documentary crew is seeking to find out the truth about what happened to him. Part of what I find interesting is for a long time, the reasons for Miller’s disappearance is more hinted at than explained, though it is pretty obvious from the gecko (yes, I know it’s “get-go”; in the words of that great philosopher, Tommy Smothers, “Words to me are a plaything”) that the topic is alien abduction. The beginning is shrouded in mystery as the crew pulls up in front of Miller’s residence. Even at this point, Miller nor his family have been shown on camera. Heck, the Millers are not even listed on IMDB (neither is Pearson, but I find that may lead to part of the story; yes, I write this as I watch it).

We finally get to meet Sean and his wife Stacey nearly a third of the way through, and actually hear the term – alien abduction – nearly at the half way point. Following the formula from metaphysical films like Paranormal Activity (2007), the tension starts building as lights flicker, VHS-type visual noise appears on the footage, and pots go flying off the wall by themselves, among other spooky issues. Great! Two possibilities happening at once, both alien and supernatural! Nice.

Ash Hamilton

Two really interesting aspect to me about this moc is the way the mundane can suddenly turn into something precise about the storyline, such as a conversation about television cartoon shows that is downright creepy, and the other is the question of whether the 2013 taking of Miller by the undocumented aliens (sorry, bad attempt at political humor) is a random choice, or one that is planned and targeted. On some level, though there is obviously no correlation, the latter had me thinking of Xtro (1982).

One of my fave things about the film, which I suggested before, is that even though this is about the effects of an alien abduction, thematically there is a large element of nearly poltergeist motifs thrown in to the mix.

The dialogue seems to be non-scripted and free-flowing most of the time, even when it is obviously pointed in a certain direction. This gives it an improv feeling of reality that helps the picture and the tension to come.

The film is well structured in a way that is, at first, fun and a bit confusing, but title cards stating time-stamp information helps to clear this up in a-ha moments that reveal a bit of masterwork in the story’s chronological layout.

Sean Miller

There is also a more subtle aspect of the film that I found intriguing, and that is the use of technology. The two main video cameras are a somewhat professional level one and a cell phone, and there are indications of polaroid snapshots when there are issues with the digital captures. Also, there is the manipulation of images to make them sharper and clearer through professional means. So, we are dealing with high end and lower-level equipment, while contemplating a possible race of aliens with even further futuristic technology.

This has nothing to do with the film proper, but my one distraction was during a tense scene, when the camera pans over a box of LPs and I wanted to look through them. It seemed like the one in front was a picture disc. Yeah, I’m the kind of guy who stops a story when someone is talking in front of a bookshelf, and I check to see if I can tell what books are on the shelves. Sometimes I judge people by the books and music they keep. But I digress…

At nearly two hours, the film is a bit long, and some of the early footage (i.e., in the first 20 minutes or so) could have been culled a bit, but I must say, this could have been really dry, but Hamilton (the Hamiltons?), by mixing alien and poltergeist-type styles, managed to put together a documentary(ish) that is quite engaging and cohesive. As it delves on, it gets more compelling and enjoyable, right to the end, even if you can somewhat figure out what may be that conclusion.

 

Review: On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky

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

On the Trail of UFOs: Dark Sky
Directed by Seth Breedlove
Small Town Monsters; 1091 Pictures
85 minutes, 2021
www.smalltownmonsterss.com

They say when you are passionate about something, you don’t have a job. Or something like that. Seth Breedlove and his Small Town Monsters (SMT) company are spearheading a movement on the questionable: Bigfoot, the Momo, and a host of other cryptid creatures. For this documentary, he both goes out of his – er – orbit of “natural” Earth monsters, and looks up at the stars. But from the perspective of being very on the ground.

Over time, Breedlove has gone from films that are mostly documentaries and part re-enactments, to being the point of focus leading the expedition. This makes sense in the world of Covid, keeping it close and personal as much as possible.

Not counting claims of Aliens visiting Ancient Egypt (and helping to build the pyramids? Really?) or Latin America thousands of years ago (if you want a laugh, check out the 1968 book Chariots of the Gods?, by Erick von Damien), UFO sighting claims are actually relatively recent in the United States, dating back to around the Second World War. Though most of the creatures Breedlove has focused on have been around a bit longer than that, the explosion of Alien contact is fully national, rather than isolated segments of the country (for example, as Breedlove’s previous docu showed how the Adirondacks are a focus of detections, rather than, say, Taos, AZ).

Seth Breedlove and Shannon Legro

That being said, Breedlove is joined in this quest by paranormal researcher and author Shannon Legro, who has her own podcast called Into the Fray Radio. She leads the questioning of the people who are claiming sightings. They start off, in this case, in West Virginia, where an older man describes a sighting he had when he was 10 years old. From there, they mostly focus their travels investigating and interviewing around West Virginia with a quick boo northwest into Ohio (STM is based near Akron, OH). I think it is really smart to keep the focus small and concentrate on one relatively small area (i.e., a state) than nationally, or even globally. Especially in these pandemic days.

The film, which is based on a television show by the same name (2020), also wisely manages to bring in some references to the meat of STM concentrations by noting that West Virginia is also the area of the infamous Mothman, and a few interviewed mentions it directly. But there are other weirdness and cryptids mentioned, such as an alien from a crashed UFO, the Green Monster of Flatwoods, WV, which has a museum dedicated to it in that town, and a whole section of the mysterious Men in Black, who may be military, or possibly otherworldly. There are even some paranormal investigators thrown in to help search for information.

Are the Aliens interested in the military which has numerous bases there, power sources of West Virginia such as coal mines, electrical grids and nuclear plants, or the many factories that built them (e.g., Nitroglycerine for TNT came from the WV town of Nitro)? Or perhaps, and for me this is one of the weakest arguments, do they use the coal shafts and caves to travel to a “hollow earth”? It’s all good fun, anyway.

I find it interesting that the crafts all are different shapes. One investigator comments that most are saucer shapes with lights, but the descriptions are numerous, including triangular or other forms. Perhaps they are from different civilizations, or may be built by billionaires on other planets? Okay, the last sentence was totally me. But I mean the first part of that sentence, which I have not seen questioned before.

The film is bolstered by some incredibly well-done animations and re-creations, as well as some possible images of real sightings. There are also various 1950s film clips that I enjoyed, such as ones from Earth vs. the Flying Saucers (1956; thank you, public domain).

Legro, who also presents the television version, is a good host, and she certainly does the job well. On occasion, though, she seems a bit stiff when reading the narration. She is stoic quite a bit, so the parts where she gets excited really liven it up, such as in the last section. I will acknowledge that it is a fine line when interviewing not to take away from the person who is talking, and when dealing with non-professional talkers, this can be challenging; and she does this quite well. Breedlove, who spearheaded the previous On the Trail of Bigfoot (2021, reviewed HERE), wisely takes a back seat to Legro, and lets her get to work, chirping in with his questions just at the right time.

When dealing with the topics of great mysteries like the supernatural, cryptids, and/or Aliens, there are two aspects to keep in mind. The first is whether or not they actually find one in their search. That is certainly one of the reasons why we watch these documentaries. The second is that usually, you know you are going to be left unfulfilled, like this is the appetizer (questions) without an entrée (answers), but the smells are so good in the restaurant (the program) that you just do not care. That is the ultimate goal for both the program and the viewer.

Breedlove’s documentaries that I have seen, and there have been a few now, have never disappointed, and I always look forward to them. UFO documentaries are pretty much a dime a dozen, but the way he ties in the cryptid connections makes this stand out some from the others, and for that I am grateful.

 

Review: Nightwish

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019

Images from the Internet

Nightwish

Directed by Bruce R. Cook

Channel Communications / Wild Street Pictures / ZIV International /
Unearthed Films Classics / MVD Visual

95 minutes, 1990 / 2019

www.unearthedfilms.com

www.mvdb2b.com

During the latter hey-day of the VHS glut of rushed cinema, when original ideas were starting to drain off, a theme developed of adding as much as possible into a single film, to appeal to the widest spectrum of the fan-base (the demographic usually being adolescent-to-mid-20s aged males). This film is a fine example of let’s throw the spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.

Jack Starratt

The basic premise is hardly new, even for the late 1980s when this was filmed. Mendele, a professor of the paranormal (Jack Starratt, who to me will forever be Gabby Johnson in Blazing Saddles) that we eventually get to add the word “mad” before his title, has assembled four graduate students for an experiment to draw out a demon entity [séance genre] at a disreputable and remote abandoned farmhouse [cabin in the woods genre].

Of course, a weird and usually bearded professorial type gathering people together for a séance that brings evil to the forefront is hardly a new idea, going back at least to The Haunting (1963) and The Legend of Hell House (1973), based on books by Shirley Jackson and Richard Matheson, respectively. In fact, it is a motif that is even used to this day, though in modern cinema a Ouija board is usually used. Just go to IMDB and search the word Ouija.

Alisha Das

For this film, all that’s needed is some concentration by him and the students, because as the professor says, the evil is present in the house itself (again, a theme in The Haunting and Hell House). It isn’t long before spookies come a-callin’. He warns them that, “It has the power to instill paranoia… I want you all to watch each other very closely for irrational behavior.” One of the students shockingly replies, “Are you saying we may not be able to trust each other?” Yeah, this is directly out of John Carpenter’s The Thing (1982); there may not be shift-changing per se, but the entity supposedly produces hallucinations, so it amounts to the same “who can you trust” vibe. It apparently feeds off fear (too numerous references to mention, including the recent IT two-parter).

Elizabeth Kaitan

When we first meet the four students in the lab, they are using a sensory deprivation tank (that has a glass window!) to see if they can dream their own deaths. This is a nice way to get some wet and see-through tee-shirts into the picture (again, demographics). Not that I’m complaining, mind you. The scholars are the cool kid – you can tell by the salmon-colored shirt – Jack (Clayton Rohner), the nice girl, Donna (1980’s scream queen Elizabeth Kaitan), the over-confident assistant/suck-up to the professor, Bill (Arthur Cybulski), and the lusty Kim (the lovely and toothsome Alisha Das). Joining the mix to drive them to the farm is the aggressively macho and toxic masculinity-filled Dean (Brian Thompson), who Bugs Bunny might have posited being “obviously a barbell boy.”

Seance

Before long, cheesy (though then quite state-of-the-art) ectoplasm snakes are threading through the air and aliens are using bodies to propagate bugs (American cockroaches, aka waterbugs… the smaller versions are German cockroaches, but I digress…). This truly is a mixed bag of genres.

Speaking of effects, while there are some proto-digital SFX (e.g., physically drawn on the original negatives), there is also quite a decent collection of practical gore set pieces, such as loss of body parts and the pulsating alien insect larvae on the bodies). For its timeframe and budget, there definitely is relatively a number of unexpected “wet” spots as far as slime and blood are concerned.

Brian Thompson

You can always tell when (an?) (the?) entity is around because of the green light that is employed by the filmmakers, be it on a dog, a person, a car, whatever is available to move the story along and produce a body count.

The acting is rather good here, albeit sometimes a bit over the top. And speaking of tops, there is a very nice solo sex scene induced by the demon spirit [The Entity, 1982; Trick or Treat, 1986]; once again as a reminder, demographics.

There are a few digital extras on the disc, such as the 4K digital transfer, Unearthed Films trailers (all of which have been reviewed on this blog!), and a full-length commentary by soft-spoken producer Paul White and Unearthed chairperson Stephen Biro. Biro does well keeping White answering questions, despite some gaps of silence. White is occasionally hard to hear (turn up that volume, kids!), and he even acknowledges that more than once, but most of what he says is relevant to the film, so it’s worth a listen.

...Because this is how all Graduate Students dress

The two non-digital extras are a “Limited Edition alternative slipcover” (for the Blu-ray), and a really nice multi-paged glossy booklet about the film, cast and director, with color pictures.

Despite the reasoning at the end, this film is definitely a lot of fun, even though it suffers a bit from not being able to make up its mind about a direction. Still, I enjoyed it quite a bit, as it brought back memories of that time period when VHS was king, there was a video store on what seemed like every corner, and there was so much from which to choose.

Oh, did I mention there are also flesh-eating zombies thrown into the mix …?

Review: Predator World

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018
Images from the Internet

Predator World (aka Aliens vs. Titanic)

Directed by Jeff Leroy
Girls and Corpses / Tom Cat Films / Sterling Entertainment /
Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Entertainment
85 minutes, 2017 / 2018
www.girlsandcorpses.com
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.mvdb2b.com

By looking at the poster or case for this film, one would hardly know this was a futuristic Love Boat-ish broad comedy filled with sex and drugs, and lots and lots of CGI, including nearly everything except the hills outside Los Angeles and some of the alien rubber suits. Actually, this part of a sci-fi sub-genre that includes such titles as Spaced Out (1979; aka Outer Touch) and Zeta One (1969; aka The Love Factor).



Survivors?: Brenton Jones, Jin N. Tonic,
Kelly Erin Decker, William Gabriel Grier  

The initial flight of the party space boat this time is called Titan-1C (aka Titanic, hence the original title). After a CGI meteor shower of rocks containing CGI scorpion like creatures take over and destroy the ship, a group of six survivors wind up on said planet, unintentionally taking the alien creatures with them.

Between the sex and the drugs (pills that seem to be a cross betwixt ecstasy and Viagra) is a story of survival on a hostile planet, with these scorpionish thingies crawling in and out of people’s various holes and turning them into rubber suited, full size aliens and back to human-looking form.

Now, if the viewer of this film is going in expecting a high-end Predator kind of thing, well, that’s a problem. This is as cheesy as they come, with cheap special effects, over the top acting, and taking the easy way out as often as possible (most likely due to budget constraints). But the sets and the rubberized creatures are no worse that the first season of the original Star Trek or Lost in Space, the latter of which was also cheesy fun when it came to costumes, sets and storylines.
 

Tasha Tacosa

The problem, though, is while the cover doesn’t necessarily looks like a mega-budget blockbuster, it also falls short of its promise with the likes of wannabes, such as Richard Thomas’s Battle Beyond the Stars (1980). Personally, I do not hold it against the viewer who was annoyed by the film as it stands. At least under its original name, there’s some indication of spoof; its present moniker is nothing short of confusing.

Anyway, getting back to the meat of the film, there is a lot of cartoon violence, nudity and sex, especially in the beginning with Victoria De Mare and Bree Olsen giving a cameo nude quickie before being infested by space bugs that makes them and the captain (Leroy’s go-to-guy, Robert Rhine, who was also a producer) look like bug-eyed Snapchat photo apps.

The crash survivors include two couples, some other guy, and possibly the only smart person among them from the crew, Lana (Tasha Tacosa). Of course, no one pays attention to her when she says, “We need to stick together,” and before you can say losing your virginity, there’s drug-fueled sex, metamorphoses, and alien infestation of various shapes and sizes.
 

Decker and Grier

Honestly, of the six, the women fare better than the men. Tacosa mostly does a fine job though she seems to use a bit too much face squinting to show emotion. I have to say I am quickly becoming a fan of nerdy cute Kelly Erin Decker as hesitant lover Terri, who I’ve seen play very different roles in a couple of other films now (Devil’s Domain in 2016, and she was especially effective in Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill! in 2017). Pink wigged Diamond, played by Jin N. Tonic (aka Jin Miller), is an empath who can feel the emotions of others. The guys are Terri’s boyfriend Kenny (William Gabriel Grier), Diamond’s lover Dirk (Brenton Jones), and Zak (Harlan Post). The latter three play to the lowest common denominator; Grier seems to act here more with this eyebrows. But I have to say, they all look like they are having fun, and that is kind of cathartic for the viewer, as well.



Bree Olsen and Robert Rhine

Of course, references abound, such as the Alien franchise (of course), Night of the Living Dead (1968), Snakes on a Plane (2006), The Thing (1982), Invasion of the Body Snatchers (various), and even South Park. Also, the smaller CGI alien creatures (which we see much more than the rubber suited ones) have a lot of humanistic mannerisms, such as high-fives and rubbing their own head when confused, in one case for example.

The only extras are a wack of Wild Eye Releasing trailers, including this one (though it contains way too many spoilers, if you ask me).

While this film will certainly never win any prestigious awards, it serves its true purpose to be mindless (and I mean mind-less) fun. The six survivors are attractive, and don’t really have to put in much work to make the film happen, because it is what it is, once you know what it is – and it’s pretty obvious within the first minute of viewing, if one is paying attention, whether it’s a disappointment of a promise of higher quality or not. And it’s certainly no worse than the likes of Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama (1988) or Sexsquatch: The Legend of Blood Stool Creek (2013). Sometimes one is in the mood for a sloppy joe rather than steak.
 

Review: Alien 2: On Earth

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018
Images from the Internet


Alien 2: On Earth
Directed by Ciro Ippolito (as Sam Cromwell)
Midnight Legacy
85 minutes, USD $19.95
Midnight-legacy.com
MVDvisual.com

Fulci. Argento. Deodato. These are names that will sound familiar to those who find joy in the Italian horror sub-genre generally referred to as giallo. The more current ultra-horror films such as Hostel, Saw, and Wolf Creek, may not have existed without these extreme and surgically efficient foreign bloodfests (then again, would the giallo have seen any light without the likes of American pioneer Hershell Gordon Lewis? But I digress…).

Perhaps the biggest promoter of these European films, especially in the New World, was the advent of the new videotape market. During the 1980s, the two largest renters were the extreme horror films and porn. Part of the reason was accessibility. Sure, one could have gone to any of the Times Square theaters and gotten their fill, but anyone away from these kinds of grindhouse theaters would probably be clueless. But then there was the VHS…

One of the problems of seeing these films via video in those heady days of the ‘80 is that the ever-hungry market would release just about anything that might sell, even if it was an incomplete copy; sometimes the story made no sense at all due to sections being removed by a specific European country’s moral codes. This may vary from country to country, so there were many different versions of these releases floating around.

Alien 2: On Earth (originally Alien 2 Sulla Terra) is a supposed sequel to the original Alien, from 1980. While never having an official theater showing stateside, like many of these foreign films, it was released under various names, including Alien Terror and Strangers. Another quirk of the early VHS days was the tendency of the production companies to call just about any film a sequel to anything that did well at the box office. This is a bit of an exception though, because director Ciro Ippolito (who also went by the pseudonym Sam Cromwell for this, his first directorial effort) meant this as an “unofficial” sequel, even though the bonds to the original James Cameron opus are negligible, at best (i.e., human hosts and snake-like creatures eventually popping out).

Alien 2 is, in hindsight, best described as having aspects of Alien, the underground spelunking death-trap of The Cave or The Depth, just a smidgen of The Night of the Living Dead, and the deserted streets scenarios of, well, so many others. The story is pretty simple: an American spacecraft returns to earth, and somehow, between starting its descent and the at-sea rescue (great Mercury-period stock footage is used during the opening shots), the astronauts have mysteriously disappeared. Around the same time, a strange sparkling rock is found by a group of friends (with big period hair, both female and male) in a small town near San Diego, before they head into a large cave system they plan to explore. For some reason, the main character, Thelma (Belinda Mayne), who is sometimes psychic and can tell that something is going to happen (unless it ruins a plot surprise moment, apparently), takes the football-sized rock, puts it in her backpack, and takes it with her from the surface into the cave (why not leave it in the car rather than schlepping it?). This shiny stone ends up actually being an egg for creatures brought back on the spaceship, and when it comes out of the rubbery-looking stone its destination is the host’s body.

From there, it’s a race to get to get out of the cave through alternative directions before becoming lunch. And once outside, will it be much better? Yes, there is gore, as a very puppet-looking creatures busts through a head with an eyeball hanging, or a head slides off a body (both seen in the trailer), for example. Despite the blood and guts, it is more really? than stomach-churning (unless you’re sensitive to these things). However, it is still a pleasure to see devices used rather than CGI.

Oh, and the inconsistent mistakes are wonderful. For example, while running through a supposedly empty city, as the camera follows the main character(s) while a street is crossed, the viewer can see a red light down the block and a car with its brake-light on. When the light turns green, the brake-light goes off and the car starts to move.

Just as with manga cinema, there are definite cues that this is giallo, almost like a checklist. There’s the close-up of the face with a light on it while a mysterious wind blows the flowing hair, the even closer shots of wide-eyes (though the “whites-only” eyes, usually a standard, is missing here), the shrill and two-tone electronic music (ooo-waaaa-oooo-waaaa), the shaky monster-cam view, and the very quick zoom in and out in Dr. Tongue’s House of Horror style. And like many Japanese films, the dubbed, over-enunciated voices are familiar to anyone who has watched a few of these films. In much of this release, while it is obvious that the actors are speaking English, the vocal track is recorded over back into English nevertheless.

Mayne’s character is the only one with any substance (relatively speaking), though there is no history given to her. Everyone else, including her (boyfriend?) (husband?), are inconsequential, or at least the equivalent of the members of the away crew of the Enterprise who were not in the main cast.

Okay, this is a silly film, granted, but as giallo goes, it is a fun flick that will fill an appetite for this genre. Yeah, if you’re a fan of these films as I am, leave your suspension of any disbelief before you slip this disc into your player, and you’re bound to have a fun time. Oh, here are some official things to note about this particular release: it’s in both DVD and Blu-Ray, it’s the first release by new company Midnight Legacy (let’s hope they let a lot more come our way), and it’s widescreen, taken from the original 35mm negative (rather than just copied from one of the myriad of VHS releases) They claim it is the most complete version available. All good news for giallo fans around the world.

So, grab some ‘corn, because it’s just what’s in order for watching this release.

This was originally published on FFanzeen.blogspot.com

Review: Conspiracy Theory

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2017

Images from the Internet

Conspiracy Theory [aka Lake on Fire]

Directed and edited by Jake Myers

Team Octagon / Ruthless Films / MVD Visual

79 minutes, 2016

www.ruthlessfilms.com

www.mvdvisual.com

The biggest complaint about the recent Paranormal Activity film series (starting in 2007) is not that it’s in the found footage genre, but rather that it takes way too long for anything of interest to happen. Arguably, a similar comment can be made about the granddaddy/-mommy of modern found footage, The Blair Witch Project (1999).

This waaaaaaait for it… aspect has been a key element of found footage since Project, at least. It’s annoying and pointless, and fills out a film to full length when it could have been a very comfortable 20-minute short (or even less). Some recent examples include The Purging Hour (2015) and The Devil’s Forest (2016, aka The Devil Complex). There definitely are ones that are enjoyable, like The Changing of Ben Moore (2015), but they are rare, and more so over time.

Rather than just a bunch of jocks/couples taping for no other reason than to film and accidentally capturing the mysterious whatever, this release has a premise: we meet the film crew to a “reality” cable show on the Mystery Channel called “Alien Engineers,” which posits that many of our modern structures, such as Las Vegas, the Hoover Dam and Lake Mead are constructs that use technology given to humans by the “grays.”

Ben Kobold

Leading this fivesome is its host, the heavily orange-skinned spray-tanned Bjorn Eriksson (Ben Kobold), along with the rest being his crew (cameras and sound), including the loony Britney Big Time (Jennifer Mills), the sensible Jamie Bragg (Jamie Mackie), the angry Brian (Brian Schroeck), and non-descript Brock (director Jake Myers). We watch them as they go to the locations I mentioned above, and most of them, well, acting like jerks both while the show is taping, and especially when just filming each other – and in Britney’s case, often herself(ies) while frequently sticking her tongue out.

To begin, let me discuss the good points, because there are a few. First of all, they nail the whole guerilla filmmaking down pretty well, as Bjorn interviews scientists and “man on the street” types, and manages to put words in everyone’s mouths, claiming that they were the ones that said it (reminding me of the more recent Melissa McCarthy SNL Sean Spicer spoofs). Bjorn keeps trying to goad interviewees into saying something controversial that is alien-related; or interrupts often like Charlie Rose, but more to “shock,” like Geraldo Rivera. This is both goofy and enjoyable to watch, as the people squirm, or are often bemused by it all, taking it in good fun.

Which brings me to another decent aspect, which is that there is a fine mixture of real people mixed with fictional characters, and sometimes it’s not always easy to tell one from the other, playing with story’s credibility in a fun way. For example, TD Barnes, who actually worked in Area 51 and has appeared in other films as himself, is questioned, much to his amusement, as Bjorn turns everything he says into something alien. Actors Scott Butler and David Liebe Hart also play themselves in cameos.

The tricky part is many of the other roles are people whose names are very similar to their real ones, such as Andrzej Stratos (played by Andy Seifer), Rizza Villalobos (Rizza Abrera; in case you miss it, the character’s name is “Wolf House”), and Erika Miller (Erika Michaels). My favorite ones are twins Toni and Traci Von Daniken, portrayed by twins Toni Van Laarhoven and Traci Van Laarhoven-Myers (I’m guessing a relation of the director). By the way, I checked, and Erick Von Daniken only had a single daughter, but I don’t know about grandkids. And, of course, there’s the difference between Van and Von.

Jennifer Mills

So, while those points are quite intriguing, ultimately the film fails overall for one basic and nearly constant reason: there is way too much filler crap with nothing to add to the story. For example, I really don’t need or care to see extended scenes of drinking in a hotel room bathroom or on the street, nor the crew gambling at a casino. One of the worst, though, was a third of the way in, as we travel along in a car with the crew while for long minutes Bjorn/Ben and Britney/Jennifer (good thing she’s cute) make up some ridiculous song about butt fisting; in the credits, it’s listed as “Fuck Town.” It’s not the rap per se, but just the sheer waste of time of it all as, again, it does absolutely nothing for the story.

It seems like a large part of the film is mostly a travelogue of home movies that doesn’t really mean or add up to anything, including character development. It’s almost like the crew (who are obviously friends as most have made other films together) wanted to go to Nevada on a trip, and figured if they made some kind of story about it, they could write off the expenses. While they seem to be having fun, it didn’t really transfer well to the audience (okay, to me; I’m not gonna talk for the rest). By the time of the rap, I was getting pissed with all the unnecessary bullshit.

I don’t think it’s going to take a rocket scientist (or extraterrestrial) to figure out by the end, at some point, it’s going to be a case of be careful what you wish for because it may come true. I won’t divulge the final moments, but the general idea is not only easy to figure out, well, just look at the image on the box or watch the trailer fer chrissake.

There is a kind of conspiracy theory going on, but whether it’s by the aliens or humans is left up to the viewer. The last 20 minutes or so are…okay, with about 10 interesting minutes here and there, but by far the best parts of this film are the interviews.

The only extras are the chapters. That’s okay, because I don’t think I would actually want to hear a full length commentary, or a Making Of featurette, since the nearly the entire film is actually the latter. Can we please have a moratorium on found footage now?