Review: Amber Road

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

Amber Road
Directed by B. Luciano Barsuglia
Koa Aloha Media
87 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/amberroadmovie
https://koaalohamedia.com/amberroadmovie/
https://amberroadmovie.com

Amber Road, for the purposes of this film, is a Dark Web site where you can order drugs, food, and a host of other things that are technically illegal. But it also has an audience that it caters to who are interested in watching people being tortured and snuffed. Internet torture for hire has been a common theme lately, with the likes of La PetiteMort (2009) and Death Count (2022), among many. Like Hostel (2005), it is merely an excuse to push the envelope on body horror, or what others may call torture porn.

This release is a bit stylized, showing customers making requests (cameos by the likes of Tom Sizemore and Robert LaSardo, both of whom were in the similarly themed Death Count) on what will happen to the captives. And right off the bat, while the film introduces the protagonists (see second paragraph down), it is inter-mixed with scenes of torture, such as involving removal of fingers, which is nicely intercut with someone cutting a hedge using shears: the mundane and the malevolence.

 Rachel Riley

The first couple being tortured during this intro, Mary (Janet Wang) and James (William McNamara), are given a drug to paralyze them, but they can still feel the pain. My question is, why are they bound to a chair, and why do they have ball gags in their mouths if they are immobile (though they easily move their heads and facial expressions do not seem to be affected by the drug)? The perilous mistress of distress is Pauline (Rachel Riley), professionally a mortician we learn early on, who gets pleasure from her “work.”

And speaking of work, our main protagonist is police deputy Emma (Scream Queen Elissa Dowling), whose husband – also a copper – was murdered, is being helped by her brother, Deke (Jed Rowen); meanwhile the nasty Dark Web (sometimes here described as the Deep Web) group is working on the married couple. At the early stage, the two stories flash back and forth. You just know at some point in the storyline, the trains of Emma and Aber Road will meet. But I am still on Act 1.

Elissa Dowling

Eventually, we get to meet the police that are after the Webbers, led by Sherriff Taylor (Vernon Wells), who has nothing to do with Mayberry, or perhaps it is Opie grown up? Yes, there are lots of cameos throughout the film.

When the big reveal comes at the start of Act 3, it will either surprise the hell outta ya, or you will have seen it coming a mile away (I was somewhere between the two). My only issue is I think they gave away the gravy a bit too early in the telling.

The torture parts are actually spaced pretty far apart in the storyline, with lots of dialogue in-between. Do not get me wrong, what we see is gruesome, but I get the feeling some gorehounds are going to get a bit restless. Not only does the gore increase in the third act, but they find places to hurt that I have not seen before, which is – er – refreshing, in an imaginative way.

Jed Rowen

The acting here is great for a low-budgeter, but it is important to remember that most of the cast each has a long history in cinema, so that is hardly surprising. While Dowling is the de facto lead actor (i.e., not cameo), this is totally Riley’s film, as she has the most screen time, and her character is so germane to the violence that occurs.

The effects look good and gross, but I do wish there had been a bit more of it. Sure, it is effective and gooey as bits are snipped away, but there is long gaps between, even if the practical SFX works.

Throughout the film, they employ either a dark filter, or color correction in post-production, which gives the visuals a mostly bluish haze that seems unnecessary. Well, not to this extent, anyway. I understand the practical SFX may look better if it is harder to see, but it gets tiresome after a while, and is employed by too many films these days.

It feels like there is a lot of overlap with the films by Michael Su (who directed Death Count), and those put out by the Cinema Epoch/CineRidge Entertainment group. It is a mix of many of the same actors of the former and style of the latter, which combine to make a low-budget film that is interesting on many levels. It is good to see all these legends in the same film, though none interact together (again, one-day-work cameos), but most seem to be on Zoom, which makes sense in the story. More than a plot of sheer malevolence for the sake of malevolence, this is a tale of greed above all else, even more than, say, revenge.

For reasons I have stated above, this is a between-the-cracks film, in that it may be too mild for the gorehounds and to extreme for the average viewer. But the story works, and in my humble opinion, that is what makes it watchable.

IMBD listing HERE

Review: Wolf Manor

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

Wolf Manor (aka Scream of the Wolf)
Directed by Dominic Brunt
The Club of Wyrdd Tales; Mitchell Brunt Films; Wild Edric Media;
Francis-Castle Pictures; Lightbulb Screen Distribution; Strike Media
85 minutes, 2021 / 2022
www.Strike-Media.com
@wolfmanorfilm #WolfManor Film

Whether it is zombies, vampires or especially slashers, there are a lot of films about low-budget filmmaking under duress. It’s a meta look at how films are made, and how someone in the cast, crew, or at the location, is out to getcha. For this release, if you have not figured it out from the title, deals with a film crew is being jeopardized by a werewolf.

Who can complain about a good lycanthropic film, eh wot? There have been a number of noteworthy ones in the past few years, and happily this one joins the canon. There is something about the transformation of a man (or woman) to a monster that can be like, say The Thing (1982), where a person can look normal, but inside lay a deadly secret. For this British opus, filmed in Leeds, mostly, the monster is declared at the beginning as it starts in the night of the full moon.

At the titular Wolf Manor, the now-abandoned home of a magician, The Great Mascalini, in the countryside of small-town UK, the film crew, led by director Derek (Rupert Proctor), is making a low-budget vampire film starring washed up once-star, Shakespeare-spouting Oliver (James Fleet). He is just part of the whole uninspired crew near the end of a long shoot, who just seem weary of dealing with him and the whole production in general.

There is a very dry comedic tone to this, such as two reporters from a Fangoria type magazine who are on their way to interview Oliver, but first heading to the local pub for directions, The Blue Moon, and commenting that it should be called “The Slaughtered Lamb,” before mentioning to the owner that perhaps they should “stay off the moors.”  I am assuming I do not have to mention the reference. Another is people assuming a severed arm is a prop; the prop master, Owen (Martin Portlock) steals the scenes he is in regarding this.

We do not see the beastie (Morgan Rees-Davies) in all its glory for a while, but we visit his actions pretty early on, and they are nicely blood-soaked albeit a bit visually dark as it is the night (full moon be damned). When we see the creature’s point of view shots, it is in black and white, and through a handheld camera (a bit cliché, but it still works).

When we finally do get to see the werewolf, the make-up is really good, and I was impressed with the way it both walked upright, and ran kind of wolf like on all fours (front being claws rather than paws).

Obviously, the cast and crew are fodder, and luckily there is enough to make a decent body count, with some really glorious gore effects, without being too “technical” in its look. The detached heads, hands, intestines and other body parts have a realistic look that made me smile, rather than cringe in details.

One has to wonder if and who each of the characters are based upon. That is the thing with meta making-of films, the writer is bound to add characteristics of people he/she/they know. Most of them are not people you would necessarily want to meet, but the two most solid characters are just about the only females in the film: the boom mic operator who they just call Boom, Ellie (Sade Malone), and especially Fiona (Taila Zucchi), who seems to be the only one with brains in the entire cast, and for that is one of the central figures in the story, and the most sympathetic to the audience.

The kills are nicely spread throughout the story, rather than just being a bloodbath in Act 3, which makes this more enjoyable with less slow points in-between. Also, there are a number of jump scares, and some of them are effective, as the kills come out of nowhere most of the time. What drives the monster is an overwhelming need to kill, as well as hunger; if a werewolf eats a human, is it cannibalism?

The entire film takes place in one night, the time of the full moon, obviously, though this is the UK, and the overcast weather makes this very dark (lighting), both indoors and out. Oddly, we never actually see any scenes of the film-within-the-film being shot and instead the story is totally behind-the-scenes, so no bright lights for the cameras, inside being as murky and full of shadows as the outside. You may have to squint at certain points to see clearly.

For an indie, lower budget film, the acting is quite good with just a few moments of scenery chewing by the lead, Fleet, which is quite purposefully added to indicate he is a big ham.

The ending was partially what I expected, but then again it also had some surprises mixed in with it. This was an enjoyable watch, with just the right amount of both gore and humor. And speaking of the finale, be sure to see the origin story after the credits.

IMDB listing HERE  

Review: Nicole

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020
Images from the Internet

 

Nicole
Directed by James Schroeder
Dopp Kit Media
74 minutes, 2020
www.nicolethemovie.com
www.schradesproductions.com

To paraphrase the late, great Leonard Cohen: “Nicole takes you down to her place by the river… / You can spend the night together / Then she’ll chop your perfect body with her axe…”

When we meet budding artist and daytime office assistant Nicole (Tamika Shannon), it is easy to tell she is a woman with issues. Chugging back vodka upon awakening and playing lovingly with knives, she keeps people away by using ear-buds around the office. She may be lovely, and men are constantly staring at her in that toxic-masculinity way (man, I hate the open-office workplace concept), but you know right off the bat that there is something – or multiple things – off about her. But then again, is it real or her imagination? It seems like everybody – male and female – is into her, including a creepy jogger (Tre Lockhart) and a nice comic relief turn with a goth hardware store clerk (Madeline Brumby).

Though a man who works with her (Ke’Shawn Bussey) who is obviously one of the good guys (every other male is kind of stereotypical), asks her out to see his band play, and she rebuffs him. The viewer’s heart goes out to him, but she’s arranged an online first date with charming John (Stephen Green), who’s handsome demeaner also hides a broken personality: he imbibes with lines of white powder and has a tendency to pull a Cosby on women, and then throw them away after getting what he wanted. Nicole and John seem to be not water-and-oil, but fire-and-fire. It’s hard to tell who is the fox and who is the henhouse. Fifteen minutes in and I am itching to see where it goes.

Tamika Shannon and Stephen Green

This is mostly a two-person film, as Nicole and John are two celestial bodies orbiting around each other, with other characters being their moons: part of the system but on the outskirts. It is interesting to see the way the two of them interact, her being stiff and unsure, and him being loquacious to the point where you want to give him a throat punch, making really bad jokes that are red flags the size of a city block. He’s a playa on the move and the question is will she be moved by him. The second act starts as the date begins.

The sheer number of substances that this couple imbibes is quite impressive, probably more in their one day (including his snorting) that I have done in at least 10 years in total, if not more. Alcohol culture has always confused me (the appeal of it, anyway), and this film is definitely a reason why. At least no ciggy-butt addictions; watching people smoke has always been a turn-off for me, but not as much as when films show tooth brushing, of which we get to enjoy more than once here.

This is a very dark comedy that is beautifully shot in black and white, except for Nicole’s inner thoughts or desires, which is a reversal of the usual trope of memory portrayed on film. It presents the drabness of her life, as she stumbles through it. But color shows not only her memories, but her hopeful delusions as well. As for the lessons of this film, it is double-directed: first, women, never leave your drink unattended, especially around someone you don’t know well; and second, men, do not be a Cosby because (among many reasons) it may not work out as you intended.

The film really picks up steam in the third act, when the line between reality and what is going on in one’s head starts to – er – bleed. Is what we’re seeing real, or imagined? I love that kind of story, as the possibilities are unlimited. The conversations start to become a bit surrealistic and way more interesting.

There is a nice touch of blood and body parts, without being overly graphic (though granny may not be too happy), in part to the director’s nimble touch, and I’m certain the budget restraints helped. Blood always looks better in monochrome.

The dialog, written by the director Schroeder is sometime sharp, and politically nuanced, such as one character saying, “That’s what you get you Harvey Weinstein motherfucker.” That made me smile. The acting is sharp; 40 years ago, Nicole might have been played by Pamela Grier, but Shannon does well to show the shades of emotions and thoughts that run through Nicole’s head. John is a bit more one-dimensional, but Green also plays him realistically, I’m sorry to say (what I mean is that John is not a nice person).

This is Schroeder’s first feature, and his only non-documentary credit. Yet the way the film is presented, it almost feels like a documentary, with the way it is shot and the black and white helps, as well. This gives the film a cool and calculated look that works for its subject matter. I look forward to more fictional features from him.

The film is available on Amazon and TubiTV.