Review: Dead Bride

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

Dead Bride
Directed by Francesco Picone
Metrovideo; Breaking Glass Pictures
83 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/deadbridemovie/

Who doesn’t love a ghost story. That is not a question. Yeah, let’s just get that out of the way. Right from the prologue, this film makes itself known for what is the backbone of the story. But, of course, there is so much more, like revenge, jealousy, sleep paralysis, and generational terror.

Jennifer Mischiati

Filmed in Italy but spoken in somewhat accented English, the prologue is short and sweet, and spooky. After, we meet the main cast, which is a family of three: Alyson (Jennifer Mischiati), her hubby Richard (Christoph Hülsen), and their infant son, Seth. They move into the house of her biological father (David White) after his suicide. Her mom (Duné Medros), a seamstress, had become deranged, so her father put her up for adoption in the United States at a pre-teen age.

The dynamics between Alyson and Richard are interesting from the start, but not uncommon for these kinds of film: they move into the house due to financial constraints, and there is definitely tension between the two thanks to his past. Richard does not come across as a decent human, again, which is pretty common as he goes away on a business trip (alone or with a work “friend”?), which gives the house a chance to have its influence on Alyson. I can see where this may be going, but I hope I am wrong, as it is too cliché. But, hell, I am only 15 minutes in and we are still in exposition mode.

One of the things I find relatively consistent in these films is someone will live in the haunted abode for years and nothing much happens except for little things here and there, and then the main story family moves in and bam it is poltergeist city with mysterious and/or dangerous events occurring nearly right from the beginning.

Sean James Sutton

Because this was filmed in Italia, you know the priests and exorcisms are going to be involved, even though the story is about a vengeful ghost, Mary (Francesca Albanese; the name Mary means “bitter”), seeking revenge on the family through a few generations. The main priest, Father Elbert (Sean James Sutton) looks eerily like Rod Steiger in The Amityville Horror (1979), albeit without Steiger’s massive scenery chewing.

But the film picks up quite a few notches with the arrival of a questionable psychic, Dave (Douglas Dean), who sends Alyson searching into a dreamworld. This starts a sequence that is fun and interesting, and gives this a whole different mood as it transgresses time and space.

Mischiati and Douglas Dean

The acting in this film is actually quite good, which helps move it along. Mischiati more than holds her own, as does Dean and especially Sutton, who seems very natural. I can easily see him as a British gangster.

There are a number of “borrows” from other films, such as an infamous moments from The Conjuring (2013), [*REC] (2007), The Exorcist (1973), Poltergeist (1982), etc. The SFX is decent, and there are a couple of nicely done quick gore shots. There are also a number of enjoyable jump scares scattered throughout.

Some of the story is quite predictable considering we have seen bits of it before, but the plot moves along quite well and one may just consider the influences of other films as a drinking game. A shout-out should also be mentioned for the cinematography by Marzio Mirabella who makes every shot look amazing and giving it a nearly gothic texture in the modern age, and also the director for the editing, especially the whole dream sequence.

Oh, and I was not wrong.

IMDB listing HERE

Review: Lady Usher

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

Lady Usher
Directed by George Adams
Filminginc; Indican Pictures
80 minutes, 2021
www.filminginc.com/
www.indicanpictures.com

There is no denying that Edgar Allen Poe’s infamous 1839, “The Fall of the House of Usher,” is one of his better-known gothic short stories. There have been numerous films based upon it, from the surrealistic The Fall of the House of Usher in 1928, to the Vincent Price-starring classic House of Usher (screenplay by the late, great Richard Matheson) in 1960, and arguably the base material for The Terror in 1963, the latter two both directed by Roger Corman.

For this latest incarnation, director and writer George Adams has reimagined the story, setting it in the present and switching gender roles in some cases. That is an interesting premise.

In the opening, which takes place in the here and now, we meet Texas college lovebirds Roderick Usher (tall and lanky John Tupy) and his girlfriend, Morgan (Billie D. Merritt) filling in for the unnamed (male) narrator of the original story, during the credits montage.

Therese Santiago

Wisely, Adams has adapted the story rather than maintaining the well-worn tropes, while still retaining the feel and some of the motifs. For example, instead of being the twin brother of the titular Lady Usher, Roderick is her son. She is also married to Roderick’s much-older father, who does not appear in the Poe version.

The father (John Furguson) is ill, so Roderick has returned home as the story starts in earnest. Being the dutiful girlfriend and since classes have ended, Morgan shows up at the Oklahoma Usher manse despite Roderick’s reluctance over the phone, and she crosses the threshold into, well, a totally different world.

Here is where the film starts getting a bit playful and fun. Life and time inside the mansion seems to have stopped in a non-literal way, with the inhabitants, including cheeky manservant Vincent (Michael Gibbons, who gets to say the first “The House of Usher” line), dress and act like it is the 1830s, with ruffles and ankle-length dress-jackets.

Rife with 19 Century manner codes and decorum, Lady Usher (Therese Santiago) greets Morgan in a startling custom of stiffness mixed with false invitation that is bound to go south pretty fast. She is an odd sort of a passive-aggressive mix of Lady Usher and Lady Macbeth. One might almost be expecting a Ready or Not (2019) vibe, but again, cleverly, Adams takes his own route, making this more psychological than physical.

Billie D. Merritt

Rounding out the party, both missing from the source, is Mr. Usher’s caretaker, the obvious alcoholic Dr. Philips (Kim Titus), and Roderick’s older and mysterious, nearly mute brother who dresses like the Elephant Man with cloth hood, Gordon (Peter Anthony Seay).

As in the original, the physical house is also a character, with its furniture style from two-centuries ago (I would love to see the kitchen) and a morbid (i.e., Gothic) darkness with windows covered in plush, velvety curtains that let in little light. Even electricity is seen in extremely rare glimpses, mostly just out of camera range.

An extended end of the first act is set around a dinner table where we get to learn more about the attitudes within the family unit and their guests. It goes from terse to tense, to worse. Prodding matriarchical questioning and reluctance of responses make the viewer as uncomfortable as its participants (psychological, remember?).

Like the short story, the underlying theme of the plot is death. In the original, if focuses on Roderick’s sister Madeline, but here it is the patriarch (again, employing those gender mash-ups), though in both, the afflicted has a “morbid acuteness of the senses.” While not the focus, it is the undercurrent that this boat floats upon. There is also an air of privilege that hangs over everything, as Morgan comes from a working-class background. One sign of the Usher snootiness is when Lady Usher asked Vincent to “pass the asparagus” which is less than a foot away from her, as he slides the plate about four inches (and I was amused, assuming this was a continuity error, when she asks Morgan to pass the salt, and she gets the pepper without change of expression; yes, I pay attention to movies I review, so sue me).

It is wonderful that the two main characters are strong women, with the men being the weaker, only pawns in game of life. As for the big reveal at the end, even those unfamiliar with some of the read-between-the-lines suggestions of the Poe tale, should not have to struggle too hard to figure out the family structure by the halfway point.

In my opinion, to paraphrase the words of the television series “Monk,” the blessing and the curse of the film is the costuming. It wildly jumps around over the past two centuries from modern heels to the cinematic antebellum south. Roderick, whose wardrobe is the most egregious, jumps from European dandy to Elvis-period snake-skin designed jacket. And don’t get me started on what he wears during the dinner scene. That being said, it’s also incredibly imaginative and I happily was in anticipation to see what they would wear next, even though it was a bit of a distraction and took away from the events onscreen.

John Tupy and Merritt

Though somewhat predictable, the film easily lives up to its gothic tone and I wonder if it would have been served better in black and white or at least monotone. Or not. Just a musing.

The cast is nicely diverse, and the acting is a bit stiff here and there, but mostly effective for the tone of the film. It is a strong tale with some possible trigger warnings for some, especially those with monsters-in-law of their own. The film does a decent job of weaving the source material, such as characters reading poems and from books (though, again, through role reversals), but stretching it enough to have enough originality to keep the interest up.

Stick around during the credits and enjoy a music video of sorts of the excellent song “Wrecked,” by Rachel Lynch and the Daydrinkers.

The film is now on disc, and available on platforms such as Apple TV, DirecTV, Google Play, Prime Video, and FandangoNOW.

 

Review: M.O.M. (Mothers of Monsters)

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

M.O.M. (Mothers of Monsters)

Directed by Tucia Lyman

Indie Rights Movies / Aha Productions

99 minutes, 2020

www.mothersofmonsters.com/

www.facebook.com/M.O.M.movie/

The following statement comes with a caveat: films like The Blair Witch Project (1999) ruined the found footage genre for me, in most cases. It has come across as a cheap way to tell a story by either letting the actors be the filmmakers, or the use of mounted cameras, which takes it away from a human touch (sort of like a scan-it-yourself aisle in a supermarket). But, every once in a while, someone still manages to make it right. Hence, this exception.

We live in a world full of reflection through a camera, be it selfies or someone trying to make some kind of record of an incident (e.g., check out public meltdown videos on YouTube). Either way it is based on ego, such as believing the event is important, a way to point a finger of blame away from oneself to another (for example, the 1983 book And I Don’t Want to Live This Life, by Nancy Spungen’s mom, Deborah), or a deep-seated fear that compels one want to make sure your story is told. This film falls into all three of these categories.

Melinda Page Hamilton

The mother in question is Abby (Melinda Page Hamilton). Her teenage son, Jacob (Bailey Edwards), has a history of acting out in violent ways that Abby refers to as “Monster Time,” such as randomly dropping bricks off high buildings without looking to see if anyone is below. With a way of charming psychoanalysts that most true psychopaths have, he has managed to skirt his way around the legal system. This worries Abby because, in part, as she states early on, “Remember what happened to the Boy who Cried Wolf; he was eaten by the fucking wolf.”

The found footage aspect is either Abby recording herself on a cell phone to tell her side of the story, videos made by others such as Jacob’s friends, or the hidden cameras Abby has placed throughout the house. We get to view them, not necessarily in chronological order, thereby giving us a bit of perspective on Jacob to show that it’s possibly not just a puberty/hormone thing.

One of the brilliant aspects of this thriller is the question of absolutes. Jacob can be an outright shit, but so can Abby. The question is left hanging for quite a while whether Jacob is insanely violent, or is his mom over-vigilant – such as lack of respect of his privacy – due to aspects such as her over-drinking wine-goggles, or Adderall pills she sneaks from Jacob (or both).

One important way of looking at this is through a modern lens, both literally and figuratively. On the literal side, the tone of the film puts it clearly in the canon alongside the likes of What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962) with the mood of intra-family fear of threats of violence that keep escalating. Though in color, this is clearly a Noir piece with modern technology of cells, Skype and Spy Cams added in.

Bailey Edwards

As for the figurative, despite its gothic throwback mood, it’s placed in a modern situation, where teenagers are inundated with not just said technology, but the psychological damage of living in a post-Columbine era of increasingly frequent mass shootings, a fascination with Nazis, casual Anti-Semitism, and public spectacles of events like Charlottesville, all of which play into the story in some form or another.

Most indie films have some questionable acting, but every person here puts in a solid performance. Edwards is strong as he seems to flip back and forth between a normal kid and one that you are really not too sure about (I certainly would not want my daughter to date Jacob, but would understand why she might be attracted to him). But as the lynchpin, Hamilton’s portrayal of Abby is Class-A work, and would be deserving of Festival wins at the least. Her past experiences in the likes of numerous television series such as Messiah, How to Get Away with Murder, Mad Men and Big Love come through spectacularly. There is also a very short cameo by Ed Asner, for some added star power.

Lately, I have been feeling more and more as though those who write a film should not direct them because it helps to have a third party do some editing (Hereditary and Midsommar come to mind). However, Tucia Lyman balances the two like a champ, and makes me have second thoughts about that. Before this piece of psychological cinema, her directorial experience was a couple of documentaries and a few episodes of a television series about “real” ghosts, though you’d never know that this was her feature debut.

There are some scenes that are unexpected and downright shocking (again, figuratively and literally), with some squeamish bits, but mostly this is a psychological thriller. The game of “who is the crazy one” is played out in sharp detail, and there are lots of twists and turns to keep the viewer entertained from the first shot to the last.

Review: Exhumed

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2013
Images from the Internet
                            

Exhumed

Directed by Richard Griffin
Scorpio Rising            
Wild Eye Releasing                        
90 minutes,2011 / 2013
www.WildEyeReleasing.com
www.MVDvisual.com

Wow. Just…wow.

This is going to be a tough review to write because there is so much I could discuss, but to do so would be to give away too much of this thriller. But here we go.

The last Richard Griffin film I saw was a horror sex comedy called The Disco Exorcist [HERE]. Though made the same year, it is the polar opposite of this one, a dark, black and white noir set piece. Think of when Woody Allen goes all Bergman, except this remains interesting, from shadowy beginning to blacker end.

The press release posits this as a Hammer-like film, but I humbly disagree. To me, it is more reminiscent of a twisted gothic noir Tennessee Williams, or more something that is a closer equivalent to WhateverHappened to Baby Jane? (1962) or Hush… Hush Sweet Charlotte (1964). Like these latter two, we are focused into the mysterious goings-on in a house where you just know it’s going to get bad. Also similar is the use of high-contrasting black and white, employed here more effectively than I have seen in a long time.

During one of the two commentary tracks, director Richard Griffin talks about how nearly everything clicked during the 11 days shoot, and it shows in the final product. He also states how he tends to muck around with scripts, but only made one (fine) addition to the original, by Guy Benoit. It is a story that beginning fuzzy as to what is going on and the possibilities of why and who everyone is in relation to each other, but as time goes on it focuses, while still leaving little mysteries scattered about like its characters.

The film starts out as a hunh? mystery, as you wonder about the relationship of the five house members who are stirred up by the introduction of a sixth. Each is distinct in their personality, each one bringing their own baggage, and all brought together for reasons that become clearer as the film plays out.

There is what could be considered leading roles, but honestly, this is a true ensemble cast, some of whom are part of the Griffin troupe of Rhode Island theatrical players, and others bring new blood (pun intended) to the stalwarts.

Evalena Marie

Let’s start with the somewhat peripheral yet pivotal characters. Lance, played by Rich Tretheway, who had a hysterical turn in The Disco Exorcist as a badly accented (Italian?) janitor, (un)wise in the ways of the spiritual. Here, however, he is a lonely and pathetic unkempt man living in the house, rarely seen out of his gray sweats and messy room. Where he is the “low” personality, Rocki, personified by the exotic and beautiful Evalena Marie, is the most hyper and spunky resident. She is the Loki character, the trickster and mischief maker¸ relative to the rest. Evalena keeps her quirky without being cloying or annoying, for which I am grateful. Well done.

Michael Reed and Sarah Nicklin

Michael Reed and Sarah Nicklin, the stars of the aforementioned The Disco Exorcist, appear as core players this as well. The married-in-real-life couple appear in many of Griffin’s films, though just after this was filmed, they moved from Rhode Island to California to strike out on a more – er –professional (?) career to increasing success. Again opposite of their previous “skins,” Michael has a bit of a subtle role as Chris, the newcomer to the house, but will he stay or go? Or both? Sarah’s Laura has been emotionally scarred terribly; she is now child-like and somewhat innocent, but definitely warped. Sarah has some great scenes where she spits out some wonderful dialog with just the right pitch and tones.

Michael Thurber

Giving an incredibly strong and nuanced performance, possibly the best in the film but only by a hair, is Michael Thurber. While apparently second in command within this strange group, he is also somewhat set apart from the rest, and probably has the most realistic view of the situation. His moves are subtle and relatively insurgent, such as the whole bizarre mannequin fixation, but Michael is interesting to watch. Bob Fosse-like, every movement of the actor’s body says something at all times.

Debbie Rochon

Then there is the unofficial matriarch, played strongly, scarily and at the same time with an undercurrent of sheer insanity (through desire of power? Self-righteousness? Zealousness? Fear?), as rendered by scream queen icon indie goddess, Debbie Rochon. Much of the more than 200 films she has made have been horror comedies, but she certainly proves her dramatic chops here. Her performance is nothing less than stellar.

It is hardly surprising to me that a number of awards have come out of this film, such as Rochon winning Best Actress at the Pollygrind Film Festival, Nicklin being nominated for Best Actress, plus many other festival nods. For a film that is dark in both story and image– no, I mean that literally as there is a lack of lighting, and while it’s easy to make out what’s happening, the level of shadow is extreme – this is just an example why this film deserves to be seen as a full theater project, rather than assumed as just another oddball indie film.

Even the extras are worthwhile. The making-of, shot by Reed and Nicklin and edited by Griffin, is 46 minutes long, and follows the taping nearly all 11 days. It is kept interesting throughout, seeing how much work, and also how much fun is had by the cast, getting it done. There are two commentaries, both also noteworthy. Watch the second one first, which is Griffin, Thurber and one of the producers. There is very little wasted time, but is nicely focused on the filming processes and interesting anecdotes. The second one to watch is with Griffin and the writer Benoit, who discuss the process of getting the film from idea to completion. You’d think to watch it the other way around, but this way is better for this particular flick.

I say this as a compliment: Griffin is going to have to work freakin’ hard to top this one, and I look forward to future projects to see him do just that. That being said, when I look at the trailer for, say, Hush…Hush Sweet Charlotte, I believe this film is actually better, in acting, writing and look, as well as effectiveness. One of the best films I’ve seen this year.