Review: Blades in the Darkness

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

Blades in the Darkness (aka Kthetrat e Shqiponjes)
Directed by Alex Visani
Aspide 1 Productions; J&K Media Partners/Unimaginable Productions
84 minutes, 2022
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I do believe this is the first time I am reviewing a film from the Balkans, and I am excited. It is in Albanian and mostly Italian, with subtitles. Unlike some, I love subtitles; comes from seeing to many live, loud bands in my youth.

Taking place in the Albanian capitol of Tirana, the prologue is set in 1997, after the fall of communism in the area, and the rise of the infamous and bloody civil war that followed. In a supposedly abandoned bunker stumbled young Matia (Matia Çobanaj) meets the Commander (Francesco Rossini), and especially the Commander’s Wife (Manuela Arcuri), who are hiding out in the bunker, which sets up the story to follow, and will intermix back and forth for a while with the present.

Emir Jouka

Back in modern day, arriving in Albania from the UK – but speaking Italian – is Adrian (Ermir Jonka), his girlfriend Nua (Ilirda Benleri), and Giulia (Ingrid Monacelli) and her boyfriend Davide (Endrit Ahmeta). Carrying their money in a leather bag (you can see that this is not a good idea, of course), they plan to open a restaurant in an abandoned bunker with the help of Adrian’s restauranteur cousin, Ilir (Arnold Damazzeti), who is a bit of a sketchy character, into MMA-style kickboxing (as a participant, not viewer).

Ilirda Benleri

Thanks to a betrayal by one or two of the group, with Romanian mobsters and drug dealers and money owed, their savings are gone, but some do not know it yet. This leads to them meeting up with the now insane and murderous Matia as an adult (Lorenzo Lapori, also a co-writer and fight coordinator), who had been sealed behind a wall. Years of loneliness and a seemingly perpetual 8mm propaganda film (200-foot reel, or 20 minutes) has made Matia – now known as Eagle Man in the credits – a bit tetched in the haid. He does, however, have a couple of cool and rusty knives and reminds me a bit of Kruger’s infamous claw (he even tends to run it along a wall), except one big blade for each hand. And, as the film shows, he is not afraid to use it on associates and indiscriminates alike. Yes, he is both mad, and angry, having his childhood and life taken away from him for a cause that never recovered (think of the roundly defeated Confederates or Nazis who hoped their evil beliefs would rise again.

There is a bit of a crime drama mixed in at some point, as the abandoned bunker where Eagle Man is captive behind a wall, is being utilized by a gang of drug dealers – we see a mound of bricks of white powder, perhaps representing the wall of evil that held Eagle Man captive – and their molls, more commonly known as the body count when Eagle Man flies to coop, blood and sorrow will follow.

Arnold Damazzeti

Into this scenario comes our Italian crew from England, hoping to make a new restaurant by recycling and transforming the very same bunker. As I have quoted before, Marshall McLuhan famously said when an object becomes obsolete, it comes back as art. Or in this case, a fancy eatery. While they may have served bird on the menu, they become the prey of an Eagle.

Our two couples arrive at the nest – I mean bunker – late at night, and that is where I end my descriptions, and the battle for life and death (mostly the latter, of course, as this is a literal slasher film). Somehow, in my head, I keep mishearing Creedence Clearwater Revival singing, “Down in the Bunker / Killing in the streets / The Eagle Man’s a-playin’ / Killin’ with knives so sweet.”

Lorenzo Lapori

Eagle Man is actually quite an interesting character by himself. He is as physically filthy as the Pig-Pen character from the Peanuts cartoons from literally years of not bathing, he wears the long coat and boots of the defeated army, his hair is long (though his beard not as much), and he is extremely scarred thanks to a meeting as a youth with some barb wire. Like most genre serial killers, he does not speak (though he does scream), probably from decades of loneliness. His anger comes out in the brutality of his kills. Most modern slashers, the killers like Jason and Michael are stoic, or punsters like Freddie, but this is pure rage. And then there are the cool booby-traps.

A certain level of disbelief is definitely needed around the Eagle Man, mostly pertaining to longevity. For example, he runs the projector constantly, but the bulb has not burned out, he eats food from cans, but how large a supply did they have in 1997 to the present? How does he shave (most of) his beard? How many gas drums does he have for the generator; perhaps he is Jewish, and this is a Hanukkah tale? I kid…

Manuela Arcuri

What I find interesting is that as brutal as Eagle Man is, and he really is, he is also a sympathetic character, rather than a one-dimensional killing machine. The murders are brutal and look great, without being overly graphic (i.e., not body horror), though there is a nice amount of blood to keep the customers satisfied. Hell, they even find a way for (female) nudity and a gratuitous sex scene.

While the acting is top-notch, it is the cinematography by the director that stands out for me, especially the last shot. Despite most of the film being in an ill-lit bunker, it was all clearly seen (thank you, blue filter). The bunker itself is both a maze and claustrophobic at the same time. Well done.

IMDB listing HERE

Review: Deadly Dealings

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

Deadly Dealings
Directed by Adam Freeman
Pink Lightening Productions; Studio 605
71 minutes, 2022
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The term “Ouija” Board is nearly as common as “Amityville” in titles lately, with such releases as Ouija Death Trap (2014), Ouija Room (2019), and Ouija Shark (2020), which jumped the proverbial. For this film, the same medium is called a “Spirit Board.”

Roni Jonah

Husky voiced Mary Stephens (Roni Jonah) misses her two-year dead brother, long brunette wig-wearing Hank (Stephen McGill, the director’s fiancé). She is distressed about it all, and pines over his grave, with him popping up in horrific visions in her dreams. Thankfully, perhaps, her long blond-wig wearing roommate, Milo (director Freeman) is into things like Tarot and, yes, the Spirit Board.

Adam Freeman

Mary is also emotionally supported by her therapist, Dr. Heart (exotic dancer Jessa Flux, aka Jessa Daisy), who looks like her make-up was done by cotton candy, tries to reassure Mary and to accept reality, in a loving, Southern drawl way (this was filmed in Tennessee), and also by her mom, Helen (Helene Udy, famous for the likes of “Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman,” Pel the Firangi on “Deep Space Nine,” and 1981’s My Bloody Valentine) and dad, Wayne (Joseph Casterline).

When Mary and Milo finally get to use the spirit board that Milo keeps in his underwear drawer, there is a bit of warning and scoffing. Part of the previous exposition for their upcoming situation is a spirit board infomercial that Milo watches while Mary is out, telling of both the good and the bad about the boards, and how it can both connect one with a deceased loved one, or if used improperly, open a doorway to evil into our world. Gee, I wonder which one will happen to our dynamic duo.

Jessa Flux/Daisy

After using the board, ending abruptly, Mary – who has violent dreams about her brother nearly every night – envisions a demon, Aisling (Conor McCarthy), and the make-up is fabulous, done by Deryk Wehrley. That is when the film goes into a higher gear, as Mary has one foot in Goethe’s Faust (1876) and the other in the W.W. Jacobs short story “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902). It also touches a bit on Stephen King’s Pet Sematary (1983), as Mary’s wish is granted, but not exactly how she imagined it. It truly is a “be careful what you wish for” scenario.

While her parents seem oblivious to what Mary wished, Mary knows immediately that something is not kosher in zombieland. Not to mention murderous. And they’re coming to get you, Barba… I mean, Mary.

Conor McCarthy

There are some nice twists and turns, double crosses, and unexpected moments. Despite the unspoken and subtle LGBQT+ reverberations, there is also a nice and gratuitous nude bubble bath scene I certainly was not expecting. Most of the gore seems to be practical SFX, though there are some CGI splatters, which still look consistent.

The film is deliciously cheesy, much like the constant flow of pizza (Hawaiian…ugh; yes, I am a proud, Brooklynite pizza snob) that Milo keeps ordering throughout the film. Quick digression: both Hawaiian and California pizzas, which have pineapple (anathema!), are Canadian in origin. Okay, back to the story: it flows easily between the subtle and the over-the-top in a way that is effective, as I am sure that is what Freeman was going for in the zeitgeist of the film.

One of the ways the viewer can tell is by the bright color palate choices and art design. It is blazing with pastel colors in décor, dress, and make-up, giving the film a disarmingly light feel at first. Even Jonas’ hair color sometimes changes from scene to scene, though often occurring on the same day; it starts off pink, changes to Ann-Margret red, and then varies in-between via streaks. I thought it was smart to use these light colors, to contrast the evil within the storyline. And then there is the random glitter of the dead…

This release is Freeman’s directorial debut. There are some rough moments here and there, yet this remains totally enjoyable, colorful, and shows so much promise. His next film, which is due out next year, is a remake of Donald Farmer’s 1989 Scream Dream. I am looking forward to seeing it.

IMBD listing HERE

Review: The Razing

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

The Razing
Directed by J. Arcane and Paul Erskine
Pacific Future Films
109 minutes, 2022

When I get together with a bunch of friends that I haven’t seen in a long time, even if we didn’t necessarily leave on the best of terms, it almost always turns into a night of joy, and maybe a titch of resentment here and there, but we tend to work it out, even if we agree never to talk again. But in the cinematic world, that only works out in the Hallmark type films, and usually involves either Thanksgiving or especially Christmas, but never in genre films. And this belongs to the latter. It’s in the title, which means “the complete tearing down.” Heck, the film’s tag line is ”burn, baby, burn.” Before I even start, the description reminds me a bit of Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (1966).

For Cory’s birthday dinner, there are four old friends plus the guest of one of them, so two women and four men. There is animosity and tension present right from the start; no waiting around, no pretending, the story just dives right in and takes the viewer with them.

I love it when a title can be taken in different contexts. The obvious one is that these people don’t like each other, and are willing to verbally tear each other down. Jealousy, lust, and power all factor into not only the old “friends,” but even the new arrivals. But this group is sort of like Prospero in Edgar Allen Poe’s short story, “The Masque of the Red Death,” as there is something possibly evil happening beyond the walls, that is making people violent, such as in the likes of The Crazies (1973; 2010). But this can also be seen as a metaphor for other pandemics (COVID, anyone?), with some at the table not even believing it’s a real thing as people are murdering others beyond the viewer’s scope of the film. In fact, except for one scene, the entire film takes place in the spacious apartment.

The main characters are an unlikeable crew in their thirties who have carried around their overstuffed baggage since they were college age. The main troupe is bearded and bespecled Cory (Jack Wooten), who is as verbally abusive as his wealthy father (Kent Allen); his spouse is Ellen (Laura Sampson Hemingway), who everyone seems to desire; then there is Ray (Logan Paul Prince), who looks a bit like a jock and has the hots for Ellen (or “El”, as she’s often called), even though he brought along a guest in the form of Claire (Mia Heavner); then there’s Lincoln (Nicholas Tene), who, as a child, was raised by a then college student and then badly drunk “mom” (Kim Allison Hèbert). Lincoln’s friend when he was younger, Josh (Jay Torres), did not fare well with this group; hopefully, Claire will do better.

What both holds the collective together and tears them apart is a combination of drugs in the form of pills, and an event that we see in great detail in the past when they were young, told in extensive flashbacks in the same apartment.

The question the film leaves the viewer with is: what is truth. How many of the events depicted are “real” and how many are hallucinations by the many, many, pills of various colors that are ingested in the 109 minutes of the film? Are the supernatural elements real, or are they mind games played by chemical infusions?

In many ways this can be considered an art film, or even fall under the Transgressive Cinema label. Angles are off-putting, with a tendency to extreme close-ups (not always in focus), pointed at an upward angle, or hand-held and swirling a bit. Visually, the screen often looks dark, like it’s in power-saver mode and with a yellowish filter, with occasional effective use of split screens, and the vocals appear to be flat and dubbed in; there is no depth so everyone seems to be at the same distance even if they are at the opposite sides of the room. Even the orchestral soundtrack, written by co-director J. Arcane, is moody, spiky and dissonant, which actually works well for the piece, though it’s a bit more upfront than needs to be, so it occasionally is distracting to the talking, and dialogue is key in this film.

Being filmed during the time of COVID, it is interesting to see how everything on-screen is designed and the large apartment space is used in the shots, with fish-lenses used to disrupt the visual space and keeping people looking closer than they actually are. That is not to say there isn’t any touching, because there is, but it’s minimal, albeit intense.

Along with the visuals, philosophically the film delves into society, class relations, and the possibility of redemption, as well as a bit of insanity. When does one’s life become too much? At nearly two hours, it feels a bit long, honestly, and it tries hard to be meaningful. Perhaps a second viewing at some point will bring home some of the points I may have missed. It’s a very lulling film that is certainly consistent with its own “feel,” sound, and intensity.

This is the first release for Pacific Future Films, and it’s a good freshman step in the right direction. I’m really curious to see where they go from here.

IMBD Listing HERE 

Vimeo trailer HERE