Review: Extramundane

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

Extramundane
Directed by Joshua Sowden
Self Esteem Productions; Deep Sail Media; Indie Rights Movies
94 minutes, 2022
https://sowden-jd.wixsite.com/film

A group of my friends got together last night for some beers (I had an iced tea) and yam fries for the first time in quite a while, due to obvious reasons. Among the group, there is a writer, a photographer, a videographer, a painter, and one is getting proficient on Spanish guitar. They were complaining that since Covid hit, entertainment had pretty much dried up and become bland, and no one was really going out to see movies/concerts anymore. I disagreed and stated that the pandemic has been a boon to independent filmmaking since they were stuck indoors writing scripts, or being forced to find creative ways to make a film with minimal cast, or used it as a theme for their film.

This film hits all three checkboxes. As the director told me, “I shot it as a 1-man crew during the pandemic. It is a true labor of love.” Set in Long Beach, CA, and shot with highly muted colors, it is not quite black and white, but it does have a Noir feel to it. The story centers around Trevor (Brant Rotnem), with his perpetual “Don Johnson-ish” five O’clock shadow, who is hired as a Property Manager, naturally during a time of a pandemic. Timely, as the film takes place in 2020. During the prologue, which could have been a short film on its own, we learn why he was needed to be hired following his predecessor, Steve (Tony Bartele). But there may be more to Trevor than just a manager.

Brant Rotnem

The maintenance manager (aka the super) is a creepy dude named Jerry (Craig Gellis, who looks a bit like Boris Karloff in the late 1930s), who makes himself known to Trevor as he is moving in. I find that when a creepy character is introduced this early on, either he will be the villain of the piece, or a warrior for the good. I am curious to find out (I am less than 15 minutes in…), but of course I will not say in this review. I may give basic plot points, but try to avoid spoilers.

Trevor’s boss is Mr. Gibson (stand-up comic and actor Vinny Coppola, in a nice cameo via Zoom), who is an all-business type (and I’m guessing “connected” to the Families, if ya know what I mean…).

Craig Gellis

What’s fun (though this is not a comedy per se), is meeting the tenants, who have expectations of Trevor, whether it is business hours or not, including Jasmine (Cherie Corinne Rice) and Bobby (Brock Jones), who come across as off-kilter or cultural “Karens.” I lived in a rent-controlled apartment most of my life, and rarely gave the landlord grief unless it was something important; when we moved out about 15 years ago, he told us the rent on the apartment (in Brooklyn, 5 rooms) was going to double for the next people, but he still wished we would stay. But I digress…).

There is definitely someone or something roaming around the atmospherically spooky underground garage, where a lot of this film occurs, a place to avoid if you have Tingchechekuphobia. Especially with the tall, dark, and shadowy figure floating about.

Brock Jones

This film has an interesting way of presenting technology, such as Zoom, texting, and the Internet. In fact, the whole cinematography, done by one-man-crew Sowden, is quite remarkable in that it feels Noir, but avoids being “arty,” although still being a beauty to watch. An impressive example of this is a shot of Trever in a dark corridor, while in the distance is an opening into bright sunlight, and it is all discernable, rather than the camera trying to adjust to either the light or darkness, making the rest either too dark or too light.

People are disappearing from the apartment building, and Trevor is determined to find out why that is happening. Mr. Gibson is unconcerned, telling him to just get the apartment ready for the next tenants. Sweetheart of a guy, eh?

Cherie Corrine Rice

With a single exception, the entire film takes place on the property of the apartment building. Gotta love a mixture of low budget and Covid necessity. It works well, because the building is spacious, but there is still a feeling of claustrophobia that settles in thanks to the lighting, and repetition and size of spaces.

There was another film called The Super (1998) where the titular character tries to figure out why people are disappearing in the building. Similar overarching theme, but different stories.

This is as much a who-done-it mystery as much as a supernatural thriller. While it is not a blood and guts extravaganza (meaning anyone can watch it), it is definitely worth checking out.

 

Horror short bonus review:
Witch
Directed by Joshua Sowden
Self Esteem Productions; Deep Sail Media
5 minutes, 2022
https://sowden-jd.wixsite.com/film

In some ways, this short is similar to the prologue of Extramundane. A man (again, Brant Rotnem, and his facial hair) goes into the basement of his apartment building looking for a broom. When he finds one, anyone who has been to Salem or even seen a coven film, knows this is not the kind of broom that one uses to sweep up dust and dirt. Before long, there is a shadowy figure, and the man tries to escape. Even if you see the ending coming (there are many similar short films like this), it is nicely atmospheric and well shot. Can be watched for free HERE.

Extramundane IMDB listing HERE

Review: Colourblind

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020

Images from the Internet

Colourblind

Directed by Nathan Hill

NH Productions

79 minutes, 2020

www.facebook.com/thelurkerfilm/

Well, yes, this technically is not horror. It’s more Dashiell Hammett than Stephen King, but this is definitely an indie, low-budget film from Down Under (Melbourne, specifically). It is also a promotion for the director, writer and star, Nathan Hill. I first became aware of Hill from a role he played named Brad Plunderpants in a hilarious sci-fi horror flick called SheBorg (reviewed elsewhere on this blog).

Nathan Hill

The centerpiece to this tale is a Private Investigator (PI) named Jaffy Rotunda (Hill). He has been retired from the biz (though I don’t know what he’s been doing to pay the rent) and gets called back by his old boss to help a femme fatale named Trix Baxter (Celeste Wilson) to find out what’s going on with her sister, Sia (Anne Gauthier). Mental illness apparently runs in this extremely wealthy family, so she is worried about her (or her inheritance, it is not clear).

Meanwhile, at the same time, Sia’s mom (Jane Badler, who many might remember as the evil, rodent-eating lizard queen from the television mini-series V and its sequels in the 1980s) has hired another PI named Mr. X (Nicholas Wightman) to do the same, without knowing what Trix has done. Both PIs are in competition to find out just what little Sia is up to these days. Mr. Baxter says it best when he states that no female member of his family is nice. Well, that could go well in a mirror, as well.

Anne Gauthier

But of course, things do not go along smoothly in the hard-bitten world of PI life, as Jaffy has taken a liking to Sia as he is following her around. He’s suffering from the titular colo(u)r-blindness in which he sees everything in black and white, but he is able to view Sia in living rainbow.

The first rule of Fight Clu… I mean of being a PI is you do not get involved with your clients. It did not work for Sam Spade and Philip Marlowe (who kinda look alike, don’t you think?), and it is not gonna be productive for Jaffy.

Jaffy’s character is kind of mild, like warm milk on a cold night. He certainly doesn’t come across as frosty as Mr. X, and seems to be lonely, despite having a decent friend. He tries to reach out to Sia and Mr. X, but is rebuffed by the Xer, and Sia turns her back on him at some point in the story as well (I will not divulge details).

What I found more interesting is the relationship between Jaffy and Mr. X, and the misinterpretation of Sia’s Family of who hired whom. Jaffy and X-ey have a history that is not too pleasant, and one of them certainly does not have any interest in playing nice.

Jane Badler

While the story is somewhat compelling, though drags its feet a bit, not much really happens. A beating here, and a few prostitutes there, but the whole point of the action feels like it stalls in places, and the whole point of the exercise is somewhat muddled. Maybe I missed it in the accents? Hill is good in the role, and it leaves an opening for a sequel, but his character seems a bit mushy. Mr. X comes across as harder and, well, fits the PI trope. Jaffy is more like someone Elliott Gould might have played in the 1970s (though Gould did play Marlowe in 1973’s The Long Goodbye...).

This is a movie that could easily play to a wide range of audience, with the exception of one scene at the end that reminded me a bit of Jack Nicholson in Carnal Knowledge (1971). This is a mostly PG-level release, so grab your partner and dosey doe, cook up some popcorn, put a log on the fire, and roll this one up.

Review: Hollow Creek

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2018

Images from the Internet

Hollow Creek (aka Haunting in Hollow Creek)

Written, produced, directed by Guisela Moro

Newfoundland Films; First Edge Films;
Cinematic Motion Pictures; FilmRise; MVD Visual

116 minutes, 2016

www.mvdvisual.com

I love it when I get to see a horror film written and directed by a woman; in this case it’s Latina actor Guisela Moro. She takes a number of different subgenres and mashes them into an expansive story that lasts nearly two hours (usually a long time for an indie flick), which I will now discuss without giving away too many details, of course.

Steve Daron and Guisela Moro

We are introduced to married horror writer Blake Blackmore (dashing Steve Daron, who continually has a Sonny Crockett-type 5 o’clock shadow) and his mistress, Angelica (the lovely Moro), as they head out to a cabin retreat in a not largely populated small town in rural West Virginia (hillbilly genre). It seems some young boys have gone missing recently in the area, but our protagonists are more focused on their work and – err – play.

But it’s very shortly into the story (which is why, in part, I bring it up) that other supernatural happenings start to crop up in the house (haunted house genre) that are somewhat subtle to them, but are used well for jump scare type shock value to the audience. There is also the bit about the trio of missing boys and the investigation into finding them (“Criminal Minds”-type genre). They all interplay together well into a comprehensive story with a touch of the supernatural without being overwhelmed by it.

In the first act, the ghostly stuff is well timed because in the beginning there are some dialogue-heavy moments of exposition that drag a bit due to some forced language, such as the over use of the endearing-babble word “babe.” But they are interrupted by those nice scares that livens thing up quite a bit.

Earleen Carey and Alyn Damay

The questions that arose for me were concerning the film’s intentions. Is it a good ghost or a bad ghost? Are the cops the good guys or the bad guys? The only two things that are a given pretty much right from the onset is that Blake and Angie are the side of light, and Leonard (Alyn Darnay) and Margaret Cunnings (Earleen Carey) are the in the dark region. As it’s given away quite early on (and even in the trailer) that it’s the latter, rednecky farm couple who are behind the kidnappings, But again, what are the reasons and intentions for the sinister duo to be carrying out what they are doing? That is part of what kept my interest.

Here is the thing about small towns: they can amazingly rally up behind you, or give a strong cold shoulder if you are (gabba gabba) not one of “them,” meaning if they turn their back on you, it can be isolating. I’ve been through small towns in West Virginia, and other than the Dixie flags a-flyin’, I got along with everyone I met, even as a stranger, but if I had taken an action that was disapproved of by the group by breaking a code of honor, that situation might have turned into something else. When Angie suddenly disappears, Blake gets a taste of this from the locals as he gets blamed for her going poof! in the rainy night in the court of public opinion, thanks to a sensationalist-driven local media (as we were taught, “If it bleeds, it leads”).

When the second act starts, after Angie vanishes from the town (but not from the story), is when the tale really starts to build momentum. While the film centers on the kidnapping story as its core, it manages to not overuse the ghost or hillbilly aspects of it; rather, Moro wisely plies the other two as aspects of the whole story, which actually helps make it stronger. Yeah, there are some gothic cliché’s, such as a child’s baseball mysteriously and nosily dropping down the stairs, which has been a standard ever since The Changeling in 1980; however, the orb is key to the story, so in this case it’s not just a ghostly announcement of presence.

Do I really need to say who this is?

The big cameo, of course, is Burt Reynolds, who shows up for one decent scene with Daron, and a brief one later on. Now, Daron has announced that Reynolds is one of his acting idols, and the writing credits state that Daron is “collaborating writer.” My guess is he wrote the scene with Reynolds, which just consists of the two of them. I will further posit that while the film was shot in West Virginia, the scene with the frail, then 80-year-old Bandit, was filmed in Florida where Reynolds lives. The second scene just shows the back of the heads of the cops, so I’m guessing all his scenes were added in after the principal shooting. I would say that it is a cool thing.

The one big hole to me is that there is a rifle hidden in the closet where Blake is staying. This makes no sense, as the cops think he is responsible for Angie’s disappearance, wouldn’t they have found the rifle in searching the house? It’s not like it was hidden somewhere, it’s right on the shelf at the top of the closet. I’m just going to put it up to a rookie writing mistake, and mosey on.

The cast is really strong here. Both Moro and Daron carry their roles well, Carey plays woundedly cracked just a tad overboard (though her character, well, actually is), and Darnay definitely steals his scenes as the always seething patriarch of the kept clan. He has this way of moving his mouth as a sign of annoyance (you can see it in the trailer) that says so much about Leonard.

Once past the initial “Hey, babe” scenes, the film turns into a really taut, well-written thriller. Even if one edited out all of the supernatural aspects, the tension would still be on high, and that’s great. Having it in, though, is a boost as a way to take it to another level to apprehension. Plus, the way the film was shot, with the effective lighting (including being able to see the action at night) and slower editing, brings a strong and satisfying end result. I look forward to seeing more of Moro’s work as actor, writer and director. Brava.