Review: Fortress of Sin

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

Fortress of Sin
Directed by Paul Chomicki and Christian Voss
Ragged Sky Productions; Cinema626; The AKG Adjacent; Wild Eye Releasing; MVD Entertainment
73 minutes, 2022
www.facebook.com/groups/3174577106153279 
www.wildeyereleasing.com
www.mvdvisual.com

“They got guns

We got guns

All god’s chillren got guns…”

– The Marx Brothers, Duck Soup (1933) 

This film has been a back burner project of love for star, co-writer, and co-director Paul Chomicki for literally decades. With the help of his buddies Christian Voss and Long Island director Dave Campfield, his dream has become a reality.

Stories of fathers looking for daughter who have become involved with serious situations is not new, including Hardcore (1979) starring George C. Scott. But Chomicki updates it and adds in ritualistic elements to up the ante. While Chomicki is mainly known for off the wall comedies, such as the Caesar and Otto franchise, he sets down some serious roots here.

Paul Chomicki

In the prologue, Alyanna Blackwater (Katie Otten) escapes from a violent religious cult in Nevada (around Hay Spring) called the Church of Ascension (aka Ascend), run by spooky “Father” Lucien Reed (Avi K. Garg). Her disappearance is discussed over the radio newscasts throughout the first act. You know this will be expository information for what is to follow.

Meanwhile, Harry (Chomicki, with his thick Long Island accent) is down on his luck. He is an unemployed alcoholic who lives alone, and separated from his wife, Krista (Rae Hartwell). He is also estranged from his daughter, Robin (Jama Bourne), though the division between the two is not really examined here; she wants the connection, he does not. When she vanishes, leaving a cryptic message on Harry’s phone, he sets out to find her.

Katie Otten

Harry heads north towards a First Nations/American Indian reservation (Cheyenne), where he believes her to be held by the (white) cult, in a desolate part of the state (not surprising, as Aboriginals were screwed out of their lands and placed in places that tended to be nearly inhospitable, both in the US and Canada). But more about that later.

There is a large, mixed and overlapping bag of goodies here, from a religious cult (non-Satanic for once) to human traffickers, to scavengers, and each one more dangerous than the other. Add Harry searching for Robin and a revenge-fueled Alyanna, and you have violence, mayhem, and a bit of a time clock as Harry needs insulin, and soon. Also searching for Robin in a separate-but-equal storyline is Sherriff Ritter (co-director Christian Voss).

Christian Voss

The landscape is stark, and we see numerous (and beautiful) abandoned buildings and ruins among the windy plains to its desolate and disparate foothills. Voss’s cinematography brings the area to life, to symbolize a form of near death.

The social commentary is deep and widespread through the story. It explores the dangers of cults and how they prey on the lonely and scared/scarred, and how it is easy to fall victim. But more central to the story is the long history of the plains (and of Western Canada, as well) as far as the incredibly substantial number of Indigenous women who go missing every year. There is an organization dedicated to this occurrence called Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women (MIWW). It is of overwhelming numbers. Currently, I am watching a television program based on a series of novels by Louise Penny called “Three Pines,” which centers around this topic.

There are some decent gore effects, though it is happily limited, as this is more about the story than a splatterfest. Most of the body effects are SFX, while there is some CGI used sparingly, such as a rainstorm.

I have always known Chomicki as a comedy actor in slapstick films, so it is good to see him get serious. While his acting remains in a certain range, he shows that he can manage the drama as well as the goofiness, when needed. The rest of the cast also does well, including Dave Campfield, who literally phones it in (Zoom on a computer and by cell phones), in a role that’s key to the story, however.

While recognizing this is a life dream for Chomicki as lead actor (rather than co-lead), he has done himself proud. The film is a good B thriller with bit of violence and a social conscious. I like that.

Be sure to stick around after the credits. Perhaps a sequel, with Disney nurse Scott Aguilar? I am hoping.

IMDB listing HERE

Review: The Faith Community

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2017

Images from the Internet

The Faith Community

Directed by Faith R. Johnson     

Vicious Apple Productions

88 minutes, 2017

www.thefaithcommunity-movie.com/

While I’m generally over the whole found footage genre, every once in a while someone uses it effectively, though that’s rare and far between. Guess which side of the coin this one turns up on, thank Jeebus?

Jeffrey Brabant, Janessa Floyd

On the car ride over to Camp Nazareth, we meet a trio of college students. The leader of this particular group is Hannah (Janessa Floyd), who is president of the school’s Christian club. Although opinionated, rather than making her self-righteously obnoxious like, say, Tracy Flick in Election (1999) or obnoxiously overbearing like, well, most of the present US government, she actually seems like a nice person… But not to the level that I’d necessarily want to hang out with her, or agree with her much. This alone tells you that something here is going to be different.

Her two companions are Andrew (Aidan Hart) and Colin (Jeffrey Brabant). The former is obviously interested in experimenting with religion, though not as obsessed as a believer, and the latter seems to be along for the ride; he’s profane and less Biblically knowledgeable than his companions. These two guys do most of the filming.

The point of the road trip is to hook up with a religious community that Hannah found online for a Bible study weekend retreat, but once they get there, duh, it’s a not exactly what they expect. The sheer “rustic-ness” (i.e., camping) of the group is only the beginning.

Jeremy Harris

The leader of this smallish and cultish clan is a 30-year-old man (Jeremy Harris) who calls himself “The Messenger.” As for Harris, despite this being his only listed IMDB credit, gives a chilling performance with a mix of confidence, child-like exuberance, devotion, and… seemingly just a touch of madness.

Do I really need to say that things gets progressively stranger as time goes on, so I don’t need to say “spoiler alert”? If I’ve ruined anything for you in this paragraph, you need to see more fictional films about religious cults. Y’knowhadimsayin’?

Even though this release has some of the things I truly dislike the most about found footage, including running, pointing at the ground, pointing at the sky, and characters talking while the camera is pointed elsewhere, all things considered it’s possibly one of the better ones I’ve seen in a while that I can think of, at least since The Changing of Ben Moore (2015).

In fact, much of the film has a kind of fuzzy look that is often washed out in sunlight, almost like it was filmed through some kind of gauze. This gives it a kind of VHS feel, though I’m not sure that was intended. The poster of the film gives some idea of what I’m trying to explain.

Aiden Hart

There is nothing supernatural in the film, no great goat-headed demon rising out of the ground to rip souls and bodies to shreds, but that’s part of what makes the story so potent and chilling, in that we are dealing with mere humans with expectations of God and the Devil. What I mean by that is, well, I once saw a bumper sticker that read, “Oh, Lord, protect me from your believers.” I think that is a bit too broad and inaccurate. A more suiting message that would be applicable here (and life) is, “Oh, Lord, protect me from your interpreters.” I only needs to watch modern televangelists to get what I mean (i.e., “My God can beat up your God, even if it’s the same God”).

The screenplay and story by director Faith (yeah, I snorted back a bit of a laugh at that piece of irony) Johnson and Robert Trezza is pretty interesting, but it is the acting by the troupe that really brings this to life. I wonder how much of this is written dialog and what percentage is ad-libbed, because there are some long stretched of talking very fast. I am assuming a bit of both, but it’s blended really well. Most off-the-cuff conversations tend to be clumsy, but here it stays where it should, with the storyline.

Most found footage is a lot of cockiness followed by the comeuppance of running around screaming, and while there is a bit of that here, too, the strength of the cast makes it work rather than be an annoyance. The proof is in the long shots of conversations or rantings that hit all the marks, and keep the viewer interested.

I also liked how there were a few set pieces of Colin and Andrew interviewing some of the cult members in extended Q&As or monologs that were as spooky as an action piece, such as with The Messenger, or Michael (Oliver Palmer). But what I also found impressive is that for most of the cast this is, if not their first credit, then one of few, including the director.

Nicely done is that sometimes the camera would be focusing on someone talking as something is happening in the background, and you’re aware that the person shooting it is just as aware as you are. It’s like, “Wait, am I seeing that right?”

Sure, it’s shot amateurishly (on purpose is my guess) with a single camera and no musical soundtrack, but for once it’s more honest that way. I still have an issue with how a camera can keep running for so long without being recharged, as there is obviously no electricity going on at cultville, but in this rare case I’m willing to forgive it for the sake of a rare, decent found footager.