Review: One Night in October

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019

Images from the Internet

One Night in October

Directed by Christopher M. Carter

Carter Ink Films / Laughing Dog Productions / Come About Productions / 
Cyfuno Ventures / Wild Eye Releasing / MVD Entertainment

104 minutes, 2017 / 2019

www.facebook.com/onenightinoctobermovie/

www.wildeyereleasing.com

www.mvdb2b.com

While this film does not take place on Halloween, it is about the Halloween season, so this is the appropriate time for this review. This is also fitting because the consistency within this story is masks, both literal and figurative. But more on that later.

There are actually three stories here, but unlike a compilation, they all take place on the same night in the same town, and there is even a small amount of overlap. This is a clever feature not often employed in anthology films. Also, rather than giving three complete stories one at a time, they are edited together nicely over the night, breaking up the suspense in a way that is effective as it keeps rebuilding. It also successfully works as a jump scare.

Kaitlan Renee and Casehy Norman

In no particular order, the first story I’ll discuss focuses on two couples, including a lesbian one (Casey Norman and Kaitlan Renee; the other pair is attractive Sara Jackson and Andrew Kincaid) that I’m happy to say actually looks like they could be a pair rather than a stereotype or a male fantasy (I’m not one of those guys who gets off on that, if you’re wondering). This foursome is playing around in a cornfield on private property, but of course it’s the wrong one to be muckin’ around in, as the title “The Witch and the Scarecrow” will tell you. They are warned to get off the land by the woman (Erin Colleen Marshall) who runs the place, but with a classic dead car and no phone service trope, you know things are going to go into the red as the scarecrow comes a-callin’. Happily, his first victim is the most annoying character.

Rachel Netherton

In another tale, Emma (Rachel Netherton) is permitted to see the man she loves for five minutes every three months. I kept thinking, “Is he a ghost?” “Is she the ghost?” Well, I’m not going to tell you the reason, of course, but there is a man in a mask on their trail. This is the slowest of the three stories, but when it gets to its “Oh, that’s-what-it’s-about moment, it’s easy to be absorbed into the goings on.

The third story – and my favorite of the three – is about Michelle (Jessica Morgan), a woman on her own who has just moved into the neighborhood and is really into Halloween. She meets some locals who are not what they appear to be presenting (again, figurative masks that turn literal); and there are powers around her trying to take advantage of that, It’s reminiscent of one of the stories from television’s “Trilogy of Terror” (1975), also with three tales.

The film takes a while to rev up, but the slow build benefits the storylines because it gives us a chance to be curious about the characters. The first, with the two couples, starts off running a bit faster than the others with the one with Emma taking the longest.

Jessica Morgan

All three stories were pretty satisfying, which is rare for an anthology. But the one I would like to see in a sequel is easily the one with Michelle, which is also the most action-packed. In all the stories there is lots of blood, but very little gore (though the occasional separated body part), and most of the action occurs onscreen (one of which seeming to be a nice nod to a prominent death in the original Night of the Living Dead, that is also playing on Michelle’s television in some shots… gotta love public domain).

The stories are quite well done, the action is strong, the dialogue definitely has its moments (though here and there a bit too much time is spent on explanations, such as the witch giving the back story of the scarecrow), and the acting is occasionally newbie-style (first IMDB credit for many here), but it all works together when you factor in the indie level. In other words, it works, and I would enjoy watching a sequel, say, A Second Night in October?

As I write this, Halloween is just around the corner. This is good fare to be watching on that night. It’s violent (much of it just off-screen) and bloody, but not very gory. There’s a bit of human and inhuman, demons and a witch, and natural and supernatural.

The DVD has extras, giving up chapters, Wild Eye trailers, English captions, and the coming attraction for this film. My one complaint is that while the titles of the three stories are listed at the end credits, it does not identify which is which (though one is quite obvious).

This is a good mid-range horror film with just enough going on to keep the blood-hound at bay, but mild enough that it may be deem playable for those with limited tolerance for this kind of action. That’s a good thing.

Review: Old Man of the Rooks

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2019

Images from the Internet

Old Man of the Rooks

Directed by:

Chapter 1: Rachel Miller

Chapter 2: Jizabell Anat

Chapter 3: Steven Goransky

Chapter 4: A’Shaela Abdon

Chapter 5: Chris Martino

Chapter 6: Eli Montgomery, Kathy Simmons

Chapter 7: Jakin Shaw, Justin Little

Chapter 8: Julianna Johnson

Chapter 9: Matt Pitchford

Chapter 10: Brandon Woodward

Chapter 11: Eric E. Poe, Stephen Gilliam

Chapter 12: Nikki Wilder

Wages of Cine

99 minutes, 2018

www.facebook.com/WagesOfCine/

Being a collective can be a challenge. When more than one person chooses do to different chapters of the same story, sometimes it works out great, sometimes not so much. For example, Stephen King and Peter Straub switched off on chapters for their 1983 novel, The Talisman; while it was arguably not a critics’ choice, I actually liked it, despite the tones of the writers being so different.

A closer metaphor to this release is telling stories around a campfire, where everybody adds their own part, and the next person has to continue from that point. Sure, there are going to be some gaps in the story and a few inconsistencies, but there is also refreshing new thoughts that take the story in ways you may not have expected.

For this film, it is serialized into 12 chapters, each section written and directed by a total of 15 people. To be honest, watching it on VoD without having a DVD, I don’t know when a chapter begins or ends, but honestly it felt mostly consistent, which is a beautiful thing. [Note that I later realized you can find all 12 chapters on YouTube.]

The center of the story is the titular man in the rook, or in this case, the supernatural killer in the scarecrow outfit. He’s a Scottish guy named Gordon (Joseph Zuchowski), brogue and all, who is killed in a jealous rage. His soul goes into a sack-cloth garbed scarecrow thanks to a bird-like witch named Ravenna (Jizabell Anat), who now controls his spirit. Ravenna looks like she was dressed from a Halloween or party store (not a complaint), with a bird mask, small black wings, and talons. Not for nuthin’, my cat’s name is Ravena, who is dreaming next to me as I write this. Humorously, the witch’s name is pronounced differently by various people (Rah-VEE-nah, RAH-veh-nah, etc. But I digress…

The story is interesting if sometimes hard to follow exactly, full of jealousy, rage, revenge, supernatural noodling, ghosts, and some decent gore. This could definitely be considered a stylized slasher film and there actually is an extremely high body count here, with the first death being my favorite (won’t give it away). There are no redeemable characters really other than Bobby (Eric E. Poe) and his niece, Tori (Caroline Grant), who get caught up in the goings on, sometimes to their extreme detriment.

The acting is sometimes on the level of community theater (again, not a complaint), but the same actors stay through the whole story, even if the motives of their actions change from writer to writer, keeping the viewer in suspense more than confusion. One character may seem good in one chapter and bad in another, and vice-versa. This is part of the fun. For me, the most solid of the batch is Susan Willis, who plays Deb, a housewife who is at the center of a lot of the action and seems to have the most screen time.

What’s also good fun (at least for me) is that the person who is the killer/scarecrow changes quite often as souls are dumped and replaced by other dead people. This is both WTF, and seems to work well with the serialized story.

Sometimes the coming backstabbing and scheming can be seen before the action, but with so many directors and writers, there are also plenty of moments where the viewer is guaranteed to be surprised about some turns of events.

Unlike most of the releases these days, these actors all look like they could be your neighbors, with realistic body types and a wide range of age groups. This made me happy.

 I’m not sure if this type of serialized story is a one-shot idea, or will become part of a trend from Wages of Cine, but it is an interesting concept. This go at it is quite successful, with an enjoyable central plot and peripheral storylines that are all over the map, keeping this viewer unsure and wanting more.

Yes, there are moments where I was a bit baffled, but honestly, that was part of the fun for me. Most of it is cleared up by the end, anyway (the last chapter must have been the hardest to write and direct, bringing together all the thoughts of the others to clean it all up for our passive end of the screen.

Review: The Scar Crow

Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2012

Images from the Internet

                            

The Scar Crow

Written and directed by Andy Thompson and Pete Benson                

Gaia Media / Dead on Arrival Digital / Jingai                 

83 minutes, 2009 / 2012    

Gaiamedia.co.uk

MVDvisual.com

Well this is a just-miss Hammer-esk film that is a bit of a mixture of early-1970s and mid-‘80s clichés. The story of three fetching witches (Prim, Proper, and Vanessa Tanner) enacting a bloody plan to escape a curse by their lecherous (and non-warlock?) dad and move on after 300 years could have been right out of the mind of those who wrote the Karnstein Trilogy (look it up HERE) rather than written by co-directors Andy Thompson and Pete Benson).

Let me start with the good stuff, coz that’s the kinda guy/fan I am. The film looks beautiful, is shot well, and edited strongly (if sometimes confusing of the action, especially in dim-lit scenes). People fading in and out are certainly nice touches and the sense of atmosphere works incredibly well; also soundly done is a scene where the audience can see the post-carnage effects in a room, but some of the characters who are enchanted cannot. The British countryside and the farm have just the right feeling of isolation, creepiness and loneliness to show the emotions of the sisters, without needing dialog to explain, though the words and actions are there.

The shimming light of fire rather than electricity, for example, is used without much loss to the image (i.e., too dark to see), and the color saturation is nicely tuned (fire tends to make things too yellow or red).

As the viewer is taken back and forth between the origin story centuries ago that weaves through modern times, it is never confusing, and they tie together in a solid knot that is the center of the story.

Ah, yes, the story. Actually, it is a really decent tale that is poorly told (as you can see, I’m starting on the problem parts now). While the acting is mostly either over- or underdone, which I will get to shortly, it is the co-screenwriting by the directors where is the most troubling.

But first, let us catch up a bit on the story. You got the three enticing witch sisters who cannot leave the farm until the curse is lifted (they are both bodily solid and spatially fluid, depending on the circumstance, which is actually a nice touch), and then there are the four macho insurance salesmen (is that an oxymoron, or are they just trying to mock a cliché?) copping out on a mean-spirited office team-building weekend (I would quit the job before going through this ridiculous and physically rigorous nonsense; most office workers could not do what is expected in the film, and beside, many insurance sellers these days are women, and there is nary a true representation in the group. But, as usual, I digress…). Running out on the exercises (rightfully), they come across the rural farm with the witches, to become fodder, as expected.

Man, I hated these four guys. They are every macho jock moron bar bully you ever met. We are also never given a chance to really feel pity for them, because, with one exception, there is no background story given about them, and absolutely no character development. All they do is drink (excessively), talk about how they’re going to score with the three women (disproportionately), and goad and fight with each other, calling their supposed good buddies “twats” over and over. The dislike I felt for them, including the supposedly sympathetic one who is more than willing to cheat on his girlfriend, was palpable. There were a couple of times there where I just said to the screen, “Oh, c’mon, kill the asshole already.”

There is also no shock value in here. When one of the four twats (as I now will call them) stops for a potty break in a field, there’s no doubt as to what is going to happen. Even the ending is no surprise, if you’ve seen any horror film in the last 30 years.

 But the biggest annoyance for me was the questions that went through my mind about the plot holes. For example (and I’ll only give two here), if the witches are planning to use these twats for their great escape, why would they let them go to the town pub and mix with the locals, including the cliché wise-but-not-taken-seriously-by-anyone older guy (bar owner, here) who warns them to leave? And why, when they are seducing one of the twats, who is tied to the bedposts, would two of the sisters undress over him and start kissing each other?  I mean, gratuitous lesbian incest, really?

As for the cast, well, most of the acting, as I said, was either too subdued or too scenery chewing. For example, the witches are supposed to be 300 years old and isolated (are you trying to tell me that no one else has been on that farm in all that time for them to do what they need to escape?; obviously, there are more than two questions…), but they sure do seem to know a lot about Twenty-first Century mores for women from the Eighteenth Century, including stripping at the drop of a corset. When they speak, they sound stilted in their language, like a high schooler trying to do Shakespeare, rather than have it flow naturally. This is especially true, sadly, for the most film-credited actor in the cast, redheaded Marysia Kay (as the eldest, Vanessa). Her line reading is atrocious here (I haven’t seen her in anything else, so I don’t know if it’s endemic for her, or she just didn’t care about this mess). The other two sisters, busty and beautiful Gabrielle Douglas (middle child Proper) and the cute and more reticent Anna Tolputt (youngest Prim, short for Primrose), fare a bit better, but are caught in a maelstrom of clunky writing.

As for the twats, well, mostly they seem interchangeable. Their characters were so vacant and transparent, and their portrayers so bland, that half the time I couldn’t remember who was whom. In fact, I’m not even going to bother with them, other than the supposedly sympathetic anti-hero (?) Dez, played by Kevyn (really?) Connett (who looks remarkably like Canadian comedian Shaun Majumder). While his acting probably comes the closest to being best among the troupe (possibly why he is the lead male role), he is also hampered by a ham-fisted script.

Now the all important gore-factor: I read a review that claimed it was not up to par, but actually, I thought the blood-to-kill quotient was quite good, and with one exception of a very obvious prosthetic in a corn field, was pleased with the various body parts strewn about in various scenes. It is amusing to me that a similar gag employed here – a hand reaching through a body to lift out a heart – was also used almost identically in a more recent film, Zombie A-Hole, reviewed recently on this blog by moi. Oh, sidebar here: I actually was annoyed that the character who had his heart removed above, along with other internal organs, was still alive to view all this happening way beyond the point of even suspension of disbelief. Again, poor writing/direction.

                                          

I realize this is a first film by Benson and Thompson, so I’m going to cut them some slack. After all, as much as I loved them, the similar could be said about some of the early works of masters like Chronenberg, Waters, Hooper, and yes, even Romero. I’ll keep my fingers crossed, even though they’ve only worked on one film since this was filmed in 2009. Perhaps we can get them to direct something they have not written, or have edited by someone else, where their strengths will all come together, because if they can match their content with their visuals, they may become a force worth noting.

                                                                      

Bonus clip: