Parasites
Parasites is about a group of 3 friends who
take a wrong turn in a seedy section of Los Angeles and encounter an
angry and violent gang of homeless vagrants. It becomes a bloody and
gritty fight for survival as one of the friends escapes and attempts
to outrun the roving gang and their leader.
Parasites starts out strong and strikes a
familiar chord as it feels like a cross between Wrong Turn and Escape
From New York, minus the hillbillies and futuristic world and
swapping the backwoods for the concrete jungle. The filmmakers did an
excellent job of making the worst parts of a modern city look like a
lawless nightmare and backing it with a Carpenter-esque score that
gave it an extra flare of credibility with this horror fan.
The violent, rag tag group of filthy street
dwellers with chains and shovels and rusty knives for weapons are
dressed in shoddy clothing and have a group-think mentality like a
group of blood thirsty zombies. They have their lifestyle and their
inner group rankings and seek out the escaped trespasser with a
crazed dedication. It's a well realized vision for the group that
injects extra grit and fear into the story.
Robert Miano as Wilco, the leader of the
gang, plays his role with the perfect mix of subtle craziness and
unhinged anger. The character could have easily been cartoonish and
laughable but Miano owns the role with an assured mad glint in his
eye and complete believibility.
Sean Samuels is also very strong in his role
as Marshall Colter, the lone friend on the run from the homeless
gang. Some interesting and unique characters pop up throughout the
film, most notably is Silvia Spross as Mona, a prostitute living on
the streets.
The film is visually impressive and we'll
acted with an intriguing yet simple set up. The biggest issue with
Parasites is that it didn't have enough going on to make it exciting
or to hold my attention thoroughly throughout the film. There's a lot
of running and chasing and wandering as music plays that serves as
the bulk of the action, but it's just not very compelling. It feels
like a short film puffed up and filled out to feature length. And I'm
not saying Parasites is a bad film, there just isn't a lot of meat on
the bone here.
And I just have to say, screenwriters have
got to come up with something better than, "I have no signal"
when addressing why a character can't just call for help with their
cell phone. In the middle of the mountains or woods? Ok, I'll buy
that. But when you're a few miles away from downtown Los Angeles it
just doesn't fly.
Parasites is gritty and dirty and mean. It
created a nightmare landscape that is hidden in the darkest parts of
our big cities and the film shows a lot of promise for writer and
director Chad Ferrin. I just wish it had more to it to justify its
run time because although Parasites had some killer, it was mostly
filler.
The Blackburn Asylum
The Blackburn Asylum (simply titled
Blackburn in Canada) is about a group of five college friends who get
caught between a rock and a hard place while on a camping trip when a
rock slide and a fire close the road at separate places with the
group caught in between.
The opening scene of The Blackburn Asylum
immediately raises some red flags when a family enters an old,
abandoned mine with a new born baby. Why did they enter the mine? To
see where the father would be working and he was going to get some
work done while they were there. Why anyone would bring a baby into
such a dusty and dangerous environment was beyond my comprehension
and had me almost turning off the film. It's a blatant plot device
that obviously serves a purpose later in the film, but it's a tough
pill to swallow.
As
far as the cast goes, Emilie Ullerup is perfect as the self centered
Chelsea and I was pleasantly surprised to find the banter among the
friends in the beginning to be pretty realistic and natural sounding.
And I'll always appreciate a good Single White Female reference. It's
downhill from there as far as the characters are concerned.
"We're not hunters, we're college
students." This pretty much sums up the bratty, privileged group
in a nutshell as this line is delivered in a better than thou tone.
It's almost embarrassing to watch them wander around the backwoods
and abandoned mine engaging in soap opera like antics and constantly
whining about their phones dying. These are not the happy go lucky
super horny teens from the tried and true slasher formula a la Friday
the 13th. No, this bunch is a group of spoiled know nothings who
think they know everything because they're "college students".
So seeing them suffer and die was actually a relief, and if that was
the intention then mission accomplished. But damn was it difficult to
sit through and watch these unlikable American Eagle draped brats.
Having absolutely no one to root for certainly left The Blackburn
Asylum void of any tension whatsoever.
Also,
as a rule of thumb, if anyone in a group ever says, "we should
split up," while in an abandoned mine, they should probably be
forced to go out on their own while the rest of the group stays
together.
The
film does have it's redeeming qualities. For example, the set design
is pretty damn good and expertly sets a dirty and dread filled tone
with foggy landscapes, shadow filled mines, and cluttered, run down
gas stations off a dark and desolate road. The crazed killers lurking
in the shadows of the mine are effectively creepy, and when it's
called for the filmmakers do not shy away from the red stuff.
Some of the circumstances that arise as the
story unfolds are a bit hard to buy into, but The Blackburn Asylum
definitely improves as it progresses. The last third of the film is
nothing short of a living nightmare with some horrific happenings and
much needed raised stakes for one of the characters. It's just a
shame the first hour of the film is so forgettable.
The
Blackburn Asylum is an overall bland but harmless film that is
slightly redeemed by a fun, haunted house/hayride like atmosphere and
some decent acting from Sarah Lind. If you like dirty inbred killers
wreaking havoc on pretty people than The Blackburn Asylum is worth a
watch. Just don't have hopes for anything more than a mediocre film
at best.
Beyond the Gates
When two brothers reunite to clean out their
father's video store several months after he goes missing, they
discover a VCR board game called 'Beyond the Gates'. When the
brothers decide to play it they discover a sinister host who may hold
the key to their father's disappearance with potentially deadly
consequences.
Beyond the Gates starts with a wonderful and
loving opening sequence that shows the inner workings of VHS player
technology while a time appropriate synth pop score plays over the
credits. This detailed opening sets the tone for what's to come: a
nostalgic tribute to a bygone era that plays as smooth as a brand new
VHS tape. After the tracking adjusts, of course.
When John, (one of the brothers played by
Chase Williamson), says of the video store in the beginning, “I
don't remember this place feeling so big,” I found the line to be
absolutely wonderful. People usually say the opposite as they grow
older, that places from their childhood seem smaller. The line made
me reflect on the magic that was the Video Store and how it felt
being surrounded by seemingly endless movie titles. Standing among
all those shelves and rows of video tapes must feel pretty daunting
as compared to the digital browsing of titles we do today on our
Smart TVs.
Graham Skipper and Chase Williamson as the
two brothers are fantastic in this. The characters they play are very
opposite of each other but there is enough in the writing and
portrayals to see that they also have a lot in common. Skipper and
Williamson have a great chemistry together and it was easy for me to
believe that they had a history as brothers and had that family bond
between them.
Barbara Crampton is simply stunning as the
sinister host of the board game. I loved the scenes where she was
waiting for the players of the game to follow her instructions; it's
an eerie feeling of her watching them as opposed to the other way
around and an early sign that something isn't quite right with this
board game, Beyond the Gates. Crampton's unblinking gaze and
measured, chilly vocals create a phenomenal character and she hands
down steals the show. Her performance and ability coupled with
Stephen Scarlata and director Jackson Stewart's script is yet more
proof that the horror genre provides women with strong roles and
interesting characters. I also need to mention that Brea Grant and
Jesse Merlin also give great performances.
A surprising theme I noticed was the lost
feeling that runs throughout Beyond the Gates, a sense of time
passed. The lost era of VHS stores, the seemingly lost feeling in the
lives of the brothers, the vanishing of the father, a case of
sleepwalking, vintage/antique shops, and the snowy static of a TV
screen with no analog signal. Even the deep and dark and steely eyes
of Barbara Crampton made me feel lost as the viewer and brought me
into the world of the film.
This sense of loss holds the entire film
together and is a brilliant technique that raises the stakes and puts
constant awareness and intrigue on the VCR game that shares the title
of the film. As the characters play the game and the story unfolds,
a parallel narrative is told and it is the idea that all is not lost
and that you just have to listen to the clues and know where to look.
With a brilliant script and spot on direction, Beyond the Gates is
damn near perfect.
Roll the dice and play Beyond the Gates,
it's a fun thriller filled with horror and adventure and it's one of
my favorite films of the year.
