Maggie

Maggie
 

Maggie is the directorial debut from Henry Hobson and is a refreshing take on the very saturated zombie drama. It tells the story of Maggie (Abigail Breslin) who becomes infected with a disease that turns people into flesh craving zombies. The onset of the disease and the transformation from human to zombie is not instant or quick as in other films, it takes 6-8 weeks to turn. While the disease slowly sets in and takes over, Maggie's father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) stays by her side as long as possible.

If there is one word I had to choose to sum up this movie, it's beautiful. And everything comes out of this beauty that the film so eloquently exudes: the performances, the characters, the setting, the emotion. If Terrance Malick were ever to direct a zombie film, the result would be Maggie. I absolutely loved every minute of this movie.

Hobson's directorial debut is very strong and extraordinarily well realized. The atmosphere and world is dark, dreary, beautiful, and real. The way the zombie sickness is handled and portrayed really turns this into a story about the loss of a life as opposed to the undead. These characters are our neighbors, our friends, and our children and their turning isn't played for horror or gore, it's drawn out and sad and emotionally exhausting. To add a sense of urgency and emotional punch, there is a constant underlying pulse to this movie; throbbing low, gritty beats and sorrowful music. Hobson had a clear vision for this film and it shows. The viewer is also left with the impression that the only way this film works effectively is with strong and believable performances from the cast, particularly Maggie and her father Wade and their relationship.

In great contrast to his Hollywood image, Arnold Schwarzenegger is searching to be a hero here. He knows he can't save his daughter from the inevitable but he also gives the subtle impression that his little girl will always be his little girl and perhaps it will be ok. He's very still, very quiet, and let's his weathered statuesque features display the coldness and stillness he feels inside while showing great emotional depth with his eyes. It's a very touching and loving and grounded performance from the former action star that left me feeling that Arnold still has something left to show us as an actor. It is, in my opinion, one of the best performances of the year so far and of his career.

I give credit to Abigail Breslin for getting such a great performance out of Schwarzenegger. She gives such a heartbreaking and remarkable performance as Maggie that all Arnold had to do was absorb and play off of her emotion. Yes, she is THAT good. Breslin is so natural here that this almost feels like a documentary of her instead of a character in a film. There is one bloody scene where she first displays the growing effects of her zombie sickness and I couldn't take my eyes off her. Her tears were real, her fear was real, and her mad, confused hysteria was heartfelt and riveting.

Maggie is a powerful and fantastic story that every horror fan, every zombie fan, and every fan of film should see. Abigail Breslin gives a performance that has me checking her future projects and Henry Hobson delivers a movie that has me anxiously waiting to see what he does next.

Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial is a film from The Vicious Brothers (Grave Encounters) and the story puts a nice little twist on an age old horror plot line: college kids going to party at a cabin in the woods. But instead of zombies or evil spirits coming to crash the party, this group of coeds gets a visit from aliens. And with that fun sounding set up, let the party begin.

April (Brittany Allen), accompanied by her boyfriend Kyle (Freddie Stroma), is sent by her mother to take pictures of the family cabin to get ready to sell it. This automatically makes the characters a tad more relateable as they are being sent to the cabin for a reason and not just to party. April seems genuinely sad that they are selling the cabin, as that and her parents divorce symbolizes the loss of her childhood and innocence. But Kyle invites some friends and the partying begins as soon as they arrive.

There is a nice human element in the movie as April and Kyle are in danger of reaching the end of their relationship, and right in the middle of an argument we see a UFO fly over the cabin and crash not far away. It's a fantastic touch that ups the stakes and makes these characters that much more human, and that the UFO interrupted and crashed right in the middle of a dramatic scene was jarring and unexpected and very well done.

From here the movie only speeds up and we get plenty of action and scares as the group fights/runs from the aliens. The ensemble cast as a whole is pretty decent all around, there are no bad performances that distract from the other actors at all. The standout is definitely Brittany Allen, who does an excellent job here and conveys a lot of raw emotion. Her performance reminded me greatly of another breakout performance from last year, Alex Essoe in Starry Eyes. We also get a nice little turn from Michael Ironside as a pot growing Vietnam vet who may not be as crazy as he first comes across.

The movie does offer a number of old cabin-in-the-woods/horror standbys such as finding a bunch of home grown marijuana, a fallen tree blocking “the only road back to town,” and lots and lots of rain. But these tired horror tropes almost feel like old friends at this point and given the alien twist in this story it was almost comforting to see them still show up as obstacles regardless of what/who it is that is terrorizing our main characters. There is a very well done moment where they acknowledge the rainfall when it stops when Kyle notices and says, “at least it stopped raining.” The reason for the rain stopping and the way the sequence was filmed is great stuff.

Extraterrestrial is a dark movie washed in alarming reds and blues and greens. The aliens are tall and lanky and nightmarish and when a character is taken aboard their ship it is a gruesome and terrifying scene. The soundtrack is full of loud and clunky, electronic mechanical sounds, deep blaring horns and loud drums for a heroic and constant danger feel at the same time. It's a big and dramatic feeling movie with great effects that reminded me of the films of the 1980's, a sort of Close Encounters/Evil Dead/Fire In the Sky mash-up and I thoroughly enjoyed it. As of this writing it is currently streaming on Netflix and you should definitely check it out.

SICK: Survive the Night

SICK: Survive the Night

  

The SICK are the result of an epidemic outbreak that turns people into bloodthirsty zombies that roam and have taken over the land. While scientists try to understand the epidemic and how to control it, teams of survivors travel in groups fighting to survive. When Dr. Leigh Rozetta (Christina Aceto) leaves the safety of her underground government facility to return to the house that she grew up in, she finds herself trapped there for the night with two survivors fighting for their lives.

This is the set up for SICK: Survive the Night, a slice of life zombie flick from director Ryan M. Andrews. The SICK are very effective here. They wander and drag themselves around until they see a live human, then they become full of rage and run towards their prey and completely maul them as they eat them alive. It's a nice little twist to see this mad spark in the zombies. They don't slowly eat people as they slowly fall apart and decompose, they ravage them with their eyes looking like demon snakes. These aren't your father's zombies.

The look of the film is interesting. The outside world during the day has a pale faded yellow and cold look to it, while the interiors of the windowless government facility is washed out in over white fluorescent lighting. It gives an already-dead feeling to the living, who's survival and existence have become fighting off and understanding the dead. The night scenes are very sharp and almost appear more colorful than the washed out daytime. This suggests a clearer focus to the lives of the living as the SICK are more active at night and the survivors must be on the top of their game.

The acting in the film is pretty good on the whole. Some of the military speak and mannerisms come across as a bit unconvincing but overall everyone puts in a solid effort. Richard Sutton and Robert Nolan as the survivors Seph and McKay do some nice work and have the appropriate chemistry of people who have been around each other for a long time but don't necessarily like each other. A standout in the film is Jennifer Polansky. She has the tough, bad girl appearance of Gina Gershon and the attitude to back it up. Her delivery is confident and daring and she plays the ready-for-anything character of Claudia nicely. She by far has the most interesting character in the film and I enjoyed every second she was on screen. I only wish she played a bigger part. We are also treated to a wonderfully mad little performance from Debbie Rochon in a small role as a doctor sending out a video feed of herself as she tries to understand the disease and communicate it to others.

Director Ryan Andrews knew to create sympathetic characters to enhance the bleakness of this world populated by the SICK and there are some nice little back stories here and moments to go with them. One moment has Dr. Rozetta in her old room as the camera pans some of her old belongings. She then pulls out a blue dress to wear that contrasts greatly with the current situation and seems wholly inappropriate. It's a small touching scene that reminds us that we are all human with pasts and memories regardless of how un-human we seem in dire circumstances.

SICK is a bleak and grim film, it doesn't reinvent the zombie wheel but it doesn't try to. The movie is smartly done and showcases some very engaging zombies while allowing for plenty of human drama to play out as the characters are stuck inside the house together amidst the chaos and unknown of the SICK outside. It's a solid film, and I recommend it.

Crawl Or Die

Crawl Or Die

Crawl or Die opens amidst chaos on a group fighting and on the run from an evil force and wastes no time letting you know what you're in for: a dark and dizzying and hectic ride. And what a ride it is. It's endlessly claustrophobic, very dark and borderline hopeless, full of heart, and enormously entertaining.

The plot is simple: a special forces unit is to capture the last fertile woman alive on planet Earth who hasn't been infected by a deadly virus. They are to then transport her to Earth 2 where civilization will start over. But really it's not that simple. The team is trapped in an endless maze of underground tunnels and are being chased and hunted by a deadly alien creature.

The movie creates suspense and tension in several effective ways. The tunnels and spaces are so claustrophobic that it feels like the characters are crawling through their own coffins from an enemy that could lay just beyond the edge of the darkness. Every shadow caused by their flashlights could be the movement of the creature on the attack. And when the creature does attack, the viewer is treated to a lack of music as the whirring screech of the monster takes over and the sounds of struggle and death and feeding are enhanced. These are startling moments that I thoroughly enjoyed. The movie itself uses sound very smartly. There are constant creaks and tappings and wind and growlings, some close by, some in the distance and all the noises seem to add to a constant hum the movie has. It's a hum that reminds the viewer that something is out there and nowhere is safe.

The acting is solid all around but rests primarily on the shoulders of Nicole Alonso. She will face inevitable comparisons to Ripley from Alien, and that is a compliment in itself. But Alonso isn't merely an actress here, she isn't only a character, she is a full on force that has taken on a life of it's own. It's an exhausting, gritty, and determined performance that by the end left me breathless.

Crawl or Die is supposed to expand into a trilogy and if that's the case then sign me up for parts two and three. It would be a pure pleasure to see Nicole Alonso further develop in a Crawl or Die trilogy and to see what else writer/director/editor Oklahoma Ward can do in this world he so brilliantly created.

Crawl or Die is a little movie with big ambitions. It uses small spaces to create big suspense and discomfort. It uses little dialogue to create a powerful feel of urgency and isolationism and little lighting to create an atmosphere of fear of what lies in the dark. It also shows how far we'll go to survive and how hard people will fight for their lives. Crawl Or Die is independent film at it's best and I can't recommend it high enough. Don't crawl, run to this one.

Killer Mermaid

Killer Mermaid

Killer Mermaid opens with a quote from Moby Dick warning of the dangers and mysteries of the sea and then we see a couple having fun on vacation in a home movie style presentation with tropical tinged dance music playing over the scenes. We now see the couple having a playful and flirty conversation by the sea. A strange fisherman shows up and the scene ends with the girl killed with a hook through her neck. It's a cool kill and a cool opening sequence that sets a fun, danger-is-lurking-in-the-shadows tone. It's too bad the movie goes slightly downhill from there, although it is not a total loss.

Now that a back story has been established and the killing introduced, we cut to the story and see two girls, Kelly (Kristina Klebe), and Lucy (Natalie Burn), arriving on vacation. The two leads have a good chemistry and hold the first half of the movie together. Within the first 10 minutes it is obvious that the movie takes itself seriously and is not a comedy horror or goofy or campy in any way. I appreciated that about Killer Mermaid: it wants to be a true tale of horror and presents it's characters as real people living in the real world.. The acting is solid, especially Kristina Klebe who seems to have a natural depth to her, she is a very talented actress

A problem the film suffers from is there are continuous shots that unnecessarily pan slowly over the female bodies and this seems distracting from the serious tone the movie is striving for. It plays as an adult horror movie but relies on juvenile gimmicks like this and it seems to conflict with itself. Another juvenile gimmick is an awkward dance segment in the living room of a house after the girls meet up with a couple other friends. It would have played better in a club setting but instead it seemed tacked on to include the obligatory “we're on vacation and having fun” dance segment.

The four friends then travel by boat to check out an abandoned military base on a small island. Here we see the same strange fisherman from the beginning that killed the girl with the hook. When he is seen dumping “food” down a well on the abandoned military base, the group knows something is wrong. The fisherman begins to chase the group and at this point the movie has a real slasher feel to it. As they run underneath the military base from the killer through mazes of dark tunnels, a nice claustrophobic atmosphere is created and it's the strongest sequence in the film.

Unfortunately the movie really holds back on the gore here. After the great first kill in the beginning, there is no thought to the kills that follow and they seemed watered down. There are loud ominous horns playing during the kills but the images on the screen can't match the music to back it up.

We finally see the killer mermaid with 28 minutes left, a major fault of the film. It is not built up enough to pull off this long wait.

Overall I did not love Killer Mermaid, but I didn't hate it either. I admired the film for sticking to it's serious tone and trying to create an original horror idea. However, it couldn't help but slip into some obligatory horror tropes that left me feeling like the film and story didn't have confidence in itself. As of right now it's on Netflix streaming and is worth checking out if you're home one night with not much to do. A major plus in the movie is Kristina Klebe, I look forward to seeing her in other things.

The Canal

The Canal

Every now and then after sitting through disappointments, mediocre, or just plain awful movies, you come across a brilliant horror movie that reminds you why you love the genre so much. That is the case with The Canal, a movie from Ireland that, as of this writing, is available to stream on Netflix. Don't be fooled by the generic, cheap looking cover, The Canal is a great film of high quality.
The story revolves around David (Rupert Evans) who, after the death of his wife Alice (Hannah Hoekstra), believes that an evil spirit killed her and is now following him in his everyday life. David fears for the safety of himself and his young son and slowly descends into a quiet madness and deep paranoia. The acting here is fantastic and it's easy to portray paranoia in an over the top way but Rupert Evans portrays the character's anxiety and suspicion so naturally and subtly that he gets the viewer's sympathy right away. Some scenes after the death of his wife are heartbreakingly played and he does an all around excellent job. David's colleague and partner Claire (Antonia Campbell-Hughes) is there to support David and try to be there for him and get him through this difficult time. When hearing David talk about an evil spirit haunting him, Campbell-Hughes is very sincere and caring in her portrayal of Claire and makes the best of her somewhat limited role. We also get great performances from Steve Oram as a cranky cop on the case of Alice's death and Kelly Byrne as the nanny who looks after David's son.
The film has a very stylish feel, we get some repeated quick cut sequences that set a repetitious tone and some great shots throughout the whole film. Writer/director Ivan Kavanagh did not waste a single scene in the movie, it is packed with great music that experiments with sound in a way that reminded me of Berbarian Sound Studio, an ever growing creepy atmosphere that built the tension with more and more eerie happenings, and a compelling character study of a man losing touch with reality. It is a psychological thriller of the highest order that creates an eerie and uneasy atmosphere reminiscent of a Poe or Lovecraft story. The camera catches subtle shadows or movements, scenes open on things or people that shouldn't be there to startling effect, and throughout the entire film the viewer is wondering what is around the next corner. It's a tense and expertly made movie.
Overall The Canal may borrow from The Ring and The Amityville Horror but it never copies them. It creates it's own story and it's own unsettling world that is strengthened by strong performances and excellent story telling. The creepiness and eerie ghost story of the film is powerful and the bigger scares are frightening. The pace feels fast but the story unfolds slowly, like the descent into madness itself. Do not pass this one up, it's one of the best true horror films I've seen in the past few years.    

Vendetta

Vendetta
 

Vendetta is the second film the Twisted Twins Jen and Sylvia Soska have directed for WWE Studios after last year's See No Evil 2. It's about a cop, Mason Danvers (Dean Cain) who puts away a major criminal, Victor Abbot (The Big Show) who walks due to a disappeared witness. When the criminal kills the cop's wife, the cop murders the criminal's brother to get sent to jail as well so he can get revenge. It's a straight up action revenge story.

Dean Cain may have been good 'ol boy enough to play Clark Kent and all American enough to play Superman but that Dean Cain is not to be found in Vendetta. Cain is a relentless and determined force in this movie and he completely kicks ass. It was awesome to see this, he truly is an underrated actor. What's even better is that Cain still has that charm to make you care about him and immediately root for him.

WWE superstar The Big Show also does a great job as the villain of the movie. He just oozes evil and you want him to get what's coming to him. Him and Cain have a great chemistry in the movie and this is very important to the success of the film. It's one against the other in a good old fashioned revenge story and the viewer must believe the toxic relationship between the two and the actors deliver on this.

Vendetta is a very slick looking film and it moves at a brisk pace. The characters are introduced, the story kicks off, and the hell in a cell begins. The music in the movie has a simmering, tribal and industrial feel to it that adds to the building tension of the situation. The Soska Sisters also don't disappoint with the blood. Every gunshot and every knife attack and fistfight is met with nice spurts of blood and oozing cuts. There's a great scene where Mason kills a fellow inmate with brass knuckles. He holds a pillow over the inmates face and as he pounds it over and over again, the white pillow quickly turns red.

There are plenty of fight scenes in the movie and bravo to the Soska Sisters for effectively filming them. There are no blurred shaky-cam sequences with several nonsensical cuts that hide a lot of the action. Instead we get coherent and well choreographed fights that are a blast to watch. A highlight is when Mason Danvers fights a group of inmates in a laundry facility and uses a towel as a weapon. It's Dean Cain doing his best Jackie Chan and it's freaking awesome to watch.

Mason's cop instincts also play a part in the prison as he uncovers that things may not be as they seem with the warden and his relationship with Victor Abbot.

Vendetta is a wild ride, an action packed revenge story in a prison full of hardened criminals and corrupt officials. It's gritty yet slick and simple yet engaging. And it's entertaining as hell.