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Posted on April 8, 2016

Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation

Dawn Keetley

I saw Karyn Kusama’s latest film, The Invitation, last November at the Ithaca International Fantastic Film Festival, and it was easily the best film I saw there (and there were some good films!) It’s also head-and-shoulders above Kusama’s earlier foray into horror, Jennifer’s Body (2009).

Michael Gingold of Fangoria introduced The Invitation, saying he thought it was one of the best horror films of the last couple of years. I agree (though I still think the standout horror film of 2014 is David Robert Mitchell’s It Follows).

You can find the trailer here. It conveys the thoroughly unnerving nature of the film:

Gingold also said that the less you know about The Invitation going into it, the better—and I wholeheartedly agree with that too. I (purposefully) hadn’t read any reviews of the film ahead of time, and so I got to experience the disconcerting and disorienting events just as the protagonist does. It’s very difficult to write anything about the film without giving too much away and thus spoiling it, so I guess the two principal things I want to convey here are: (a) see the film; and (b) don’t read any reviews of it before you do—except this one, of course: I promise I won’t slip in any spoilers. Read more

Posted on April 6, 2016

Review: Paralysis (2015)

Dawn Keetley

Paralysis is the new short film written/directed by R. Shanea Williams and produced by Anthony J. Davis.

Williams’s last film, Contamination, which I discuss here, is available on Vimeo, along with the trailer for Paralysis:

Paralysis continues the thematic preoccupation of Williams’s earlier film in that it focuses on a woman with a psychological disorder, in this case sleep paralysis (as opposed to the OCD experienced by the protagonist of Contamination).

Posted on April 1, 2016

We Are Still Here (2015) Review

Gwen

2015 | Not Rated | USA | Ted Geoghegan | 84 min

Grade: C

Synopsis: After losing their son, Anne (Barbara Crampton) and Paul (Andrew Sensenig) Sacchetti move to rural New York to cope with their recent tragedy. Upon moving into the 120 year old home, the Sacchettis come to realize that it also endured a few traumas of its own. Anne mistakenly assumes that her son Bobby is reaching out to her from the grave, so she invites family friends and spiritual gurus May (Lisa Marie) and Jacob (Larry Fessenden) Lewis to solicit some answers. What they find is an evil deeply entrenched in the town itself that lurches forth every 30 years…and you guessed it, the Sacchettis moved in right at the 30 year benchmark.

Review: We Are Still Here is just…kinda…there.

Nuts and Bolts: We Are Still Here is a good movie. There are no dreadful flaws, nor any amazing crescendos. I typically stay away from reading reviews when I pick which movies to watch; however, as I anxiously wait for my copy of Haunted Honeymoon (1986) to arrive, I got caught up in the internet and saw some amazing reviews of We Are Still Here that piqued my interest. Unfortunately the reviews pumped the movie up so much that it didn’t take much to set me up for a letdown. So I will let you make up your own mind but I will at least tell you what works and what doesn’t work.

Posted on March 11, 2016

Commune: Join Us!

Dawn Keetley

Summary: Commune works as a short film because it is both complete in itself and exceptionally evocative. The richness of the film—all the things that lurk beyond the boundaries of the literal story—offer, I think, incredible potential for a feature-length follow-up.

The short horror film, Commune, is the brain-child of Thomas Perrett, who conceived the idea for the film, wrote the script, and directed.

Perrett studied Television and Video Production at Bournemouth University and, since graduating in 2001, has been working as a freelance TV and film editor in London. Commune represents the promise he made to himself to get back into filmmaking, and he was clearly inspired as much by place as by anything else—although he does credit some of his favorite childhood horror films, Poltergeist, Evil Dead, and The Shining, as influencing his vision.

Commune really began, though, when Perrett was invited to a Halloween party at a derelict Jewish commune in North London, a house built on Lordship Park in the 1930s. Decaying and abandoned, the house seemed the perfect location for a film—and Perrett had incentive to work fast since the property was slated for redevelopment.

Posted on March 4, 2016

Must-Watch Movie: Honeymoon (2014)

Dawn Keetley

There seems to be an emergent mini sub-genre of films about couples who head into the woods for some quality time—about to get married or just married—and then very bad things happen. I’m thinking in particular of Eden Lake (2008), Willow Creek (2013), and Backcountry (2014)—all great films, and two of which I’ve written about here. I just discovered another addition to the canon, Leigh Janiak’s Honeymoon (2014), that’s streaming on Netflix and I definitely recommend you watch it. It’s worth pointing out (since women directors of horror are still relatively rare) that Janiak is a woman. She also wrote the screenplay, along with Phil Graziadei.

The recently and (for now) happily-married couple of Honeymoon, Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway), are heading on a delayed honeymoon to a cottage in the woods where Bea grew up. Things go swimmingly until Paul wakes up one night to find that Bea is gone. He eventually finds her (in a highly creepy moment) standing in the woods, in a state of dazed virtual unconsciousness (think Micah and Katie in Paranormal Activity, although worse since Bea and Paul are deep in the woods, not on a suburban patio). The couple writes the strange event off to sleepwalking—albeit with a hefty dose of anxious self-deception, since Bea has never walked in her sleep before.