Last night the two of us ventured out to Revere again to see...
The Brøken
So far, this is the movie that is getting the highest rating from IMDB. It's also causing a bit of buzz in the horror community. And I can see why: Sean Ellis is a meticulous director with an eye for subtle suspense thriller that I immediately pinned "Hitchcockian." His composition is elaborate, his gaze steady and slow, and his ability to create a creepy atmosphere is successful.
Couple that with the absolutely stunning Lena Headey (
Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles), the seasoned Richard Jenkins and a talented cast of lesser-knowns, you have solid, believable acting set within a well-directed atmospheric piece.
So why did I hate it?
To tell you the truth, I found it utterly boring. At first I thought that it was just
me: Maybe I just wasn't in the mood. Maybe my attention span is shot. Maybe I just don't know how to
appreciate intellectual cinema...
Nah - That can't be it.
While Ellis is clearly a meticulous director (Hitchcock, Miike, and even Lynch come to mind in terms of purposefully long drawn out single shots), there's a point where enough is simply
enough. What started out as intriguing well-composed horror film soon turned into a self conscious pretentious attempt at an intellectual thriller. The "horror" of
The Brøken revolves around the derivative and cliched doppelganger syndrome - broken mirrors result in our doubles
literally hunting us down.
Invasion of the Body Snatchers meets
Mirrors in a predictable portrayal of a horror vehicle that, quite frankly, has been
done. If you're going to be a derivation, at least add a new spin on it.
The Brøken, unfortunately, does no such thing. I was disappointed.
2.5/5
...
Du saram-yida (Voices)
It was refreshing that ADH once again decided to bring a foreign film into the mix (ADH I, after all was the vehicle for 2005's gem
Rinne).
Voices is directed by amateur Korean director Ki-hwan Oh. The story centers around a high school girl whose life takes a turn for the worse when her Aunt is almost murdered on her wedding day and then all of a sudden her friends, family, and confidants seem to want her dead.
Not your typical Asian ghost movie,
Voices examines the human monster in all of us: jealousy. How often do you say to yourself, "I could KILL them!" either in rage or in irony - There's a point where the phrase "I'll KILL you/him/her" has become an expression of speech and, incidentally, has lost all meaning.
Voices considers the concept: What if that urge became
real? What if you couldn't control that urge? What if
those around you couldn't control that urge? A base, everyday emotion (usually ignored and taken for granted) suddenly becomes a legitimate threat. I thought that concept in and of itself was brilliant.
There are also some well-done supernatural aspects to the film. Ki-hwan Oh creates some truly haunting imagery and suspense that literally caused me to jump in my seat. I felt true horror and threat for the plight of our heroine; what would you do if your friends and family suddenly tried to kill you?
Perhaps what is most striking about
Voices is Ki-hwan Oh's ability to truly put the audience in the shoes of our heroine; when she's in love at the beginning of the movie, you're surrounded by cheesy stereotypical Asian flourishes while, when she's haunted in the end you are caught up in a truly suspenseful and atmospheric film.
An innovative addition to Asian horror,
Voices has been a true highlight of the festival. I highly recommend.
4.5/5
...
Perkins' 14
If you're the winner of Massify's
Ghost in the Machine After Dark Horrorfest contest you would think that the
least thing Massify could do is give you
lighting.
I'm not joking; low budget is low budget, but putting out a movie that doesn't have a SINGLE well-lit scene is absolutely
inexcusable. It's a shame that the winners of the Ghost in the Machine contest had but a short victory before becoming the laughing stock of Horrorfest III (literally: quite a few people were chortling in the film last night).
What I CAN give them credit for is actually a pretty fantastically pulpy concept: Pharmacist Ronald Perkins is arrested and kept in jail when it's revealed that, over the course of 10 years he has been abducting the town folk's children (
14 of them to be exact) to keep them in his basement, perform experiments on, AND THEN UNLEASH THEM TO THE UNSUSPECTED TOWN!!!
This is the kind of thing that actually might have been a BLAST if taken up by innovative indie splatter director John Gulager (Feast, Feast II); characters should have been more extreme, deaths more ridiculous, and so on.
INSTEAD, this movie is so poorly done it's comical. The lighting is so dark that in no scene can I actually distinguish what is going on, the writing is laughably insipid, and the acting is just...
bad.
Don't bother with this one.
1.25/5
...
Coming up THIS evening:
Butterfly Effect: Revelation
Dying Breed
(unfortunately it appears as though we're going to miss
From Within, though since it is ONLY being shown during the week at 6:00, that tells me that they don't WANT people to see it... well, not
working people anyway)