The VHS Graveyard Meets the Chattanooga Film Festival – Day One

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2020, animated films, Attack of the Demons, Brian Emond, CFF, Chatanooga Film Festival, cinema, directorial debut, Eric Power, film festival favorite, film festivals, films, homage, horror, Jeffrey A Brown, mockumentary, movie reviews, Movies, new movies, The Beach House, The Chattanooga Film Festival, The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, writer-director, Zach Lamplugh

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As usually happens at festivals, Day One is all about getting your bearings, making plans and easing into the serious business of having fun. As such, my first day at the Chattanooga Film Fest only involved three full lengths, four shorts and about 45 minutes of a filmmakers’ commentary session (full disclosure: I guess I’m not super fond of talking during a film regardless of who does it). I’d make up time in the following few days, however, and that’s really all that matters when you’re playing the long game.

Ultimately, though, it’s about quality and there was no shortage of that on display. Let’s start everything in earnest now, shall we? With no further ado, in order, I present my Friday screenings from this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival.

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Attack of the Demons

As outsiders descend on the small Colorado town of Barrington for its annual Halloween/battle-of-the-bands festival, we see that all isn’t quite as hunky-dory as it seems. In particular, one robed stranger has literally brought Hell to town in the form of a virulently infectious demonic plague that brings gruesome death and even more gruesome rebirth to all it touches. The only hope for the world lies in the hands of a group of survivors brought together by fate and a desperate need to escape…the Attack of the Demons!

As with nearly every film I screened during the festival, I knew nothing about Attack of the Demons before I actually sat down to watch it, aside from the fact that is was animated. Within moments, I was hooked. By the end credits, the film had entered that rare ground that I like to call “Instant Classics.” There haven’t been many of them but this is most certainly one of those.

What makes director Eric Power’s homage to horror of all eras so unforgettable? In this case, the answer is in the attention to detail. While Attack of the Demons utilizes the same sort of “moving paper” style that South Park has made so famous, the filmmakers have packed every inch of the film with so many lovingly rendered details that it makes the whole thing feel impossibly alive and practically demands repeat viewings. From the intricacies of the various humans, demons and animals presented to all the truly amusing in-jokes that reference not only horror but music (the obviously Misfits-inspired Banshee Riders are as brilliant as the amazing ’70s Italian horror flick that we glimpse), there’s almost too much to take in on the first go.

None of the cool details would mean a thing if everything else in the film wasn’t firing on all cylinders but this is the complete package: the voice acting is excellent and nuanced, the score is brilliant (one of the best Carpenter clones I’ve heard yet), the editing, writing and production elements are all top-notch, the humor and horror halves are perfectly balanced (the film is consistently funny) and it’s quite obvious that the filmmakers dearly love horror. While I’ve heard this described as “South Park meets Evil Dead,” I actually got more of a Demons vibe (lots of references to Italian horror) mixed with lots of The Thing. For all you gore-hounds out there, just know that this thing is so splattery, if it were live action, it might out-do Peter Jackson’s immortal Dead Alive.

This was the kind of movie that I never wanted to end which, if you think about it, is really the best kind of film. Suffice to say that I’ll keep my beady eyes fixed on Power and company from now on: this is as close to a perfect film as it gets, at least as far as I’m concerned.

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The Vice Guide to Bigfoot

Opting to keep the mood light, I decided to follow with one of my favorite sub-genres: the mockumentary. As with the best of these kinds of films, the plot is as streamlined as necessary: egotistical, jackass Vice reporter Brian (co-writer Brian Emond) and his put-upon producer/cameraman/friend Zach (director/co-writer Zach Lamplugh) are sent to the wilds of Georgia to meet up with cryptid hunter/YouTube celebrity, Jeff (Jeffrey Stephenson), and hunt for Bigfoot. The problem? Smart-ass Brian thinks this is all a bunch of click-bait bullshit while goofy Jeff truly believes. When strange things start to happen in the woods, will this be the proof that Jeff needs or Brian’s chance to finally crack a “real” story?

Finding the perfect balance between snide and sincere, Lamplugh and Emond’s film is not only smart and well-made but genuinely funny and full of plenty of surprising, organic twists and turns. The characters all end up being so well-developed and likable that the film develops real stakes by the seat-of-your pants finale, something that many horror-comedies struggle with: you come to care about all of these idiots so much that you really don’t want anything bad to befall them, regardless of how stupid they behave. The horror aspect, while not overpowering, was still nicely realized with some surprisingly effective touches of gore.

Where the film really excels, however, is with the deftly handled humor. Whether coming from Brian and Zach’s push-me/pull-you relationship, the subtle skewering of YouTube/Soundcloud celebrities, Jeff’s general buffoonery or Brian’s essentially caustic view of anything that isn’t him,  there’s a lot of funny stuff being thrown at the screen and the vast majority of it works, especially once we get to that bonkers finale.

Perhaps the highest praise that I can give The Vice Guide to Bigfoot, however, is that I would love to see this become a franchise: while the film isn’t perfect, these are the kinds of characters I want to spend more time with. Hell, The Vice Guide to the Jersey Devil is playing in my head, as I type, and it’s great. Talk about the power of cinema!

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The Beach House

After a couple of comedies, it was finally time to get into the serious stuff and writer-director Jeffrey A. Brown’s The Beach House was one that had me intrigued based on the synopsis alone. It promised to be weird and creepy, two things that have me responding faster than Pavlov’s pooch.

A couple with relationship issues decide to get away from the world at a secluded beach house owned by the guy’s family. Once there, however, they discover that they aren’t alone: a couple of family friends are already there, although they’re only too happy to share the gorgeous ocean view. While this seems a little odd, the intense bio-luminescence and gathering fog outside seem even odder still. And then things get really weird.

Recalling films as diverse as Richard Stanley’s recent adaptation of The Color Out of Space, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, Darren Aronofsky’s Mother! and The Mist, Brown’s feature-length debut is quite the accomplished bit of filmmaking. In fact, cinematographer Owen Levelle might just have provided us with some of the most singularly gorgeous shots of the whole year: there are moments in The Beach House, like the opening deep dive to the ocean floor, that truly take your breath away. The sound design, editing, production design and performances are all apiece with the camerawork, making this one of the most immaculately crafted movies I’ve seen in some time.

And yet, for all that, I didn’t love The Beach House. Despite being thought-provoking and visually lush, I also found it a bit overlong and repetitive: I also wasn’t fond of a particular story element, something that I felt was a little below the film’s overall reach. If the worst thing you can really accuse a film of is doing things that you don’t agree with, however, than the film must inherently be doing something right. There was a lot to like here and somethings that I’ll never forget: the scenes with the bio-luminescence, for example, probably rank with some of the most awe-inspiring things I’ve ever seen in a film. I predict a very interesting career for those involved: this was a helluva calling card.

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While I didn’t get through quite as many features as I wanted and barely even scratched the surface of the other content, this first day of the CFF would bode well for the days ahead. At this point, there was still 23 films to go: who knew what was in store? Stay tuned, dear readers, and find out.

5/6/15: Blurring the Lines

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Alexandria Fierz, backwoods folk, based on a true story, Bert Wall, cinema, David Z. Roberts, dead father, Devil's Backbone, Devil's Backbone Tavern, Devil's Backbone Texas, directorial debut, father-son relationships, film reviews, films, found-footage films, ghosts, Haley Buckner, haunted houses, horror, horror films, isolated estates, Jake Wade Wall, James Carrington, Jodi Bianca Wise, mockumentary, Movies, screenwriter, supernatural, twist ending, Unsolved Mysteries, writer-director-producer-actor

If the whole point of mockumentary/found-footage horror films is to obscure the dividing line between truth and fiction, freely mixing the “real” with the “fake” until audiences are too dizzy to know the difference, then Jake Wade Wall’s debut, Devil’s Backbone, Texas (2015), just might be one of the most successful yet. By interweaving the actual story of his horror writer father’s experiences on the titular patch of land with the kind of traditional found-footage aspects that we’re used to seeing (the Blair Witch Project (1999) is an obvious inspiration), Wall is able to come up with a virtually textbook example of the subgenre. If Devil’s Backbone, Texas is less successful as an actual film, well…let’s chalk that up to growing pains: there’s enough good ideas here to make Wall someone to keep an eye on in the future.

The concept of the film, as mentioned above, cleverly blends the real-life story of Bert Wall, a writer/rancher who lived in the area of Texas known as Devil’s Backbone, with the usual “running through the woods with a camera” found-footage schtick. Wall’s ranch came to fame via a mid-’90s segment on Unsolved Mysteries that detailed the massive amount of ghostly activity that he claimed to witness on the land, including everything from ghostly monks to ghostly Native Americans. Wall’s real-life son, Jake (the film’s writer/director/producer/lead), uses this as the basic setup and then jumps us 20 years into the present. After his father has died, Jake’s mom asks him to take his ashes to his old homestead and perform the “ash ceremony” that Bert always wanted.

Seeing this as a great opportunity to explore stories of the area, Jake takes the ashes and a small passel of his best friends, a group which features the usual mixture of believers and non-believers. As Jake interviews the locals, in order to get a better picture of his estranged father, he also begins to uncover hints of the strange doings in the area: there’s even stories about a mysterious German POW camp on the ranch, providing yet another possible source for the region’s “hauntings.” As things gradually become stranger, Jake’s friends want to pack up and leave, especially after they keep bumping into a strange pickup truck that, for all intents and purposes, shouldn’t be there. Jake has become obsessed with getting to the bottom of his father’s death, however, as well as the legends of Devil’s Backbone and he has no intention of backing out. Will Jake’s stubbornness lead to the ultimate revelation of the Devil’s Backbone’s secrets or will his poking around spell the doom for everyone he holds dear?

One of Devil Backbone, Texas’ greatest strengths (perhaps its single greatest one) is the way in which it ingeniously melds fiction and reality within the framework of the film. To be honest, I wasn’t actually aware that there really was a Bert Wall: I assumed that the Unsolved Mysteries segment was a clever mock-up and that the whole film was an entirely fictionalized account of a real area/phenomenon. Imagine my surprise, then, when a little research revealed that not only does Bert Wall actually exist (along with that illuminating Unsolved Mysteries segment from 1996) but that Jake is his son. This sort of (gently) blew my mind, as it managed to recontextualize much of what I had just seen, especially considering the familial angle. Any film that can actually fool me gets big props, in my book, and Wall definitely deserves props.

The main problem with the film doesn’t really have much to do with the story, although it does end up feeling a bit musty, in places: in general, Wall throws plenty of good ideas around and many of them end up sticking, even if nothing is explored in as much depth as it should be (in particular, the German POW bit is so under-developed as to be mystifying). The big problems with the film, unfortunately, all stack up on the actual production side of things: while Wall has plenty of intriguing ideas, the film that contains them is, at best, rather average.

As the lead, Wall has a tendency to swing between an effective, upbeat kind of understatement and a much more ineffective hyper-emotionalism: when Jake really gets wound up, his character tends to come across as whiny,  shouty and altogether unpleasant. Found-footage films have a history of leads like this, of course (think back to Blair Witch’s insufferable Heather), but that doesn’t make it any more tolerable here. If anything, I found myself constantly wishing that Wall had stayed behind the camera: while his character definitely has moments, I found my suspension of disbelief shattered a few times too many for comfort.

The rest of the cast does decent work, although I’ll admit that the only one who actually left any kind of impression on me was the fella who looked sort of like Hugh Jackman: he had an easy-going delivery and charisma that was quite effective. Other than that, however, the group seemed like the usual crew of interchangeable types. As with similar mockumentary films, Devil’s Backbone, Texas, also features various interviews with academics, experts and towns’ folk: this all help with the film’s verisimilitude immensely, even when the acting from the cast becomes just rough enough to notice.

Ultimately, Devil’s Backbone, Texas is a decent debut, albeit one hampered by a shaky lead, slight lack of focus and a rather dreadful twist ending (not to put too fine a point on it but the lazy “surprise” finale is easily the dumbest part of the film, hands down). That being said, there’s something about the film that still got to me: perhaps it was that initial blurring of real and fiction or Wall’s very obvious enthusiasm for the film and subject. Perhaps it was the genuinely creepy location or the standout bit of atmosphere where we see teeming masses of spiders all over the walls of Bert’s abandoned home (as a lifelong arachnophobe, this practically had me crawling out of my skin). Whatever the reason, I walked away from Wall’s debut entertained, which is quite a bit more than I can say for many micro-budget indies. As such, I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

2/21/15 (Part Three): A Monster Mash

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Adam Green, Alex Pardee, ArieScope Pictures, auteur theory, Chillerama, cinema, creature feature, Digging Up the Marrow, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, found-footage films, Frozen, Hatchet, horror, horror films, indie horror film, interviews, mockumentary, Monsters, Movies, Nightbreed, practical effects, pseudo-documentary, Ray Wise, self-promotion, Will Barratt, William Dekker, writer-director-editor

As I stare forty years of living in the face, there are precious few holdovers from my childhood but there are still a few: I’m still terrified of spiders, I’m still fascinated by outer space and I still believe in monsters. Call it a life-long delusion, a long-held conviction or just plain bull-headedness but I staunchly refuse to believe that we puny humans really know all there is to know about this massive ball of rock and water that we live on (much less the billions of unexplored ones that blanket the cosmos). The oceans are mighty deep, the jungles are mighty thick and there are plenty of dark places to poke around in…if you think about it, we know as much about our world as any child does, which is, of course, not much.

Indie horror auteur Adam Green also believes in monsters and, like me, isn’t afraid to admit it. The difference, of course, is that this stuff is his bread-and-butter: as the head of ArieScope Pictures, creator of the Hatchet franchise (2006-2013) and horror-oriented TV show Holliston, as well as writer-director of the ‘stuck-on-a-ski-lift’ chiller Frozen (2010) and a segment in the rather odious Chillerama (2011) anthology, Green is one of the brightest stars in the modern horror constellation. With his newest film, Digging Up the Marrow (2014), Green fuses his life-long love of monsters and horror to a sturdy found-footage template and comes up with something along the lines of a low-key, indie, found-footage Nightbreed (1990). In the process, he illustrates the fact that true believers have known all along: monsters are real…and they don’t always have our best interests in mind.

Structurally, Digging Up the Marrow is similar to another indie horror film: writer-director J.T. Petty’s S&man (2006). Like S&man, Green’s film begins as a mockumentary, with the writer-director going around various fan conventions and interviewing genre luminaries like Lloyd Kaufman, Tony Todd, Mick Garris and the like. On the surface, the subject is monsters but the early part of the film is actually all about Green and his film company, ArieScope Pictures. In an exceptionally clever bit of cross-promotion, Green and his associates play themselves in the picture and we get plenty of behind-the-scenes peeks into films like Hatchet (2006): it works within the structure of the film but it also serves as a neat little bit of fan service, a two-for-one that speaks volumes to the way Green approaches the subject (and his films, in general).

As Green discusses the various monster-related things that fans and peers send him, all while accompanied by erstwhile cameraman Will Barratt, we finally get to the “fiction” at the heart of the “fact.” In the midst of all the documentary footage and interviews, Green discusses one particular person, William Dekker (Ray Wise), who claims to have actual evidence of real monsters. Dropping everything, Green and Barratt head out to go see Dekker and prove (or disprove) his claims. Once there, the filmmaking duo find their host to be an exceedingly eccentric individual: intense, no-nonsense and utterly convinced of the existence of monsters, Dekker claims to know where the entrance to their underground world is. Dubbed “The Marrow,” Dekker claims that monsters regularly emerge from the otherwise unexceptional hole in the nearby forest and he gives Green the opportunity he’s waited his whole life for: the chance to actually see a real monster.

As Adam and Will settle in, however, they begin to get the gradual impression that Dekker isn’t playing with a full deck, especially when he claims to see monsters that neither of them can. When Green unexpectedly gets his wish and actually sees something, however, it sets off a fire in him: despite Dekker’s increasingly frantic pleas to leave well enough alone, he’s bound and determined to descend into The Marrow, scratching that unscratchable childhood itch for the first time. Will Adam and Will find the monsters that they seek? Is Dekker telling the truth, completely insane or some combo of the two? And where, exactly, does that ominous hole really lead?

Let’s get the negative stuff out of the way up front: Digging the Marrow suffers from many of the same issues that most found-footage films do (at this point, these issues are starting to seem like inherent genetic defects in the sub-genre), the finale is a little rough and we don’t get to see quite as much of the monsters as I’d like (pretty much a standard complaint in most horror fare, if you think about it). As with pretty much any found-footage film, the movie also ends just as it’s really kicking into gear: again, pretty much endemic of the sub-genre.

And that’s pretty much it, folks: past those few small complaints, Green’s film is a complete joy, a fan love letter to monsters that manages to push pretty much ever necessary button in my black, little heart. While I’ve been a fan of Green’s since Hatchet, I was unaware of how genuinely charismatic the guy is: it’s always a danger when directors “play themselves,” as it were, but Green manages to be friendly, likable, interesting and, most importantly, absolutely believeable during the fictional portions of the film. It shouldn’t be surprising that Green can interact effortlessly with the other directors and industry folks at the conventions (those are his peers, after all) but his acting scenes with Wise have just as much authenticity and realism. Ditto Barratt, who proves a more than capable foil to Green. In a subgenre that often suffers from unrealistic, unlikable actors/characters, Digging Up the Marrow acquits itself most ably.

This, of course, doesn’t even take into account the stellar contributions of long-time genre great Ray Wise. Always dependable and usually the best thing on any screen at any given time, Wise is one of those actors that lights up any production: to be honest, his part in Chillerama was just about the only thing I enjoyed in that entire film and it probably accounted for a grand total of five minutes, tops. Here, Wise has never been better, for one important reason: Green actually gives him the opportunity to stretch out and sink his teeth into a meatier role. We get much more of Wise, here, than we usually do (maybe since Swamp Thing (1982), to be honest) and the results are predictable: more Wise equals more badassitude, period. He’s tough, snarky, sarcastic, caustic, funny, vulnerable, sinister, innocent and all-around amazing: it’s a full-rounded performance and a multi-dimensional character. More than anything, this should serve as a wake up call for other filmmakers: stop using Wise as seasoning and start making him the main course…there’s no reason this guy shouldn’t be carrying more movies.

Any film about monsters, however, must still answer one very important question: how cool are the monsters? In the case of Digging Up the Marrow, the answer is “Very cool.” Based on the artwork of outsider illustrator Alex Pardee (who also appears during the film’s faux-interview portion), the monsters are unique, frightening, weird, cool and all-around unforgettable. My big complaint, of course, is that we never see as much (or as many) of them as we should but that’s also like complaining that free ice cream isn’t your favorite flavor: are we really going to bitch about free ice cream? What we do see, however, makes all the difference in the world: it’s obvious that Green and crew have genuine love for their subject and it really comes out in the exceptional practical effects and creature designs.

One of the biggest compliments I can give Digging Up the Marrow is that I wanted more as soon as the film was over: the film is ready-made for a sequel (The Marrow has many entrances, according to Dekker, all over the world…including in an IHOP, since monsters like pancakes) and I say “Bring it on.” Digging Up the Marrow is a fascinating, unique and extremely personal film by a massively talented filmmaker: I have a feeling that Green still has a lot to say about the subject and I can’t wait for him to say it.

While monsters always function better in the darkness, Adam Green is one of the few filmmakers to successfully grab them and haul them into the light. As a lifelong monster hunter, I tip my camouflaged hat.

12/22/14 (Part One): Tie Your Mother Down

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Adam Robitel, alternate title, Alzheimer's Disease, Anne Bedian, Anne Ramsay, Brett Gentile, children in peril, cinema, co-writers, Deborah Logan, evil old lady, feature-film debut, film crews, film reviews, films, found-footage films, horror, horror films, immortality, Jeremy DeCarlos, Jill Larson, Julianne Taylor, Michelle Ang, mockumentary, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, murdered children, Paranormal Activity, possession, pseudo-documentary, Ryan Cutrona, serial killers, snakes, The Blair Witch Project, The Taking, The Taking of Deborah Logan, titular characters, Tonya Bludsworth, writer-director-editor

Anyone who’s ever watched a loved one succumb to Alzheimer’s knows that the disease is a true monster that rivals anything the brightest stars in horror can dream up: formerly brilliant minds revert to a state of petulant childhood, life-long lovers forget the partner who’s been by their side for decades and, eventually, the victim’s body betrays its own basic functions and forgets such prime directives as “Eat” and “Breathe.” The deepest, most enduring tragedy of the disease is the way it makes the familiar alien to us: when all that we ever really carry with us is our memories, Alzheimer’s ends up being the most lethal, insidious thief of all.

Despite the inherently horrifying nature of the disease, cinematic depictions of Alzheimer’s are almost always delivered as tear-jerking dramas, stories of families in crisis, bittersweet ruminations on life-long love running its course, etc…Thanks to writer-director Adam Robitel, however, the world of cinematic horror finally has its first “Alzheimer’s disease”-related film: The Taking of Deborah Logan (2014) is a found-footage film that purports to examine someone suffering from the effects of Alzheimer’s who may also (or may not) be suffering from some sort of demonic possession. While the film’s angle is pretty unique and the first half manages to offer up some nicely subtle chills, however, Robitel’s feature-length debut winds up collapsing into a mess of lazy Blair Witch Project (1999) and Paranormal Activity (2007) clichés by its final act, squandering much of the good will that the film earns along the way. Nonetheless, The Taking of Deborah Logan certainly earns points for finding a more unique subject to exploit” than the same moldy old haunted house/moving furniture tropes that have been de rigueur in found-footage for the past 15 years or so.

Right off the bat, we’re greeted with text that explains that the film we’re about to see has been cobbled together from various footage sources and has been “lightly” edited and spruced-up: a vague bit of base-covering that, essentially, gives a pass for any and all unexplained angles, non-digetic sounds, etc…that we’ll be encountering. It’s also, by its very nature, a rather lazy approach to the format and the first (of many) warning signs that this particular way will be a rocky one. In a nutshell, medical student Mia (Michelle Ang), along with crew members Gavin (Brett Gentile) and Luis (Jeremy DeCarlos), wants to make a documentary about Alzheimer’s patient Deborah Logan (Jill Larson). Deborah’s grown daughter, Sarah (Anne Ramsay), is eager to get the filmmakers involved, since they’ve offered to help pay for her mother’s increasingly expensive medical care. When the formerly on-board Deborah suddenly decides that she values her privacy more than the assistance, however, all signs point to Mia’s documentary being D.O.A.

There wouldn’t, of course, be a movie without a change of heart, however, the crew are invited back a week later to begin filming their project. At first, everything seems pretty normal: Deborah is certainly more forgetful than the average person but there doesn’t seem to be anything too terrible going on. In short order, however, we see just how fast Deborah is stuck in the sticky web that is Alzheimer’s: she begins to forget basic things about her own daughter and past, has mood changes on a moment’s notice and has started to let her own hygiene slide. As Sarah tries to help her mother retain as much of her personality as she can, we witness the heartbreaking ways in the disease breaks down both its victim and her caregiver: as Mia notes in one of her documentaries many talking points, caring for an Alzheimer victim can alter the caregiver’s brain chemistry, as well, making the terrible disease a truly lose-lose proposition.

Just when it seems as if The Taking of Deborah Logan might be the world’s first found-footage-styled “after-school special,” however, things begin to take a turn for the sinister. Cameraman Gavin happens to spy Deborah doing some odd things with a snake and the older woman seems to develop a habit of appearing right behind folks, scaring the everlovin’ shit out of them. Things really come to a head, however, when Deborah completely flips out and accuses Gavin of stealing her beloved garden trowel: she chases him around the kitchen with a large butcher knife, cornering him on the counter and very nearly costs everyone involved several fingers. After taking her back to the hospital and the kindly Dr. Nazir (Anne Bedian), Sarah gets the worst news possible: her mother’s condition is deteriorating at an ever more rapid rate and she’s losing more of her brain on a daily basis. The end, as Sarah knows all to well, may be over the next horizon but it’s getting closer by the minute.

Deborah’s condition may be terrible but Mia and the others begin to notice a frightening pattern: Alzheimer’s explains some, but not all, of the things that are happening around them. Snakes start popping up everywhere, Deborah has taking to painting a series of pictures which depict a mysterious, black figure moving ever closer to their house and she’s developed an alarming propensity for what medical experts must surely dub “scary, intense and gravely demon voices” (take two pills twice a day, as needed). After a truly creepy incident involving Deborah’s patented in-home switchboard system, Mia and the others come to think that someone else might be responsible for Deborah’s more violent tendencies: specifically, they come to believe that poor Deborah is possessed by the spirit of serial killer Henry Desjardins (Kevin A. Campbell), a pediatrician who mysteriously disappeared after killing four children as part of an immortality ceremony.

As Deborah’s behavior becomes more and more extreme, Sarah is truly backed-up against a wall: she could barely care for her mother before creepy paranormal shit started happening and this all just seems like one cruel cosmic joke, especially when everyone from the local priest to the college’s expert in anthropological studies seems unable to give her any assistance. Is Deborah actually possessed by the spirit of an insane killer or is her Alzheimer’s just getting exponentially worse as time goes on? What’s up with all of the snakes that seem to be popping up everywhere? Could there be another, darker, mystery at the heart of everything…a mystery that could potentially unravel our comfortable belief in a rational world and give us a front-seat to our own demise? What is actually taking Deborah Logan: an unstoppable disease or pure evil?

For roughly the first half of the film, The Taking of Deborah Logan is a really well made found-footage film, albeit one that doesn’t do much new with the sub-genre, aside from the subject matter. That being said, the early found footage aspect of Robitel’s film is quite strong: in particular, I really liked the pseudo-documentary aspects of Mia’s film, such as the computer-aided infographics, actor reenactments and talking head interviews. Unlike other found-footage films that aim for a pseudo-doc feel, The Taking of Deborah Logan actually feels like the real thing: kudos to Robitel for managing to nail the tone/look so spot-on.

The acting is also quite good across the first few acts, with Jill Larson turning in a massively impressive performance as the titular character: her ability to vacillate between sweet, angry, forgetful and prideful is absolutely essential to the success of the character and Larson pulls it off quite handily. There are moments in The Taking of Deborah Logan that are absolutely heart-breaking and it’s all down to Larson’s incredibly subtle, expressive performance. Once she gets more bonkers in the latter half of the film, her performance begins to seem a bit more heavy-handed but the early going is quite masterful.

If only the same could be said of Anne Ramsay’s performance as Sarah, however. Ramsay comes into the film “turned up to 11,” as it were, and her performance only gets more strident as the film wears on. By the climax, both Sarah and Mia are so shrill, giddy and obnoxious that I spent the final 15 minutes secretly hoping something would bump off both their characters, a pretty extreme switch from rooting for them a mere 20 minutes before that. Ditto for Gentile and DeCarlos’ unlikable turns as Mia’s film crew: neither character ever gets more to do than utter tired variations on “Oh, hell no!” and the script saddles DeCarlos with one of the awful “these crazy white people” asides that’s a real head-smacker. I’m also not sure what’s going on with Ryan Cutrona’s performance as next-door-neighbor Harris: not only did he never really seem to factor into the story, his motivations and personality also seemed to change on the drop of a hat, based on whatever the script needed him to do…nothing quite like a character who might as well be named “Johnny Plot Contrivance.”

As mentioned earlier, the subtle, sparse quality of The Taking of Deborah Logan’s first 40 minutes ends up getting thrown completely out the window in the last half of the film, resulting in endless scenes where characters look through a camera viewfinder while running down endless, anonymous dark tunnels, as well as those now ubiquitous “stationary cameras recording while everyone sleeps” clichés that seemed to spring fully formed from Paranormal Activity like Athena busting out of Zeus’ cranium. None of it adds anything new to the format whatsoever and the film even manages to end with one of those moldy “or are they…evil?” “twists” that’s probably only novel for folks that have been in comas for the past several decades.

Despite how disappointing the film becomes, however, there’s plenty to like here, including a thoroughly gonzo, kickass scene during the climax that involves one of the characters spitting acidic venom and distending their jaw like a snake in order to swallow someone whole: suffice to say that my resulting upraised fist probably knocked a big chunk of cheese out of the moon. On the whole, however, The Taking of Deborah Logan ends up being just another found-footage film, full of all of the same problems and clichés, albeit with slightly more imagination and invention, than the rest of the unwashed masses. There was enough solid material here to make Robitel’s film easy to recommend, even if the film will always function best as one of the “rainy day” viewings. Nonetheless, give Robitel and co-writer Gavin Heffernan credit for one thing: they have to be the first filmmakers to plant a horror flag in the desolate wasteland that is Alzheimer’s Disease and that, on its own, has to be worth something.

9/21/14: Father Doesn’t Know Best

Tags

AJ Bowen, Amy Seimetz, auteur theory, based on a true story, Charles Anderson Reed, cinema, cults, Donna Biscoe, Eden Parish, estranged siblings, Film auteurs, film reviews, films, found-footage, Gene Jones, House of the Devil, isolated communities, Jim Jones, Joe Swanberg, Jonestown Massacre, Kate Lyn Sheil, Kentucker Audley, mass suicide, mockumentary, Movies, murdered children, Safe Haven, Talia Dobbins, The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers, The Sacrament, Ti West, Timo Tjahjanto, VICE, writer-director

Sometimes, all of the elements can be there for a roaring blaze but all you get is a little spark and some smoke. Although I went into writer/director Ti West’s newest film, The Sacrament (2013), with high hopes and a head full of overwhelmingly positive critical reviews, I’m rather disappointed to admit that this appears to be yet another underwhelming showing from the modern-day horror auteur. Although I really enjoyed West’s sophomore effort, The House of the Devil (2009), I must admit that I’ve been hard-pressed to really like the rest of his output: The Roost (2005) felt half-baked and slight, The Innkeepers (2011) squandered some nicely built atmosphere with a lazy, perfunctory climax and his entry for The ABCs of Death (2012) managed to be equal parts lazy, stupid and sloppy. My main issue with West remains the same: his films tend to look good but are as empty and slight as cereal commercials. While I’d love to say that West’s take on the infamous Jonestown Massacre is a grand slam, the film is actually closer to an entire nine innings composed of walks and bunts.

For a time, The Sacrament manages to hold, build and maintain a reasonable amount of interest and tension. Our trio of protagonists, Sam (AJ Bowen), Patrick (Kentucker Audley) and Jake (indie writer/director Joe Swanberg) are all employed by modern alternative-media outlet VICE, perhaps most familiar to casual fans as the organization that immerses itself in various “outsider” enterprises like street gangs, drug dealers and, apparently, religious cults. This “immersionism,” as the film calls it, results in a neutral, no-judgement take on various societal elements that usually spawn pretty intense reactions one way or the other. Most importantly for the context of the film, VICE is a real organization and their inclusion in the film helps to heighten the realism of the found-footage aspect, as well as blurring the lines between the reality of the situation and the highly fictional nature of filmmaking. This ends up being the film’s biggest hat trick and, for a while, was almost enough to keep this viewer’s attention…almost.

The plot is almost simplicity, itself: Patrick’s drug-addled, estranged sister Caroline (Amy Seimetz) has just sent him a letter explaining that she got clean, moved out of the country and hooked up with a religious cult. Patrick plans to head to the tropical commune and check out the situation: when his boss, Sam, convinces Patrick to take him and cameraman Jake along for the ride, we get yahtzee. Once there, the trio notices that there seem to be quite a few more armed soldiers hanging around than seems necessary for a supposedly peaceful commune: the place looks more like a ramshackle army encampment. The followers all seem nice and friendly, however, especially the former gutter-trawling Caroline. Although our friendly heroes are a little wary, nothing seems particularly out of the ordinary…at least nothing that they can put their fingers on.

In time, Sam gets his wish and is allowed to interview the cult’s charismatic leader, Charles Anderson Reed (Gene Jones), otherwise known as “the Father.” Reed makes his initial appearance dressed in an all-white suit, wearing sunglasses, entering to rapturous applause: he’s like an older, pudgy, nerdier version of Bono. He also seems a bit cuckoo, although his initial paranoia and dislike of American policies doesn’t necessarily set-off warning bells among the counter-culture journalists. When a young girl (Talia Dobbins) slips Sam a note that says, “Please help us,” however, the group begins to realize that there’s something more sinister going on here. As their departure time approaches, unease and turmoil seems to be spreading through the camp: something’s brewing and it’s making Sam, Jake and Patrick more than a little nervous. When “paradise on earth” suddenly becomes “Hell,” however, the journalists find themselves trapped in a living nightmare and realize the terrible truth: when you immerse yourself too completely in darkness, you tend to disappear.

For most of its running time, The Sacrament is a fully competent and well-made film: the cinematography is frequently lovely, the acting is decent and the locations are certainly interesting. The main problem, unfortunately, is the overwhelming sense of “been there, done that.” Perhaps this is due to the fact that Ti West has modeled his film pretty much part and parcel on the real-life Jonestown Massacre: in many ways, Charles Anderson Reed is just a slightly fictionalized version of Jim Jones, right down to the way he dresses. The problem with this becomes a similar problem with any film based on true events: when you know how everything will play out and end, there needs to be other elements to hold viewer interest. Although James Cameron’s Titanic (1997) is a rather dubious example (I’ve never actually sat down to watch the film, so my knowledge of it is strictly anecdotal), there does appear to be one main difference between the two films: Cameron’s film used the sinking of the Titanic as the background for a love story, whereas West seems content to simply rehash the basic beats of the original story.

We get very little in-depth analysis on the cult or its members and none of the main characters are ever fleshed-out beyond a few basic brushstrokes: Sam and his wife are expecting their first baby, Patrick is worried about his ex-junkie sister, yadda yadda yadda. With no particularly interesting characters to focus on, our primary focus becomes the story, itself. The problem with this, of course, is that most of us already know how this particular story ends. I could certainly see how someone who’s unfamiliar with the original Jonestown Massacre might be shocked and horrified by what’s on display here but the reality was much, much worse: West’s depiction ends up being a pale imitation of real events.

This notion of “same old, same old” is compounded by the fact that horror fans have already seen this particular idea done much better previously: Timo Tjahjanto’s entry in V/H/S 2 (2013), Safe Haven, was a similar “journalists go hang out with a doomsday cult” scenario but managed to be endlessly inventive, eye-popping and a ludicrous amount of fun. The Sacrament is too serious and po-faced to be that entertaining, unfortunately, seeming to strain for a relevance that it just doesn’t fully earn.

For all of my disappointment in the film, I still can’t deny that West is a talented filmmaker: the film is filled with highly effective, evocative scenes (the “interview” scene between Sam and The Father is especially atmospheric and well-done) and the mass suicide scenes definitely have a raw power to them. There’s something especially dreadful about watching the helpers mix up the poisoned Kool-aid and serve it to the unsuspecting children as their tearful, resigned parents look on. The violence and gore effects are well-done, helping to ramp up the inherent realism of the piece. On the acting side, AJ Bowen does a typically rock-solid job as the pushy editor, while Gene Jones makes a highly effective cult leader: there’s something about his soft, doughy expressions and wheedling voice that are both strangely soothing and unsettling.

Ultimately, however, The Sacrament is what it is: an extremely faithful retelling of the Jonestown Massacre that features no real surprises and seems to add nothing to discussion of the original incident. While there’s not much technically wrong with the film, there’s also no spark, no real sense of invention or purpose. In a genre that thrives on strong audience reactions to films, whether positive or negative, The Sacrament received the worst possible reaction from me: I shrugged. So middle-of-the-road as to be nearly faceless, Ti West’s newest is another case of “close but no cigar.” I’ll keep watching his films but, at this point, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to muster up much more emotion than faint interest.