7/26/15 (Part One): Doomed to Repeat

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Ashley Rickards, At the Devil's Door, atmospheric films, Bresha Webb, Bridger Nielson, Catalina Sandino Moreno, cinema, Daniel Roebuck, demonic possession, film reviews, films, flashbacks, haunted houses, horror, horror films, Jan Broberg, Kent Faulcon, Michael Massee, mother-daughter relationships, Movies, Naya Rivera, Nicholas McCarthy, Nick Eversman, Oculus, Olivia Crocicchia, real estate agent, Ronen Landa, Satanic rituals, selling your soul, sisters, suicide, supernatural, The Pact, twist ending, writer-director, Wyatt Russell

Writer-director Nicholas McCarthy’s full-length debut, The Pact (2012), might not have been a perfect film but it was still a pretty darn good one: nicely atmospheric, evocative, methodically paced and possessed of a genuinely surprising (if sorta nonsensical) twist ending, The Pact was a suitably eerie little haunted house chiller and certainly boded well for the rest of McCarthy’s burgeoning career. If nothing else, The Pact showcased an exciting, new filmmaker who wasn’t afraid to let his film play out at its own, languorous pace, sort of a less exceptional cousin to Mike Flanagan’s leisurely paced Oculus (2013).

Now, two years down the road, McCarthy has reunited with many of the principal crew behind his debut, including cinematographer Bridger Nielson and composer Ronen Landa, to fashion his sophomore film, At the Devil’s Door (2014). In a twist that no one (including yours truly) saw coming, At the Devil’s Door is so similar to The Pact, in both look, structure and narrative that it feels, for all intents and purposes, as if McCarthy has drawn this from the exact same inspirational well that yielded his debut. An evil presence in a house? Check. Dysfunctional sisters as the main protagonists? Check. An austere, serious feel that emphasizes mood over generic jump scares and ultra-violence? You get the point. Uncanny similarities aside, there’s really only one important question to answer: does At the Devil’s Door do what it sets out to do? Let’s find out.

We begin with teenaged Hannah (Ashley Rickards), whose just met a hunky guy, Calvin (Nick Eversman) while vacationing in California. Calvin seems cool and all but Hannah should probably have been a little more worried when he cajoled her into selling her soul to Satan, via his creepy Uncle Mike (Michael Massee), for the whopping sum of $500. She’s not, however, and she returns home to face lots of creepy shit, a mysterious virgin pregnancy and the unsettling notion that “something” has taken up residence inside her body.

Afterwards, we’re introduced to driven real estate agent, Leigh (Catalina Sandino Moreno), and her younger artist sister, Vera (Glee’s Naya Rivera). Like the sisters in McCarthy’s debut, Leigh and Vera have enough outstanding issues to fill the Grand Canyon. As it so happens, Leigh has been contacted by a rather odd couple, Chuck (Daniel Roebuck) and Royanna (Jan Broberg), to sell their house…the very same house that we see Hannah inhabiting at the beginning. While checking the place out, Leigh happens to spy a mysterious young woman, clad in a bright, red rain coat. Chuck and Royanna think that the young lady might be their runaway daughter, Charlene: dutiful Leigh is only too happy to help them find some answers.

When something untoward happens to Leigh, however, Vera must now begin her own investigation into what’s going on. As creepy figures pop up in mirrors and underneath the kitchen sink, Vera gets ever closer to the truth about what happened to Hannah, Charlene and, by extension, her own sister. Will Vera be able to undo the evil that was perpetrated at that lonely, California crossroad or will her and her loved ones become just another cog in a dastardly game of demonic possession, maternal love and obsession?

First, the good news. Thanks to the return of The Pact’s creative personnel, At the Devil’s Door looks and sounds just as good as McCarthy’s debut. Nielson has a real skill with framing shots for maximum effect and there are some moments here (the amazing shot where Leigh lies in the foreground while something truly monstrous “molts” out of someone in the background is but one example) that are just as good as what came before. Hand-in-hand with Nielson’s visuals, Ronen Landa’s score is nicely evocative and, usually, used to good, subtle effect. As with the debut, At the Devil’s Door certainly reminds of something like Oculus and that’s a compliment in every sense of the word.

Performance-wise, no one here is as good as Caity Lotz or Casper van Dien were in The Pact but they’re all suitably solid, nonetheless. Particularly surprising is Rivera, who manages to handily shed all remnants of her TV personality and gifts us with a performance that’s a nice combination of intensity, awkwardness, inner turmoil and steely resolve. It’s not the kind of performance that wins awards but it is the kind that should ensure plenty of casting agents will be calling her up in the near future. Most importantly, Rivera’s performance never feels off, unlike the occasionally tone-deaf work of her screen sister, as portrayed by Moreno.

The bad news, as hinted above, is that At the Devil’s Door breaks absolutely no new ground for McCarthy as either a director or a writer: in every way, this is a retelling (albeit one with major narrative differences) of The Pact. We have the same pacing, the same narrative structure (we begin with one sister before ending up with the other sister), the same moldy mirror gags (McCarthy seems to love these as much as I dislike them), the same scenes where a malevolent, invisible presence tosses our protagonists around like rag dolls. Indeed, by utilizing the same behind-the-camera crew, At the Devil’s Door ends up seeming more of a natural sequel to The Pact then its actual sequel, The Pact 2 (2014), does.

This sense of similarity wouldn’t be so off-putting if McCarthy opted to do anything different with the material but, alas, the sense of “same-old, same-old” is almost overpowering. By opening with the bit where Hannah sells her soul, any true sense of mystery is eliminated almost before the film has rolled out its opening credits. While the finale still offers up a twist (albeit another one as old as the hills), any audience member who pays attention should be able to plot each and every beat here: there are no real surprises, especially if one is familiar with practically any other demonic possession film under the sun.

With only two full-lengths under his belt, I’m definitely not ready to write McCarthy off yet, even if I might not be as eager to check out his new films as I might have been before. If nothing else, there’s certainly something laudable about his commitment to produce atmospheric, lush films, especially ones which feature strong female protagonists (still a major Achilles’ heel for the horror industry). To be honest, without The Pact in the picture, At the Devil’s Door would have probably hit me a lot harder. As it stands, however, McCarthy’s latest is just more of the same: that’s okay but more than a little disappointing. Here’s to hoping the writer-director steps out of his comfort zone on his next go round.

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7/13/15: Judas Strikes Back

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Amy Pietz, Annie Barlow, Caity Lotz, Camilla Luddington, Carl Sondrol, Carmen Cabana, cinema, crime-scene cleaners, Dallas Richard Hallam, family secrets, FBI agents, film reviews, films, ghosts, Haley Hudson, haunted houses, horror, horror film, horror movies, Judas, Judas Killer, Mark Steger, mediums, Movies, multiple directors, multiple writers, Patrick Fischler, Patrick Horvath, profilers, returning characters, Scott Michael Foster, sequels, serial killer, serial killers, Suziey Block, The Pact, The Pact 2, thrillers, Trent Haaga, writer-director

Of all the films that might naturally lead to sequels, I’ll freely admit that Nicholas McCarthy’s modest serial killer/ghost chiller The Pact (2012) would probably be one of the last to come to mind. This isn’t to disparage McCarthy’s film, mind you: although it certainly doesn’t re-invent the wheel, The Pact is well made, entertaining and features a genuinely surprising, if rather nonsensical, climax. It also features a visually striking villain with Mark Steger’s gaunt, silent Judas Killer, which is always a plus in any horror film. For all of that, however, The Pact was still a largely by-the-numbers indie horror film, not radically different from many others in a very crowded field.

This being the “Age of Franchise,” however, it was probably only inevitable that even something as small and self-contained as The Pact would receive a sequel: after all, who could have predicated that something like Final Destination (2000) would be up to the fifth film in its franchise, with two more in the wings? In that spirit, we now find ourselves with The Pact 2 (2014), the continuing adventures of Annie Barlow and her lethal (now deceased) uncle Charles, aka the Judas Killer. While several of the actors from the previous film reappear to reprise their roles, including Caity Lotz and Haley Hudson, one of the personnel who does not return is original writer-director McCarthy. This time around, the reins have been handed over to the writing-directing team of Dallas Richard Hallam and Patrick Horvath. Does the new film prove that The Pact warrants franchise status or should this have been a one-and-done from the get-go?

Shaking up the original film’s focus, The Pact 2 concerns itself with June (Camilla Luddington), a plucky crime-scene cleaner/aspiring graphic novelist who also appears to be having nightmares about the previous film’s evil Judas Killer. June is dating Officer Daniel Meyer (Scott Michael Foster), the put-upon local cop whose been assigned to a new series of murders that bear plenty of similarities to the Judas Killer’s earlier onslaught. Problem is, Judas has been dead and buried for a week, at this point, so it’s highly unlikely that he’s running around, butchering women and cutting off their heads. Or is it?

That’s just what FBI profiler Agent Ballard (Patrick Fischler) is trying to figure out. An expert (obsessive?) on Judas, he shows up in town to investigate the new crimes, annoy the shit out of Officer Meyer and drop a bomb on June about her lineage. Turns out June’s actual mother isn’t drug-addicted wreck Maggie (Amy Pietz): her real mother was Jennifer Glick, also known as one of Judas’ original victims. After June begins to experience some very similar paranormal happenings at her house, she decides to contact the first film’s hero, Annie Barlow (Caity Lotz), deciding that kindred spirits need to stick together.

Before long, Annie and June are diving headlong back into the Judas case, investigating June’s link to the dead serial killer, as well as the real story behind Jennifer Glick’s murder. Throughout, Ballard hangs out in the margins, acting just oddly enough to make us question his true motives. Has the infamous Judas Killer found some way to return from the dead, hacking and slashing his way straight to June, or are the new murders the handiwork of a sick, sadistic copycat, a twisted individual who looks to Judas as inspiration for his own terrible acts?

All things considered, The Pact 2 is actually a surprisingly good film, certainly equitable to the original, albeit for different reasons. For one thing, it’s an actual sequel: picking up only a week after the events of the first film and featuring several of the original cast members, there’s a genuine sense of continuity here that you rarely find in other indie horror sequels. In some ways, it’s roughly parallel to the close time-frames utilized in Halloween (1978) and Halloween II (1981): despite being made by two different directors, the films feel connected in ways that later entries never would, despite the omnipresent figure of Michael Myers. It’s definitely one of The Pact 2’s biggest assets, especially when we get more of Lotz and Hudson (as well as Mark Steger’s Judas, of course).

Tone-wise, The Pact 2 is also a much different beast than its predecessor. Despite the supernatural elements and inherent ghostly angle, the sequel is, essentially, a serial killer procedural: most of our time is spent with June, Annie and Agent Ballard investigating the case from various angles, either together or separately. We do still get all of the hallmarks from the first film, of course: doors open and close, shadows appear in the background, people are hauled around by unseen forces…you know…the usual. These elements are definitely downplayed, however, even though the sequel is, by definition, much more supernaturally oriented than the original was.

Acting wise, The Pact 2 is on par with the original, probably thanks to the return of actors like Lotz, Hudson and Steger. While the character of June isn’t quite the equal of the first film’s Annie, Luddington gives a solid performance and certainly makes the most of what she’s given. Foster doesn’t make much of an impression as the slightly drippy Officer Meyer, although Fischler seems to be having a blast as the quirky, smart and brutally condescending FBI profiler. There are plenty of hints of Jeffrey Combs’ equally nutty agent from Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996) here and Fischler always stops just short of gobbling the entire scenery buffet, leaving some for the rest of the cast. We also get a very brief cameo from writer/director/Troma-naut Trent Haaga, although it’s not much more than a throwaway bit.

There are problems here, of course: Hallam and Horvath have a dismaying tendency to overdue “mirror gags,” even to the point where we get what (to the best of my memory) might be the first “reverse mirror gag” that I’ve ever seen. There’s also a repetitious quality to the numerous scenes of Ballard pensively reviewing case files: watching a guy flip through papers is probably the least pulse-pounding thing one can see in a horror film and we get quite a bit of that here. I’d also be remiss if I didn’t point out that the climatic twist here is much less clever and surprising than the one in the first film. While I didn’t call the exact specifics, it was an “either/or” situation, so I had about a 50% shot, either way.

For the most part, The Pact 2 isn’t much different from a lot of direct-to-video/streaming indie horror films, although there’s a general level of care and attention to detail that’s certainly refreshing. Hallam and Horvath have a fairly unfussy style (although June’s numerous “flashes” are always too loud and obnoxious) and if the whole film looks slightly cheaper than the original, it’s never enough to take one out of the action. As a horror film, The Pact 2 is just okay: the ultimate resolution really owes more to the serial killer side of things than the vengeful ghost side, after all, and the haunting aspects are run-of-the-mill, at best. I’m also extremely dubious of the very obvious set-up for an additional entry: at this point, the connection to the original films would have to be so tenuous as to be one of those “in name only” affairs and those are rarely quality films.

That being said, I’ve seen plenty of films much, much worse than The Pact 2. There’s no denying that Steger’s Judas is a great villain and franchises have been hung on much less than that, to be honest. If we’re going to keep seeing permutations of The Pact on into infinity, here’s to hoping that they follow the lead set by the first two: while we’ve already got more than enough brainless sequels out there, we could also use more films that actually have something to say. While The Pact 2 probably won’t end up on any best-of lists, it ends up being a worthy sequel and that, on its own, is worthy of its own list.

7/8/15: If These Walls Could Talk

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abused children, abusive childhood, Agnes Bruckner, based on a short, Bridger Nielson, Caity Lotz, Casper Van Dien, cinema, Dakota Bright, dead mother, dysfunctional family, estranged siblings, family home, family secrets, feature-film debut, film reviews, films, ghosts, Haley Hudson, haunted house, haunted houses, horror, horror movies, Judas, Kathleen Rose Perkins, Mark Steger, mediums, Movies, mysteries, Nicholas McCarthy, Petra Wright, Ronen Landa, Sam Ball, serial killers, sisters, small town life, The Pact, twist ending, writer-director

Based on an earlier short of the same name, writer-director Nicholas McCarthy’s debut full-length, The Pact (2012), is an effective, if overly familiar, little haunted house chiller that manages to distinguish itself by dint of its austere atmosphere, focus on mystery and mood over gore and a twist ending that’s massively entertaining, if more than a little nonsensical. While nothing about the film is exactly revolutionary, the overall quality certainly bodes well for the rest of McCarthy’s burgeoning career.

After vowing to put as much distance between her abusive mother and herself as possible, Annie (Caity Lotz) finds herself returning to her childhood home under less than auspicious circumstances. Annie’s much-detested mother has just passed away and, under no small amount of duress, she’s come home for the funeral, mostly to appease her sister, Nichole (Agnes Bruckner), and see her adorable niece, Eva (Dakota Bright).

When she gets home, however, Annie discovers that Nichole, a former drug addict, has seemingly vanished into thin air, leaving Eva under the care of cousin Liz (Kathleen Rose Perkins). Annie assumes that her sister has relapsed but there’s just something about her old home that doesn’t sit quite right. When Liz vanishes under similar circumstances, Annie is convinced that something sinister is going on right under her nose.

As she investigates the history of her family and childhood home, Annie draws the attention of local sheriff Bill Creek (Casper Van Dien), a pensive, kind-hearted lawman who knew Nichole from her wild, druggie days. She also enlists the aid of Stevie (Hayley Hudson), a mysterious, blind, trailer-park medium who makes house calls along with her sketchy, paranoid brother, Giles (Sam Ball). Stevie detects a ghostly presence in the house, some kind of maligned specter who’s only seeking justice for its untimely end. She also detects something much crueler and more malignant, however, a festering, suffocating evil known only as “Judas.” Who (or what) is Judas? How, exactly, is Annie and her family connected to the tragedies at their old home? Will Annie be able to bring peace to the dead or will she find herself joining them?

Although there’s nothing about McCarthy’s debut that screams “instant classic,” it still ends up being a highly likable, well-made and effective film, albeit one with plenty of cheesy moments, overly familiar plot elements and more than a few outright holes. Caity Lotz is effective as Annie, bringing the right mixture of hard-edge, spunk and insecurity to the mix: she certainly doesn’t vault herself into the company of luminaries like Jaime Lee Curtis or Sigourney Weaver but she more than holds her own and gives us a (fairly) level-headed hero to hang our hats on.

The supporting cast ranges from dependable to slightly over-the-top, with Van Dien underplaying his role to the point of mumblecore, while Hudson and Ball have quite a bit of fun as the oddball, white trash mystics. Hudson, in particular, is suitably ethereal and brings a really odd, interesting quality to her performance as the blind psychic. For his part, Mark Steger brings a weird, lurching and almost insectile physicality to his performance as Judas, making him quite the memorable villain, even if he never utters a single line of dialogue. Just the sight of Steger hanging around in the background of various shots is enough to chill the blood and McCarthy gets good mileage out of it.

One of The Pact’s biggest strengths is its focus on the mystery aspect of the narrative, rather than a simple rehashing of moldy haunted house tropes. While McCarthy’s script certainly isn’t comparable to something like Silence of the Lambs, it definitely recalls Vincenzo Natali’s equally modest and effective Haunter (2013), another indie horror film that prided atmosphere over effects. There are still plenty of traditional haunted house scares, of course: people get pulled backwards by invisible forces, doors open and close on their own, lights turn on and off, sinister forms appear in the background while our heroes look in the opposite direction…basically “Ghosts 101.” For the most part, however, these end up being the film’s weakest moments (the invisible forces aspect, in particular, is so old that it sweats dust): when we’re following Annie on her quest for knowledge, the film is an altogether more interesting, tense and driven affair.

Another aspect of The Pact that separates it from its contemporaries is the big, Shyamalan-esque twist that pops up during the climax. While I would never dream of spoiling the surprise, the whole thing tends to make imperfect sense under closer inspection (it presupposes, for one thing, that a key character is either completely deaf or incredibly stupid, neither of which seems to be the case) but it ends the proceedings with a gonzo flourish that’s a lot of fun, if rather silly.

For the most part, I quite enjoyed The Pact, although it was certainly nothing I hadn’t seen before. When the film is silly, it can be quite silly: the scene where Annie draws a Ouija board into the floor and proceeds to contact a spirit is a real howler, as are most of the parts where Annie is shoved around by empty air. When the atmosphere, mood and languid pace all mesh, however, The Pact has plenty of genuinely chilling moments: the scene involving the ghostly photograph is fantastic, as is the one where Bill and Annie discover the hidden room. Any and all of Stevie’s scenes have a genuinely weird, otherworldly quality to them and the finale (minus the eye-rolling coda) is a real corker.

McCarthy would follow-up his debut with At the Devil’s Door (2014), which I’ve yet to see, along with an entry in the upcoming horror-anthology Holidays, which has been on my must-see list since it was announced. If McCarthy can continue to tweak his formula here, replacing some of the overly familiar material with stuff that’s a bit more singular and unique, he stands a good chance of blazing his own trail through the horror wasteland.