Initial Reaction
 
K.  Presented as a long lost cult film responsible for the deaths of nearly everyone who’s ever seen it, Antrum is shrouded in mystery as “The Deadliest Movie Ever Made”, or so we’re told.  A documentary style preamble sets up the various infamous incidents (a fire in one theater, a riot in another) that cement the film’s legendary status.  Then something unexpected happens…
 
...we’re presented with the film itself.  This transition was surprising as the film’s trailer frames it as a film about Antrum, rather than the film itself.  This set the bar pretty high for the filmmakers to live up to the mystery surrounding the film.  As we all know the “scariest _____” can be a very difficult title to live up to, especially when the audience’s imagination has the tendency to be much more frightening than anything fiction can conjure.
 
That said, I believe the filmmakers succeed in creating an effectively eerie tone throughout with the music, cinematography and sound design.  The documentary introduction also prepares the audience for an arthouse/exploitation experience justifying the more esoteric artistic choices made when we transition to the fictional film. 
 
The film tells the story of a young boy, Nathan (Rowan Smyth) and his older sister, Oralee (Nicole Tompkins) who dig a hole in the forest to save their recently departed dog from hell.  As the two dig deeper they descend down through the various layers of hell and the forest grows ever more dangerous.  The film makes great use of its limited budget and scope here by subtly crafting scares with figures that appear just on the edge of frame.  The two leads, Rowan and Nicole Tompkins, do a wonderful job of grounding the film.  They are relatable and believable as siblings.  The aesthetic is that of a late 1970s exploitation film, like a marriage between The Texas Chain Saw Massacre and The Evil Dead, without being overly derivative.  (There’s also a nice nod to Mulholland Drive -- ‘Ike behind the diner’).
But, is it “The Deadliest Movie Ever Made”, you ask?  No, but what could possibly live up to that title.  Modern audiences are too savvy to fall for the whole lost film trick, but it is an effective prologue to the film itself and a unique way of presenting it to the world.  I found it to be creepy more than scary, which is not a bad thing, and very well-acted.  This made it an enjoyable and interesting watch, so I would definitely recommend it.
 
 
C. In one way or another Antrum set itself up for failure because of its (for lack of a better term) gimmick. This doesn’t mean that it’s bad.  On the contrary it has provided the film a lot of hype within the horror community. However, it opens itself up for certain criticisms that would have been ignored prior.
First, I’ll say I enjoyed it very much by itself without the “cursed” film history or the added element that someone spliced images from a snuff film into the film print. If you took it as an homage to the cult-inspired films of the late 70s in the same vein of Ti West’s The House of the Devil it works great. I found myself at the edge of my seat, the actors were strong, solid use of imagery/symbolism on a low budget. It’s a solid piece in my opinion. But I feel you’ll only enjoy it if you’re along for the ride I just described, because a lot of the issues rely on the believability that it was shot in the 1970s. I’ll give it to you straight. It wasn’t, and even if I didn’t say it, you’d know. Across the board there are choices in terms of cinematography, filters, dialogue, style, that even your standard audience member would notice that it feels modern. In terms of the technical aspects I think they accomplished the best they could with their resources but this is where the issue of the gimmick begins to hinder the film.
As I’ve already mentioned there’s two major gimmicks, the cursed film and the random snuff film spliced within the movie. Oh, and let’s not forget the countless subliminal symbols that the editor went crazy with putting in. The best way to describe the feeling I had was being in art class as a kid and you draw a decent picture. Then you start thinking, “maybe I should use markers”, then “how about adding paint?”, then “I’m going to add some collage elements.” Ultimately you find yourself wishing you stuck with the original drawing and spent time fine tuning that instead of adding all these other elements to be “extra” (as the kids say… I think).

Again, I’m saying this as a person who enjoyed it a lot. Yet I can understand the problematic nature that the filmmakers put themselves in. Audiences are smarter to that stuff and unlike with the initial release of The Blair Witch Project, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, or Cannibal Holocaust, we have the internet to quickly disprove it.  Also, those films knocked it out of the park with something that (at the time) hadn’t really been seen. The other issue is the opening short documentary has one of the experts saying that the film isn’t necessarily that scary, it’s just “cursed,” so even before the film officially starts, we are basically told to lower our expectations. That means the film is based around the gimmick that you may die if you watch it and nothing more. Which is sad that even the filmmakers aren’t willing to let their piece stand on its own. Instead it may become something that will be dated and dismissed after the initial response of “you could die if you watch this.”
 
J.  Antrum: The Deadliest Film Ever Made...except that clever marketing bit set the bar a little high in my view.  The film had to have cost around a hundred dollars to make and therefore doesn’t really show much of anything in terms of the supernatural.  I think this works to their advantage but when we do see something, some money going into it would’ve helped things.  The music and sound design go along way to making this more effective than it should be and the late 70’s aesthetic works well.  There isn’t much in the way of a plot so take that however you like.  It’s also somewhat confusing too which is astounding given the utterly simple nature of what’s going on.  You see shots edited into the film that look like they’re from a completely different film and just kind of leaves you scratching your head as to what the intent was.  At one point during the night, the kid, Nathan, has to take a piss.  So what do you do, camping in the woods but go find a spot and piss.  As he’s doing this, he sees a pond where there is a man and woman in a small boat.  Now, it’s who-knows-what-time in the night and also, the woman is naked.  What the hell is this about?  We never see these people again or know if they’re even real or supernatural or what the hell.  See, another thing is that the sister tells Nathan that hell will put “demons” in their way but they may look like real people.  So are we to believe this is the case?  I’m not really sure.  There’s another bit where there is a stop motion animation squirrel that has got to be a fucking demon with how unnerviing the stop motion is.  As the story goes on, there is a nice bit where we wonder how much of what is happening (the supernatural stuff) is real or imagined and it comes in a rather subtle way too which was nice.  The filmmakers do what they can with how little money was used in the production and I think it all works fairly well.  It just isn’t all that scary and the fact that they’re calling it “The Deadliest Film Ever Made” doesn’t help matters. 
 
 
Response
 
C. I thought using the title of The Deadliest Film Ever Made was in regard to the fact that those that watched the film died and not that it was scary. Either way I agree with the other two that it isn’t that scary.

I won’t say much to give anything away but there’s also very little plot involved so I don’t know if it would matter. Despite its initial symbolism-over-narrative storytelling and delving into the meandering of mumblecore, I will say that I did enjoy the realism added midway through that grounded the story a little better in the characters. Though it didn’t really have me thinking about it after or was cause for much discussion. Mainly I was conflicted on the quality of the film vs. the image for marketing purposes.
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In the end I’d say check it out. I think it will be one that is recommended sparingly to only those that you know would enjoy it. It definitely won’t be for the standard horror fan, which I’d back Kyle’s arthouse comment. Or maybe it will live on as something that teenagers dare each other to watch like The Ring. Either way I’m curious what the filmmakers have in store for us next.
 
K. Yes, this is definitely not the scariest, or even the most overtly horror.  I don’t think the filmmakers were trying to really convince us that it was a genuine film from the 1970s, that would easily be disproven with one’s eyes or their iPhone.  It seemed like a way to justify that 1970s aesthetic which was one of the most effective things in the film.  As for the marketing scheme, we’ve all noted it was setting the bar way too high (basically the highest bar you can set), so that could turn a lot of people off.  But that being said, I don’t blame them given how hard it is to get people to see your film, you have to do something to stand out.
 
Ultimately, it’s more of a mood piece with a good creepy vibe.  Worth checking out if you’re into the more arthouse horror stuff.  Will teenagers dare themselves to watch it?  I doubt they will ever even hear of it.
 
J.  The fake documentary segments of this is the problem.  It’s the stronger part of it so when you bookend the actual film, Antrum, with these documentary bits, one of them is going to suffer and in this case it’s Antrum itself.  As I’m thinking about it, just having a fake documentary about the fake movie Antrum, which would be comprised of these tales of death stemming from folks watching the film sounds much better.  In this scenario the audience doesn’t need to see the “movie” Antrum.  Just clips would suffice, preferably the strongest ones.  We just need to know how “dangerous” it is in that you will fucking die if you watch it.  That sounds like a much stronger film to me.  Something that would air on Travel Channel for instance. 
 
 
Bloodhound’s average score: 4 out of 5

​In order to give what we believe to be a more unbiased constructive criticism of the piece, the members of Bloodhound Pix are tackling each review as a panel of three. None of the members know the others’ thoughts on the content until after they submit their initial response.
 

 
The film centers around two all-American high school jocks Brad and Dylan (Peter Mayer-Klepchick and Cameron Duckett) who are out for a night on the town when they are approached by the beautiful and seductive Meg (Nicole Dambro) at a local bar. Ready for what they hope will be a night to remember, the guys are subsequently kidnapped, drugged and awaken tied up face to face in an abandoned pool in the middle of nowhere. Absurdity and insanity ensue as we learn that Orin (Jesse Pudles), Meg’s overly flamboyant brother has been the target of Brad and Dylan’s homophobic bullying and that Meg is actually a grad student who plans to perform a psychological and somewhat sadistic experiment on them as part of her thesis, which poses the question, “is homosexuality a choice”.
 
Initial Reaction
 
C. The premise and the opening of Groupers feels like something that could work very well on a low budget and still be inventive. However, the major issue for me came from the feeling that a theatre person wrote the film. I say this not because the film has a certain “theatricality” but rather because the movie spends the whole time telling us, rather than showing us. Not only that, but it tells us in a way that feels like the screenwriter was saying to himself the whole time, “look how smart I am.” Out of  two jock, “bros,” there’s the smartish one and the dumb one. It feels like the dumb one’s purpose was to add a sense of comedic relief to the film that is supposed to deal with heavy subject matter but doesn’t show that weight. Instead the dumb one constantly asks “what is she talking about”, “huh?”, and so on, to which the other characters are forced to explain in fine detail what’s going on… and sadly it’s not that hard to understand. We are left, as the audience, spending most of the movie being fed exposition that we already gathered for ourselves. If you’re making a project that is based around a science or philosophical experiment that may need some explaining to the common audience member, there’s a way to do it. You don’t have to talk down to the audience or bog yourself down in egotistical explanations that feel like they’re coming from the screenwriter and not the character. There are countless examples of how to do it… meaning any half-decent movie with a type of science as the central focus.
 
While we’re on the topic of science, let’s move over to Meg’s “thesis.” Her groundbreaking thesis is on if homosexuality is a choice. Did she just not do any studying? The fact that the topic has been researched and used as a thesis for many decades, how did her academic mentor not say, “hey, maybe you should expand on that idea a bit.” That thesis is basic as hell, and what kind of school would even accept that as an appropriate dissertation? She deserves to fail.
 
There’s a saying that goes, “if you want to send a message, use Western Union.” With anything you watch you can probably find some thematic elements. Some are as broad as just love, while some could be as specific as Reaganomics (They Live). However, if you spend most of your time preaching your message over telling a decent story, it doesn’t matter how important your message is because you lose your audience. You find that the message the movie is going for feels like it’s a day late and a dollar short. Yes, most of us know that bullying and homophobia is bad. Most of us know the answer to Meg’s thesis (thanks to many years of scientific research). I get there are exceptions in the world but to be honest, those people are probably not going to watch this movie. So what does it add besides preaching to the choir? Nothing.
 
If this is being used as demo reel content for the cast and crew then I think it’s perfect. There are solid enough spots to highlight everyone involved. As a complete piece… I don’t know what to say.
 
J. I should preface this review by stating that before screening this, I saw what will probably end up being my film of the year.  That said, if I watched Clownado again before this, it would make no difference in my opinion.  Groupers is scene after scene after scene after scene of characters talking.  Lots and lots of talking.  And then more talking.  Then even more talking.  And none of the dialogue is ever that interesting.  You can feel the drag in nearly every instance.  I found myself thinking, is this really still going on?  What the fuck?  The “story” centers around a character’s grad school thesis about homosexuality being a choice or not.  Nearly everyone on the fucking planet knows the answer to this “problem” unless you’re as dimwitted as everyone in this movie.  The structure of the script tries to be interesting by including flashbacks to how and why certain things show up in certain scenes but the fact is, I didn’t give a shit about why any of this stuff was happening.  And ultimately, just like the film itself, none of it mattered.  From a logic standpoint, there are so many things that don’t add up that it would fill a goddamn novel length of material.  The characters are all not only dimwitted but annoying as all hell too.  The film tries to be funny and in some cases, because of the dimwitted characters, it succeeds but marginally at best.  There is zero action in this ungodly one hour and forty-nine minute slog.  I mean fucking zero action.  It’s like watching a surveillance video of the most boring shit on the planet.  This film almost broke me is what I’m trying to say.  See if you can sit through it.  I fucking dare you. 
 
K.  Groupers starts off decently enough with a long take that leads us into a bar and up to two drunk guys trying to dance with a girl, who then leads them out to her van and abducts them.  This is the best part of the film.  No dialogue has been exchanged.  She takes them to an abandoned house and restrains them in order to exact revenge for her brother under the guise of a social experiment to finally answer the question: is homosexuality a choice?
 
If this sounds ill-conceived and idiotic, that’s because it is.  This scenario is drawn out endlessly.  They talk around things to draw out the run time to a whopping 1 hour and 49 minutes, waaaaay too fucking long for this film.  Way too long.  There are six editors credited and not one of them thought to cut all the unnecessary flashbacks used to introduce characters and then show them observing events we’ve already seen.  A Tarantino flourish that was painful to sit through.
 
Overall, the acting was so-so, the technical aspects were solid, but once again we’ve got a dud of a script combined with what seems to be quite a bit of dull improv which results in a torture test of a viewing experience.
 
Response
 
C. As I already stated, the opening and premise offered an opportunity for an early filmmaker to really allow themselves to shine. Unfortunately, they all got lost in trying to tell an “important” story that they forgot to tell a compelling story.
 
J. Somehow, this fucker has an 8.2/10 imdb.com user ranking.  That is un-fucking-real.  I already said that this one almost broke me.  And my tolerance level is extremely fucking high for bullshit.  But this one… oh man… there was zero conflict.  There was zero action.  There were characters telling the audience what the movie was supposed to be about.  Multiple times.  It was one hour and forty-nine minutes long for fuck’s sake.  Ugh, thankfully this is behind me now and Godspeed to anyone who chooses to go down this path. 
 
K.  This tried way too hard to masquerade as a zeitgeist movie with the homosexuality and bullying angle.  The mash-up of revenge film and black comedy failed miserably.  The dialogue lacked any narrative drive or character development, instead it redundantly stated the characters’ predicament repeatedly and failed to really go anywhere, which is why this was so hard to sit through.  Clearly, the filmmaker was very inspired by Tarantino, given the title sequence defining what a “Grouper” is and the many flashbacks to introduce characters and fill in unnecessary details.
 
This is another case of competent technical aspects paired with incompetent storytelling, made all the worse by the attempt to be clever and pedantic.  So...yeah, I’m gonna go ahead and recommend that you never watch Groupers. 
 
 
 
Bloodhound’s average score: 1/2 out of 5

 
If you have attended a FrightFest event at any time over the last twenty years you will know that it is about more than just the films. There is a rich sense of community to these events, a deep sense of shared experience and passion. This was certainly the case at this year’s Halloween event, at the Leicester Square Cineworld on Saturday 2nd November.
 
Passion was very much at the heart of the opening film, Josh Hasty’s Candy Corn, made as a loving tribute to John Carpenter’s original Halloween. Hasty not only wrote and directed the film but also edited it and co-composed the beautifully atmospheric score. He even had a hand in the costume design! It is a very personal film, made for a very specific audience, perhaps reflected in its presentation of a tight community of outsiders and eccentrics working in a fairground sideshow who see the rest of the world as the ‘freaks’. The leader of this community, the deranged and diminutive ‘Doctor Death’, is forced to take drastic and diabolical action when his new employee, a mentally challenged young resident of a small town, is attacked and killed by local bullies. Dark forces are summoned to re-animate the young man as a vengeful boogeyman and set him on a path of brutal and bloody justice over the course of a hellish Halloween night.

Hasty is clearly in thrall to the passages in Carpenter’s film where the camera pans along streets of houses while the strangely hypnotic ‘music box’ tones of the score suggest the menace lurking behind the daylight and domesticity. Those are some of the greatest moments of anticipation in cinema and Hasty lovingly crafts many of his own such moments here. Indeed, the leisurely opening credits work beautifully to establish a similar effect as they follow the doomed young man from his dilapidated house in the woods over a bridge and through the streets of the town, a location rich in melancholy autumn colours. The score is a clear homage to Carpenter with added richness and reflective qualities.

Indeed, the quality of reflection is the most striking aspect of this film. There are wonderful moments when the local sheriff and his young assistants stand overwhelmed by shock and grief when they discover the various victims. Hasty cleverly links these boldly static scenes to glimpses of melodramatic moments in old monochrome horror films – Bela Lugosi in The Phantom Creeps and Vincent Price in The Bat. Of course we are reminded that Carpenter punctuated the original Halloween with scenes from black and white horrors, playing on televisions in various living rooms. The effect there was to heighten anticipation, to suggest classic horror creeping into the cosiness of a modern household, where nothing could be safe. Here the focus is on reflection rather than anticipation – the films are playing not on a television but on the screen of an old cinema. The meta-cinema time warp in which this film is taking place is not one of immediate terror but of heightened memory – here it is no longer just black and white films that can be considered old or classic but original, gruesome slasher films. In this world, unlike the world of Carpenter’s original, the discovery of hideously mutilated corpses can evoke a memory of film alongside any more immediate visceral response. And that is this film’s powerful statement and greatest strength – the understanding that as spectators we inevitably view so much ‘new’ horror now with reflection more than shock.
 
The most awe-inspiring, if not perhaps the most moving, example of personal vision and passion in the day came in the form of Kevin McTurk’s 15-minute short The Haunted Swordsman, presenting one stage in the epic quest of a samurai hunting a demon. Made entirely with puppets, this was truly extraordinary, a fragment of a giant dream that may never be fully realised…which is surely the point. McTurk leaves us with the sense not just of a world and a story beyond our imaginings but also of a magnificent masterpiece yet to be discovered, a film on a mythical, magical scale far exceeding any other…and of the very real wizard who could conjure it into being if only he had an eternity in which to do it.
 
The second full feature of the day, Marc Meyers’ We Summon the Darkness, was characterised by a gleefully dark cynicism rather than personal passion – and it was a total blast. Bursting with energy and played with wicked wit and relish by its young cast, this tells the story of a trio of girls who befriend three young men at a heavy metal concert and invite them back to a fabulous house for a night of drunken fun and games. Rumours of satanic killings inspired by heavy metal music are circulating and there is a clear sense that something is going to go terribly wrong. It does…but not in the ways one might at first expect. Once the film locates itself in this house it has huge fun finding fresh ways of exploring the classic theme of the darkness and violence that can be found behind affluent walls. In more ways than one it has echoes of Get Out as a social satire (with religious fanaticism rather than racism being the order of the day here) but it is a wilder, messier, funnier ride – one that deserves to find a mainstream audience.
 
The third feature, Paul Davis’ Uncanny Annie, returned us to the idea of individual passion and vision, to a surprising degree given that it was not conceived as a personal project at all but was instead part of the ‘Into the Dark’ series of horror stories produced by Hulu on festive themes. The festival in question here is, appropriately enough, Halloween. A fairly typical group of college age kids are gathered in the living room of a house. They could be out partying but instead they intend to stay there and play games out of respect for one of their friends, who drowned mysteriously in very shallow water exactly a year ago. The titular board game is discovered in the basement and before long the kids fall under its very dark spell and are drawn into its nightmare world, where the house they are gathered in floats in a black void and where death is a terrifyingly real threat.

There is a psychological and moral dimension to this film that lifts it beyond the ‘tricksy’ concept. The void in which the kids find themselves can be seen as a projection of the guilt, rage and painful secrets that the game ultimately forces them to reveal. The ensuing drama is played with a powerful sense of sincerity by the young cast and marshalled with a genre-literate but also very sensitive eye by Davis, who spoke very movingly in a live Q and A about the ways in which the experience and memories of making the film were juxtaposed with the recent loss of his mother and accompanying feelings of isolation and grief. Ultimately the whole communal experience of sharing, discussing and reflecting on the film became an exercise in staring into the void in more ways than one – and a powerful reminder that immersion in a horror story can be a cathartic, healthy and even beautiful way of processing death and loss.

The discussion with Paul Davis brought a welcome emotional depth to the day. FrightFest’s wonderful director Paul McEvoy then continued this passionate thread in his introduction to the next film, Carlo Mirabella Davis’ miraculous Swallow. McEvoy informed us this was his favourite film of the year – in any genre. We were warned to expect an emotional gut punch…and that it would take time to process our thoughts and feelings as the end credits were rolling. He was absolutely right.

At the bleeding heart of the film is a performance of quietly shattering emotional intensity by Haley Bennett as a young woman who has married into a highly controlling, wealthy family. She has become an accessory wife, expected to maintain an immaculate home and exist within it as little more than a silently breathing ornament. The young woman is already feeling trapped, defeated and suffocated by the illusion of light and space and the charade of romance when she discovers she is pregnant. Unable to establish a connection with the young life growing inside her, a life she feels is already owned by her husband’s family, she develops a warped compulsion to take back a sense of ownership and control over her body by putting other things inside her…swallowing objects such as marbles, thumbtacks and batteries. As these things are discovered and drawn out of her, other things she holds within – deep emotions and painful secrets – are also agonisingly removed and held under a harsh light, until ultimately she gives herself no choice but to seek a private catharsis.

This is the kind of film mid-period Cronenberg might have made (the Cronenberg of Dead Ringers, Crash or Spider) if he was adapting and updating Ibsen. It has a coldly polished aesthetic of terrible, empty beauty, at the core of which, in powerful relief, stands Bennett, her pretty features in a constant state of tension between the soft flesh of a damaged, delicate soul and the plastic shell in which her married role is encasing her. A late scene in which she confronts her father is one of the most powerful screen duologues I have seen in a very long time.

How wonderful it would have been to follow this masterpiece with a genre film that could have reached the same heights – a Roemary’s Baby or a Candyman. Unfortunately we had Patrick Lussier’s Trick, which returned us to the general Halloween theme and was trying to do something new with the slasher formula but simply ended up seeming loud, chaotic and just too busy in its relentless quest to keep throwing set-pieces and surprises at us. I hate to say it but in its concentration on concept over character or dramatic development it was all trick and no treat. Yes, I know…a lame pun – but the film deserves it.
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I was unfortunately unable to catch the final film of the day, Scare Package, because I had to make sure I got a train back to Sussex before midnight. One is tempted to play on the Halloween theme and make a lame joke about carriages and pumpkins. I was sorry to have to miss it as it promises to be huge fun…and indeed many of the posts on social media about this event have identified it as one of the highlights of the day. I look forward to catching up with it in due course and making sure it gets its due attention here on Ginger Nuts. And I certainly look forward to next year’s Halloween event. FrightFest really does represent the heart of contemporary horror cinema.

A young couple's dream of starting a family shatters as they descend into the depths of paranoia and must struggle to survive an evil presence that wants nothing more than their very own lives.
 
Initial Reaction
 
K.  Larissa (Amanda Crew) and Matt (Adam Brody) are a young married couple expecting their first child.  Their lives seem to be going great until they move into a new house next door to Ann Pelway (Sheila McCarthy) and her handicapped daughter Isabelle (Zoe Belkin).  Soon after Larissa has a miscarriage and their son is stillborn.  Then Larissa notices Isabelle creepily watching her from an upstairs window, day after day.  Larissa attempts suicide and this begs the question of whether her visions of Isabelle are real or imagined.
 
I won’t give anything else away, not that there are any surprises in store but you get the gist of it.  The story recycles a lot of horror movie cliches (possession, exorcism, mystic healing, ghosts, etc), but doesn’t really do anything new with them.  In comparison to some of the awful dreck we’ve been watching, this is head and shoulders above them, but that’s not saying much.
 
Brody, Crew, McCarthy and Belkin all turn in admirable performances, they just aren’t given a whole lot to work with.  There’s not a lot of subtext or nuance to their roles.  It’s technically polished and looks very slick for a low budget.  Unfortunately, the story wanes pretty early on and then you’re just stuck watching things unfold on screen that aren’t terribly compelling or original.
 
C. What does a movie do when it’s about an evil spirit tormenting someone? The same thing found in every other movie of that nature.
That isn’t meant to say Isabelle is horrible. It’s technically sound, has a few creepy moments, an interesting enough premise and solid acting from Adam Brody and Zoe Belkin. But it falls into a category of movies that are “there,” something that will sadly be forgotten in the sea of content just like it. A movie that tries so hard to check all boxes for (what I assume is) marketability inevitably will end up becoming generic. You will find yourself a couple steps ahead of the movie that should either be trimmed by 5 minutes or lengthened by 20 minutes to appropriately handle the subject matter it presents.
 
Apart from the cliche issues that arise, the major problem with Isabelle comes from the emotional weight required for this premise. It intends to deal with the trauma of losing your baby in childbirth, especially having a stillbirth which would be a whole other level of devastating. However, we’re left with a grieving mother that is portrayed as crazy over dealing with her loss. Brody’s character asks a priest about his wife potentially being possessed within what seems like a week or two (if that) after their traumatic event. Then a little bit after that he’s discussing the possibility of him and his wife divorcing. These are things that could happen if we were provided more instances and a longer duration to really show how bad it’s become. This version has you wondering what kind of person he is for handling his baby’s death so well.
 
I will admit that I’m not the biggest fan of these vengeful spirit/possession movies as of late since they have been following the same paint-by-numbers framework that is being criticized here. That doesn’t stop me from wanting to be proven wrong though. In the end, even after two viewings (as I do to get a proper assessment) I couldn’t tell you one memorable scene/line of dialogue or any reason why I was compelled to continue watching besides the requirement of writing this review.
 
J. The film reminded me of Insidious for a while but nowhere near as good.  I won’t bother pointing out the similarities but suffice it to say, that after Larissa miscarries and returns home after a stint in the hospital, the titular Isabelle just won’t leave her the fuck alone.  This plays out as a kind of is-Larissa-crazy or is-she-really-experiencing-this-shit scenario.  Thing is, we know damn well that it’s real because Isabelle’s mother bails and she doesn’t do this for no reason.  Anyhow, we know immediately that whatever Isabelle is up to, it isn’t good.  This point is hammered home by the always creepy expression on her face as she watches Larissa from an upstairs window in the neighboring house like some Peeping Tom spectre.  Oh, and the CGI red eyes.  Dead fucking giveaway that Isabelle is nothing like Casper.  So as Larissa is continuously “haunted” I kept asking myself, why doesn’t she go over to the house and do something about it?  Well, because then the movie would end sooner so she doesn’t do that but instead falls further and further into a spiral of appeared lunacy.  There’s some creepy moments with the actress who plays Isabelle and she does look creepy as all hell but the look is a little too much like Sadako from Ringu.  Like way too much.  I had to ask myself if they were “paying homage” or if they really weren’t aware of how similar the costume design is.  The film does what it can as a no budget haunted house flick and it succeeds to a certain degree.  Where it doesn’t succeed is the end because apparently, Larissa and her husband Matt are stuck in some kind of time loop which literally comes the fuck outta nowhere.  I could be wrong in making that assumption but that’s what I took away from it.  Basically, it doesn’t make a damn bit of sense kinda like how Larissa doesn’t go to the house and throw down with that malevolent bitch Isabelle. 
 
 
Response
 
C. I have to second what Josh was saying about Larissa. I think the issue with the movie comes from the fact that the protagonist (Larissa) just gets haunted and goes crazy but she really doesn’t attempt to change her circumstance, other than yelling at Isabelle’s mother once. I think the movie would have added more tension if she did try to break into the house or do… something.  Hell, there could’ve been a scene where she broke in and I don’t remember at all. Or… if you’re going to put all the action on the husband at the end, then it should’ve been made from his perspective of seeing his wife being haunted and trying to “save” her.
 
Mainly my stance hasn’t changed a whole lot. It’s a movie that’s just “there,” neither good nor bad. It’s a dry piece of toast in a time when you need flavor, something memorable to standout in the oversaturated market.
 
J. So the heart and desire seems to be there but the end product… not so much.  If you’re a connoisseur of the haunted house subgenre you may get a little bit more to chew on but then again maybe not.  Especially if, like me, it made you remember things like Insidious also exist.  The runtime is brisk at 81 minutes, which is a goddamn blessing.  I will say that the completely out-of-left-field ending has stuck with me but I’m not sure if it's for a good reason.  It’s memorable I suppose but there’s lots of memorable things you’d rather forget too. 
 
K. I have nothing to add.  It exists.  If you don’t see it, you’re better off, life’s too short.
 
 
 
Bloodhound’s average score: 2 1/2 out of 5

​The much-hyped Dr Sleep finally arrived on our big screens just in time for Halloween and delivers an entertaining supernatural thriller rather than a genuinely scary horror film. The marketing campaign has also over-egged the strong connection the film has with Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece The Shining, to the extent that seeing posters of Ewan McGregor (Danny Torrence) looking through the door famously smashed by Jack Nicholson (Jack Torrence) in the original film almost put me off watching this continuation at all. I found that rather tacky, but money talks. Dr Sleep does make numerous connections to The Shining, but wisely goes not genuinely overdo it, and viewers are sure to enjoy the references. It is worth pointing out that Dr Sleep makes more connections to the original than King’s book does; the overtones connecting to The Shining are bound to be a box-office ticket seller and, not surprisingly, feature heavily in the trailers.

The first thing to clarify is whether this is a sequel to the Stephen King novel or the Stanley Kubrick film as they were quite different from each other? The answer is a bit of both and that creates a bit of a conflict, with the climax a definite tribute to Kubrick’s cinematic vision rather than King’s novel. As you might gather the ending of Dr Sleep is radically different from the book and I felt the conclusion of the film was very strong. At various points in the over-long 151-minute running time the book and the film veer in different directions, having said that it remains a relatively faithful adaptation and ranks as one of the better King adaptations to come along in recent years.

Expectations were justifiably high once Mike Flanagan came aboard as director, having been involved in several excellent projects in recent years including The Haunting of Hill House, Gerald’s Game, Hush and Oculus. Flanagan had a tough job; marrying King’s vision of transferring his book to the big screen and respecting the wishes of those who manage the estate of the late Stanley Kubrick was never going to be an easy job, but he seems to have kept both parties admirably happy.

The film opens with some brief scenes with Danny still as a boy trying to deal with the repercussions of what happened in the hotel and the death of his father, before skipping forward to 2011 when, like his father, he is a violent drunk and drifter. During these heavy drinking periods his gift, which he calls ‘the shining’ is dulled by the booze, but upon arrival in a new town he discovers Alcoholics Anonymous and turns over a new leaf. The story then makes another seven-year jump and Danny is still sober and working in a hospice. The patients call him ‘Dr Sleep’ as he uses his rediscovered ‘shining’ to ease their fears of dying and moving into the next life.

The film has two other major strands which eventually connect with Danny. There is a little girl in town who has an incredibly powerful ‘shine’ called Abra who is played by the excellent Kyliegh Curran who communicates with Danny via their gift for several years before they meet face to face. The other crucial plot involves a secret group of supernatural beings, slightly like vampires, who feed off the energy of people who have ‘shine’ ability which they call ‘steam’. This ‘steam’ exists in its purest essence in children and to extract the ‘steam’ they torture and kill the kids they locate who have it. However, as the years have gone by it has become harder to find kids with special abilities and the ‘True Knot’ group are becoming hungry and soon discover Abra and begin stalking her. However, she is a tough little girl and is also hunting them as she is aware of one of their most recent kills. These cat and mouse games go on slightly too long, in the middle section of the film, and contribute to the bloated running time.

‘Rose the Hat’ (Rebecca Ferguson) leads the ‘True Knot’ and she is unlikely to be remembered as one of King’s more memorable villains, either in book or film. She smiles a lot, is very flouncy and is more talk than action and carried little in the way of threat or menace apart in the brief torture scene. She was rather dull, this was a problem as she had a lot of screen time, and we are given little or no backstory on their origins, apart from the fact that they live for a very long time. The film wisely pulled back from the child torture in the book required to produce the ‘steam’ and reduces the number of child deaths compared to the book. Apart from ‘Rose the Hat’ the rest of the ‘True Knot’ were anonymous background figures and as bad guys were forgettable. ‘Snakebite Andi’ did have a great introduction scene, but then she also sadly disappeared, even though she had the dangerous ability to make people do anything she wanted by forcing her will upon them. And in the end the majority of the ‘True Knot’ were despatched remarkably easy, probably too easily.

Ewan McGregor carries the film very well and convinces as Danny Torrence, dealing with the demons of alcoholism and the responsibility of watching out for Abra when the ‘True Knot’ come knocking and the film is bolstered by a strong support cast. When Danny, Abra and Rose communicate with each other, or listen in on each other’s conversations, the film goes into fantasy mode where the listening is seen as an out of body experience. Although the special effects were very solid, it did not do much for tension and even less for adding any kind of horror.    

This entertaining film is hampered by its 151-minute running time and the fact that it is just not scary enough, if at all. It should be marketed as a supernatural thriller, as there is just not enough ‘horror’ to call it a genuine horror film. I do not believe I was caught out by a single scene in the entire film. In a crowd-pleasing finale we return to the Overlook Hotel and some nice cross-references with The Shining which were very respectful, and we were reintroduced to some of the ghosts from the original.

In Chad Clark’s superb Tracing the Trails: A Constant Reader's Reflections on the Work of Stephen King Clark made a fascinating observation about the Dr Sleep novel. He felt that the main character in the novel need not have been Danny Torrence, as in the book there are relatively few references to The Shining, and that with a different opening 50-60 pages it might have been an entirely different kind of novel. Perhaps a clever editor saw the financial potential of shoehorning this manuscript into the storyline of King’s most famous works? I tend to agree with Chad Clark, for most of the book they have little to do with each other and the ending of Dr Sleep, the novel, could have taken place anywhere, not the burned down Overlook Hotel, the film was not the same case.  
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This was a very solid and respectful follow-on to The Shining but is best not sold as a sequel and the director has made a fine job of merging the visions of both King and Kubrick. However, it lacked scares and although it was convincing it also lacked knockout scenes, but the return to the Overlook Hotel was a real treat.
4/5
Tony Jones