Archive for Blair Witch

Transmissions to Earth Intercepts THE LAST BROADCAST (1998)

Posted in 1990s Horror, 2013, ESP, Faux Documentaries, Horror, Indie Horror, LL Soares Reviews, Madness, Murder!, Mystery, Plot Twists, Secrets, Trasmissions to Earth with tags , , , , , , , on February 21, 2013 by knifefighter

Transmissions to Earth:

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THE LAST BROADCAST (1998)

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Review by L.L. Soares

With the recent boom of fake documentaries (otherwise known as “found footage” movies), especially in the horror genre (the PARANORMAL ACTIVITY movies, CLOVERFIELD, THE LAST EXORCISM, etc.), THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) constantly pops up in conversation as the influential flick that started this all. And it deserves the attention. The flurry of excitement that surrounded BLAIR WITCH when it first came out was sure to inspire a lot of would-be filmmakers. But a year before BLAIR WITCH, we got THE LAST BROADCAST (1998), which dabbled in this style first, and also shares a lot of similarities with a certain Blair Witch.

Directed and written by Stefan Avalos and Lance Weiler, THE LAST BROADCAST begins with filmmaker David Leigh (David Beard) introducing himself and his movie, which is made up of footage from several sources, starting with a cable access show called “Fact or Fiction,” starring Steven Avkast (Stefan Avalos), who also goes by “Johnny,” and Locus Wheeler (Lance Weiler). Their show explores paranormal phenomenon, but it didn’t really get much in the way of viewers until they decided to hook up a voice response system to their computer, so people could type questions and the voice would speak them aloud on the show. This little bit of audience response is enhanced by the fact that the computerized voice that reads the questions sounds rather spooky. One of the viewers, through this system, suggests they investigate the legend of the Jersey Devil.

Steven and Locus get the idea to film a live show in the middle of the New Jersey Pine Barrens; their plan being to exploit the Jersey Devil legend for big ratings that will maybe get the show out of cable access and into the big time. To help them out on their little camping trip into the middle of nowhere, the hosts bring along sound man Rein (pronounced “Ryan”) Clackin (Rein Clabbers), and a “psychic” that Rein knows named Jim Suerd (Jim Seward), who is sensitive to the “spirits” of the woods.

We learn early on that Jim Suerd has recently died in prison when THE LAST BROADCAST begins, where he was serving two life sentences for murder. We also learn that he was a bit of a loner who was obsessed with the Internet and magic tricks. The implication being that his “psychic” powers were fake, perpetrated by someone with a rudimentary knowledge of magic, and that Suerd was a bit unbalanced to begin with.

Fake "psychic" Jim Suerd. Did he commit the murders in the woods?

Fake “psychic” Jim Suerd. Did he commit the murders in the woods?

Suerd finds the other guys the “right spot” in the middle of the barrens, and they set up camp. There’s a disagreement at one point, when Rein is picking on Jim about his “psychic powers,” which turns into a shoving match (which becomes important later). Then the guys broadcast their show from deep in the woods.

But something goes wrong. Rein and Locus are murdered. Steven Avkast disappears (but they find his hat and a lot of his blood), and Jim Suerd calls the police (his 9-1-1 call begins the movie) to report that something has gone horribly wrong in the woods.

A year or so after the events in the woods, and right after Jim Suerd has died in prison under mysterious circumstances, David Leigh receives a strange package in the mail. Inside is a mostly destroyed VHS cassette, and a lot of loose tape. Leigh brings it to a data retrieval expert , Michelle Monarch (Michele Pulaski) to analyze. Through painstaking work on her computer, Michelle is able to isolate sections of the tape and recover the images, which turns out to be previously lost footage of Steven and Locus’s final broadcast in the woods. The more she deciphers, the closer she gets to revealing the true identity of the murderer.

Things go bad int he barrens in THE LAST BROADCAST.

Things go bad int he barrens in THE LAST BROADCAST.

With the concept of a group of people in the woods, filming themselves, and the exploration of a local legend, you can see the parallels between this movie and THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. And THE LAST BROADCAST is just as compelling. In fact, I found myself getting pretty engrossed in the story, wanting to know more as it went along. The acting here is all believable (and I wonder how many cast members were actually professional actors), and the central mystery is very compelling. I really liked the cast of this one, which includes a bunch of other “talking heads,” people who knew the film crew, including the psychologist who met with Jim Suerd as a child (Dale Worstall), a film editor for the prosecution in Suerd’s trial (Mark Rublee) and a director who was hired by the “Fact or Fiction” team, who formerly directed soap operas and who looks a lot like Phil Spector, named Sam Woods (Sam Wells). All of the “witnesses” who talk on camera are interesting and help move the story toward its creepy conclusion.

In a time when the Internet’s domination of us all wasn’t as profound, THE LAST BROADCAST is notable for having both the Internet and videotaped footage play major roles in the film. For the most part, the videotaped footage works very well.

My only complaint is that there’s a coda at the end of the film that feels tacked on. For the most part, the points of view in the film make sense, and are believable. The movie should have ended at a scene where two characters come “face to face” (if you see the movie, you’ll understand what I mean). But instead, there’s a last segment that suddenly breaks the rules of the “point of view” format that was used up to this point, and this final part almost ruined the movie for me. Almost. It’s not completely disastrous, but I found it unnecessary (and who is filming it?) In trying to creep the audience out, it goes a little too far to explain everything (instead of trusting the audience to “get it” at the scene where I think it should have ended).

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THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT might get all the credit for starting the “found footage” genre, but THE LAST BROADCAST, a film that isn’t as well known, clearly got there first. In a lot of ways (especially because of its amazing marketing campaign at the time), BLAIR WITCH is the more memorable movie, the one that influenced so many other filmmakers to follow in its footsteps, but THE LAST BROADCAST is just as effective, and deserves more credit than it gets.

Also, at several points, when the “Fact or Fiction” guys discussed tracking down the Jersey Devil, I kept wondering, “Why don’t they explain what the legend of the Jersey Devil is all about.” Well, this is not addressed in detail in the movie, but after the end credits, there is a short, related film that does just that – explaining the Jersey Devil myth pretty well.

I liked this movie a lot, and recommend it to anyone who is a fan of the “found footage” genre.

© Copyright 2013 by L.L.  Soares

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LOVELY MOLLY (2011)

Posted in 2012, Enigmatic Films, Horror, Madness, Paul McMahon Columns, Possession, Supernatural, Suspense with tags , , , , , , on November 14, 2012 by knifefighter

LOVELY MOLLY (2011)
Movie Review by Paul McMahon– The Distracted Critic

Eduardo Sanchez, co-director of the THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) and writer/director of ALTERED (2006), has a new film out called LOVELY MOLLY (2011). It’s an interesting Frankenstein’s monster, incorporating both the hand-held camera work used in BLAIR WITCH and the traditional narrative film style used in ALTERED. The film opens, in fact, with an extreme close-up of Molly, which echoes Heather’s now iconic videotaped confession in BLAIR WITCH.

Molly looks panicked and strung out, or panicked and exhausted, and she says: “Whatever happened, it wasn’t me.” She holds a knife to her own throat for a few tense seconds, before bringing it down and saying “It won’t let me do it.”

Now we’re at Molly and Tim’s wedding, another hand-held shot, and the camera picks up a young boy who looks stuffed into a suit. He walks directly at the camera with a smile completely juxtaposed after the clip we just saw, and as the camera zooms in on the kid’s mouth he whispers “I’m hungry.” We watch snippets of a wedding, picking up little bits here and there. Tim is dissed by one of Molly’s young relatives. One of Molly’s uncles offers a toast to his brother Ben and and his wife Tammy (Molly’s parents): “Who I know are looking down on us right now, and watching their little girl start her new life with her new husband.” You also see the maid of honor giving a tearful apology for any times she let the bride down, while Molly dismisses her apology with a smile and a shake of her head. This last is such a quick exchange you just know it’s going to be important later.

After the credits roll, we put the hand-held away. It’s late at night and shadows are used very well to portray a house in isolation, surrounded by forest without a streetlight to be seen. The security alarm goes off. Molly and Tim jolt out of bed. Tim fiddles with the alarm and it takes him a few tries to get the thing to shut off. There’s a problem at the kitchen door. They creep out to the head of the stairs, hearing something bumping around downstairs. They freak and bolt themselves in their bedroom to await the cops. After a walk through reveals nothing, we rejoin them the next morning, Molly’s birthday. Tim, who drives a truck, is leaving on a job. He’ll be back in a few days. Molly is not at all happy about this. We watch her locking up the house that night, and when she reaches the kitchen door that set the alarm off, it crashes in its frame as if it’s been kicked by a horse. Molly calls the police again and is assured that the house had been vacant long enough that kids must be using the property as a place to hang out. “They’ll stop coming around after a while,” is the most comfort he offers her.

The next night, sounds of a crying child come from inside the house. Molly searches, finally opening the closet in a spare bedroom. She stares. Smiles. Reaches inside.

Next morning, Tim returns. It’s daylight. He calls, and Molly doesn’t answer. He searches the house, and is shocked to find her sitting in the spare room, facing the closet, absolutely naked. He talks to her as he creeps closer and finally sits beside her, and she seems oblivious to his presence, until finally her eyes focus and she turns to him.

“He’s alive,” she says.

Not at all the ‘Welcome home!”Tim was expecting.

LOVELY MOLLY is a horror movie of the “Is she crazy, is she possessed, or is she truly haunted?” trope. There are a lot of possible answers presented here. Molly has a history of mental illness and drug use. She’s spending much of her time alone in the house she grew up in; a house where horrible things happened to her. There are images of horses, and at one point you can hear horse hooves clopping outside the bedroom door late at night. There’s a co-worker of Molly’s who lives with her two small children in a house through the woods, and Molly occasionally sneaks over to film them on her hand-held video camera—that is, when she’s not using the camera to film empty corners as she screams for something, or someone, to show itself. There are hints that she’s possessed by an evil spirit. Through it all, you wonder how all these strands will tie together into a cohesive whole.

Eduardo Sanchez has a firm grasp of what keeps viewers on the edge of their seats. He uses our fears of the dark, of death, of solitude, of other people, to masterful effect here. Most importantly, he capitalizes on what Stephen King calls our natural “fear FOR someone else” because Molly is truly likeable. Newcomer Gretchen Lodge puts forth a tremendous performance here, inhabiting Molly completely in all her permutations of emotion. If the right Hollywood people see this film, we’ll be seeing a lot more of Gretchen in years to come.

Gretchen Lodge as LOVELY MOLLY.

In fact, all the performers have come with their A-games. Alexandra Holden (Maggie in 2006′s SPECIAL) plays Molly’s sister, Hannah. From her tearful confession in the wedding video at the start of the film, you can see Hannah’s concern grow even as she becomes more and more concerned for her own safety. Field Blauvelt (THE INVASION,  2007) plays Pastor Bobby perfectly, nailing that character with every move, every smile, every downcast eye.

The late Johnny Lewis (“Half Sack” in SONS OF ANARCHY) shines as Tim, deeply in love with Molly but without a clue as to how to help her. It’s mentioned that they don’t have the health insurance to get her the attention she really needs. I wish I was comfortable saying this is the reason he and Hannah make such piss-poor decisions, but honestly it felt like the decisions they made were the ones the writers needed them to make to have the story move the way they wanted.

The late Johnny Lewis (“Half Sack” on SONS OF ANARCHY) plays Tim in LOVELY MOLLY.

There are simply too many questions brought up during the course of the movie to answer all of them in a way that feels satisfying. It felt like Eduardo Sanchez and Jamie Nash wrote the screenplay while keeping their shooting budget in the forefront of their minds. It seemed like any aspect that threatened to exceed what they could pay for was dropped without another glance. The movie could’ve used a far less restrictive writing process. I think it would’ve been better for them to just cut loose and write whatever the story dictated, and then edit it down to meet the budget later. There are a couple of instances where the plot felt out-of-control, as if even the director didn’t understand why things were happening.

These drawbacks were relatively small, though. In all, LOVELY MOLLY is a very tense film that keeps you guessing throughout. It’s the kind of movie you don’t finish and forget about. This one will keep you thinking long after your media center powers down. It may even draw you back to watch it again.

I give it three stars with two time-outs.

© Copyright 2012 by Paul McMahon

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ALTERED (2006)

Posted in 2012, Aliens, DVD Review, Outer Space, Paranormal, Paul McMahon Columns, The Distracted Critic with tags , , , , on May 2, 2012 by knifefighter

ALTERED (2006)
DVD Review by Paul McMahon– The Distracted Critic

It’s the same old story. Boy and his friends are abducted by aliens, Boy and his friends are returned with one of them dead, Boy and friends are ridiculed, suspected and shunned by society, Boy’s friends turn up on his doorstep in the middle of the night with an alien bound in small grade galvanized chain and duct tape, looking to exact some hillbilly revenge.

The concept catches your attention because there’s a lot there that—if done well—could make the film stand out and be mentioned in conversations that include films like ALIEN (1979) and JOHN CARPENTER’S THE THING (1982). At the same time, there’s just as much there that—if done poorly—could make the film stand out and be mentioned in conversations that include rubber-suited camp-fests like ROBOT MONSTER (1953) and IT CONQUORED THE WORLD (1956).  Since the original concept for the film was a horror-comedy called “Probed,” you’d expect it to fall into the latter category.

Duke, Cody and Otis are the friends who infiltrate the woods as the film opens, heavily armed with rifles, pistols and a spear gun. They crash through the underbrush and “whisper” to each other louder than leaf blowers. It’s enough to make you smell the beer on their breath and the sweat in their clothes.  These clowns couldn’t succeed in bagging a sloth, even if it were deaf and half dead already. And yet….

They chain it, bag it and bring it to their friend Wyatt’s garage, where they duct tape it to a table. We find out that the aliens kept Wyatt and Cody’s brother Timmy five days longer than the rest of them, and when they were finally returned, Timmy was dead. Wyatt prevents them from killing the alien they’ve captured, though, saying that if they do, “…the rest of them are gonna come and put us down.” There is some intense dialogue as Wyatt tries to make them bring it back to the forest, tries to convince them to leave his home, tries to keep them quiet so they won’t wake his girlfriend, Hope, and tries to persuade Cody (who’s hell-bent on avenging his brother) that killing the creature would mean the end of the human race.

Wyatt (in the blue tee shirt) contemplates the gift alien Otis, Cody and Duke have wrapped up and brought him.

ALTERED was directed by Eduardo Sanchez of THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999) fame. He has constructed a clever and intense story with some memorable horror scenes. The screenplay was written by Jamie Nash, who, with Sanchez, wrote the upcoming ghost movie, LOVELY MOLLY. That ALTERED isn’t more well-known is disappointing, but understandable. Its release date (2006) coincided with a time when seemingly everyone was bashing BLAIR WITCH for one thing or another. But with ALTERED, gone is the shaky cam, gone is the faux documentary style, gone is the ad-libbed dialogue that takes forever to make its point. ALTERED is straight up and unflinching and showcases a director who knows how to construct a memorable and compelling film.

The cast isn’t very well known, except for James Gammon (THE NEW DAUGHTER, 2009) in a small role as the town sheriff. Paul McCarthy-Boyington (Cody), Brad William Henke (Duke) and Adam Kaufman (Wyatt), are character actors you’ve seen guest-starring on shows like CSI:MIAMI, WITHOUT A TRACE, DEXTER and LOST, among others. Otis is played by Michael C. Williams, who looks nothing like he did in THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT. He’s almost unrecognizable in this role and his crappy goatee couldn’t account for all that. He does an impressive job inhabiting this character.

The mechanics of the film are top-notch. The alien looks menacing, kind of a hybrid of ALIEN and PREDATOR, and it’s quite a stretch of time before we get a really good look at it, adding to the suspense. There’s also very little music. Most of the scenes play to silence or sound effects of scraping metal that fit the action well enough that I didn’t notice the sound couldn’t have come from what was happening on the screen. I only realized the music was there when I went back specifically to look for it.

A few things come up in almost every film that shake your suspension of belief. In ALTERED, there’s a character who steps in a bear trap, gets freed, and then walks on it with barely a limp for the rest of the film. I’ve seen this in CANNIBAL: THE MUSICAL (1993) and SILVER BULLET (1985), that I can remember, and I’m sure one or two more times that I can’t. One of these days Adam Savage of (the TV show) MYTHBUSTERS will have to step in a bear trap and see if this is “Plausible.”

There’s a disappointing plot development later on that utilizes some Spielberg-inspired “alien magic.” It’s hinted at enough that the event doesn’t come out of left field, but it still feels out of place against the pent-up intensity of the rest of the film. In fact, it wasn’t until then that my first itch to walk away hit me. Which is not to say they screwed up the ending. Far from it.

ALTERED is a solid little alien movie, one for that deserves to be more well-known than it is. Though it might not be good enough to be listed alongside ALIEN, it’s a hell of a lot closer to that than ROBOT MONSTER.

I give it three stars, with two time-outs.

© Copyright 2012 by Paul McMahon

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TROLLHUNTER!

Posted in 2011, CGI, Fantasy Films, Foreign Films, Giant Monsters, Indie Horror, LL Soares Reviews, Low Budget Movies with tags , , , , , , , , , on July 5, 2011 by knifefighter

TROLLHUNTER
Movie Review by L.L. Soares

Thar’s trolls up in them hills!

The Norweigan film, TROLLHUNTER, follows in the footsteps of such previous “lost footage” films from THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT (1999), CLOVERFIELD (2008), THE LAST EXORCISM (2010) and yes, even PARANORMAL ACTIVITY (2007), and on one level, the herky-jerky hand-held camera, “right in the thick of things,” style has overstayed its welcome. How many more movies can we sit through that look like BLAIR WITCH, with purposely inept camerawork and chaotic “I dropped the camera” moments?

Well, I guess we’re stuck with this style of movie as long as directors keep finding fresh ways to use it (besides, it’s cheap), and TROLLHUNTER continues in that tradition. What those movies I listed above have in common, aside from their annoying camera style, is that they’re all movies I have to admit I enjoyed. And TROLLHUNTER is no exception.

Haven’t heard of this one? Well, unlike the other new giant monster movie that just came out—yes, I’m talking about the third TRANSFORMERS movie—that is playing in every multi-plex in the country, TROLLHUNTER is a bit harder to find. You actually have to…er…”hunt” for it. Where I am, it’s playing in the reliable old art-house theater, mainly because it’s in a foreign language. But I bet it’s more fun than TRANSFORMERS, at a miniscule fraction of its budget. In fact, the low budget forces the filmmakers to be extra inventive with the little resources they have, and it pays off here.

It begins with a brief introduction to how the “lost” footage was discovered and the attempts to verify its authenticity, then it rolls and we’re introduced to three college kids from Volda University. There’s Thomas (Glenn Erland Tosterud), who does the actual onscreen interviews, Johanna (Johanna Morck) doing the sound (carrying the boom mic everywhere she goes) and Kalle (Tomas Alf Larsen) doing the camerawork. While we don’t see much of Kalle (for obvious reasons), we see Thomas and Johanna a lot, and they’re not half as annoying as Heather from THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, so it’s not a chore to watch what happens next.

They’re making a student film, following bear hunters around. It seems there has been a rash of cattle-killings in the area (even a few humans have been killed), and in Norway, only people with a special license are allowed to hunt bears, so they all know each other. But there’s an outsider hovering nearby, following them around, that they’re not too happy about. The kids are intrigued and want to know more about the guy. Is he a poacher?

It turns out that his name is Hans (Otto Jespersen) and he works for the government, controlling the troll population. Trolls? The kids have the same reaction as you do reading this review. Is this guy out of his mind? But it doesn’t take long to show them Hans is not screwing around, as a late-night trek through the woods reveals a three-headed beasty that almost kills them. Luckily a gigantic lighting set-up on Hans’s truck, using UV rays, stops the creature in its tracks, and it turns to stone. We’re told later that it all has to do with the way trolls’ bodies are incapable of processing Vitamin D in sunlight, which makes them either calcify into organic statues or makes them explode in a fireworks display of smelly guts. It’s the older ones that seem to turn to stone when subjected to sunlight, but they’re really ossifying into pure bone.

Hans is sick of his job and wants to finally blow the lid off his mission, which is supposed to be top secret. His boss, Finn (Hans Morten Hansen), even shows up to yell at Hans and threaten the kids if they plan to show the footage to anyone (by the end he’s brought some thugs along to help keep the kids quiet). Hans is getting older and is fed up with being a one-man troll squad. It’s just years of late hours and bad pay and he just doesn’t care anymore, so he shows them everything. From how to find trolls (first you have to strip off your clothes and cover yourself in smelly troll guts, so they don’t smell you—they’re especially sensitive to the smell of Christians), to how to take a blood sample (in a scene where Hans dons some armor straight out of the Black Knight sequence from MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL [1975]) to how to kill an out-of-control troll.

One attempt to lure a troll out of hiding involves a bridge and three baa-ing billy goats, like something out of the old fairy tale! But you’ll be on the edge of your seat.

There are even different kinds of trolls – mostly broken up into woodland and mountain varieties—from the three-headed Tosserlads to the brutish, big-snouted Ringlefinch to the biggest daddies of them all, the Jotnars.

Sure, there’s no 3D like in TRANSFORMERS, but there’s interesting use of CGI, considering the miniscule funds available. Between the shaky camerawork and the night vision goggles, we never see the creatures as perfectly as we would in the light of day, but considering these setbacks and the budget, the trolls are pretty cool. Each species is very different and formidable, and very well done. By the time Hans goes up against the humungous Jotnar at the end, you’re pretty much mesmerized by these bizarre creatures, and by the very likable human characters as well. The direction by Andre Ovredal is quite good, and the visual effects are much better than they have any right to be.

There are funny moments, some tense moments, and some moments that are just plain awesome. Nothing here is going to scare you out of your seat, but you’ll be sucked in early and you’ll enjoy the journey TROLLHUNTER takes you on.

See TROLLHUNTER on the big screen. Tell them Jotnar sent you!


It’s funny how there have been some very original little genre flicks coming out of countries we don’t normally see these kinds of films from lately, like 2008′s LET THE RIGHT ONE IN (from Sweden),  last year’s RARE EXPORTS: A CHRISTMAS TALE  (Finland), and now this one from Norway. I really hope this is just the beginning of more to come.

Despite the clichés that have sprung up around BLAIR WITCH-style filmmaking, TROLLHUNTER is worth checking out. Maybe I was just in the perfect mood to see this one – but I give it three and a half knives. And if you can see this on the big screen, check it out. Because these trolls should be seen as big as possible.

© Copyright 2011 by L.L. Soares

L.L. Soares gives TROLLHUNTER - three and a half knives!

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