Review: ‘Werewolves Within,’ starring Sam Richardson, Milana Vayntrub, Catherine Curtin, Michaela Watkins, Michael Chernus, Cheyenne Jackson and Harvey Guillén

July 12, 2021

by Carla Hay

Pictured clockwise, from left: Catherine Curtin, Milana Vayntrub, Harvey Guillén, Cheyenne Jackson, George Basil, Sarah Burns and Sam Richardson in “Werewolves Within” (Photo by Sabrina Lantos/IFC Films)

“Werewolves Within”

Directed by Josh Ruben

Culture Representation: Taking place in the fictional city of Beaverfield, Vermont, the horror film “Werewolves Within” features a mostly white group of people (with one African American, one Latino and one biracial Native American) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A newly appointed forest ranger arrives in Beaverfield, a rural city that’s in turmoil over a fracking debate and speculation that a killer werewolf is on the loose.

Culture Audience: “Werewolves Within” will appeal primarily to fans of the “Werewolves Within” video game and to people who are interested in memorable horror comedies with quirky characters.

Michaela Watkins in “Werewolves Within” (Photo by Sabrina Lantos/IFC Films)

There’s a particular art to blending horror and comedy that “Werewolves Within” achieves with goofy and quirky charm. It’s a well-cast movie that has obvious influences—namely, filmmaker brothers Joel and Ethan Coen 1996 dark comedy “Fargo” and filmmaker Edgar Wright’s 2004 zombie comedy “Shaun of the Dead.” However, “Werewolves Within” (directed by Josh Ruben and written by Mishna Wolff) still keeps the wacky spirit of the Ubisoft video game on which it is based. It’s one of the few video-game-to-movie adaptations that isn’t an embarrassment to the video game.

“Werewolves Within”—which takes places during a snowy winter in the fictional rural city of Beaverfield, Vermont—has a wisecracking tone throughout the film but still maintains an aura of impending doom, as the body count begins to increase. When newly appointed forest ranger Finn Wheeler (played by Sam Richardson) arrives in Beaverfield to start his new job, he arrives in a city that’s plagued by divisive tensions over a fracking controversy. There’s also speculation that a wild animal (possibly a werewolf) is responsible for a recent bloody death of a hunter in the woods, nearly a month earlier.

Finn has his own personal issues going into this job. He’s very insecure about being perceived as a wimp who’s too nice. The first time that viewers see Finn is in his car, as he’s driving to Beaverfield. He’s listening to a self-help motivational podcast or audio recording to learn how to be an assertive alpha male. During the course of the movie, viewers will see that Finn (who was transferred to Beaverfield by the U.S. Forest Service) has to battle his own inner demons and insecurities, as well as the major problems that he comes across in Beaverfield.

“Werewolves Within” moves at such a quick pace that within the first 15 minutes of the film, Finn has met all of the characters who will be in this story. They are:

  • Jeanine Sherman (played by Catherine Curtin), the mild-mannered owner of the Beaverfield Inn, where Finn is living.
  • Sam Parker (played by Wayne Duvall), an arrogant executive from Midland Gas, the company that wants to buy land in Beaverfield for fracking purposes.
  • Cecily Moore (played by Milana Vayntrub), a friendly and talkative mail carrier from the U.S. Postal Service, who lives at the Beaverfield Inn rent-free in exchange for assisting with the inn’s cleaning duties.
  • Dr. Jane Ellis (played by Rebecca Henderson), a politically liberal, serious-minded sociologist and environmentalist who is vehemently against anything that she thinks is damaging to the environment, such as what Midland Gas wants to do.
  • Emerson Flint (played by Glenn Fleshler), a gruff and reclusive animal trapper who is the subject of a lot of the town’s gossip.
  • Devon Wolfson (played by Cheyenne Jackson), a vain millionaire who founded a tech company and who gave up life in a big city for a more laid-back lifestyle in Beaverfield.
  • Joaquim Wolfson (played by Harvey Guillén), Devon’s flamboyant and sassy husband who owns a yoga studio in town.
  • Trisha Anderton (played by Michaela Watkins), an uptight neurotic who has a passion for crafting and is the owner of Anderton Farms, which has been in her family for 90 years.
  • Pete Anderton (played by Michael Chernus), Trisha’s politically conservative, lecherous husband who has a wandering eye and wandering hands when it comes to women who aren’t his wife.
  • Gwen Sieczkowski (played by Sara Burns), a tough-talking mechanic who had a somewhat secret affair with Pete.
  • Marcus (played by George Basil), Gwen’s boyfriend who is unemployed, financally broke and very dimwitted.

These residents of Beaverfield have various opinions of what Midland Gas wants to do in Beaverfield. Beaverfield Inn owner Jeanine is reluctant to sell her property to Midland Gas, even though the company is offering her a lot of money to sell. Devon and Joaquim, who identify as progressive liberals, are inclined to be against what Midland Gas wants to do.

Meanwhile, Trisha, Pete, Gwen and Marcus think that Midland Gas will bring a lot of business to Beaverton, and they want to profit from it as much as possible. Cecily hasn’t expressed a strong opinion one way or another. But she does tell Finn that she likes her living arrangement, and that she hopes that the Beaverfield Inn won’t be sold to Midland Gas, which would demolish the inn for fracking activities.

The first time that Cecily and Finn meet, it’s at the inn, and there’s an immediate attraction between them. Finn isn’t as obvious about his attraction to Cecily when they first meet, because he tells her that he has a girlfriend named Charlotte, who’s in the city where he used to live. Charlotte is never seen in the movie, but her phone conversations with Finn make it clear to viewers that she likes to nag and henpeck Finn and doesn’t really respect him.

Finn decided to transfer to Beaverfield as part of his goal to be an alpha male, by taking on a challenge outside of his comfort zone. His relationship with Charlotte is somewhat in limbo because he doesn’t know how long he might be in Beaverfield. Meanwhile, Cecily notices that Finn and Charlotte’s relationship is on shaky ground. Cecily isn’t afraid to tell Finn what she thinks about it.

Because she’s a mail carrier who knows a lot of the personal business of the Beaverfield residents, Cecily is Finn’s main source of information and gossip about what’s been going on in Beaverfield. She tells Finn that Jeanine’s husband left Jeanine to run off to Belize with another woman. Cecily is also the one to tell Finn about Pete and Gwen’s affair, which appears to be over. Pete’s wife Trisha and Gwen’s boyfriend Marcus don’t know about the affair.

Finn doesn’t get a friendly welcome from Emerson. Immediately after Finn arrives in Beaverfield, Cecily gives Finn a written complaint about Emerson from Dr. Ellis, who has accused Emerson of illegal trapper activities in her complaint. When Finn goes over to Emerson’s cabin to investigate, Emerson (carrying a rifle and wearing wolf hide with the wolf’s head still attached) angrily chases Finn off of his property.

A huge snowstorm soon hits the area, leaving all transportation to and from Beaverfield temporarily suspended. Somehow, everyone in this story except for Emerson ends up at the Beaverfield Inn for shelter. And that’s when the killings start with a vengeance.

“Werewolves Within” has such distinct characters that it’s very easy to tell all of them apart from each other. The movie has fun with spoofing stereotypes. Dr. Sherman is an unsmiling, “gloom and doom” type who might or might not be a mad scientist. Gay couple Devon and Joaquim are fussy and argumentative. Trisha and Pete are superficial, materialistic and show hints of being racist and homophobic.

Although there aren’t many set pieces in this movie, which takes place in a very confined area, the production design is done well for this low-budget film. (“Werewolves Within” takes place in Vermont, but the movie was actually filmed in New York state.) Of particular note is the Axe Den, a recreational room that’s on the Beaverfield Inn property. It’s Cecily’s favorite place to hang out, and she introduces Finn to an empty Axe Den during the snowstorm.

The Axe Den is a kitschy place filled with vintage arcade games and a jukebox that has mostly pop songs from the 1990s. Ace of Base’s hit “The Sign” is prominently featured in “Werewolves Within,” with great comedic effect. And it should come as no surprise that the Axe Den is where the movie’s biggest showdown happens.

The very self-aware comedy of “Werewolves Within” doesn’t come at the expense of delivering a genuinely engaging mystery. Dr. Ellis has been able to determine in her makeshift lab at the inn that a wolf-like animal is responsible for this killing spree. However, some of the people trapped at the Beaverfield Inn aren’t convinced. Who or what is the real killer? The answer is revealed at the end of the movie.

All of the cast members handle their roles with aplomb, even though some characters verge on parody. Most of the emotional core of the film is with Finn and Cecily, who have to navigate their attraction to each other during the growing terror about the killer on the loose. Richardson and Vayntrub have believable chemistry as a would-be couple caught in this precarious situation. Their comedic timing is one of the highlights of “Werewolves Within.”

The comedy in the movie isn’t for everyone, because some viewers might find it to be too glib or too on-the-nose. But for everyone else—especially for people who like horror comedies with a cheeky tone— there’s a lot that’s appealing about “Werewolves Within.” This movie would make a great double feature with 2020’s “The Wolf of Snow Hollow,” another werewolf horror movie that combines comedy with a murder mystery.

Ruben’s direction of “Werewolves Within” keeps it at a brisk pace (the movie’s total running time is 97 minutes), so there’s little chance of boredom setting in with viewers. The movie doesn’t over-rely on slapstick comedy but instead derives a lot of comedy from how the cast members interpret the snappy dialogue. “Werewolves Within” is the type of horror film where it’s very entertaining to watch these characters for the entire movie, even if you’d never want to be stuck in snowstorm with most of them.

IFC Films released “Werewolves Within” in select U.S. cinemas on June 25, 2021, and on digital and VOD on July 2, 2021.

Review: ‘The 8th Night,’ starring Lee Sung-min, Nam Da-reu, Park Hae-joon, Kim Dong-young, Lee Eol and Kim Yoo-jeong

July 11, 2021

by Carla Hay

Nam Da-reum and Lee Sung-min in “The 8th Night” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

“The 8th Night”

Directed by Kim Tae-hyung

Korean with subtitles and dubbing

Culture Representation: Taking place in South Korea, the horror film “The 8th Night” features an all-Asian cast representing the working-class and the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A monk and his apprentice pursue and try to defeat an evil spirit that takes possessions of humans. 

Culture Audience: “The 8th Night” will appeal primarily to people who like horror movies with artistically creepy imagery and stories rooted in ancient mythology.

Kim Yoo-jeong in “The 8th Night” (Photo courtesy of Netflix)

Filled with stylistically chilling imagery, “The 8th Night” is a somewhat convoluted supernatural horror movie, but the suspenseful and surprising twists can make up for the film’s messy final showdown scene. Written and directed by Kim Tae-hyung, “The 8th Night” (which is his feature-film directorial debut) makes effective use of vertigo-like cinematography and some gruesome visuals of being possessed by an evil spirit. It’s not a movie for the faint of heart, but it can be an engrossing ride for horror fans who are intrigued by stories of ancient curses.

The beginning of “The 8th Night” has a fairly long voiceover narration, with drawings and animation, explaining the mythology behind the movie’s plot. According to the mythology, which is called the Legend of the Diamond Sutra: 2,500 years ago a monster opened the door that bridge the gap between the human realm and hell, “in order to make humans suffer.” Buddha defeated the monster by pulling out both of its eyes. One eye is black, and the other eye is red.

Both eyes escaped. Buddha was able to capture the Black Eye and lock it in a sarira casket. The Red Eye was harder to get and eluded capture for seven nights while hiding in seven different people’s bodies. When the Red Eye saw that it could not escape the Buddha—because the path that the Red Eye was on was really a bridge consisting of seven stepping stones over a narrow shallow stream—the Red Eye surrendered and got into the surira casket voluntarily.

The surira casket with the Black Eye was sealed and buried off the steep cliffs in the east. The surira casket with the Red Eye was sealed and buried in the vast deserts of the west. Buddha said to his nameless disciples about the Black Eye and the Red Eye: “You must make sure that they never meet again. That is your fate.” The monster is also called That Which Must Not Awaken.

The movie then fast-forwards to October 2005, at the India-Pakistan border, where an ambitious anthroplogy professor named Kim Joon-cheol (played by Choi Jin-ho) has dug up the surira casket containing the Red Eye. His goal is prove that the Legend of the Diamond Sutra is true. However, the plan backfired, because Kim Joon-cheol was accused of forging the surira casket, and his teaching career ended in disgrace.

Kim Joon-cheol keeps the surira casket. And one night during a lunar eclipse, when he’s at home, Kim Joon-cheol decides he’s going to prove that the Legend of the Diamond Sutra is true by conjuring up the Red Eye so that it can reunite with the Black Eye. He does a ritual where he draws blood and chants something mystical, which rouses the Red Eye to emerge from the casket.

This re-awakening of the Red Eye sets off a chain of events where history repeats itself and the Red Eye spends seven days and seven nights inhabiting the bodies of seven different people. The eighth person the Red Eye is forecast to inhabit is a young female shaman who is a virgin. If the Red Eye succeeds in possessing all eight of these people, then by the eighth night, the Red Eye will be reunited with the Black Eye, and the ancient monster’s full power will be restored.

Kim Joon-cheol immediately regrets letting the Red Eye loose. It later emerges in the story (it’s not spoiler information) that Kim Joon-cheol became a monk to atone for this misdeed. At the monastery, an elderly monk named Ha-jeong (played by Lee Eol) finds out that the Red Eye is now on the loose and is on a quest to reunite with the Black Eye. And so, Ha-jeong gives the task of finding the Red Eye to two other men at the monastery: A middle-aged monk named Seonwha (played by Lee Sung-min) and his apprentice Cheong-seok (played by Nam Da-reum), who’s in his 20s.

It’s later revealed that before he became a monk, Seonwha’s name was Park Jin-soo. And he has a tragedy from his past that is motivating him to go on this quest for the Red Eye. When the Red Eye leaves a body it possesses and enters another body, the body left behind becomes a shriveled-up corpse. And that’s why dead bodies in this decrepit condition are mysteriously showing up in an unnamed part of South Korea.

The homicide detective who’s leading the investigation is a no-nonsense taskmaster named Kim Ho-tae (played by Park Hae-joon), who doesn’t believe in the supernatural. Kim Ho-tae has a nerdy young assistant named Dong-jin (played by Kim Dong-young) who believes that the supernatural exists. Dong-jin suspects that the deformed corpses have something to do with the Legend of the Diamond Sutra. However, his supervisor Kim Ho-tae doesn’t want to hear it and threatens to fire Dong-jin if he keeps telling him supernatural conspiracy theories.

Meanwhile, it’s a race against time for monks Seonwha and Cheong-seok to catch the Red Eye before it’s too late. They decide that the best strategy is to find the female virgin shaman, whose name is Ae-ran (played by Kim Yoo-jeong), who might or might not be aware of the evil that’s coming her way. Seonwha and Cheong-seok are seen on surveillance video in areas where people end up dead, so the police start to suspect that these two monks might be the reason for the mysterious, shriveled-up corpses.

The most horrific and memorable scenes in “The 8th Night” are not when people get murdered but when people get possessed. There’s a lot of imagery of eyes poking out of skin, as well as veins turning black, that will definitely give viewers the creeps. The possessed people also have an insane stare and a sinister grin when they become possessed. No one does it better than an unnamed teenage girl in a school uniform (played by Park Se-hyun), who wreaks some bloody havoc when she becomes possessed by the Red Eye.

The most nonsensical part of the movie is in the final showdown, which takes place in a forest. Without giving away too much spoiler information, it’s enough to say that the chases and fights in this scene require a lot of suspension of disbelief that certain people being chased wouldn’t get killed right away when they’re trapped by whoever or whatever is chasing them. However, there are a few interesting surprises that make more sense if viewers remember that some of the characters might have ulterior motives.

“The 8th Night” has some creative cinematography and visual effects that make “The 8th Night” more artistic than the average horror movie. There are times when the movie can be style over substance, but the basic plot of the movie is solid and there are touches of comedy that prevent “The 8th Night” from being completely grim. Some viewers might be confused by the plot, which is why it’s crucial to pay attention to the movie’s opening sequence, which explains the Legend of the Diamond Sutra. Ultimately, “The 8th Night” has enough captivating mystery and horror that viewers, confused or not, shouldn’t get easily bored from watching this movie.

Netflix premiered “The 8th Night” on July 2, 2021.

Review: ‘The Evil Next Door,’ starring Dilan Gwyn and Eddie Eriksson Dominguez

July 8, 2021

by Carla Hay

Eddie Eriksson Dominguez in “The Evil Next Door” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

“The Evil Next Door”

Directed by Oskar Mellender and Tord Danielsson

Swedish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in Sweden in 2014, the horror film “The Evil Next Door” has an all-white cast of characters representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A widower, his live-in girlfriend and the widower’s young son move to a new house, where the boy seems to have found a mysterious friend with sinister intentions.

Culture Audience: “The Evil Next Door” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching a slow-paced and boring horror movie with a “haunted house” concept that has been done many times before and much better in other movies.

Dilan Gwyn in “The Evil Next Door” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

The epitome of dull and derivative, “The Evil Next Door” is a poorly made ripoff of higher-quality horror films about haunted houses where a child is the first person in the house to communicate with the evil spirit. And predictably, the evil spirit wants to kidnap the child. It’s a concept that was done well in movies such as 1982’s “Poltergeist” and 2014’s “The Babadook.” But “The Evil Next Door” brings nothing new or imaginative to this concept and wastes a lot of time with repetitive scenes, generic characters who act illogically, and scare set-ups that aren’t terrifying at all.

Written and directed by Oskar Mellender and Tord Danielsson, “The Evil Next Door” is the duo’s first feature film, after years of working in Swedish television. According to a statement that Danielsson makes in “The Evil Next Door” production notes, the movie is supposedly based on the real-life experience of “a family who claimed to have experienced something very scary and paranormal in 2014. According to them, some kind of entity had tried to take their child.” Danielsson says that he and Mellender “came in contact with” this family, which wants to remain anonymous. But apparently, this filmmaking duo learned nothing about what to put in a movie that would make this story interesting or convincing in what real people would do in this situation.

“The Evil Next Door” takes place in an unnamed city in Sweden in 2014. The opening scene is set in a stereotypically spooky-looking dark house. A mother—viewers find out later that her name is Jenny Lindvall (played by Karin Lithman)—frantically searches for her daughter Kim (played by Hilma Alm), who’s about 5 or 6 years old. There’s a brief flash of Kim being dragged screaming into another room, while Jenny runs into the room, only to find it empty.

The next scene shows a family of three driving to the place that will eventually become their new home. (It’s the same house.) In the car are widower Fredrik (played by Linus Wahlgren); his son Lucas (played by Eddie Eriksson Dominguez), who’s about 5 or 6 years old; and Fredrik’s girlfriend Shirin (played by Dilan Gwyn), who seems a little nervous. Shirin is feeling anxious because this move is a big step for her and Fredrik. Not only will it be the first time that the couple will be living together, but they will also be buying the house.

It’s such a big commitment that even Lucas is aware of it. While Fredrik is out of the car to get gas, Lucas asks Shirin if she will be his new mother if she and Fredrik move in together. Shirin uneasily replies no. And she feels even more ill at ease when Lucas asks her, “Will you die too?” It’s revealed later in the movie that Lucas’ mother (whose name is never mentioned) died of cancer, but the movie never says how long ago that happened.

After getting a brief tour of the house from a real-estate agent, Fredrik and Shirin decide to buy it. Their move-in date is September 26, 2014. “The Evil Next Door,” which has the pace of a snail, keeps showing the date for each of the movie’s sequences, so that viewers can eventually see that everything that happens in this story occurred within one month. In this story, it takes several days for them to get to the real horror. The movie is only 87 minutes long, but it feels like longer.

Throughout the movie, it’s shown that while Fredrik has a close and loving relationship with Lucas, Shirin still feels like an outsider in this family, when it comes to parenting Lucas. For example, there’s more than one scene where Shirin watches somewhat enviously when Fredrik sings a goodnight lullaby with Lucas before Lucas goes to sleep. When Shirin is alone with Lucas, she acts more like a slightly uncomfortable babysitter than a parental figure, although slowly (which is how this movie operates) Shirin begins to warm up to Lucas. Shirin and the rest of the characters in the movie still have nothing charismatic or memorable about their personalities.

“The Evil Next Door” is so badly written, there’s no backstory explaining how long Fredrik and Shirin have been together. Shirin doesn’t have a job, while Fredrik has a vague, unnamed job where he wears a building construction or maintenance jacket at a place that looks like a non-descript warehouse. It’s a new job for Fredrik that requires him to work weeknights “for a while,” as he tells Shirin, who encouraged Fredrik to take the job.

The movie has somewhat of a sexist implication that because a man won’t be in the house at night, that will put Shirin and Lucas in more danger. It doesn’t take long for Lucas to tell Shirin that he’s found a “friend” in the house. Lucas starts talking to this “friend,” who’s a boy whom Shirin can’t see, so she assumes that Lucas has an imaginary playmate.

Unfortunately, the vast majority of “The Evil Next Door” is a repetitive cycle of Lucas talking about or talking to this “friend,” and Shirin not believing that this “friend” is real. She finds out that Lucas has mentioned this “friend” to his schoolteacher and classmates. And predictably, Lucas draws a picture of himself with the “friend,” which looks like a sinister black stick figure. It’s what you do when you’re a kid with an unseen friend in a dumb haunted house movie.

“The Evil Next Door” also has unncessary scenes (which are all a red herring) to make it look like the evil spirit could be in the house next door. Lucas insists that this mystery boy who wants to be his friend lives next door. It’s all just time-wasting nonsense, because it’s easy to see that the evil spirit is inside the house where Lucas, Shirin and Fredrik live. Most of the movie is an irritating repeat loop of Lucas hearing a boy whispering to him in rooms, followed by brief glimpses of what looks like a boy running across the screen or lurking in rooms before disappearing.

Meanwhile, Lucas asks Shirin questions about the afterlife, such as if someone can come back from the dead to live on Earth again. She says no. Lucas doesn’t seem to like that answer because he wants to see his dead mother again. When Shirin tells Lucas that there is no boy next door, Lucas pouts and tells her, “You’re mean. You’re not my mother.”

There’s also a creepy attic in the house that Shirin only goes into and explores at night, because in idiotic horror movies like this one, people never go into a creepy attic during the day. As soon as viewers see that this house has an attic, you just know there’s going to be a scene where someone is going to get attacked in the attic. It’s just all so formulaic.

Eventually, Shirin has supernatural experiences herself. She knocks on a wall and hears someone or something inside the wall knocking in response. Then she sees a shadowy-looking boy running across the lawn outside. She’s so freaked out that she calls Fredrik and the police, who find nothing out of the ordinary. Fredrik starts to think that Shirin might be going crazy.

Meanwhile, Lucas warns Shirin that a bogeyman is out to get him and that it’s the bogeyman who did the knocking inside the walls—the same walls where Lucas could hear his mystery “friend” talk. Kid, make up your mind. Are you being haunted by a boy or a bogeyman? Cue the predictable scenes of Lucas being dragged out of bed by an unknown force, Shirin rushing into a room when she hears Lucas screaming, and then finding nothing there.

After a while, Fredrik begins to think Shirin might be abusing Lucas, because every time Fredrik comes home from work, he hears stories about Lucas being frightened and physically attacked by something unexplained. Shirin denies abusing Lucas, of course, but it puts a big strain on her relationship with Fredrik. She begs Lucas to confirm to Fredrik that she’s telling the truth, but the kid is no real help.

Apparently, dimwits Fredrik and Shirin bought the house without bothering to find out anything about the house’s previous owners and why the house was being sold. When strange things start happening in the house, Fredrik and Shirin still don’t bother to find out the house’s background story. It’s only when Shirin is at an outdoor neighborhood family event with Lucas that she hears from a local mother named Tilda (played by Kima Heibel) what happened to the house’s previous owners.

The house’s previous owners—a married couple named Peter Lindvall (played by Henrik Norlén) and Jenny Lindvall—sold the house, because shortly after they moved in, their daughter Kim disappeared. This information finally prompts Shirin to do an Internet search for more details. She finds a newspaper article online that confirms that the Lindvalls’ child Kim had disappeared.

This movie is so stupid, it has a subplot where Shirin thinks that Kim is a boy, and she thinks that he’s the same boy who is Lucas’ imaginary friend. Never mind that the movie clearly showed in the beginning that the Kim was a girl. And any newspaper article or media story about the child’s disappearance would also identify Kim as a girl.

One of the most annoying things about “The Evil Next Door”—besides being so tedious, unoriginal and badly written—is the terrible cinematography. For the horror scenes, everything is too dark inside, even in the daytime. It’s unrealistic and tries too hard to look scary, which results in it looking overly staged and not scary at all. Even the scenes inside the house at night are ridiculously dark. It will just make viewers think, “Don’t these people know how to turn on the lights in their own house?”

The screenwriting also has plot developments that go nowhere. For example, Shirin buys a hidden camera that she installs in Lucas’ room. The first time that Shirin monitors the room with the camera, she sees the mystery boy and gets scared. And then she never uses the camera again. If she wanted to prove that something eerie was going on in Lucas’ room, then apparently using the camera’s recording function was just too mentally hard for her.

And viewers should forget about finding out what happened to Kim, because that issue is never resolved in the movie. Why bother with that opening scene when it ends up being useless? It’s an example of the movie’s sloppy editing, that includes jump cut scenes that show Shirin in one area of a room and then one second later, she’s in another area of the room when it would’ve been physically impossible for her to get there so quickly. It’s very amateurish filmmaking.

It should come as no surprise that the creature haunting this house really is a bogeyman monster, which is played by Troy James, a contortionist who has done similar roles in the horror movies “Separation” and “Black Box.” All of the acting is nothing special, although Ericsson Dominguez’s portrayal of Lucas shows he has promise as an actor who’s capable of a convincing range of emotions. It’s too bad all of this movie’s cast members were limited by such a moronic screenplay.

The final showdown scene and how this movie ends are as bland and cliché as can be. Even people who don’t watch a lot of horror movies will be underwhelmed, because everything in “The Evil Next Door” was done already in other movies. There’s some familiarity in horror movies that can be effective if a movie brings some original scares. “The Evil Next Door” just lazily copies what too many other haunted house movies have done and makes it worse with stale and substandard writing and directing.

Magnet Releasing released “The Evil Next Door” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 25, 2021.

Review: ‘The Forever Purge,’ starring Josh Lucas, Ana de la Reguera, Tenoch Huerta, Cassidy Freeman, Leven Rambin, Alejandro Edda and Will Patton

June 30, 2021

by Carla Hay

Leven Rambin in “The Forever Purge” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

“The Forever Purge”

Directed by Everardo Valerio Gout

Some language in Spanish with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Texas and Mexico, the horror film “The Forever Purge” features a cast of mostly Latino and white people (with a few black people and Native Americans) representing the wealthy, middle-class and working-class.

Culture Clash: Two families—one wealthy and white, the other working-class and Mexican—try to stay alive when a violent mob of white supremacists go on a killing spree targeting people who aren’t white and people who don’t agree with the mob.

Culture Audience: “The Forever Purge” will appeal primarily to people who want to see formulaic, violent movies that have the worst racist hate crimes as gimmicks.

Jeffrey Doornbos and Ana de la Reguera in “The Forever Purge” (Photo courtesy of Universal Pictures)

Completely predictable and lacking in substance, “The Forever Purge” tries to come across as a horror movie with a social conscience about racism. The movie is really just a badly written gorefest that uses racist hate crimes as a hook. The heroes in the movie have forgettable personalities, while the villains are so over-the-top with their hate speech that they seem almost like a cringeworthy parody of racism. The violence in the movie becomes so repetitive that it lessens any intended impact of being surprising or scary.

“The Forever Purge” is the fifth movie in the horror series that began with 2013’s “The Purge” and continued with 2014’s “The Purge: Anarchy,” 2016’s “The Purge: Election Year” and 2018’s “The First Purge.” The basic premise of each movie is that in a fictional version of the United States, all crime is legal once a year on a designated day, for a 12-hour period. The 12-hour legal crime spree is from dusk until dawn. This legal crime period is called the Purge, because the idea is that if people who are inclined to commit crimes had one day a year to purge their worst actions out of their system, then crime would decrease for the rest of the year. During the Purge, police and other emergency services are not available.

It’s a concept for a horror franchise (which also spawned the 2018-2019 “The Purge” TV series) that has been stretched so thin, that now “The Forever Purge” has ripped that concept apart. In “The Forever Purge,” which takes place mostly in Texas, the 12-hour legal crime period still happens. However, a group of white supremacist marauders have decided that the Purge will no longer have a time limit for them, as they continue with their crime spree to hunt and kill people who aren’t white. These rogue racists have a particular hatred for non-white immigrants.

Directed by Everardo Valerio Gout and written by James DeMonaco (who has written all “The Purge” movies so far), “The Forever Purge” has two protagonist families who represent two different versions of the American Dream. One is a white family who has lived in the United States for generations and has accumulated wealth. The other is a Mexican immigrant family who has relocated to the U.S. in search of better opportunities and a safer life.

The Tucker clan is a family of ranchers living in a large compound in an unnamed Texas city that’s near the Mexican border. Widowed patriarch Caleb (played by Will Patton) is a kind and generous boss to the ranch’s employees, who are mostly Mexican immigrants. Caleb’s son Dylan (played by Josh Lucas) is mistrustful of people who aren’t from the same racial and social class as he is.

Caleb’s other child is his daughter Harper (played by Leven Rambin), who is more like her father than Dylan is, because she doesn’t have racist tendencies. Dylan and his wife Cassie (played by Cassidy Freeman) are expecting their first child together. They don’t know yet what gender the child is, but Cassie is about eight or nine months pregnant.

Meanwhile, a Mexican couple in their 30s named Adela (played by Ana de la Reguera) and Juan (played by Tenoch Huerta) have crossed over the border into Texas as undocumented immigrants in search of the American Dream. They are also seeking a safer place to live, since where they used to live in Mexico has been overrun with drug cartels. Juan finds work as a ranch hand at the Tucker ranch. Adela becomes a cook at a restaurant.

Early on in the movie, it’s shown that Dylan is a jerk who thinks Mexicans are inferior. He likes to wrongfully accuse the Mexican workers of committing an employee violation, and he threatens to fire them to instill fear into them. One of the Mexican workers is a young man named T.T. (played by Alejandro Edda), who is Juan’s closest friend at the ranch.

Dylan has a particular dislike of Juan, who is kind of like a “horse whisperer” for the ranch. There’s a scene near the beginning of the movie that shows how Dylan tried and failed to get a stubborn horse under his control during training, and the horse knocked Dylan to to ground. However, Juan was able to easily calm the horse into submission.

Caleb respects Juan, who is a responsible and hard-working employee, and that makes Dylan jealous of Juan. Dylan tries to intimidate Juan with a false accusation of being tardy, but Juan remains unrattled. However, it’s the type of harassment that Juan can longer tolerate. Juan tries to talk to Caleb about Dylan’s animosity, by candidly telling Caleb that he thinks that Dylan doesn’t like Mexicans.

Caleb’s denies it and says, “I always taught my son to be a proud American. Maybe I didn’t really teach him what that meant. I don’t even know what that means anymore. The world is changing all around us. We are at each other’s throats. Confusing times.”

“The Forever Purge” keeps hammering this point with all the subtlety of a jackhammer on full blast. Within the first 10 minutes of the movie, there’s a series of news voiceovers that report how issues over Mexican immigration have caused increasingly violent tensions in the United States. White supremacist hate crimes, which the perpetrators try to disguise as “patriotism,” are on the rise against non-white immigrants.

As a result, the U.S. government has re-instated the Purge, which had been banned at the end of “The Purge: Election Year.” (“The First Purge” was a prequel to “The Purge.”) All crimes will still be legal for the designated 12-hour period, but government officials are not allowed to be crime victims during the Purge. It’s a precaution to prevent any assassinations of high-ranking leaders.

This re-instated Purge will begin 10 months after Adela and Juan have arrived in the United States. In the days leading up to this Purge resurrection, an anti-Purge activist named Chiago Harjo (played by Zahn McClarnon), who’s identified in the media as a “Texas tribal leader,” has been giving TV interviews denouncing the Purge. And that’s how “The Forever Purge” makes it easy to know that Chiago is going to end up joining forces with the movie’s protagonists in fighting the racist villains of the story.

On the day before the Purge begins again, Dylan, Cassie and Harper are having dinner with two friends who are a married couple: Dalton Levay (played by Joshua Dov) and Emily Levay (played by Annie Little). Earlier that day, Dalton had invited Dylan and Cassie to stay with the Levay family during their Purge lockdown, but Dylan declined the offer. His reason? “I hate the damn Purge. It’s hard to be social on that night, but thank you for the invite.”

During dinner, Emily says that if Cassie and Dylan need a nanny for their soon-to-be-born child, then she suggests hiring the sister of Emily’s nanny Anna. Dylan declines that offer too, because he says that they don’t need a nanny. Anna (played by Lupé Carranza) happens to be nearby with one of the Levay kids, and Dylan notices that Anna and the child are speaking Spanish to each other.

Dylan blurts out another reason why he doesn’t want Anna’s sister to be a nanny for him and Cassie: “I don’t know if I want our kids to be speaking Spanish in this house.” Cassie, Harper and Emily look shocked and embarrassed at this bigoted comment. However, Dylan is the type of racist who doesn’t think he’s racist.

As he says later in the movie to Juan: “I don’t think white people are better than anyone else … but we should just stick to our own.” It’s the type of racist mindset that historically has made racial segregation legal, by saying that society should be “separate but equal” when it comes to race. The problem with the “separate but equal” argument is that the U.S. was built on the very unequal system of white supremacy, where slavery and racial segregation were legal, and white people were given better access to resources such as education, housing, job opportunities and health care.

It’s easy for someone like Dylan (who’s already wealthy) to say “separate but equal” when he has privileges that give him more advantages in life than people who don’t have the same privileges. It’s a message that “The Forever Purge” attempts to convey in a very superficial manner. “The Forever Purge” ultimately abandons this message when the movie devolves into a typical violent free-for-all with deadly shootings, stabbings and other types of violent murders.

The day before the Purge, Caleb gives each of the ranch employees a cash bonus, to help them fund whatever defense methods they need for the Purge. A ranch hand named Kirk (played by Will Brittain), who appears to be the only white employee of the Tucker family, snarls after taking the cash: “I know what I’m using my money for—and it’s not for protection.” And when Kirk gripes to the other ranch hands that the Tucker family is just using the employees as “slave labor,” it’s an obvious foreshadowing of what comes later in the movie when the Tuckers become victims of a home invasion.

During the Purge, the Tucker family is on lockdown by having bulletproof barriers that can be lowered over their doors and windows. The Tucker property also has an extensive video surveillance system that Dylan monitors. Meanwhile, Adela and Juan stay at a public lockdown facility that is protected by armed guards. There seem to be many other Spanish-speaking immigrants at this facility.

Adela is curious about what Purge night looks like outside, so she goes up on the building’s roof where some armed guards are keeping vigil. One of the guards advises her to go back inside the building, as the sounds of gunshots and explosions ring through the air. Adela says to him, “There are parts of Mexico that sound like this every night.”

While looking out on the streets below, Adela is alarmed to see a truck with the words “Purge Purfication” emblazoned on the side. A recording blares from the truck’s loudspeakers: “We will no longer tolerate foreigners raping and pillaging the United States of America! We will find you and disinfect you! America will be American once again!”

She also sees that there’s a black man being held captive inside the truck. He looks like he’s being assaulted and will probably be killed. However, the crime that Adela is witnessing is legal, because it’s happening during the Purge. The tragedy of the situation still shocks her though.

Later, when Adela shows weapons skills that a typical cook would not have, it should come as no surprise when she reveals that it’s because when she was in Mexico, she was part of a group of women who fought drug cartels. This isn’t spoiler information, because the only real spoilers for this obvious movie is revealing who lives and who dies during the violent mayhem that ensues.

After the Purge ends for the year, people think their lives have gone back to normal. But there would be no “The Forever Purge” movie if that happened. Not long after the Purge ends, there’s still a large presence of white supremacists going around in groups and committing hate crimes. The Purge Purification truck is part of a nationwide Purge Purification movement that doesn’t want the Purge to end. Their motto (which they repeat to the point of stupidity) is “Forever After Purge.”

Adela finds out the hard way when she sees an abandoned goat in a cage in a back alley and tries to rescue it. It’s a trap, of course, and the two white supremacists who set the trap try to kill her. Adela is saved by a Good Samaritan named Darius (played by Sammi Rotibi), who is African American. Together, Darius and Adela kill their attackers in self-defense.

And as soon as this deadly battle ends, guess who suddenly shows up at the scene? Two cops, who weren’t around when they were needed. The cops quickly arrest Adela and Darius, who protest and say they were acting in self-defense. Their proclamations of innocence are ignored, so Adela and Darius end up in the back of a police van with some other people who’ve been arrested.

One of those other people just happens to be a mentally unhinged neo-Nazi skinhead (played by Edward Gelhaus), who has a swastika tattooed on his left cheek. By this time, the city has become a chaotic and violent mess, with gunshots heard everywhere. In one of the more laughably ludicrous parts of the movie, the neo-Nazi begins identifying the types of guns being used, based on the gunshots that are heard.

“Listen to that bass!” the Nazi crows like a loon about the gunshots. “Homegrown music from the heartland right there! That’s American music, motherfucker!” Yes, it’s that kind of movie.

Every lunatic racist group in a movie like this needs a leader, and in “The Forever Purge,” it’s Elijah Hardin (played by Jeffrey Doornbos), who spouts white supremacist rhetoric that sounds like it came straight from the Ku Klux Klan Handbook of Clichés. Elijah has an equally nasty wife named Mother Hardin (played by Susie Abromeit), who’s intent on proving that women can be just as dangerous as men when it comes to violent racism.

“The Forever Purge” has a very unsurprising storyline of the protagonists being separated from their spouses and trying to find them in the chaos. And that means that Dylan and Juan end up working together for a common goal, which leads to Dylan’s inevitable change of heart in how he feels about Mexicans. There’s also a part of the movie where the protagonists trie to flee to safety in Mexico, which is an obvious ironic flip to show Americans what it would be like to be refugees seeking asylum in another country.

The violence just becomes filler before the movie’s hackneyed conclusion. “The Forever Purge” has a lot of action, but it’s so unimaginative and easy to predict that it ends up becoming very tedious after a while. The acting is nothing spectacular, mainly because almost all of the characters have no real depth and often utter moronic dialogue during the fight scenes. Now that “The Forever Purge” filmmakers have destroyed the series’ original concept so that the mayhem of the Purge now has no time limit, this once-unique movie franchise has just become another run-of-the-mill slasher flick series.

Universal Pictures will release “The Forever Purge” in U.S. cinemas on July 2, 2021.

Review: ‘Gaia’ (2021), starring Monique Rockman, Carel Nel, Alex van Dyk and Anthony Oseyemi

June 26, 2021

by Carla Hay

Carel Nel, Monique Rockman and Alex van Dyk in “Gaia” (Photo by Jorrie van der Walt/Decal)

“Gaia” (2021)

Directed by Jaco Bouwer

Some language in Afrikaans with subtitles

Culture Representation: Taking place in Cape Town, South Africa, the horror film “Gaia” features a cast of four people: two white people as wilderness dwellers and one Asian and one black person as forest rangers.

Culture Clash: While out patrolling, two forest rangers get separated, and one of them is captured by two wilderness dwellers, who have an obsession with worshipping nature and have to fight off mysterious fungus creatures.

Culture Audience: “Gaia” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching “slow burn” horror films that have not-so-subtle messages about the dangers of disrespecting the environment.

Monique Rockman in “Gaia” (Photo by Jorrie van der Walt/Decal)

“Gaia” is an intentionally creepy environmentalist film that’s dressed up as a horror movie. It’s intriguing enough for viewers who have the patience to tolerate slow-paced moments that dilute thrilling action scenes. “Gaia” (directed by Jaco Bouwer and written by Tertius Kapp) also has a few plot holes that could be explained away, if viewers are willing to believe that two forest rangers who disappear while on the job wouldn’t have a search and rescue team looking for them after a certain period of time.

That’s because there are only four people in this entire movie, which takes place and was filmed in Cape Town, South Africa: forest rangers Gabi (played by Monique Rockman) and Winston (played by Anthony Oseyemi) and wilderness dwellers Barend (played by Carel Nel) and his son Stefan (played by Alex van Dyk), who is in his late teens or early 20s. Gabi and Winston appear to be in their late 20s or early 30s.

In the beginning of the movie, Gabi and Winston are patrolling an unnamed area forest area by canoe. They’re using four drones, with one currently in the air. Gabi notices on her video monitor that a man covered in mud has briefly appeared on camera, and then the drone seems to stop operating. It’s implied that this mystery man has taken the drone.

Gabi immediately wants to go in the forest to find the drone. Winston is nervous and warns her: “People disappear in this forest.” Gabe brushes off Winston’s concerns and says of the people who have supposedly disappeared: “Oh come on, Winston. They were just crusty old hippies. They probably just moved on to their next squat.”

Winston reluctantly lets Gabi go into the forest by herself (nothing was going to stop her anyway) and tells her that she’s got one hour before he’ll come looking for her. Since this is a horror movie, it’s easy to predict what happens next: Gabi encounters danger in the woods. She gets caught in a booby trap that causes a wooden stake to be embedded in her left foot. And it turns out that the mud-covered mystery man is Barend, who set the trap and also destroyed the drone.

Gabi is captured by Barend and Stefan, who take her to their remote cabin in the woods. It’s soon clear that they’re not going to kill her, but they aren’t willing to let her go either. Barend treats Gabi’s foot wound and even lets her try to contact Winston by walkie talkie. However, the first time Gabi uses the walkie talkie to get help, she hears nothing but static.

The rest of the “Gaia” shows that this is no ordinary forest. There are pollen-like particles that float in the air that can cause certain mutations to anyone who inhales these particles. While Gabi’s foot is healing, she finds out that Barend and Stefan (who doesn’t talk much) have been living “off the grid” in this forest for several years.

Barend tells her that he used to be a scientist whose specialty was plant pathology. His wife Lily, who was Stefan’s mother, died 13 years ago and was a chemical engineer. Barend says cryptically, “After Lily died, I met her.”

Barend and Stefan, who are both emaciated, engage in a ritual of covering themselves with mud when they go outside to worship nature. There’s one tree in particular that is the object of their obsession. Is this a tree of life or a tree of death and destruction? The answer is revealed in the movie.

During the course of the movie, viewers find out that Barend has a particular hatred of technology and modern inventions. One day, he sees Gabi showing Stefan her cell phone and photos that are on her phone, which does not get a signal in this dense forest. Barend destroys the cell phone in a rage as he shouts, “Keep your devilish devices away from us!”

It’s implied that Stefan is a virgin who is not used to interacting with women. Gabi uses her feminine charms not with the intention of completely seducing Stefan but to make him easier to manipulate. She also tells Stefan that he could meet a lot of girls if he lived outside the forest, but Stefan doesn’t seem interested. Instead, Stefan tells Gabi that Barend says that everyone in the outside world is doomed to die.

Barend and Stefan haven’t been completely by themselves in this forest. There are menacing fungus creatures that sometimes try to invade their cabin. These mutant creatures have arms and legs and can stand upright like humans. But they are also blind. Their attacks are the most suspenseful scenes in the movie, although some of the action stunts look choppy and could have been better choreographed to look more realistic.

However, there’s another horror in the movie that isn’t as fast-paced. Over time, Gabi notices that shrub-like plant buds are growing out of her arms and then other parts of her body. When she plucks off these buds, she bleeds like someone would bleed from a minor cut. And the fate of Winston is also shown in the movie. What happens to him isn’t much of a surprise.

“Gaia” has some memorably striking visual effects, and the actors give performances that are fairly good at sustaining interest in the story. But don’t expect “Gaia” to have a lot of character development, since very little is revealed about the lives that any of the movie’s characters had outside of the forest. And for a forest ranger, Gabi doesn’t seem to have a lot of basic survival skills.

Rather than offering clear explanations behind the mystery of the forest and the characters in the story, “Gaia” is more concerned with creating moods and letting the story’s message slowly reveal itself, much like that unusual tree in the forest eventually shows its purpose. “Gaia” is not an outstanding horror film, but it’s one that leaves a distinct impression that as powerful as humans think they are, nature can be much more powerful.

Decal released “Gaia” in select U.S. cinemas on June 18, 2021, and on digital and VOD on June 25, 2021.

Review: ‘Censor’ (2021), starring Niamh Algar

June 26, 2021

by Carla Hay

Niamh Algar in “Censor” (Photo by Maria Lax/Magnet Releasing)

“Censor” (2021)

Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond

Culture Representation: Taking place in early 1980s England, the horror film “Censor” features a predominantly white cast (with a few black people) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A woman who works as a movie censor begins experiencing nightmarish visions related to a tragedy from her past. 

Culture Audience: “Censor” will appeal primarily to people who are interested in horror films that put more emphasis on creating unsettling atmospheres than providing easy answers.

Niamh Algar in “Censor” (Photo by Maria Lax/Magnet Releasing)

“Censor” is the type of horror movie that won’t satisfy people who are looking for a predictable ending, but it succeeds in immersing viewers into the psychological terror of a very disturbed mind. The movie has plenty of gory and bloody murder scenes, but what many viewers might find more frightening is being taken into a world where fact and fantasy are constantly blurred and play tricks on people’s sense of reality. Niamh Algar’s riveting performance in “Censor” elevates the movie’s tendency to be repetitive, which could have dragged down the story if not for Algar’s commendable acting.

Directed by Prano Bailey-Bond, “Censor” is her feature-film directorial debut, based on Bailey-Bond’s short film “Nasty.” Bailey-Bond and Anthony Fletcher co-wrote the screenplay for “Censor,” which takes place in early 1980s England, when the VHS video boom caused an increase in direct-to-video releases that could bypass the censors. Horror movies in particular benefited from the direct-to-video business model. And in England, these uncensored films became known as “video nasties.”

“Censor” takes place during a time when the British Board of Film Censors (which changed its name to the British Board of Film Classification in 1984) was adapting to the increasing distribution of videotapes sold directly to consumers as a new format for the movie industry. The BBFC, which is a non-governmental group founded by the film industry, works in a way that’s similar to the Motion Picture Association of America, by classifying or rating films, based on the minimum age that would be deemed appropriate to see those films.

In “Censor,” Algar portrays Enid Baines, a prim and proper spinster in her 30s who works for the BBFC. She takes her job very seriously and is a stickler for details. In an opening scene of the “Censor,” she has a conversation with her condescending co-worker Sanderson (played by Nicholas Burns) about a scene they watched in a horror movie that’s being evaluated for a rating classification.

Enid says to Sanderson, “The decapitation is ridiculous. It’s the eye gouging. It’s too realistic. Plus, I was trying to see who dragged her away.” Sanderson replies, “Does it matter? … I appreciate you analyzing this with clear precision, Enid. But someone perhaps got out of the cautious side of the bed this morning.”

Enid ignores Sanderson’s attempt to belittle her as uptight. Fortunately, not all of her co-workers are disrespectful. Enid also works closely with matronly Anne (played by Clare Perkins) and easygoing Perkins (played by Danny Lee Wynter), who both express concerns to Enid about her emotional well-being if it looks like she’s particularly disturbed by any of the violent content that she has to screen for her job. Enid experiences sexual harassment from a movie producer named Doug Smart (played by Michael Smiley) when he makes rude and sexist comments to her while he visiting in the office.

“Censor” doesn’t really show much of Enid’s home life, because viewers will get the impression that her life revolves around her work. However, there’s a tragedy from Enid’s past that has been haunting her. And a decision that her parents have made about this tragedy seems to set Enid off on a downward spiral of madness.

One day, Enid’s parents June Baines (played by Clare Holman) and George Baines (played by Andrew Havill) invite her to dinner at a restaurant to tell her some important news: They have decided to officially declare their missing daughter Lucy as dead. Lucy, who was Enid’s younger sister, disappeared in the forest of Chorleywood (a village in England), in 1958, when Lucy was 7 years old. Enid was about 12 or 13 at the time, and she was with Lucy on the day that Lucy disappeared. At the time, Lucy and Enid were living with their parents in Brimstead, Middlesex.

Enid has vague and fractured memories of Lucy’s disappearance. Because she could never fully remember what happened when Lucy disappeared, it has added to the tremendous guilt that Enid has felt ever since. Enid disagrees with her parents’ decision to declare that Lucy is dead, because Enid thinks there’s still a possibility that Lucy could still be alive. Enid also thinks that Lucy was kidnapped.

However, Lucy’s death certificate has already been made official. When Enid’s parents show Enid the death certificate, Enid has a hard time looking at it. Enid’s mother June tries to change the subject and asks Enid if she’s recently seen any good movies to recommend. Enid somberly explains to her mother what Enid’s job is: “It’s not entertainment, mum. I do it to protect people.”

The rising numbers of “video nasties” have created a backlash from certain people in the United Kingdom who want to blame these horror movies on an increase in crime. At the time, the U.K. (under Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) was experiencing an economic recession and high unemployment, which is often linked to an increase in crime, but people often want to scapegoat violent movies and TV as the reason. Enid is about to experience this backlash firsthand.

One day, Enid and Sanderson are called into the office of their boss Fraser (played by Victor Franklin), who nervously tells them about a phone call that he got that day from a journalist doing a story about a high-profile murder case. A man was recently arrested for murdering his wife, eating her face, and then shooting and killing their two children. This disturbing crime is eerily similar to a scene from a horror movie titled “Derangement,” and the journalist is linking these murders to the movie. And just like in “Derangement,” the murderer claims to have no memory of committing the crime. The media gave him the nickname the Amnesiac Killer.

Fraser is unnerved because somehow, the journalist knew that Enid and Sanderson were the two censors who evaluated “Derangement” before giving it a rating. Fraser demands a complete internal investigation and for Enid and Sanderson to give him a step-by-step analysis to explain why they decided to allow “Derangement” to be approved for release. Fraser also sternly lectures Enid and Sanderson that if they have any doubts about the content that they evaluate, they should not approve it and ask for edits or reject the movie altogether.

While all of this drama is going on in Enid’s job and personal life, she and Perkins watch a movie that’s up for evaluation. It’s an untitled film from a director called Frederick North. And what Enid sees in the movie seems to push her off the deep end into an abyss of emotional despair. What follows for the rest of “Censor” are flashbacks or hallucinations about what might or might not have happened when Enid and Lucy were in the woods all those years ago.

There’s a tall, menacing hulk—who has the name Beastman (played by Guillaume Delaunay) in the film credits—who is shown lurking in the woods and enticing a young Lucy into his remote house. (Beau Gadsdon plays a young Enid in these flashbacks.) There’s a horror movie called “Asunder” that Enid gets from a video store that offers more pieces to this mind-bending puzzle. An actress named Alice Lee (played by Sophia La Porta) is the star of “Asunder,” and Enid becomes obsessed with her because she fears that Alice is in danger.

One of the more effective aspects of “Censor” is how cinematographer Annika Summerson contrasts the dull and drab hues of Enid’s everyday life with the psychedelic nightmarish hues of Enid’s visions that take place in the forest. If it isn’t obvious to viewers during the movie, it’s made very clear at the end of the film that the forest is a metaphor for Enid’s mind. And getting trapped there is an experience that is not for the faint of heart.

Magnet Releasing released “Censor” in select U.S. cinemas on June 11, 2021, and on digital and VOD on June 18, 2021.

Review: ‘School’s Out Forever,’ starring Oscar Kennedy, Liam Lau Fernandez, Alex Macqueen and Jasmine Blackborow

June 25, 2021

by Carla Hay

Oscar Kennedy, Alex Macqueen, Jasmine Blackborow and Liam Lau Fernandez in “School’s Out Forever” (Photo courtesy of Central City Media)

“School’s Out Forever”

Directed by Oliver Milburn

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed city in England, the comedic horror film “School’s Out Forever” has a predominantly white cast of characters (with some black people and Asians) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: In a post-apocalyptic world, a rebellious 15-year-old boy, who was expelled from an elite school for boys, hides out at the school with fellow students and a few school administrators, who all try to prevent an invasion from a powerful government official whose murderous teenage daughter they are holding captive.

Culture Audience: “School’s Out Forever” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching an often-sluggishly paced, post-apocalyptic horror movie that thinks it’s funnier and smarter than it really is.

Freya Parks in “School’s Out Forever” (Photo courtesy of Central City Media)

Filled with plot holes and improbable action scenes, the comedic horror flick “School’s Out Forever” starts off with a fairly intriguing concept that it ends up ruining with formulaic shootouts and fights. It’s the type of movie where people pull out guns for an immediate attack or self-defense but instead just stand around talking for too long when their opponents could easily gun them down. It’s also a movie where the actors take inexplicably long pauses in between sentences. It makes you wonder if the humans in this post-apocalyptic world are the real zombies.

“School’s Out Forever” (written and directed by Oliver Milburn) is based on Scott K. Andrews’ 2012 novel of the same title. It’s part of a “School’s Out” trilogy of novels that many people describe as “Lord of the Flies” meets “The Hunger Games.” The “School’s Out Forever” movie is nowhere near the quality of any of the “Lord of the Flies” and “The Hunger Games” books and films. In fact, there are long stretches of the movie that look like dull, rejected scenes from a horror sitcom that no one wants to watch.

“School’s Out Forever” begins by showing main character Lee Keegan (played by Oscar Kennedy), a rebellious 15-year-old, playing a prank at the posh St. Mark’s School for Boys, where he is a student. The movie doesn’t name the city in England where the school is located, but the movie was actually filmed in London, Suffolk and Oxford. Lee and his best friend/fellow troublemaker Mac (played by Liam Lau Fernandez) have concocted a plan for Mac to place a set of school lockers on Lee, so that Lee can pretend that the lockers accidentally fell down on him in the school hallway.

After the lockers have been staged to look like they fell on Lee, he cries out in fake pain, while a teacher rushes out of a classroom to see what all the commotion is about and attends to him immediately, while other students watch. It’s not long before it’s clear that it was all a prank, since Lee has no injuries. He’s sent to the office of the school’s headmaster (played by Anthony Head), who promptly suspends Lee.

Lee tries to pretend that he has a valid claim for negligence, but the headmaster is unmoved and not falling for this obvious manipulation. He scolds Lee by saying, “You don’t give a toss about the lockers, Lee. You just like to cause trouble … We don’t indulge children. We make men. A scholarship here is rare, Lee. Very rare. You don’t realize how lucky you are. Hopefully, you will now.”

Just as the meeting is about to conclude, a teacher named Mr. Bates (played by Alex Macqueen) comes into the office with something that he found in Lee’s knapsack: A plastic bag with a small amount of marijuana and a joint. Lee says sarcastically, “Who planted that?” Lee now goes from being suspended to being expelled.

The marijuana actually belongs to Mac. While Lee is waiting outside for Lee’s father to pick him up from school, Mac says goodbye and offers to tell the headmaster the truth about owning the marijuana that was found in Lee’s knapsack. Lee thanks Mac but declines the offer because Lee doesn’t think it will change school officials’ minds, and it will also get Mac in trouble too. Before they say their goodbyes, they salute each other, but Mac turns his salute into showing his middle finger.

When Lee’s father (played by Steve Oram), who doesn’t have a name in the movie, arrives to pick up Lee and drive them home, Lee apologizes to his father for getting expelled. His father tells Lee, “It’s not your fault.” It’s a major hint that Lee is someone who’s probably spoiled and has parents who want to blame other people for the problems that Lee causes.

Lee getting expelled from school will become the least of this family’s problems. While driving home from school, a news program on the radio mentions that there’s a pandemic going on and there’s considerable debate over the government closing the borders. Lee’s father turns off the radio because he doesn’t want to hear any bad news.

The movie then fast-forwards three weeks later. Lee is outside his home, where the streets look like an apocalypse recently happened. Lee is so numb from the disaster that when he takes out trash to put in a large pile that’s on his front lawn, he ignores the body of a dead, bloody woman who’s sprawled out on the house’s driveway.

What happened? Vague details are given in bits and pieces, but the pandemic apparently has caused an apocalypse where a viral disease turns people into humans that attack. They’re not human flesh-eaters like zombies, but the people who’ve gone crazy from this disease will kill for no reason. Other people with the disease that don’t go crazy eventually die a painful death where they rot away.

That’s what’s happened to Lee’s father. Lee gets a phone call from his mother (voiced by Connie Hyde), who is stuck somewhere giving medical help to those in need. She tells him that she’s figured out that people who whose blood type is Type O-negative are immune to this deadly disease. She and Lee both have this blood type.

Lee’s mother is very worried about Lee being stuck in the house with Lee’s dying father. She tells him that when Lee’s father inevitably dies, she will eventually meet up with Lee at St. Mark’s School for Boys. Lee doesn’t want to go back there, but she doesn’t know why. Apparently, she never found out that he was expelled.

But when Lee’s father dies, Lee changes his mind goes back to the school. He’s motivated to go there after an infected man invaded the home and tried to attack Lee. At the now-abandoned school, Lee finds about 16 to 18 other students, Mr. Bates and a school health administrator called Matron (played by Jasmine Blackboro), who is in her 20s. She saves Lee from being attacked by a wild German Shepherd that was roaming on school property.

Mr. Bates is trying to bring some normalcy to their situation, by lecturing the students on searching for food and telling them that non-perishable food should be given the highest priority. Lee’s expulsion from the school is no longer relevant, but he’s now back under the watchful eye of Mr. Bates. Neither of them is happy about it. Mr. Bates tells the students about the students being at the school: “You may not feel it now, but this place is still giving you a head start.”

There’s one bright spot for Lee: His best friend Mac is among the orphaned students who have taken shelter in the school. Mr. Bates has made Mac his second in command of his team. It’s a decision that he will soon regret, as Mac becomes very power-hungry and destructive in ways that won’t be revealed in this review.

During one of Mr. Bates’ lectures, a fellow teacher named Mr. Hammond (played by Richard Elfyn) and a boy named Rowles (played by Harry Tuffin), who’s about 10 or 11 years old, burst into the room in a panic. Mr. Hammond and Rowles beg to be hidden because they say that someone is out to kill them. They both hide themselves in a closet in the room.

Shortly after that, Mr. Bates and the students find out who’s after Mr. Hammond and Rowles: a vengeful teenager named Claire Baker (played by Freya Parks), who’s accompanied by a man in his 30s named John Smith (played by Gordon Alexander). They both have rifles with them. Claire announces that she and John Smith are looking for two thieves.

She adds, “I represent Warren Town and the authority of Georgina Baker, former magistrate and mayor of Warren Parish Council.” When Mr. Baker tells her that they don’t know about any thieves, trigger-happy Claire doesn’t believe him. Claire correctly assumes that the people she’s looking for are hiding in the closet, so she and John begin shooting the closet.

What follows is a battle where John dies, Claire is held captive, and her mother Georgina (played by Samantha Bond) comes looking for her with some armed and dangerous people from Warren Parish Council. It’s explained in the movie how and why Claire zeroed in on the school in the search for her missing daughter. St. Mark’s School for Boys has a very large gate that can keep outsiders away, but the gate has openings that make it easy for people see inside and shoot guns through it.

The rest of “School’s Out Forever” is a meandering slog that shows what happens during this standoff. Mr. Bates, Mac and Lee do the most interacting with Georgina. They adamantly deny that Georgina’s daughter Claire is on the property. However, Georgina doesn’t really believe them because they won’t let her on the property to do a search.

Georgina, her loyal henchman Stanley (played by Ben Dilloway) and the rest of her posse refuse to leave and remain stationed outside the school gate. Georgina won’t let anyone who’s behind the school gates leave until she gets what she wants. The resulting standoff is monotonously stretched out with repetitive back-and-forth talks between both sides that end in stalemates.

At some point in the movie, Georgina doesn’t become the only antagonist for Lee and the other people at the school. Mac eventually does some despicable things that make him a threat to people’s safety. Lee then has to decide who’s worse: Georgina or Mac? The ultimate showdown and results are neither surprising nor suspenseful.

“School’s Out Forever” is not a completely horrible movie. It’s just disappointing how dull it is when the concept begged for better action sequences, improved dialogue and more exciting pacing. Because so much of the story takes place in the protective environment of the school, the dangers of the apocalypse and the pandemic take a back seat to a very run-of-the-mill hostage story.

There are also plot holes that can’t be ignored. In his phone call with his mother, Lee never bothers to ask her the address of where she is. And it’s never explained why he didn’t try to call her back. It’s also never explained how all those people hiding out in the school never got infected, when the students were sent out to look for food.

There’s at least one occasion during a food scavenger hunt where Mac encounters an infected person, but there’s no mention of Mac having the blood type that would give Mac immunity. It’s also never made very clear how people get infected, so the movie never explains what people are doing to protect themselves from getting infected. There are brief glimpses of a few people on the outside wearing masks, but almost all the people in this movie aren’t wearing masks during this pandemic. And there are scenes where the students are neatly dressed in their school uniforms, as if they’re not in the middle of an apocalypse where they have to fight for their lives.

It’s clear that the filmmakers were more concerned with staging violent scenes than thinking through many of the details that would’ve made this a more suspenseful and believable movie. The acting in the film isn’t terrible, but it isn’t remarkable either. Macqueen’s portrayal of Mr. Bates is the performance that has the best comedic timing, although that’s not saying much when the comedy fizzles out by the last 15 minutes, and the movie that just becomes a violent free-for-all. There’s a good concept that was waiting to be creatively expressed in “School’s Out Forever,” but that concept ended up just like the classes in St. Mark’s School for Boys after the apocalypse—abandoned and permanently dismissed.

Central City Media released “School’s Out Forever” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on June 18, 2021. The movie was released in the United Kingdom on February 15, 2021.

Review: ‘The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2,’ starring Mike Epps and Katt Williams

June 19, 2021

by Carla Hay

Michael Blackson, Mike Epps, Zulay Henao, Bresha Webb and Lil Duval in “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

“The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2”

Directed by Deon Taylor

Culture Representation: Taking place in Atlanta, the horror comedy film “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” features a predominantly African American cast of characters (with a few white people and Latinos) representing the middle-class.

Culture Clash: A married father and his bachelor cousin are convinced that their new next-door neighbor is a vampire.

Culture Audience: “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” will appeal primarily to people who don’t mind watching crass and unimaginative movies filled with derogatory name-calling of women and black people.

Shamea Morton, Katt Williams and Sisse Marie in “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” (Photo courtesy of Lionsgate)

The good news is that “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” knows that it’s a silly and vulgar comedy. The bad news is that this movie fails miserably at being funny. This idiotic film also has rampant sexism and thinks that black people calling each other the “n” word is automatically supposed to make people laugh. It’s just a pathetic excuse for a comedy film.

“The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” is the follow-up to the 2016 horror comedy “Meet the Blacks,” both directed and co-written by Deon Taylor, a filmmaker who’s known for churning out low-quality movies with predominantly African American casts. In “Meet the Blacks,” which Taylor co-wrote with Nicole DeMasi, the Black family relocated from Chicago to Beverly Hills, California, where they encountered horror that was ripped off directly from 2013’s “The Purge,” a movie about a United States where all crime is legal, for a designated 12-hour period one day out of the year.

In “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2,” which Taylor co-wrote with Corey Harrell, the Black family is now in a horror scenario that’s a direct ripoff of the 1985 movie “Fright Night.” Family patriarch Carl Black (played by Mike Epps) and his goofy cousin Cronut (played by Lil Duval), a bachelor who lives in Carl’s backyard, begin to suspect that their new next-door neighbor is a vampire, but no one believes them at first. The other members of the Black family are Carl’s wife Lorena (played by Zulay Henao); their college-age daughter Allie (played by Bresha Webb); and their underage teen son Carl Jr. (played by Alex Henderson). Allie and Carl Jr. are Carl’s kids from a previous marriage.

Carl has a shady past as a thief. As seen in “Meet the Blacks,” he’s been trying to leave his criminal life behind. In the beginning of “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2,” it’s mentioned that Carl wrote a best-selling non-fiction book about the horror he experienced that was shown in the “Meet the Blacks” movie. However, irresponsible Carl blew all the money he made from the book, and the family has now been forced to downsize to a smaller home in Atlanta. Carl is currently unemployed, while Lorena is the family’s breadwinner—and she’s very unhappy that she has to carry all the financial weight for the family.

Meanwhile, Cronut (who is also unemployed) lives in an oversized camper in the family’s backyard. It’s a promotional camper that’s left over from a book tour that Carl did, and it still has images of Carl and the book emblazoned on the sides of the camper. Carl has some hard feelings toward Cronut, because Cronut talked Carl into some bad business deals that led to Carl losing his money.

The family’s financial problems have resulted in Allie dropping out of college, because Carl wrote a tuition check that bounced. Allie is dating a disabled man, who’s about the same age as Allie, named Freezee (played by Andrew Bachelor, also known as King Bach), who uses arm braces in order to walk. Carl is very prejudiced against Freezee because Carl doesn’t want Allie to date a disabled man. Carl gets even more upset when Allie says she wants to move away and live with Freezee.

Cronut is immediately suspicious of the new neighbor Dr. Mamuwalde (played by Katt Williams, who’s styled to look like Leon Russell from the 1970s) because Dr. Mamuwalde moved into the house next door well past midnight, and the only activity in the house seems to happen at night. During the first house party that Dr. Mamuwalde has at his home, it looks like a swingers party is going on in the backyard. Dr. Mamuwalde also seems to be avoiding meeting his new neighbors.

When Dr. Mamuwalde surfaces, he is almost always seen with two scantily clad women named Salt (played by Sisse Marie) and Pepper (played by Shamea Morton), who are both dressed in lingerie and are mute for most of the movie. Dr. Mamuwalde has a creepy servant named Monty (played by Cory Zooman Miller), who gives vague answers about Dr. Mamuwalde when nosy Cronut goes over to pay a visit. Carl eventually encounters Monty too, and Carl also thinks that something unusual is going on at Dr. Mamuwalde’s house.

At first, Carl thinks Cronut has a wild imagination about Dr. Mamuwalde being a vampire. Carl thinks that Dr. Mamuwalde is probably a pimp. It turns out that Dr. Mamuwalde is a vampire and a pimp. Later in the movie, Dr. Mamuwalde kidnaps Lorena and Allie because he wants them to be his sex slaves. In a lowbrow comedy like this, would you expect anything else?

Other neighbors who are in this story are wide-eyed and fearful Rico (played by Tyrin Turner), who disappears and has a fate that’s very easy to predict; tough guy Hugo (played by Danny Trejo), who doesn’t say much, but he observes more than he lets on to other people; and married couple Clive (played by Gary Owen) and Bunny (played by Jena Frumes), who are both completely useless to the movie’s plot. Owen was in “Meet the Blacks,” but playing a different character named Larry. In “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2,” Owen plays the token white guy who’s supposed to be racist.

Clive is a military veteran who uses a wheelchair and is a proud supporter of Donald Trump. (Clive wears a red “Make America Great Again” baseball cap, in case it wasn’t clear what his politics are.) Meanwhile, Bunny’s only purpose in the movie is to look like a basic Instagram model—she wears a bikini top and Daisy Duke cutoff shorts that leave little to the imagination—so that Carl and some other men can ogle her.

In fact, all of the women with significant speaking roles in the movie are exploited as sex objects at some point. Mother and daughter Lorena and Allie are both stripped down to their underwear in separate scenes. Not surprisingly, they’re wearing the type of lingerie that makes it look like they’re trying to be like Victoria’s Secret models.

Meanwhile, the men are fully clothed, except for one not-very-funny scene where a shirtless Cronut tries to seduce Bunny. There’s also a disgusting incest joke where Cronut suggests to his second cousin Allie that they have sex. He tells her that because they’re second cousins, it would be legal for them to have sex in Georgia. Not surprisingly, a repulsed Allie says no to Cronut’s sexual come-on.

Snoop Dogg has a small role, portraying himself as a TV talk show host who interviewed Carl in the past when Carl was promoting his book. One day, when a depressed Carl is at home, watching TV, and feeling sorry for himself, he sees an African man named Mr. Wooky (played by Michael Blackson) being interviewed on the show. Mr. Wooky claims to be a supernatural expert who can get rid of ghosts, vampires and other unwanted paranormal entities. Guess who Carl ends up hiring to get rid of the vampire next door?

All the so-called “jokes” in the movie are forgettable, and most are awful. Many of the jokes are about perpetuating the despicable and negative stereotype that black men hate themselves and don’t respect women. The visual effects are cheap-looking and not scary at all.

And all of the cast members are unremarkable in their roles, although Williams seems to be having some fun with his campy Dr. Mamuwalde character. Carl Jr. is barely in the movie; his total screen time is about five minutes. Rick Ross has a cameo as Mr. Saturday Night, who’s enlisted to help Carl and Cronut battle Dr. Mamuwalde. Mr. Saturday Night is another unnecessary character that was created just so the filmmakers could put hip-hop star Ross in the movie.

And a mid-credits scene announces the third movie in this series will be called “Chapter 3: The Ghost Squad,” starring Carl, Cronut, Mr. Wooky, Snoop Dogg and Hugo as the Ghetto Ghostbusters. Whether are not this “Ghost Squad” movie is really going to happen, you’ve been warned.

Lionsgate released “The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2” in select U.S. cinemas on June 11, 2021. The movie will be released on digital and VOD on July 9, 2021, and on Blu-ray and DVD on August 10, 2021.

Review: ‘Funhouse’ (2021), starring Valter Skarsgård, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Khamisa Wilsher, Christopher Gerard, Karolina Benefield, Amanda Howells and Jerome Velinsky

June 12, 2021

by Carla Hay

Amanda Howells, Gigi Saul Guerrero, Mathias Retamal, Christopher Gerard, Karolina Benefield and Valter Skarsgård in “Funhouse” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

“Funhouse” (2021)

Directed by Jason William Lee

Culture Representation: Taking place in an unnamed North American city, the horror flick “Funhouse” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with two Latinos, one African American and one Asian) representing the working-class, middle-class and wealthy.

Culture Clash: A twisted multimillionaire chooses eight strangers to live in a murder house, where they are contestants on a “Big Brother” type of reality show that awards $5 million to the last contestant who can stay alive.

Culture Audience: “Funhouse” will appeal primarily to people who like horror movies that pander to the lowest common denominator with atrocious screenwriting, acting and directing.

Christopher Gerard, Karolina Benefield, Khamisa Wilsher and Dayleigh Nelson in “Funhouse” (Photo courtesy of Magnet Releasing)

“Funhouse” is the epitome of everything that people despise about bad horror movies. Even die-hard horror fans will be disgusted by the abyss of stupidity and awful filmmaking in “Funhouse.” There are trash dumps and toilets that have more redeeming qualities than “Funhouse.”

In addition to being sexist, dull and horribly acted, “Funhouse” has a very misleading title because it’s no fun to watch this movie at all. All of the characters are self-absorbed dolts, while the entire movie (written and directed by Jason William Lee) is built on the loathsome concept that people around the world would love to watch a “Big Brother”-styled reality show where the contestants are murdered in cruel, bloody and gruesome ways. The last contestant standing will get a $5 million prize.

This gimmick concept isn’t shocking for a horror movie. What’s offensive is how shockingly bad “Funhouse” is in executing this concept in the movie. There’s a plot twist at the end that viewers are going to hate because it makes absolutely no sense. And leading up to that idiotic final scene, it’s a tedious and repetitive slog of horrendously bad dialogue and airheaded young people getting slaughtered. What also makes “Funhouse” so insufferable is that it’s obvious that the filmmakers thought they were making a good movie, so there’s the stink of pretension to this film too.

The opening scene of “Funhouse” is an indication of the dreck to come. A gory murder has just taken place in a living room of a mansion somewhere in North America. (“Funhouse” was actually filmed in Canada.) The smirking lout who owns the mansion looks on sadistically, as a pretty young blonde has been using a baseball bat to beat to death another young woman, whose bloody body is lying on the floor and is probably dead already. Much later in the movie, it’s revealed that this creepy psycho is a multimillionaire named Nero Alexander (woodenly played by Jerome Velinsky), a tech entrepreneur who hates people who find fame through reality TV or social media.

The woman who committed this vicious murder is not identified by name in the movie, but in the film’s credits, she’s listed as Gilda “The Mad” Batter (played by Debs Howard), and it soon becomes clear that she’s become a murderer for money. Nero sneers at Gilda, “You’re not finished. You still have one final obligation.” And so, after Gilda finishes with her baseball bat beatdown, she stabs the murder victim, carves out the heart, and serves the heart to Nero on a silver platter.

Nero curtly says to some bodyguards nearby: “Clean her up, give her the money, and get her the fuck out of here.” An exhausted and bloodied Gilda, who seems on the verge of collapsing, is given a suitcase full of cash. Nero’s thugs grab her and practically push her out of the room. Now that it’s been established that Nero gets pleasure from watching people murder, the rest of this sordid story shows how he’s the secret mastermind behind a new “Big Brother”-styled reality show where the contestants want a chance to win a $5 million cash prize, but the show is really a setup to massacre people.

The contestants are all in their 20s or 30s, and they arrive from around the world. At first, the contestants think that it’s a legitimate show. They soon find out that they will be imprisoned and forced to commit murder in “survival of the fittest” challenges. The last contestant who manages to stay alive is the grand prize winner. All of the contestants were chosen because they found fame on social media or reality TV.

And only in a dumb movie like “Funhouse,” this livestreamed show becomes a global sensation. There are several cutaway shots throughout the movie depicting people around the world (including some children) watching the show, as if they’re watching a harmless soap opera. In some of these viewer scenes, they’re essentially rooting for which contestants will live or die. It’s just all so moronic.

The eight strangers picked to live in this torture house are:

  • Kasper Nordin (played by Valter Skarsgård), a reality star originally from Sweden who found fame in America as a backup singer of a famous American diva named Darla Drake (played by Kylee Bush). Kasper and Darla fell in love, got married, and starred in their own reality show together called “Darla and Kasper: Back-Up Love,” before the marriage crumbled and his popularity declined.
  • Lonnie Byrne (played by Khamisa Wilsher), an American whose claim to fame is starring on a show similar to “The Bachelorette,” getting engaged twice, and being dumped by both fiancés.
  • James “Headstone” Malone (played by Christopher Gerard), a disgraced mixed-martial-arts (MMA) fighter/reality TV star who’s originally from Ireland and the most aggressively obnoxious out of all the contestants.
  • Ula La More (played by Karolina Benefield), an Instagram model from an unnamed European country. Ula is famous for her sexy image, but she looks like she’s stuck in 2005 and trying to be like how Paris Hilton was back then.
  • Ximena Torres (played by Gigi Saul Guerrero), a celebrity gossip blogger from Mexico. Ximena is cynical, likes to talk tough, and doesn’t hesitate to start a jealous catfight with anyone she thinks is a bimbo. In other words, you can almost have a countdown to the battle that Ximena and Ula will inevitably have.
  • Dex “El Shocker” Souza (played by Mathias Retamal), a reality star/rapper, who seems to have an instant connection with Ximena when they first arrive in the house.
  • Nevin Evinsmith (played by Dayleigh Nelson), a fidgety Brit who’s famous for having some kind of entertainment/extreme stunt YouTube channel.
  • Cat Zim (played by Amanda Howells), originally from the Philippines and a quiet former chess champ who found fame on a reality TV show called “The Real Witches of Westchester.”

Kasper, who has no real talent at anything, has been trying to cling to fame by being on reality shows, but he’s gotten tired of it and wants to be known as a legitimate entertainer and is trying to break into acting. There’s a brief scene early on in the film of Kasper talking to his agent by phone and telling his agent that he doesn’t want to do this “Big Brother” type of reality show, which is called “Furcas’ House of Fun.” His agent insists that the show will boost Kasper’s sagging popularity, because Kasper was made to look like a gold-digging villain in his divorce from Darla. “It’s redemption time,” the agent tells Kasper.

It’s the closest thing that “Funhouse” has to a backstory for any of the characters, since Kasper is portrayed as the main protagonist. MMA jerk Headstone, who has a ridiculous-looking green Mohawk, is cocky, rude and absolutely annoying. Viewers might be shocked to know that the actor portraying Headstone is Irish in real life, because his acting is so bad that it sounds like he has a fake Irish accent. What isn’t surprising is that Headstone and Ula hook up at some point in the movie.

The contestants have been brought to a mansion, where in the main living room, they are greeted on a big video screen by their “host” Furcas, a computer-generated avatar made to look like a talking panda. Furcas is really Nero in a back room somewhere with his voice in disguise and wearing some type of computer headset so that he can control Furcas’ physical motions. The disguised voice has that distorted computer sound that makes Furcas sound genderless, but Furcas makes it clear early on that a man is controlling the Furcas avatar and all the mayhem that ensues.

The contestants are told that because there are cameras in every single room of the house, if a contestant has any nudity on camera, the contestant can choose whether or not the cameras will blur out the nudity. It’s the only control these contestants really have while they’re in the house. Everything else is dictated to them and decided for them.

The contestants are warned that if try to leave the house, they will be disqualified. Later, they find out they can’t leave the house anyway because they’re being held as prisoners. They are also told that they’re required to give a five-minute confessional interview every day.

Just like the viewer-based voting on “Big Brother,” viewers of “Furcas’ House of Fun” vote on which contestants they want to stay in the house. The two contestants with the lowest percentage of votes have to face off against each other in a challenge that’s really a battle for their lives. The challenges are predictably heinous.

There’s one called Piñata Party, where a contestant is blindfolded and told to hit a piñata with a baseball bat, but the piñata is really a bound-and-gagged contestant who ends up being beaten to death. And when the blindfold comes off, the person holding the bat is horrified to find out that they’ve just committed murder. “Funhouse” wants viewers to believe the absurdity that a blindfolded person wouldn’t be able to tell the difference between hitting a piñata and hitting a human body.

Another challenge is called the Blind Rage Challenge, where two contestants go after each other with axes in a pitch-dark room. And the challenges get worse. In the Forget Me Not Challenge, a contestant fails a memory test and is then tied up and stretched to death. It’s not an original way to die in a horror movie, because it’s been done before in other horror flicks, but you get the idea of how low “Funhouse” will go for murder scenes.

Furcas has anonymous and disguised male assistants interacting with the contestants to do things like bring them meals and monitor the activities during the deadly challenges. These assistants, who do not speak, dress in dark business suits and wear panda helmet-sized masks that look like they’re made out of papier-mâché. The production design for the house is as tacky as this movie. The house’s main room, where Furcas gives instructions by video, has nude female mannequins on display in glass cases.

It doesn’t take long for this misogynistic movie to objectify women. The only people who have nudity in the film’s male-female sex scenes are the women. And it should come as no surprise that there’s a scene where Instagram model Ula bares her breasts on camera in a desperate bid to get enough viewer votes to stay in the house.

Later, Cat masturbates on camera for the same reason. While she’s masturbating, Cat looks at the camera and makes a knife-slitting gesture across her throat, as a way to tell the sicko behind this show that she’s going to get revenge. It’s all so cheesy and ridiculous.

As the body count piles up, “Furcas’ House of Fun” gets some criticism from the public, including Kasper’s ex-wife Darla, who does a TV interview pleading for the remaining contestants to be set free. The movie has several cutaway shots to a snarky YouTuber called Pete Sake (played by Bradley Duffy), who constantly mocks and ridicules “Furcas’ House of Fun.” Law enforcement is trying to track down the culprit behind the show, but Nero has covered his tracks by making his computer identity untraceable and setting up wild goose chases for anyone trying to find out the location of the house.

Nero is so confident that he won’t get caught that he gives a TV interview where he disparages the “famewhore” mentality of wanting to becoming famous for being on reality TV or social media. His rants sound a lot like the rants that Furcas spews on “Furcas’ Fun House.” He rails against “the Kardashianization of humanity.” Nero having the same speech pattern as Farcas’ speech pattern would be a big clue to Farcas’ identity in the real world, but not in this movie. Nero’s TV interview is just another dumb plot development in an idiotic story.

Just when you think “Funhouse” couldn’t get any worse, the last 15 minutes prove that this movie is utterly revolting and worthless. And there’s nothing scary about this so-called horror movie. The only fear that “Funhouse” might generate is the fear that some misguided filmmakers will think that this abominable movie deserves a sequel.

Magnet Releasing released “Funhouse” in select U.S. cinemas, digital and VOD on May 28, 2021.

Review: ‘Phobias’ (2021), starring Leonardo Nam, Martina García, Hana Mae Lee, Lauren Miller Rogen, Macy Gray and Ross Partridge

June 12, 2021

by Carla Hay

Leonardo Nam and Martina García in “Phobias” (Photo by Vertical Entertainment)

“Phobias” (2021)

Directed by Camilla Belle, Maritte Lee Go, Chris von Hoffmann, Joe Sill and Jess Varley

Culture Representation: Taking place in Los Angeles, the horror anthology movie “Phobias” features a predominantly white cast of characters (with some Asians, Latinos and African American) representing the working-class, middle-class and criminal underground.

Culture Clash: Five people with five different phobias are held captive by a mad scientist who does experiments on them, with the goal to create an invention that will make their phobias come to life.

Culture Audience: “Phobias” will appeal mostly to people who don’t mind watching low-budget horror flicks that are plagued by substandard screenwriting, mediocre-to-bad acting and very derivative scare gimmicks.

Lauren Miller Rogen and Mackenzie Brooke Smith in “Phobias” (Photo by Vertical

The ambitious concept of the horror flick “Phobias” is so terribly mishandled that the end result is a movie that relies on boring and over-used clichés. The movie’s tone and acting are uneven. The screenwriting is sloppy. “Phobias” has an anthology format, with five different stories by five different directors, all clumsily tied together with a common theme: Five different people with five different phobias are kidnapped by a mad scientist who experiments on his victims so that he can create an invention that will manifest their phobias. The anthology is told in six chapters: “Robophobia,” “Outpost 37,” “Vehophobia,” “Ephebiaphobia,” “Hoplophobia” and “Atelophobia.”

“Robophobia” (written and directed Joe Sill) is the first story in the anthology, and it’s the one that’s filmed the best—although that’s not saying much because nothing in this movie rises above the level of predictable and mediocre. Robophobia is the fear of robots, drones, artificial intelligence and any robot-like machine. Set in Los Angeles, “Robophobia” focuses on a lonely bachelor named Johnny (played by Leonardo Nam), who lives in a small, cluttered and dingy apartment with his wheelchair-using, widowed father Jung-Soo (played by Steve Park), who wears an oxygen tube for his breathing problems.

The movie doesn’t go into details about what Johnny does for a living, but he’s a computer nerd and he’s financially struggling. Johnny doesn’t have a social life either, since there’s no indication that he has any friends. One night, after buying some computer supplies that he can barely pay for at an independently owned electronics store, Johnny (who is minding his own business) is bullied by about three or four random thugs on the street.

The leader of this group is a racist scumbag named Dirk (played by Micah Hauptman), who threatens Johnny by saying, “Look at me again at me the way you did inside of there [the store], and I’ll knock your fucking lights out, China boy.” Johnny replies, “I’m Korean.” Dirk snarls back, “Same fucking thing to me.” Johnny avoids getting into a fight by quickly riding off on his bike, but Dirk and his goons catch up to Johnny and beat him up.

At home, Johnny doesn’t tell his father how he’s gotten the injuries, and he refuses to get medical treatment or file a police report. Not long after getting assaulted, Johnny starts getting mysterious text messages on his computer from a someone or something that seems to know everything about Johnny’s life, including what he’s doing at that exact moment. The mystery messenger knows facts, such as Johnny has a sick father, what Johnny is currently wearing, and how much money is in Johnny’s bank account.

The mystery messenger asks if Johnny wants a friend. Johnny is intrigued but also paranoid. It isn’t long before the mystery messenger starts speaking to Johnny in an eerie computer voice on Johnny’s computer and on his phone. The voice says to Johnny about Johnny’s unhappy life: “I can help, but I need your help.” Johnny asks, “To do what?” The voice replies, “To stop bad things. I want to be part of your world, the real world, to see what you see.”

Johnny soon finds out what this mysterious force behind the voice is capable of doing. A neighbor named Mr. Romero (played by Gerardo de Pablos), who lives on the same floor, has been very abusive to his wife. Johnny has witnessed some of this abuse. And then one night, Johnny hears a major ruckus and screaming coming from the Romeros’ apartment. Johnny sees that Mr. Romero has been burned to death, with his terrified wife (played by Katia Gomez) wailing over his charred body. It’s implied that Mr. Romero was set on fire, but not by his wife.

Viewers can easily predict what happens next. One night, while out on the street, Johnny is cornered again by Dirk and his gang of bullies. This time, Johnny is emboldened by his “friend” with the computer voice, which has told Johnny that Dirk’s father abused Dirk when Dirk was a child. Johnny figures out that this past abuse is the reason why Dirk has become a violent bully, and Johnny says that to Dirk’s face.

Dirk’s reaction confirms that what Johnny said is true. At first, Dirk is shocked that Johnny knows this personal information, and then Dirk gets very angry. Just as he’s about to beat up Johnny, something bizarre happens: An electrical entity seems to appear, and Dirk bursts into flames. Dirk’s fellow thugs run away in fear. Johnny (and this movie’s viewers) know that what caused this spontaneous combustion is the same force that’s uses the computer voice to talk to Johnny.

Although this mystery force has killed the “bad people” in Johnny’s orbit, the camaraderie between Johnny and this mystery force doesn’t last long. The mystery force tells Johnny that Johnny is torturing his sick father by letting him live instead of letting him die. Johnny vehemently disagrees and gets alarmed when the mystery force says that it wants to take the father.

What follows is a somewhat ludicrous chase scene in the apartment, where Johnny and his father try to get away from the mystery force, which has now manifested itself as a giant, shapeless electrical energy. After Johnny begs for mercy, the mystery forces says that it will let Johnny and his father live if Johnny follows this order: “Find me another.”

The movie abruptly shifts to the next chapter titled “Outpost 37” (written and directed by Jess Varley), which shows that Johnny and four other people have been kidnapped and are being held captive by a crazy scientist named Dr. Wright (played by Ross Partridge), who has made Johnny his most recent victim. Dr. Wright calls this prison Outpost 37, and the five people are in a section called Block 10, which looks like a combination of a dungeon, a psychiatric ward and a scientific lab.

Dr. Wright tells a terrified Johnny why and he the other “patients” have been kidnapped: Dr. Wright wants to target receptors in the brain to create a homemade cocktail that would allow Dr. Wright to extract fear into an easily controlled gas. The doctor wants to sell this gas as a neurological weapon to make him very rich.

Dr. Wright then introduces Johnny to the other four patients in the room, who are all women: defiant Sami, meek Emma, confused Alma and wacky Renee, who each has a different phobia. All of the woman are taken separately into a room where they are strapped to a chair and forced to wear an electrode headset to relive their phobias. And in case anyone has thoughts of escaping, Dr. Wright isn’t afraid to use his cane that can electrocute. The rest of the movie is a story about each of the four women’s phobias and how they got these fears.

“Vehophobia” (directed by Maritte Lee Go and written by Go and Broderick Engelhard) focuses on Sami’s fear of vehicles. Before she was kidnapped by Dr. Wright, Sami (played Hana Mae Lee) was a musician in a rock band, with her boyfriend Harry (played by Ash Stymest) as one of her band mates. A flashback shows that Harry broke up with Sami over something that happened that was Sami’s fault. It’s enough to say that someone died as a result of what Sami did.

Sami didn’t want the breakup to happen. Harry is so angry with her that he yells at her as he walks away, “You fucking used me!” He calls her “twisted” and a “crazy fucking bitch.” The heinous thing that Sami did is shown in the movie. And she is literally haunted by her decision. It’s not a very imaginative story and the scares are minimal.

“Ephebiphobia” (written and directed by Chris von Hoffmann) shows Emma’s fear of teenagers and other young people. Before she was kidnapped, Emma (played by Lauren Miller Rogen) was a seemingly mild-mannered, married teacher of high school students. But one night, three students from her high school commit a home invasion and torture her, for a reason that’s revealed in the movie.

The home invaders are all siblings: Blaire (played by Mackenzie Brooke Smith) is the ringleader, the eldest and most sadistic of the three; Grady (played by Joey Luthman) is a willing accomplice; and Isaac (played by Benjamin Stockham) is a reluctant accomplice and seems the most horrified by the mayhem that ensues. Unfortunately, “Ephebiphobia” is essentially a short film in serious need of more background information on the characters, in order for viewers to understand these characters more. As it stands, it’s just an empty story that shows a violent home invasion with a fairly implausible conclusion.

“Hopiophobia” (written and directed by Camilla Belle) is about Alma’s fear of guns and other firearms the story. Out of all the stories in the movie, this one is the least terrifying and the most predictable. Alma (played by Martina García) is a cop who accidentally commits an act that would be a cop’s worse nightmare. It’s easy to predict what that act is when it’s revelaed by the story’s title that this cop is now afraid of guns. “Hopiophobia” seems more like it belongs in a crime drama, not a horror movie.

“Atelophobia” (written and directed by Varley) depicts Renee’s fear of imperfection and not being good enough. It’s by far the most off-the-wall (and off-putting) of the movie’s six chapters. Renee (played by Macy Gray) works for her father’s architect firm and interviews a job candidate named Bill McNerney (played by Rushi Kota), who exaggerates his credentials.

Renee is a very strange person who wears black gloves. She also makes off-the-cuff remarks that are supposed to be goofy, but don’t fit the tone of the rest of the movie. And she invites Bill and two employees named Lia (played by Alexis Knapp) and Rose (played by Charlotte McKinney) to a dinner party that turns out to be deadly.

Gray, who has an image of being an eccentric artist in real life, is very miscast in the role of Renee, because Gray is not believable as an artichect executive. She’s very awkward in her scenes. In addition to miscasting the role of Renee, the biggest flaw of “Atelophobia” is its muddled message of why Renee now has this fear of imperfection.

“Phobias” makes the same mistake that a lot of other badly made horror movies make: It tries to make viewers think that gory violence is automatically scary. There’s more to terrifying an audience than just showing gruesome deaths. Otherwise, war movies with combat death scenes would be classified as horror movies. A good horror movie gives viewers a chance to get to know the characters and build suspense, rather than showing shallow snippets of the characters’ lives.

None of the acting is outstanding, although Nam and Miller Rogen make attempts to bring realistic depth to their characters. It’s a futile effort because all of the kidnapped characters in this movie have hollow personalities that are overshadowed by the horror that happens to them. Meanwhile, Partridge’s way of depicting Dr. Wright is almost like a parody of a mad scientist.

The concept of “Phobias” was promising, but the execution of that concept was poorly done. The movie somewhat rips off “Saw,” because all of the kidnapped characters were chosen so that they would be punished for the “sins” that they committed, with each punishment related in some way to each sin. The conclusion of “Phobias” is so ho-hum predictable that it makes “Phobias” the type of forgettable horror flick that will leave horror fans underwhelmed.

Vertical Entertainment released “Phobias” in select U.S. cinemas, on digital and VOD on March 19, 2021.

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