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Reviewed
by: Dave Murray
Directed
by: Fred Vogel
Starring:
Bethany Newell
Jessica Kennedy
Perry Tiberio
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| You know the tale: Some kids go partying in an old haunted tower, and the ghosts/demons toy with them before dispatching them in grusome ways, most often while they are naked. But poor Kim, she's being stalked by her annoyingly clingy ex-boyfriend Mitch, who's going to make sure that their party at the Redsin Tower is a bloody one. |
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Now this movie left me sitting here with a dumb expression on my face (no, that's not natural) and all I could say was 'huh'. Not very inspired, I know. Why was I somehow shocked into submission by this harmless and innocent looking screener? Well, aside from a few creepy moments provided by either the cast of the mood of the flick, most of this one played out like a mundane ho-hum high school melodrama. And just when I started to get bored, that's when the gloves came off and the movie floored me by turning completely in the opposite direction and becoming one of the most intense and disturbing things I have watched in a while.
We start out with some of that high school drama, offered up by Kim (Bethany Newell) and her creepy stalker boyfriend (oops...I guess that's ex) Mitch, played by Perry Tiberio. She dumps his ass good, and well, he goes a little nuts. So when Kim gets hauled out to get stoned and party by her wild and hot friend Becky (Jessica Kennedy), Mitch follows them along with an axe, a gun, and a dream....We are then treated to the obligatory teenage party shots, the cute girls falling for hunky boys (or pathetic stoners, take your pick), and the pairing off of our victims amidst the spooky and admittedly well shot interiors of the cursed location.
All pretty normal stuff so far, except for the annoyingly tortured acting of Tiberio, which almost had me reaching for the remote. but then...after a little spooky possession-told history, the horror kicks in full force and I have to say I was mucho impressed. An axe attack to the face was nicely done and very uncomfortable, the scenes of an invisible demon dispatching teens were excellently shot and handled, the gore was passable and added to the mayhem, and the history was creepy as hell. When two dead girls re-animate and paw all over one of our heroes, it creates a genuinely disturbing moment. And you haven't lived until you've watched our herroine bump uglies with an invisible demon only to have bile and maggots spew from her crotch! And by uglies, I mean Ugly! It's not often that a movie can make me this uncomfortable, but hey, that scene made me squirm. Some nicely done effects (great possession makeup a la Evil Dead) and the moody atmosphere rounded out this movie on a high note. Too bad the ending was complete trash, and a waste of a great buildup. I so very much wanted that Mitch kid to die, just so he'd stop crying and sneering into the camera with the menace of a muppet.
I don't know what I was expecting, especially from Fred Vogel, the director of the highly disturbing August Underground (the third installment of which, titled Penance, should be coming soon), but I was very pleasantly surprised. Sick and a little abused, and mad about the ending, but all in all I was well disturbed and intrigued to see more. |
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Video: Widescreen - Unknown ratio. Very annoying timeframe marker on top of the screen the whole time, along with "Property of Toe Tag Pictures" along the bottom. Kind of distracting, but all things considered it was a great print.
Audio: English (Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround). The flick sounded great.
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| Nothing to report on this screener. |
| I wasn't a stranger to Vogel's work coming into this, and again he proves what you can do with some great unkown actors, a healthy script, choice gore effects, and a massive dose of mental illness. The result is a tasty underground horror flick that had me shocked and surprised in all the right places (a hard feat at best), and that did its best to dish out some demonic hell along with my morning coffee. Great movie, great twists, demon sex disturbs me, and good job. The world needs more original demonic teen slashers, so keep em coming.
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Episode #34
