Ex-cons Victor (Tygo Gernandt) and Rico (Marwan Kenzari) kidnap a young woman named Laura (Sarah Chronis) in hopes to extort a four million dollar cash payout from her wealthy father. The two men are methodical, precise, and focused on their task, constructing a sound proof room, buying burner cell phones, and keeping one step ahead of their captive’s thoughts on escape. Keeping her tied to the bed in a vacant apartment, Victor and Rico don specific roles in their plan; Victor leaves the apartment to negotiate the ransom while Rico oversees their money making hostage. When Laura cleverly works on getting the upper hand on one of them, she discovers that there might be a secondary plan involving her willing participation and leaving the other ex-con high and dry without a payday. Victor and Rico hold a surprising secret amongst themselves as well, making this crime thriller a cat-and-mouse game between the three where tensions are high, trust is low, and the end game won’t be pretty.
The Netherlands thriller directed by Joram Lürsen seems to be the polar opposite from the director’s previous directorial work. The “Reckless” niche focuses on being tight and concise. The film only credits three actors: Tygo Gernandt, Marwan Kenzari, and Sarah Chronis. That’s it and there isn’t even a voice over from a phone call or anything else of the sort, forcing the actors to only work off each other instead of being able to pick and choose who to bank off their banters and abilities. Secondly, the majority of the setting is in this small apartment that has become Laura’s cell which becomes another tight spot, literally. Finally, the story focuses on minor details with strict guiding dialogue that pieces together the story’s outcome and doesn’t make the plot wander into oblivion.
The story, which is a remake of the 2009 British thriller “The Disappearance of Alice Creed,” strives off being simplistic; a kidnapping for ransom gone awry. However, there lies a mid act twist that keeps the situation fresh where constantly guessing to the real intentions of the characters is more fun than actually watching the ploy play out. Tygo Gernandt perfectly fits into the shoes of Victor by portraying the role extremely well of a hardened and a rule rigorous ex-con. Marwan Kenzari as Victor’s accomplice Rico relieves the other half of the tension Tygo’s aura emits with his soft eyes and gentle appeal toward Laura, but Rico scrambles to keep Tygo under control and that creates nail biting scenes between the three actors. Sarah Chronis as Laura offers so much to the table being the golden nugget for Victor and Rico, being their ticket for a new life in another part of the world. Chronis conveys being naive, conniving, and afraid well and acts upon her forced nudity with proper accordance to the situation and also uses her nudity, seductively and convincingly, to plan her intended escape.
However, where “Reckless” strives on being a successful crime thriller, it’s also the film’s ultimate downfall and suffers sequentially from “Psycho” syndrome. Remember when Gus Van Sant remade Alfred Hitchcock’s “Psycho” nearly shot for shot and critics condemned Van Sant’s film? The same situation happens upon “Reckless” where nearly every character quality has become a carbon copy from “The Disappearance of Alice Creed.” Yes, “Reckless” is a true to form remake and a good reproduction as well, but for the Lürsen film to stand out, to be something more, “Reckless” doesn’t break the established mold. Instead, the film relies on it’s actors to accomplish a more riveting appeal and that’s hard to do when Eddie Marsan, Martin Compston, and Gemma Arterton already made a great first impression in the original.
The Artsploitation Films distributes “Reckless” in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with super clear picture quality. The 5.1 Dolby Digital audio mix clearly appropriates the dialogue from the ambience form the soundtrack. The optional English subtitles sync well with the Dutch language track. I’m a little disappointed in the DVD cover as it resembles something that Dimension Films would have produced back in the early 2000s and doesn’t really speak to the film’s thrilling storyline. Overall, “Reckless” is a quality remake release for Artsploitation Films and for production company Topkapi Films that gave alternative, yet still quality, actors a chance to redo a role already grounded and established.
Category Archives: Chilly Thrilly
There’s Evil in Oklahoma! “Meet Me There” review!
Ada and her boyfriend Calvin love each other tremendously, but Calvin finds difficulty in their intimacy when Ada continues to push him away, as if hurting her, in the middle of intercourse. Her sexual dysfunction puts a strain on their marriage, but Calvin has a plan that he hopes will resolve Ada’s, as well as Calvin’s, intimacy issue. His plan involves travelling to her hometown of Sheol, Oklahoma where much of Ada’s childhood memories seem to have been repressed and might be the root cause of her mental blockage. When they arrive at Sheol, they’re not exactly welcome as the town’s deranged inhabitants have a bible-thumping darkness about them and they don’t agree with Ada’s and Calvin’s lifestyle. When the couple try to escape, the town won’t let them.
Director Lex Lybrand helms the “Meet Me There” story, written by Brandon Stroud, and Lybrand seems to lose the structure as soon our hero and heroine arrive in the town of Sheol. The film tries to relay underlining messages about sexual dysfunctions, repressed or fragmented memories, suicide, paranoia, and, of course, just plain lethal psychosis. In short, “Meet Me There” attempts to mask the mental repercussions of childhood atrocities with a story about a couple becoming trapped in a town of deadly druids and God-fearing folk. Lybrand didn’t quite pull off the effect I think he was going for and that was creating an overall nightmarish realm without no escape, like a bad dream you’re unable to awake from, and what was missing was smooth segues to keep the glue together for the plot to naturally play out.
The story’s outer shell might be compromised, but only technically from a director’s chair. The introductory story of two complete strangers meeting at an airport bar, flying in separate passenger seats to Sheol, renting a car together to head to the same destination, and only to blow their brains out in a field at the same instance becomes lost in reason without the backup of exposition. However, the story of how Ada overcomes her sexual dysfunction and her fragmented memories can’t be any clearer and once she realizes and understands her upbringing involving drugged up parents, a creepy Grandfather, and a verbally abusive father, she bangs Calvin in the middle of the field, half naked and without care.
Lisa Friedrich and Michael Foulk as Ada and Calvin make a mediocre convincing couple. Their tattoos and choice of music, whether created for their characters or in most micro-budget productions the actors just have to bring themselves, labels them as rebellious to which heightens the towns’ scrutiny upon them. Foulk has great timing in his delivery when being comical with Ada, fairing rather naturally for him. Friedrich’s character lumbers a good amount of the film; her spacey attitude leaves nothing to desire and her character becomes dislikeable. I don’t blame Friedrich for a character written too sluggish and poorly for viewing comfort because even when Ada triumphs over her problems, she’s still very out of sorts.
Ada and Calvin don’t really have a single antagonist pitted against them; basically, the whole town is against them. WWE’s Golddust, aka Dustin Runnels, is one of a many wrestlers who appear in “Meet Me There,” along with other unknown wrestling talents such as Addy Starr, Leva Bates, and Angelus Layne, and is also one of the villains as the town’s preacher. There’s also Ada’s paranoid Aunt who severely disapproves of Ada’s lifestyle choices, the country store bumpkins who wield shotguns, the cloaked orgy-committing druids, and etc. Now, that all might sound enticing, but only the orgy gives a little stimulating thrill to the bone. I would like to know who set fire to Ada and Calvin’s car because the effect is priceless; when Ada and Calvin return to her aunt’s house to flee town, their car is set to inferno and someone on the crew thought that a matchbox car with blazing flames through the windows and being shot up real close would be pass for a great special effect. I admit, the effect kind of works, but still hilariously executed.
“Meet Me There,” distributed by MVDVisual and produced by SGL Entertainment, is presented in a widescreen presentation with a standard 2.0 mix. The images a bit grainy with dark tones during night scenes. Overall, “Meet Me There” needs a bigger catalyst to get Ada and Calvin into a more dire situation, but the sensation of being in a bad dream is achieved here yet the transitions from act-to-act or even scene-to-scene becomes muddled. Check out Lex Lybrand’s “Meet Me There” and see what the town of Sheol has in store for our hero and heroine.
Horror comes home. Five Nights at Freddy’s 4 trailer released.
Oh yes, Freddy is back and he’s coming home with us. Five Nights at Freddy’s developer has released the official trailer on his Youtube and it looks creepy.
Now I’m not big into the FNAF series, but I am interested in the lore behind it. This trailer however might get me into it as its now giving us the freedom to move around in different rooms, instead of sitting in one place.
Allison Road. A Silent Hills replacement?
Many horror fans were heart broken after hearing the cancellation of Silent Hills. I know many people are still in mourning an are trying to pressure Konami into giving in. We shouldn’t feel all too bad though as there is another game that looks like it can fill in the empty void of our hearts.
Allison Road, is an upcoming first person, survival horror game being developed by a small UK studio called Lilith Ltd. The game has passed Steam’s Greenlight program and on its way. No released date has been confirmed but here is some in-game footage from their official Youtube channel.
From the video you can see how the game is very similar to the P.T. demo and I have high hopes for this. I was so excited about Silent Hills and since its cancellation, I hope this game helps us through the grieving process.
Allison Road will be coming to PC sometime in 2016. No news on a console version at this time.
Evil Dwells in Your Nightmares! “Horsehead” review!
Jessica is plagued by recurring horrific and lucid nightmares of a horse-headed figure that brings death to her dreams. When she has a nightmare about her grandmother being impaled to death by the horsehead monster, she’s immediately phoned by her mother Catelyn informing Jessica that her grandmother has passed away. Jessica travels to the family’s countryside estate for the funeral and is welcomed by her stern mother. Jessica’s nightmares worsen the first night and she becomes trapped in her own dreams as she can feel the haunt of the horse-head figure in the corner’s of her mind. When Jessica soon realizes that her’s grandmother’s death and her mother’s cruelty might be more involved and connected with the horse-head creature, she attempts to stay in a semi-conscious sleep state to puzzle together the mysterious pieces and to control her nightmares once and for all.
The freshman feature film from Romain Basset contains such promise and maturity and Basset shows daring courage to create a horror-fantasy of this caliber thats very aesthetically symbolic and worthy of being awarded qualities of early Dario Argento’s films with intensive surreal and haunting facets. “Horsehead” embodies the character Jessica’s head in creating and blending an atmospheric jigsaw and visceral puzzle of a world while being a mirror in which you can glance back into time, far back beyond your own existence. “Horsehead’s” unique tribute blend contains the bizarre and frightening worlds of Tarsem Singh’s 2000 film “Cell” intertwined with one’s life story similar to the past and present tales of “A Christmas Carol” with Ebenezer Scrooge. However, Jessica’s past is much more dark and grim than Scrooge’s will ever be and her future won’t end in her being generous and kind to a crippled poor boy named Tiny Tim.
Certainly a visually stunning film, “Horsehead” tries turn the mind on it’s end, leaving the suspended muscle dangling near the edge of insanity. Jessica’s reality becomes no more real than her nightmares as the horse-headed monster is has comparable dream-bending qualities to the the same effect as Freddy Krueger of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” but “Horesehead” is a lot more gothic and whole lot less sarcastic than the fedora sporting child murderer. The creature has haunted Jessica’s lineage for at least three generations, presumably starting with her late grandmother and is a symbol of Jessica’s strict-bible-following grandfather who becomes the epicenter of all the family’s issues. Her dreams hold a dark mystery to her family’s continuous cycle of troubles and use horrific symbolism to express, in stages, the truth behind their ancestral secrets.
As much as I love the symbolism in this film, I’m worried about the psycho-sexual portion the film markets, splashed as a tagline right on the Blu-ray cover. Yes, the once little girl from Robert De Niro’s “Ronin” actress Lilly-Fleur Pointeaux does become involved briefly in highly sexual situations in her electric dance music soundtrack nightmares in a down the rabbit hole type of situation, but really serve no purpose to Pointeaux’s character in reality because no much is conveyed except for her profession as a dream psychologist and she has quarrels with her mother, especially on why her mother refuses to informer on the identity of her father. Gala Besson, who plays a younger version of Jessica’s grandmother, also briefly bares skin for a more gruesome and twisted scene that would make Pinhead smile with such pleasure. Perhaps the psycho-sexual scenes stem from the heavily implied incest relationships in the story between father and daughter, sister and sister, and mother and daughter. If incest is the answer to my question on why the film blatantly markets psycho-sexual, than the taboo subject matter makes “Horsehead” that much more risque and that more interestingly ambitious, creating a film that’s hard to swallow and shocking to behold when put into that perspective. Some dream interpreters believe that being chased by a white horse, in which case the horse-headed creature is of off-white color, may represent chaste or having issues with intimacy. This might explain some of Jessica’s unusual sexual scenes in her dream sequences involving relatives.
You might recognize a name from the past in the Italian horror genre: Catriona MacColl, an United Kingdom actress who portrays Jessica’s uptight mother Catelyn. MacColl is best known for her early 1980’s rolls in the Lucio Fulci films “The Beyond,” “City of the Living Dead,” and “House by the Cemetery.” With MacColl and Pointeaux’s as the overpowering female characters, “Horsehead” rounds out with weak male characters such as Jessica’s stepfather Jim, played by Murray Head, and an estate servant George, played by French acting vet Vernon Dobtcheff.
Overall, “Horsehead” delivers solid acting, dons great editing, and has better than average makeup and effects making “Horsehead” a winning release, yet again, for Artsploitation Films. The Blu-ray release is perfectly graced with a stunning 2.35:1 widescreen transfer with a 5.1 Dolby Digital mix, evenly balanced with appropriate LFE during the EDM nightmares. The picture is quite clear with some digital noise interference but only on some minor facial closeup scenes and no damage on the prints. Even though “Horsehead” is a French film and most of the cast is French, the movie is in English and it’s not dubbed English either. Bonus features also include “Inside Horsehead Making of” and four short films that have a total runtime of 81 minutes – a movie in itself.
