Two young women, traveling toward a music festival near Lake Tahoe on a lonely stretch of isolated Californian road, hitch a ride with a pair of seemingly harmless guys with a fast, expensive car. Their elated joyride goes south when the car flips over during a torrential downpour and crashes near the edge of a lake adjacent cliff, but this isn’t just any car these kids have completely wrecked. The car is stolen and belongs to a powerful criminal kingpin hellbent on getting the car back in his malefactor grips. With being pinned under the upside down car, sustaining serious injuries, and being accomplices to grand theft auto of a wired traced car, the odds of survival are slim and time is running out as henchmen move into retrieval mode to track down the stolen car and kill anyone they come across involved.
“Cheeseburgers and Ryan Gosling.” That direct quote fairly sums up the Dan Tondowski written and director action thriller titled unambiguously as “Accident.” The 2017 feature is Tondowski’s debut feature film; in fact, it’s his own credited feature film that embraces, or maybe just mirrors, the action sequenced camerawork of Russian filmmaker Timur Bekmambetov, director of “Wanted” and “Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Killer.” Tondowski begins his film impressively enough with a long take, nearly 7 minutes, of setting up the two women, Jess and Caroline, into their catalytic moment that forces into hitchhiking. After that, “Accident” becomes strictly popcorn cinema on a downward slop of insufferable filmmaking that maintains an afloat affliction with moderately entertaining special effects that include a slow motion car crash, an intense helicopter crash, and a 50 caliber machine gun.
Each and every single character in “Accident” was written without an ounce of redeeming value and Stephanie Schildknecht (“Death Race 2”) and Roxane Hayward (“Death Race: Inferno”), who were Jess and Caroline in the film, couldn’t rile up a brief moment why the plight bestowed upon them should have not have happened to them. The suspicion of how Schildknecht and Hayward received their roles might be due to the fact that they both look damn good in a bikini and black lingerie, featured when they strip to the said garments in a gas station bathroom during an back and forth dialogue. Don’t know why they removed their clothes, but that was certainly an aesthetic highlight. Tyrone Keogh (“Death Race 2” – if you haven’t noticed, three out of the four main stars have been in “Death Race” sequels) and Keenan Arrison portray the two car thieves, Fred and Thomas, who pick up Jess and Caroline to have everything they need, fast car and beautiful girls, so Fred states.
While the production value for “Accident” is top notch and ultra-glossy, that’s roughly the sole positive aspect of the film. The script by Dan Tondowski is a wild hose of loose-to-absent plots and subplots chased with misplaced dramatics and cringe worthy dialogue, the latter already stated earlier with the “cheeseburger and Ryan Gosling” line in the context of being the very one thing a person would want on the brink of death. The overall script as a whole is terribly superficial without much substance to care why these four joyriders should be saved from the pain that’s barreling their way and the answer to that is there is no recourse for any of the characters; no one single redeeming value is actioned or given in exposition to rejuvenate them to a higher standing. Jess is wish-washy with her life choices and a patsy to Caroline, Caroline deceives her mother and neglects her friendship with Jess, Fred wishes everyone dead to save his own butt, and Fred is a potential rapist with pivoting change of heart. Neither of them have self-respect and so when they’re thrown violently into a mix of blood and bullets, an agonizing amount of wait time goes by until their ultimate demise. The plot dissolves around the importance of the car and it’s connection to the great threat that descends upon the four naïve adolescents. At one point in post-crash, the carjackers find a suitcase thrown from the vehicle and they dig through it to only find clothing. The scene is awkwardly out of place and fizzled after the initial “AH-HA” interest that might have shed some light on what the hell was going on.
Exclusively on digital come April 3rd, Well Go USA is releasing Dan Tondowski’s action-thriller “Accident.” The feature-film will be not rated and have a runtime of 89 minutes. The image and audio quality will not be critique for this review due to the digital platform that varies in qualities and no bonus features were included with the digital screener. In closing, “Accident” crashed and burned after the nice 7-minute single take that dapples of nice imagery from then on out and figures to quickly run through the digital market, but with the Tondowski’s cinematography, I expect the filmmaker to only get better from here.
Tag Archives: thriller
Subliminal Evils Slithered Inside Your Head! “The Holly Kane Experiment” review!
The questionable techniques of radical psychologist Holly Kane have been effective in redirecting and controlling unconscious thoughts through sensory deprivation. Facing potential legal trouble even after a successful Hospital procedure, Holly Kane turns to the offer from Marvin Greensdale, a wealthy and well-known psychologist seeking to employ Holly for clinical trials that would lead toward legitimizing her practice. In conjunction, Holly begins a romantic relationship with an admiring Dennis MacIntyre as her life and her life’s work have seemingly taken a turn for best, but as soon as she starts the clinical trials, Holly begins experience hallucinations and hearing whispering voices and she fears that her despondent and bleak family history of mental illness might be catching up with her or is it something else that’s covertly sinister?
Between Brighton and London is steered a conspiracy-riddled thriller entitled “The Holly Kane Experiment from a father-son filmmaking duo, writer Mick Sands and director Tom Sands. The filmmakers behind “Backtrack,” aka “Nazi Vengeance,” go deeper into the mysteriousness of subconscious cauterized by a fleshy cloak and dagger aspect layered thick, chillingly dense, and richly dark. Tom Sands invades the personal space of the senses by introducing sensory disrupting attributes in the same vein as Darren Aronofsky’s “Requiem for a Dream,” but Sands then diverts away from a snowballing psychedelic thriller to an undermining exploitation on a clandestine level.
Kirsty Averton stars as the titular character, the obsessed and isolated psychologist looking for answers inside the depths of her own mind. Averton performs well as the highly stern and fiercely focused Holly Kane and the English actress has a body to match. That’s remark is important to the story because with her beauty, the story would take an entirely different angle with her Holly’s employer, and lust admirer, Marvin Greensdale, played faultlessly by long time actor Nicky Henson (“Psychomania”) who flourishes an distinguished socialite whose more charming than aging youth. Also in the mix of the love triangle, James Rose makes his feature film debut as Dennis MacIntyre, a man trying to forget his past when he meets the beautiful Holly Kane. If there was an ever an odd wheel or a black sheep in the cast, Rose fit the bill with his scruffy appearance, homeless attire, and the insecurity in his voice and in his acting. The Scottish native has a personal interest in this film as he is, according to IMDB, a graduate of cognitive hypnotherapy and psychology, which begs the question, did Rose provide professional consultation? Holly Kane’s exclusive drug dealer, a chemist graduate named Jeannie, falls on the shoulders of Lindsey Campbell who mirrors as Kane’s opposite. Jeannie’s free spirit attitude and candid drug use sets up the fitting actress to nearly be free of constraint and to act under a hallucinogenic state until she encounters trouble with Greensdale’s operative goon Carl Grower in a riveting information extraction scene. With a chiseled jowl and a gaunt look, Matthew Neal certainly has a memorable role that he intensifies with a heart piercing look through a thousand yard stare and snare so devilish that Carl Grower instantly becomes a character favorite, but the character lacks significant screen time and is limited to basically the third act.
“The Holly Kane Experiment” subliminally pushes out the true intention of the plot and turns massively psychosexual. Once true intentions are made light, a thick film of filth just washes over and that’s subtle, yet poignantly subversive. However, Mick Sands’ scribing of the dynamic between Kane and Greensdale’s licentious activity through the power of suggestion form complexities turned improbabilities. Basically, the story was unchallenged by the writing with characters falling for obvious scrupulous activity. Also, the undercooked character developed plays a bit part in denoting the true power of individuals and the wane in others. Like aforementioned, Holly Kane is obsessive, fierce, and maybe even a little paranoid, but the character is easily blindsided by the very first instance of opportunity for her technique, even if blotted by questionable motives.
Today, “The Holly Kane Experiment” premieres in the UK on digital platforms. The Substantial Films production is a drug-fueled, psychosexual thriller poised to spotlight brainwashing and be an anti-establishment picture, but doesn’t quite pass the finishing mark with a jerky storyline that disrupts and undermines the time and spatial impurities, leaving a discombobulated aftertaste. The finale is also disconcerting with an abrupt and dissatisfying ending to forthright explain where characters land and I’m talking about all the characters fates. Overall, “The Holly Kane Experiment” is worth the time despite the issues with jarring the mind and violating the body, bending both to do bidding against one’s will, and that alone is impressively fearful. You can learn more about “The Holly Kane Experiment” at the film’s official website – www.thehollykaneexperiment.com.
When You Hear Evil, Do You Get Involved? “The Neighbor” review!
Mike, a mild mannered, middle-aged man, notices a young couple moving into the vacant house next door. His mundane marriage roots out a curiosity infatuation with Jenna, a young and beautiful woman, next moving in. Jenna and her husband Scott, a fast talking exotic car salesman, have recently only have been married for the short time of four months and Mike feels something isn’t quite normal with Scott when he witnesses and overhears violent behavior from his new neighbor toward his wife. Concerned for her wellbeing, Mike, at first, attempts to interject the best way he can without over stepping his bounds by offering to assist with Jenna’s work-in- progress garden or just chatting over the yard dividing wall when Scott isn’t around, but when he assumes things become physically abusive between them, Mike is forced to do more than just mind his own business at the request of his wife and friends. Is Mike willing to risk everything, such as his long term marriage, in order to help a complete and total stranger he barely knows?
“The Neighbor” is a dramatic thriller from the 2011 crime drama “Catch .44” writer-director Aaron Harvey co-written with first time writer, long time editor, Richard Byard. Harvey and Byard attempt to explore the very common situation of what do you do when you’re exposed to marital violence and how much involvement one should put themselves into assisting the battered party. In short, you’re morally obliged to dial call 9-1-1 and report spousal abuse, but to ensure entertainment value for us viewers, the filmmakers pen Mike as something far worse – a concerned spectator. Instead, Mike wallows about by attending to his garden, working on his technical writing from home, or slicing tomatoes in the kitchen all the while being a part of the problem of the domestic violence next door and it’s not as if the violence is even in question as Jenna flat out tells Mike that Scott has a behavior problem whenever he drinks too much. Right then and there, Mike should be ringing the police the next moment a flare up occurs. Mike is the epitomized reason audiences would be vacuumed into the story as each and every one of us could potentially be a passive Mike in a similar situation.
One of the more underrated actors in the industry today, William Fichtner, steps into the comfy slippers of the garden trowel wielding Mike. The “Armageddon” and “Drive Angry” Fichtner’s chiseled and unique facial features typically casts him as hard nose characters – military types, villains, etc., – but “The Neighbor” offers Fichnter a chance to play normalcy. However, Fichtner’s approach to a house husband bears an uncanny resemblance to Michael Myers from John Carpenter’s “Halloween.” With stiff, straight arms by his sides, soulless eyes, and an absent personality, Mike has the gait and the expressions of the William Shatner masked psychopath that’s churns out an awkward performance that blurs the character’s intentions between either being righteous and obsessed. The good looking couple next door are played by Australian born Jessica McNamme and Michael Rosenbaum, also of “Catch .44.” Rosenbaum plays an impeccable dick so well there’s a surefire chance that his character, the fast talking exotic car salesman, will be disliked and as a stark contrast, Namee’s channels a sweet disposition that surfaces the question, why these two are even together? Yet, the Jenna wish-washy stance with Scott makes her frustrating which Mike takes with an astonishing grain of salt. Jean Louisa Kelly, Colin Woodell, and Erich Anderson “Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter” costar.
With a solid cast with a few quirks, “The Neighbor,” under the directorial eye of Aaron Harvey, should have shaped up to be an apprehensive, nail-biting thriller. Instead, some aspects of the Harvey’s film didn’t feel right. For instance, Lisa (Jean Louisa Kelly) and Mike’s marriage was never rocky; the union might have been stagnant from just the day-in-day-out repetitiveness and the longevity of knowing someone from an extended period of time, but there’s a scene when Lisa abruptly decides to throw Mike out of their house. The moment is so random and so unexpected the momentum and the weight of the story changes, pivoting too acutely to compute why Lisa would doghouse Mike over his justifiable concerns over Jenna’s safety without prior marital complexities between them. The entire film almost feels like it’s from Mike’s perspective as everyone, from his friends to his wife and son, seem to unacknowledged his presence whereas Jenna brightens, smiles, and welcomes him in conversation, advice, and even a little intimacy, but that may or may not have transpired.
The Michael Bruce Pictures and Blood Moon Creative produced “The Neighbor” is currently in select theaters from Vertical Entertainment. With a runtime of 105 minutes, “The Neighbor” will drag out under an engaging plot that ultimately goes sluggish at the tail end and even though brilliant and colorful in his prior work, Fichtner is a complete shell of his former characters as a expressionless zombie softly hellbent on saving a train wreck of a young woman from her volatile husband. Overall, “The Neighbor” falls flat to technically write how to right a situation without being caught in the middle of the situation.
An Evil Hog Demon Won’t Let You Escape this Island! “The Forlorned” review!
Just off the rough stormy shores of Nova Scotia is a remote island where American Tom Doherty becomes the newly hired lighthouse caretaker in search for good money. Already overwhelmingly cloaked with the lighthouse’s creepy adjacent housing and being forewarned by the island’s infamous legends, an isolated Tom experiences the abilities of dark force first hand and doesn’t know whether the forces are real or madness has swallowed him from the extreme isolation. As Tom continues the work, he discovers clues along the way that suggest the island holds a nefarious past involving murder, suicide, and cannibalism, but an old bible with a list of names is the key that has the potential to unlock all the island’s mysterious doors and can also be Tom’s unfortunate undoing if he maintains being the lighthouse caretaker.
Based off the Angela Townsend book with the same title, “The Forlorned” is the 2017 silver screen adaptation of Townsend’s mystery-thriller from “Dead Noon” director Andrew Wiest who has helmed a jolting, supernaturally visual and auditory accompaniment to Townsend’s literary work. To maintain authenticity, Townsend co-wrote a script alongside Wiest and Ryan Reed that’s riddle with an ill-omened story leading audiences down a path of insanity-ladened darkness. But what exactly is “The Forlorned?” Forlorn has two definitions: 1) pitifully sad and abandoned or lonely 2) unlikely to succeed; hopelessness. Either of the disparaging definitions, if not both, can be used to described “The Forlorned’s” eerily gloomy story that’s saturated in a motif of burdensome loneliness and relentlessly bashes the concept into our heads in a constant reminder that no one can ever escape the island even in postmortem. The character Tom is the very definition of the forlorned. Whether because of due diligence or a dark force, his role of caretaker is a permanent position allotted to him unwillingly by a sadistic, secret-keeping demon that seeks to swallow more unfortunate souls.
Colton Christensen inarguably shapes the role of Tom Doherty into his own with a solid solitary performance for more than half the film. Christensen also, for much of the last ten minutes of the story, had to systematically break away from his character in order to forge a combative persona to Tom and while Christensen does the job well for one character, shouldering a second didn’t suite the actor’s abilities despite a total embrace of character and a few jabs at his own humility. Wiest has worked with Christensen prior to “The Forlorned” and has seemed to continue the trend of using his own entourage of actors with the casting of Elizabeth Mouton (also from “Dead Noon”). Mouton’s character is briefly mentioned near the beginning as a little girl of a previous caretaker, but her adult version only makes the scene in the latter portion of the story to provide a better clarification and exposition into the demon’s background. Also serving exposition as story bookends and peppered through as emotional support is Cory Dangerfield’s “Murphy,” a sea-salty old bar owner who liaisons with the lighthouse committee and can make a mean clam chowder. Murphy hires Tom to do the restoration and caretaker work and while Murphy initiates Tom existence into the fold, Murphy, for the rest of the film, serves as slight comic relief and, in a bit of disappointment, an unfortunate waste of a character. I also wanted Benjamin Gray, Shawn Nottingham’s priest character, to be built upon and expanded more because the character is a key portion that, in the end, felt rushed with quick, messy brush strokes in order to finish painting the picture.
At first glance, Townsend, Wiest, and Reed’s script screens like a typical, if not slightly above par level, haunting where Tom encounters sportive spirits, ghastly visions, and a slew of ominous noises inside a time-honored lighthouse home, but then a twist is written into play, pitting Tom against a masterminding demon whose conquered many other bygone caretakers and whose the epicenter of all that is sinisterly wrong with the island. The demon, who has taken the form of a man hungry hog, lives only vicariously through the camera’s point of view, never bestowing an appearance upon to Tom or even the audience, but referenced numerous times by island locals and boisterously given hog attributes whenever the demon is near. The concept fascinates with this demon-hog thing kept stowed away deep inside the isle’s bedrock even if the dark entity never makes a materializing appearance, but where that aspect thrives in “The Forlorned,” a pancake thin backstory for the demon goes simply construed with a slapped together account of its languished two-century long past and wilts the demonic character wastefully down with backdropped uncertainly, powerlessness, and puzzlement that’s forlornly misfired. There’s no deal with the devil, no selling of the soul, no medieval rite that gives the demon-hog it’s power; it just turns into an evil spirit out of greed.
Andrew Wiest’s production company, Good Outlaw Studios, presents “The Forlorned” that found a distribution home in Midnight Releasing, the fine folks who released “Blood Punch” and “WTF!” “The Forlorned” is available on DVD and multiple VOD formats such as iTunes, Vimeo, Vudu, Xbox Video, and Google Play. Since a screener was used for this critique, a full review rundown of the technical specs will not be provided and no bonus materials were featured on the disc. Director Andrew Wiest and his cast and crew entourage are able bodied participants in assembling a good, entertaining, and sufficient indie mystery-thriller brought to fruition out of Angela Townsend’s story with the author’s pen ship assistance. With a little tweak here and there on the antagonistic demon-hog, “The Forlorned” might have necessarily escalated into a richly dark territory of a more volatile, blood thirsty spirit that’s scribed to have racked up body after body, century after century; however, the fleeting chronicle of how the demon-hog came to be a malevolent being leaves a bittersweet aftertaste on a premise that started out spooky and strong.
Available on DVD at Amazon.com!
It’s in Human Nature to be Evil. “It Comes At Night” review!
Set in an infectious diseased post-apocalypse world, Paul, his wife Sarah, and their son Travis have fortified themselves in a dense forested and isolated house to ride out the easily spreadable disease. Always prepared and ever suspicious, Paul expects everyone to follow a rigorous routine, following procedures in order to avoid becoming infected, but when a young family, seeking supplies and refuge, enters their lives and their home despite Paul’s hesitations. Paul’s family’s routine and order face disruption that opens themselves up to the ever present danger outside and inside their home.
“It Comes at Night” is an intense, heart-pounding mystery thriller set inside the close quartered confines of a desolate house where trust doesn’t come without auspicious interrogation and teeth clinching suspicion. Writer-director Trey Edward Shults’ sophomore feature has layers upon layers of underlying human nature undertones when people are put up against an unsurvivable situation inevitably with their backs against the wall, literally, when confronted to whether to implement the good will nature of their humanity or not, to take that risk to help others or to save their own skin, and to attempt to reconnect with other people or stay separate from the masses. Even the “it” in “It Comes at Night” isn’t as simple as one would first think. Most unfamiliar audiences would assume “it” is a snarling, brooding, oozing, and grotesque creature, or perhaps even a devilishly grinning clown, that comes around when the sun falls; instead, the “it” is an occurrence, an event sparking nightmares inside the human mind that formulates fear and a tall order of exemplary caution.
The Australian born Joel Edgerton (“The Thing” remake) stars as Paul, the father of the family he’s trying to protect at all costs. Edgerton perfectly pitches as a, supposed, American voice, since the story doesn’t exclaim a locality, but the assumption is the setting is nowhere, U.S.A, and plants a firm foot down as a rugged resident of wilderness survival accompanied by his wife Sarah played by Alien: Covenant’s Carmen Ejogo. Ejogo’s offering to her character gives Sarah a powerful will to do what’s necessary and to support Paul in his determination to protect their only son Travis (Kelvin Harrison Jr.). Edgerton, Ejogo, and Harrison opposite up well against the foreign element, another family with their performer genetic makeup of Christopher Abbott, Riley Keough, and Griffin Robert Faulkner as Will, Kim, and their just above toddling son, Andrew. Each actor embraces the role in their respective family and at first, the interactions are genuinely jovial, but then the uncomfortable thick tension evolves from the point of an extreme pivot into the folds of deception and fear.
Shults maintains an ominous atmosphere of overwhelming strain amongst the characters and “It Comes at Night” has a unique perspective set inside an already apocalyptic ravaged population despite the lack visual expositions. Yet, the finished project feels incomplete. Pacing is the biggest concern with the timing of events between the introduction of Will’s family and their destined downfall that results in a climax that’s so bellied-up in an sorely anti-climatic fashion that the notion of being cheated out of a more gut-punched ending pulls at the core of the cinematic soul. That’s not to say that the film has one, if not more, interpretations; in fact, Shults’ entire feature is or could be considered open for interpretation, with examples from the duly noted “red door” to the Travis’ child-like personality, and usually those types of heavily subtext films stick around more way after the credits roll, but also, in a slightly bittersweet cause and effect, leaves more of a foggy formulation of events during the unfolding of the story. Also, an aspect that didn’t help the cause was shying away from a powerful scenes that should have left an impact, but R-rated feature delivered no acute moments of remembrance and leaving much to the imagination with only the majority of the rating pie being flavored with tasteless language.
Lionsgate Entertainment presents the Animal Kingdom and A24 produced “It Comes at Night” on a 1080p resolution in an aspect ratio of 2.39:1. The imagery lavishes in a gritty, woodsy detail that organically defines the sea of trees and natural flesh tones, but as the title suggests, most scenes are shot at night that are moderately blanketed, yet ineffectively intrusive, in digital noise. The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix definitely has more girth during the livid nightmares and vigorously tense scenes, but, surprisingly, the dialogue track lacks gusto in the wake of a more lively surround quality. During exchanges of hushed tones, dialogue is rendered nearly inaudible and the option English subtitles had to be deployed. Spanish subtitles are also available. Special features include an audio commentary by writer-director Trey Edward Shults and actor Kelvin Williams Jr and a cast and crew discourse in a segment entitled “Human Nature: Creating ‘It Comes at Night.'” Overall, the psychological and humanity breakdown of the characters of “It Comes at Night” is worth the price of admission along with the teachings that family is key and to never rely on the goodwill of strangers, but finishes with a weak sense of direction that ruptures an unsavory cyst that doesn’t conclude coherently.
Own It Comes at Night on Blu-ray!
It's Bloggin Evil! 