Film Review: DORM (2006)

Ton Chatree (Charlie Trairat) is at an age where his father believes that he would better be suited at an all-boys boarding house for his continuing education and it would be better for the family in the Thai horror film Dorm (2006).  It is hard for Ton to adjust at the school as he is bullied by other boys and resents his father for sending him away.  Things get worse when the other boys scare Ton with ghost stories about the dorms which puts him unease.  When another young boy by the name of Vichien (Sirachurch Chienthaworn) befriends him, Ton believes that he just might be able to survive his new life.

When Ton really does start to see ghosts roaming the school, he soon realizes that Vichien may be connected in some way but will that interfere with their friendship?

Director Songyos Sugmakanan does a great job creating atmosphere and mood since the film lacks suspense.  As written by Sugmakanan and Vanridee Pongsittisak and Chonlada Tiaosuwan, this film comes off more as a drama with supernatural elements than a horror film.  This doesn’t mean that the film isn’t any good; in fact, the film is quite good as it tells the coming of age story of a young man forced to grow up in a world which just happens to have supernatural elements.  Keep this in mind and Dorm will be a film you thoroughly enjoy.

Film Review: THE PACT (2012)

Familial terror rises in the horror film The Pact (2012).  Written & directed by Nicholas McCarthy the film is about Annie (Caity Lotz) whose sister Nichole (Agnes Bruckner) disappears not long after moving into the home of their recently deceased mother.  When her cousin also disappears she sets off on discovering what happened to them but the secrets that lie within her family home are darker and deeper than she could have ever imagined. 

I actually found myself really enjoying this film.  The script is very well written with flawed let relatable characters with a very good cast.  Bridger Nielson is the director of photography and the look of the film plays a tremendous part in creating the mood and atmosphere.  This is McCarthy’s debut feature after several shorts (including one for this film) and it’s already apparent that he knows how to craft a horror film built around character and an atmosphere of dread.  It will be interesting to see where he goes from here (he’s already directed another feature At the Devil’s Door, 2014, which I have yet to see).

The film works because Lotz does a great job creating a relatable character who is not only grieving for a lost mother but the disappearance of an estranged sister as well.  It’s about her character trying to come to grips with a really screwed up family.  Even the presence of the supernatural doesn’t take away from the film or make these elements seem cliché.  Haley Hudson plays Stevie, someone who can speak with the dead who helps Annie discover the truth about her family.  Hudson steals every scene she’s in but never overshadows the rest of the film.  The same can be said for actor Casper Van Dien who plays the only detective that believes Annie’s story.

This is a very good film with a few surprises that’s both suspenseful and entertaining.

Film Review: THE LAZARUS EFFECT (2015)

Advances in medical science is the thing at the top of every medical student’s “to-do” list and nothing is more important than discovering a way to prolong death as the students in The Lazarus Effect (2015) soon discovers.  Frank and Zoe (Mark Duplass and Olivia Wilde, respectfully) are leading a group of some of the most intelligent medical students in their pursuit of prolonging or cheating death.  When they believe they are close they bring in Eva (Sarah Bolger) to help document everything.  After they bring a dog back from the dead they realize they have made a real breakthrough but the ramifications of what they have done eludes them.  When an accident in the lab causes Zoe to die they use everything they know to bring her back to life.  The only problem is that Zoe isn’t the same person that she was from before she died.  Having crossed to the Other Side has given Zoe supernatural abilities and an uncontrollable rage that threatens each person of the team.  Now Frank must decide what to do with his wife before all of their lives are in jeopardy. 

For fans of medical thrillers this starts off as a very well done suspenseful film with a great cast to support the story.  The film is written by Luke Dawson and Jeremy Slater and does an excellent job setting up the film and all the characters and their relationships with one another before everything gets out of hand.  What unfortunately happens is that the last third of the film turns into a slasher thriller destroying everything that came before.  The film also relies too much on the CGI visual FX in the second half of the film as Zoe seems to exhibit superhuman abilities akin to those of Scarlet Johansson’s character in Lucy (2014).  Once this happens anything can and does happen and the film falters from there never recovering.

This being said it is still entertaining and the cast does the most with the film as it goes downhill but if they had just taken a little more care this could’ve been a great film instead a mediocre one.

Film Review: THE HOUSE THAT WOULD NOT DIE (1970)

The spirits of the dead cannot rest in the made for TV movie The House That Would Not Die (1970) in which Barbara Stanwyck stars as Ruth Bennett who has just inherited a house from a recently passed aunt.  Ruth moves into the house with her niece Sarah (Kitty Winn).  During a house warming party a séance goes wrong and Sarah is suddenly possessed by a mysterious woman with a connection to the house.  As Ruth tries to understand what is going on, Sarah’s mental health declines and a revelation to the house’s original owner is revealed when she comes across a hidden Bible within the house’s walls.  With the help of her neighbor Pat (Richard Egan) and Sarah’s boyfriend, Ruth must discover the truth of the possession before she loses Sarah to an unspeakable evil. 

 

Based on the novel by Barbara Michaels, the screenplay by Henry Farrell does a good job of presenting the material.  Although dated by today’s standards, as a ‘70s film it played to the sensibilities of the time as it explored the séance as a “party favor” and touched upon its ramifications and fears of the time.  There is a very logical explanation to the possession (unlike many such films of today) and it’s even laid out as a mystery to be solved.

Although John Llewellyn Mosey’s direction is flat it works for the film as it doesn’t allow for style to get in the way which many theatrical possession films of today do.  For a TV movie you can do worse than this and although it won’t leave a lasting impression it is a film that shows the ‘70s possession film for what it was.

Film Review: 7 NIGHTS OF DARKNESS (2011)

Six strangers are tasked with spending the next seven nights in a supposedly haunted abandoned asylum with a nefarious history.  This is the premise behind 7 Nights of Darkness (2011).    Compromised of footage the contestants are supposed to be filming each night, the film is a mixture of found footage and regular cinematic techniques as it decides when and when it doesn’t want to adhere to the “found footage” aesthetic in order to “cheat” and get a better angle. 

Each day the six contestants are given a task that they have to fulfill in order to proceed to the next day.  Each successful day brings them one step closer to winning $7 million that will be split among the people who manage to stay till the end of the week.  Despite being locked up in the asylum and given only a single task during the entire day, most of the contestants spend their time playing cards and doing relatively nothing.  All the contestants are strangers from different states with different backgrounds and they have little in common with one another.

Whereas most films of this kind would revel at the chance to explore the location and see what is going on none of these characters are really interested (except for one who is quickly the first person to meet a paranormal fate) and therefore the audience is never really interested.  The film is comprised of uninteresting characters with little to no motivation other than to get rich.  There is no real drive in the characters or the film and even when “spooky” stuff starts to happen the film decides to fall into the tired old trope of having stupid characters do stupid things.

Written & directed by Allen Kellogg the plot is lazy and the direction is uninspired and uninteresting.  There is nothing in the film that hasn’t been done a thousand times before in other mediocre and poor found footage paranormal films.