Film Review: BENEATH (2013)

Inspired by a true story (although this is highly debatable) Beneath (2013) is the story of a group of miners who are trapped in a cave after a horrible accident.  Just when they think they will be safe in a survivor’s habitat until the rescue party gets to them, strange things start to happen to. 

Jeff Fahey is George Marsh who has one final day working in the mines before he retires and his daughter Samantha (Kelly Noonan) decides that she would like to know where her father has spent his entire life.  When the miners drill into an open air pocket the cave collapses causing all the miners to be trapped.  They decide to hold tight until a rescue party can reach them in three days but something is down there in the caves with them and Samantha is the first one to notice that something strange is definitely going on.  It’s not long before the tight spaces causes her to experience claustrophobia but she has to pull herself together because someone or something is trying to kill them all and she has to discover the truth before it’s too late.

The film is written by Patrick Doody and Chris Valenziano and directed by Ben Ketai.  This style of film that relies on an unreliable character can get a little bit much but Doody and Valenziano manage to balance this by knowing when to reveal some details and when to hold back.  It also helps that the cast works extremely well together and that Ketai knows how to build tension and suspense throughout the film.  Cinematographer Timothy A. Burton plays a huge part in helping create suspense and atmosphere in this claustrophobic film.  

It’s actually quite a well done film that will probably get overlooked due to the fact that there are probably a dozen films out there with this title.  It’s not very distinctive or original and in general may be mistaken for one of the other films with the same title but if you do discover this film then you won’t be disappointed.

Film Review: THE CALLER (2011)

It is rare that I get to view a random horror film that is actually quite good but that is the case with the horror thriller The Caller (2011).  It came across my desk with a DVD cover that was nothing special or of particular interest and the premise wasn’t exactly all that original and so I thought I would be just watching another Black Christmas (1974 & 2006), without the holiday cheer, or When a Stranger Calls (1979).  What I got was a supernatural version of Frequency (2000) which was well done and entertaining and suspenseful. 

Mary Kee (Rachelle Lefevre) has just gone through a troubled divorce with an obsessive husband and has decided to make a complete new start somewhere else.  She rents a little apartment where one of her neighbors George (played by the always entertaining Luis Guzman) is extremely helpful at making her feel welcomed.  Then Mary starts receiving these strange calls from an old woman looking for someone that used to leave in Mary’s place.  At first she thinks that although persistent the old woman is harmless and humors her but when she discovers that the old woman may have killed her husband in that very same apartment Mary gets scared and tries to absolve the conversations with the woman.  But this old woman will not go away quietly as she has the uncanny ability to alter Mary’s apartment, which leads Mary to the discovery that the old woman is from the past and that for some unknown reason she and the old woman have made a connection in which the old woman can alter the future and destroy Mary if Mary refuses to be the old woman’s friend.

Now Mary must play a game of cat and mouse with an old woman with the power to alter her future and she can do nothing about it.

What could have been a simple stalk and slash film becomes a tense psychological thrill ride as you realize that Mary is helpless to the terror of a psychopathic old woman with the means to destroy Mary’s future should she step out of line.  Written by Sergio Caso this is a particularly effective film that may take a few beats to get to the heart of the relationship between Mary and the old woman but it is all paid forward.  Director Matthew Parkhill and actress Lefevre should also be credited for his great direction and her command of the material and performance.  The film is almost exclusively carried by her performance and Parkhill’s ability to create suspense in the minutest of detail and scene.

Don’t let the title The Caller fool you, this is a great film that should note go overlooked.

Book Review: AUDITION by Ryu Murakami

When the title “Audition” is mentioned the first thing that usually comes to mind is the acclaimed cult film from director Takashi Miike.  You are forgiven if you did not know that Miike’s film is based on the popular novel by Ryu Murakami.  Murakami is the author of several renowned novels such as Almost Transparent Blue and In the Miso Soup, to name a few.  With the success of the film version of Audition, Murakami’s novels were translated into even more languages and his popularity has grown even here in the US. 

In Audition, Murakami decides to tell the entire story from the point of view of Aoyama, a lonely widow who decides that it is finally time to enter back into the dating game in hopes of finding a new wife.  With his best friend Yoshikawa, he hatches a scheme to find a new wife by conducting a series of auditions for a fake film that he and his company never plan on ever making.  It is through these auditions that Aoyama becomes infatuated with a timid young actress by the name of Yamasaki Asami, a former ballerina with a mysterious past.  Aoyama begins to draw closer to Asami as he realizes that they have more in common than he originally thought leading him down a path of ecstasy that leaves him blind to all of Yoshikawa and his son Shige’s warning about a woman with too many questions without answers.

Aoyama slowly delves into a relationship that threatens to unravel should he learn too much about Asami’s mysterious past and Asami is not a woman to be taken lightly as she has ulterior motives that may run contrary to Aoyama’s.

Those looking for the quirky atmosphere and impending dread of Miike’s film will be disappointed as since Murakami’s novel is told from only Murakami’s perspective you only see events unfold as he witnesses them.  This actually works in favor for Murakami’s story as the reader is just as anxious for Asami to return to the story as he is and like Aoyama, we know that there is a slight mysterious allure to Asami but it doesn’t override the story until those final moments which pack just about as much punch as the film does (although in a slightly different manner).

Murakami is very adept at creating mood and atmosphere which Audition is very much filled with which is why his work is so popular and well regarded.  He is an author worth taking a look at.

Film Review: FORGET ME NOT (2009)

Now I will say that it is rare when a completely unknown film actually manages to entertain me and show me something that I haven’t seen before and when it happens I’m reminded that there is still good indie horror films being made out there.  Director Tyler Oliver’s Forget Me Not (2009) is one of these films. 

I wasn’t expecting much when this film came across my desk.  The poster was nothing special and the story just from reading the quick synopsis was pretty pedestrian.  A popular girl by the name of Sandy (Carly Schroeder) and her friends are celebrating graduation weekend in their small town but each of her friends start to disappear and as each of them disappear all traces of their existence is erased from everyone’s memory except Sandy.  As Sandy tries to discover what is happening to her friends she is increasing haunted by a nightmarish vision of a woman whom she seems to recognize but not remember how or why.  It seems that Sandy and her friends are being haunted by their past that threatens to erase them all from existence.

The cleverest aspect of the film is the suspense created from Sandy trying to figure out how her past is connected to her present and thus her future.  This is partially because of the better than average script by Oliver and Jamison Stern and by Oliver’s expert direction.  In less capable hands this film could have been very derivative.    The cast is filled with your typical teen slasher cannon fodder but the film does allow the audience to get to know each of the characters (not common in most indie low budget horror films) before they are dispatched and it is a testament to both Oliver and Stern that they take time with each of the kill sequences by building character and suspense (also not an easy feat with low budget indie horror films).

Another great aspect of the film is clever ending which is not predictable and a satisfying (which means not a carbon copy and by-the-numbers cliché) ending, so, I must commend Oliver and Stern for delivering an entertaining and unexpectedly good low budget indie horror film.