Film Review: HIGH LANE (2009)

The French thriller High Lane (2009) is a tense and suspenseful film that takes six friends up through a hiking and mountain trail.  It’s not long before they learn that the trail was shut down due to repairs but once they discover that they are at the point of no return and must continue on the journey in order to find an alternate route of escape.  It’s not long before they discover that not only do they have to contend with the natural dangers of the trail but that someone is on the mountain with them killing them one by one and they must work together to find a way off the mountain before they all are met with an early death. 

Written by Johanne Bernard and Louis-Paul Desanges and directed by Abel Ferry this is a film that’s meant to take you out of the comfort and safety of home and put you in the middle of nature’s elements and dangers.  If the dangers or nature weren’t enough the six friends must also contend with personal problems and fears that also threaten to destroy the group from within.

This is a very tense film before the mountain killer even enters the picture and the film constantly reminds you that anything can happen at any time which works in the films favor and keeps audiences on the edge of their seat.  The film has a very capable cast that carry the film especially considering all the emotional and relationship problems facing them before the external dangers show there face.  This is important in order to set up the characters who are anything but 2-demensional. 

Modern French horror films are some of the most interesting and visceral out there right now and this film is no different so if you are a fan of French horror cinema then you will enjoy this film.

Film Review: A HAUNTING AT SILVER FALLS (2013)

There is nothing simple about living in Silver Falls as Jordan (Alix Elizabeth Gitter) will soon find out when she is forced to move there to live with her aunt and uncle in the film A Haunting at Silver Falls (2013).  Jordan’s parents have both recently died and she has been placed in the home of her Aunt Anne and Uncle Kevin (Tara Westwood and Steve Bacic, respectfully).  What puts Jordan on edge even more is the fact that her aunt and mother were twins and so she is constantly reminded of the death of her mother.  Her only escape is with her classmate Larry (James Cavlo) who she immediately takes a liking to. 

When Larry takes Jordan to a party she mistakenly finds a ring in the woods and puts it on her finger not knowing that it won’t come off no matter how hard she tries to remove it.  It’s not long before she starts experiencing strange things and seeing images of twin dead sisters who begin haunting her and who are connected to the ring on her finger.  With the help of Larry, Jordan must find out what the ghosts of these two girls want and if she can solve the mystery before everyone around her thinks she’s become unsettled and crazy.

This is a film that could have gone south really quickly as do many haunted and ghost films but it is anchored by some pretty good performances by the cast all around and a story that doesn’t go where most people expect it to.  It’s actually a pretty good film that’s well done and not a time waster but may go under the radar because of the generic title and the fact that the ghost and paranormal genre is so cluttered with films (it took me a while to finally get around to it).

Film Review: MONSTERS: DARK CONTINENT (2014)

Ten years after the events depicted in the original film Monsters (2010) the “Infected Zones” have spread over the entire world creating a global epidemic.  In Monsters: Dark Continent (2014) the Army must put together a new type of soldier to combat the growing threat but the soldiers in this film who are sent into the Middle East to help stop the problem have more than just giant monsters to contend with as dangers lurk in every corner and in every shadow in this war film in which the giant monsters take a back seat to the insurgency of man. 

Written by Tom Green and Jay Basu this is a film that puts the audience right in the middle of the war in the Middle East.  The group of soldiers is made up of mostly rookies who have never spent a tour of duty facing the giants head on.  Leading the group is Noah Frater (Johnny Harris) who volunteers to go on yet another tour avoiding to return home to his family because the only war he knows how to deal with is on the battlefield.  But as he and his group of men go deeper into the trenches he soon learns that everything that he has ever known both in terms of the giant monsters and the human monsters that he’s used to fighting is about to be turned upside down.

As usual, the biggest problem with the film is the fact that the cast is huge and for the most part they are all cannon fodder.  Unlike the original film which was very intimate and focused on the two main characters for most of the running time of the film, this film has too many characters to get to know (at least until most of them are killed off).  The film also tries to use the monsters as a background element forcing you to follow the more human conflict in the film.  This tactic worked well for the original film where the cast is much smaller but here it seems like the monsters are a wasted element.  Now the monsters are seen more in this film than in the previous film but its more as a sense of “awe” and “wonder” but in a war film this is lost (at least until the cast is dwindled down to a handful of characters).

Directed by Green himself, the film is not an entirely bad film but it does lack the ambiance and awe of Gareth Edwards original film even as it opens the possibilities of future films set in a world of giant monsters.