Deadtime (2012)

Sex, drugs, and murder

By: JWBM

The trailer for this film looks like a promising drama, murder-mystery with a music angle. One could surmise there'll be blood, surprises, some risque scenes, and, of course, attitude—it's a rock 'n' roll story after all. 

A group of English musicians—who look like they don't get along from the get-go—are brought to a large maze of a recording studio till the sparks fly and a groundbreaking album is produced. A slasher premise is hinted at; you know the drill: cell phone reception weak, something terrible happens, and so much is at stake that it becomes a stalemate till those still standing are forced to go into survival mode when a head-cocks-this-way-and-that killer is on the loose. Once the doors are locked behind, the viewer is soon treated to a nauseating soap-opera with back and forth bickering that's neither interesting, or entertaining. The movie then jumps into more tone changes than vegetable varieties at your local supermarket. The plate isn't always set with a smooth-blend, more like, "Hey, now we're a drama; a music video; faux documentary; the romance is on; tongue-in-cheek sarcastic; oh, horror movie, right." Nothing looks back; the momentum is always forward. Though one has to ask themselves, what audience is this tailored to? The only one with that in mind after the fact is the marketer of the trailer who realized the actual movie was all over the place. 

The filmmakers intentions may have been in the right place here, as this feels like something that may have worked on paper, or even as a graphic novel where the rough kinetics of it all would have tied in better. It's over the top, it's different, and attempts to be creative, though it's not a seamless experience. It's not "Demons" or "StageFright" with a purposeful "cheesy" formula going on, but with certain worked through scenes and tones that you can get behind. Instead it dances from one scene to the next, and then manages to fall flat on nearly every one of them. Its idea of exposition is to cut and paste. I mean, it jumps feet first into an escalating drama, then tries to backtrack its motivations related to it. But ultimately drops it to go into other avenues such as some steamy scenes, rock 'n' roll antics, someone getting chased or killed, or even some random offshoot of the dark arts. The villain is weakly motivated enough to feel more uncomfortable than terrifying when this person goes all crazy. 

I'm all for films with zany plots and various twists and turns, though this feels more like an overambitious film that tries desperately to fill space; while successful in doing just that, the scenes that transpire tend to come with a case of the hiccups that only get worse and worse. If it's any consolation, it looks like it was fun for those behind the scenes. I just can't recommend this film for the casual viewer as it's most likely going to be a frustrating experience. 

Rating: 2/10

Director: Tony Jopia

Actors: Laurence Saunders, Carl Coleman 

Info: IMDB link

Trailer: Youtube link

In Darkness (2018)

A hitman and a blind woman walk into a coffee shop

By: JWBM

A professional musician, who's lost her sight as a little girl, lives alone in an apartment in London. As of late, there's been muffled commotion heard from the upstairs quarters where another woman, Veronique, lives. One night, the arguments culminate and Veronique ends up dead. Detectives arrive on scene to investigate and ask the blind woman, Sofia, if she has any information regarding Veronique's sudden death. Soon, Sofia gets slowly pulled into another world when it turns out Veronique may have had more than a few dark secrets.

This is a mystery-thriller that's all about that don't-look-back pacing and didn't-see-that-coming revelations. It's played out with more low-key jabs to earn points, rather than serving up a series of bigger blows. This starts out on a high: delivering pulsating, memorable music, a consistency of creative camera angles, and a certain atmosphere to cement itself as a murder-mystery. Natalie Dormer, as Sofia, comes with the most dynamic to her character. She plays a confident woman who takes on the world in one moment, and then in the next is overly hard on herself when taken down a peg by uncontrollable situations around her. She's a fighter and a survivor despite the odds—that's for sure—though there's a troubling underscore to her that one can't quite put their finger on.

The ultimate intention of "In Darkness" is to entertain. It's saddled between reality and a make-believe world never seen before, or possibly experienced again. It's full of tantalizing scenes and situations to keep your senses alive. Though think too hard on it, or go back for another viewing expecting deeper layers, and you might be disappointed. I mean, they pick a traumatic moment that makes little connection if paused and pondered on as to why that would have lined up the way it did. Instead of delving deeper, the characters just keep reimagining it in similar ways, as if that will make it more rooted as an event.

The main villain is a two-dimensional Jekyll and Hyde without the mental turmoil to solidify him: either doing the nice guy with a foreign accent bit, or the utterly evil guy who mysteriously preys on blind women, but nothing in between to cement him as a living, breathing person you may fear or respect through the barrier of the television set. There's also the go-between, soft-and-hard hitman, Marc—played by Ed Skrein—that's going for Mr. Charm. He has a light edge of danger, but is almost too safe and predictable in that he does exactly what you'd expect him to, and always shows up when needed.

What starts out on a high and with a share of great potential, winds down to a finale that doesn't materialize with stable legs once all of the smoke and mirrors clear. The film feels emotionally powerful at first, but ends up being just a flash, a bang, and ultimately a let-the-senses-go distraction for an on-the-fly, don't-look-back Thursday night.

Rating: 6/10

Director: Anthony Byrne (Short Order, How About You...)
Actors: Natalie Dormer, Ed Skrein, Jan Bijvoet, Joely Richardson
Info: IMDB link
Trailer: Youtube link

Straw Dogs (1971)

Avoiding life's issues can boil over

Revenge films that questioned justice became prevalent in the '70s, though "Straw Dogs" was more than just a simple excuse for vengeance or carnage. The darker side of human nature is no doubt shown from multiple angles but it isn't exploited or all that it has to offer. This drama/thriller is a deep examination of a couple from different backgrounds and personalities who escape to a remote area to get away from the chaos ensuing back where they lived in a more populated area in the States. The logic is to completely avoid a problem before it becomes an issue, but what happens when one gets cornered when there's nowhere left to turn? Wherever any humans dwell, human nature becomes inescapable.

David Sumner is an American academic that recently moved to his wife Amy's original home town called Wakely in England for the perceived quiet country life and to comfortably write a book from teaching mathematics prior. Or so he thinks... Like sheep with a pack of wolves patiently standing by for any shred of weakness or slip up, they're both timid, too polite and passive aggressive in character instead of stating outright what they really feel or mean. Amy desperately wants to be desired by her sometimes aloof husband to the point of acting immature towards him and a tease to a few locals working on their property. One of them is Charlie: a recent hire that was a former love interest of Amy but now a distant reminder to her past. She's at a crossroads of a former loose lifestyle to now trying to settle down. There's a give and take of both sides that adds some struggle and development to her character's flawed but human personality. When she actually realizes the position she's put herself in, it's already too late.

The couple's situation looks fine on the surface but underneath there is an air of animosity creeping up from the moment they arrive. There's a genuine feeling of uncomfortableness portrayed by the performers that carries over to the audience as well the way things never quite settle in. It can be subtle with a sly grin here or a tongue-in-cheek greeting there. The film is gradually paced with enough room for the transitions to feel fluid and the events to steadily and believably escalate to a boiling point of no looking back. How it got to there wasn't just a single situation that can be pinpointed but a series of little unsolved dilemmas that were swept under the rug till a solution would hopefully appear. When one does emerge it looks more like patchwork. The film examines violence and shows some of the causes and effects, then leaves enough breathing area to let the viewer decide if it was justified or not. If David should have spoken up to begin with or put in place preventative measures, only to let it build and build and take a desperate, amoral solution out. Or that David was minding his own business and was only pushed into a primal protective mode by an unruly bunch. There's even some other positions that come about from the experience about his manhood and if it's his wife he's protecting, his ego or the house, or even if he picked the right moment to do so with a questionable town person they took in.

"Straw Dogs" has an equal balance of ambiguity to unravel. The power of the film lies in the direction and script in the way they keep it all together and from getting muddled, despite being filled with multiple layers, not to mention with distinct and purposely flawed situations and characters. There's even enough material and insight to return back and see it from another mode. For one, there's no clear cut so called "good guy" or "bad guy" by the time it comes to a roaring, climactic conclusion. The movie looks at traditional roles of family in the early '70s, while modern outlooks might look more progressive. David picked his corner and stuck to it, which lead to shirking his responsibilities as master of the household. Amy, on the other hand, irrationally craves affection from not having a sense of independence or a feeling of comfortableness in her own skin. Who's right and who's wrong all came down to both their lack of communication and a true sense of togetherness as husband and wife. There's also the slow character in town who can't control himself when it comes to young girls (he's an anomaly in the story in that he's the only person incapable of making a rational decision, while everyone else around is making bad choices left and right), to the prosecutor not doing his job of locking him away, to the family members being outraged and wanting to take their anger and frustration out on someone--anyone--despite their own misgivings and hypocrisies. That theme can be traced back to "Frankenstein" and possibly even further back. It's an intersecting domino effect that eventually gets down to the last connective, tumbling row and piece. Whoever is caught in the vicinity when it falls: Watch out for its wrath!

Rating: 9.5/10

Director: Sam Peckinpah (Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, The Ballad of Cable Hogue
Starring: Dustin Hoffman, Susan George, Peter Vaughn, Del Henney, David Warner
Link: IMDB

Fragile (2005)

A determind night nurse in a troubled hospital

Amy Nicholls, an American, is called in to replace another night nurse named Susan who unexpectedly left. They're in the process of moving supplies and eventually patients out of Mercy Falls Children's Hospital on the Isle of Wight in southern England. Things are rushed, people are passive and a share just want to clear out and finalize the whole fiasco after a train accident created a delay. They're on a skeleton crew with Amy, the night doctor Robert and an orderly to look after eight remaining special case children, along with a nurse named Helen in alternate shifts.

The old building gives in to some creaks and malfunctions that are at first coincidental and logically explained. Though a trouble-making child named Maggie claims it was a mechanical girl named Charlotte that she uses alphabet blocks to communicate to, with the staff thinking she's just bored and isolated with no parents to care for her. After getting convinced from an incident herself, Amy looks into the records of Simon--a boy who suspiciously broke his bones--which leads her back to Susan and two psychics. With risk of losing her job or sanity, Amy edges on as a catalyst because she believes that something doesn't want to let them leave and to make them suffer despite everyone else brushing the growing number of incidents under the rug with excuses and false reassurances. When more turn over to uncovering the truth, it changes into a race against time to save the children before the deteriorating hospital consumes them.

"Fragile" eventually works into a thriller like pacing for its latter portion with a well timed little twist and some tragedy and sentimental moments. The rest of this English and Spanish made picture flows well enough and has a balance to all sides with events progressively moving along step by step without jumping ahead. Though it starts to feel somewhat like a basic and straightforward formula in areas. Partly of the one random, supernatural occurrence at a time type, and the other part of the "I have to do what's right no matter the odds" kind that's usually seen in murder or political thrillers where morals come into play and the person acts as a crusader. Some areas play out with some predictability and you can depend on it since its upkeep is somewhat simplistic and measured out to the point of having little fat hanging or drifting scenes. Though to its credit, it's a movie that doesn't get muddled or look back and retread, but instead manages to maintain a forward outlook till the growing tension can be released and resolved. Expecting something brand new here and you might be disappointed as it's more tried and true with a few aspects and characters shuffled around.

The abandoned second floor is a dismal place with grime and deterioration. The creepy looking villain that fittingly lives there--that's in the physical form instead of CGI with various contraptions and contorted face--looks effective despite a short amount of screen time. The co-stars are typically set up with specific archetypes--stern boss, shoulder to cry on, information guy--and do their parts well enough since they're not always required to step over with a wide arc of range. Though Yasmin Murphy, who plays Maggie, carries a distinct voice for her age and manages to transition from a bored brat to sympathetic for her ailment and abandonment situation. Elena Anaya, as Helen, feels the most realistic person--as opposed to a caricature or cinematic invention--as a foreigner in another country with a back and forth temperament of the pushed around employee who's job gets on her nerves. Calista Flockhart starts out somewhat neutral and almost comatose--on purpose or not is hard to say since she's popping pills here. She has a few break out scenes from her lull that go from cracked up and stressed out, to then eventually able to carry the strength of those around her as a commanding hero of sorts.



Rating: 7/10

Director: Jaume Balaguero (The Nameless, Darkness)
Stars: Calista Flockhart, Richard Roxburgh, Elena Anaya, Gemma Jones, Colin McFarlane, Susie Trayling
Link: IMDB

Knife Edge (2009)

Trying to live the quaint life can be murder

This British film is more of a mystery/thriller than a horror in the modern day with excessive gore and sex to titillate. It attempts to tell an old fashioned tale that focuses on primal human emotions such as betrayal, revenge and greed with a backdrop of the supernatural. Then it takes on relating points, such as obligations to your job and family with others trying to step in the middle of your progress and happiness for their own selfish gain.

A successful woman named Emma with a sixth sense in the New York stock exchange leaves it all behind to move to an English manor with her French husband Henri and her boy Thomas. She's recently pregnant and life is going extremely well at first, till she gets random, murderous visions and a pain in her abdomen. Her husband loses a business deal and runs into money trouble. He goes to her shady, drug using brother for a loan as he doesn't want Emma to worry about the bills of their new mansion. This is despite her not feeling welcome there anyway by a series of unexplainable nightmares and what-was-that noises. Her son has an imaginary friend named Tobias that might be more linked to the past of the house than the inventive mind of a bored kid.


A share of the interactions turn over to be tediously melodramatic as she starts to become erratic from both the enormous house with nothing to do inside and the strange happenings, along with her thought to be nice husband starting to lash out from getting stressed at work and home. This attempts to shift between if it's real or not, but instead of balancing out both sides equally to be intriguing like a good mystery should it can feel like a string along. The answers to the drama portion are often easily solvable--move, get a hobby, go back to work, honest communication, live less extravagantly--as the characters are hardly given enough pressing circumstances to truly feel trapped to their current situation or the viewer challenged enough to get enraptured/lost to their problems. But then, of course, money is the root of all evil and not many can go back from already having a bulk of it. The title character confides in her family and close friends with some being genuine but others posing as wolves in sheep's clothing.


Trying to cram all of the various threads into an hour and a half time frame didn't do a service to the viewer. The result is some of the revelations are too far fetched with one too many coincidences, though I can imagine if it was in novel form it could have been a diverting yarn without time constraints and with smoother transitions to suspend disbelief. It's still imaginative and attempts to be steadily engaging, but the execution wasn't always put together in a very entertaining order and manner. It feels like a fleeting television feature, despite this being the long awaited darker tale from Anthony "Waxwork"/"Sundown" Hickox after having a share of run ins with the action genre. For one, this has too quick of a pacing for its own good. The movie moves so rapidly at times as to breeze over building up an enclosing atmosphere. Though the camera seems to move just as much as the characters do with a share of panning crane and hand held shots that manage to give this a certain style. The house jumps right into doing odd things before a setup is even established around it to give it a shadowy personality. Not to mention Emma's special abilities of seeing events before they happen is stated in a random piece of dialogue to a new comer but doesn't smooth into establishing credibility; then it's oddly forgotten for a period and blamed on other circumstances.


It looks to be a clear cut case of botched editing but a share of this is a misstep in direction and a combination of being rushed, with the former salvaging what was left. The direction seems to over emphasize points but even then still not make sense or adequately express emotions, such as an extended stare/odd look or a line stated but then dropped by a closing scene. Some revelations take too long to come out to the point of losing focus or interest, and then others can be explained too quickly to lose impact. Some of the minor transitions between scenes aren't always flush, such as a character's demeanor/position slightly jumping around from an action just before it. In areas it feels exactly like they filmed it at different times. Even the performances come in and out of going from lively, overreaching, to just plain stiff or not accommodating a certain written line to themselves. Both the leading actors, Natalie Press and Matthieu Boujenah, have performances that fall in and out to the point of being unconnective to their situation and who they are. Hugh Bonneville, although without that much screen time, gives the most credible and consistent performance as the cheery friend of the family with another side to him. Joan Plowright, as the nanny, believably fits the bill and has a dual screen presence that you're never too sure about.


In theory, this shouldn't have been as lackluster as it turned out. I'd imagine reading the filled to the brim script, seeing the larger than life locations and hearing the enthusiasms of the filmmakers to do something slightly different in the modern day would have sold it beforehand. There's definitely potential here. Though "Knife Edge" is a film that frequently requires the viewer to compensate for lack thereof and mistimings. A portion of the performances, character motivations and even certain dialogue have too many areas where it feels forced and distracting. The story doesn't always maintain charging power and the characters don't always feel credible as a result.

Rating: 3.5/10

From Black to Red recommends instead: "The Others." This is a atmospheric drama/horror film that follows an English family who lives in a large house just after WWII that carries a dark past.

Director: Anthony Hickox (Waxwork, Sundown, Hellraiser III)
Stars: Natalie Press, Matthieu Boujenah, Hugh Bonneville, Joan Plowright, Tamsin Egerton
Link: IMDB

The Reeds (2009)

A muddy cloud of who's who, what's what, where's where

Three couples go out on what's supposed to be a leisurely boating retreat in a stretch of canal away from civilization in England. That's the easy explanation of it. The rest is a doozy to describe and try to make it cohesive sounding especially in the right order of things. Essentially the story unfolds like a loosely laid out series of events that eventually leads to a survival horror film with some elements of the supernatural.

Right from the getgo they get haggled when hiring a boat as if the trip is to be called off, but then get directed to a boat out back that has some teens already on it. Tempers almost flare until one of the women recognizes a red headed woman from earlier who ran out in front of their car abruptly and the too-cool-for-words youngsters stride away. Off the couples go with a map that takes them no where and with nothing but reeds standing in their way to the promised pub they're headed to. Did I mention cell phones don't work? A guy named Chris is the resident loud mouth and party guy who skinny dips, yells at the youngsters again and becomes a belligerent drunk when playing cards. Maybe it's for the best the pub destination fizzled. Soon enough they hear and see something unexplainable in the reeds and then crash from a protrusion that sticks through the bottom of the boat and injures one of the crew.


They're stuck and one of them is slowly bleeding to death. The most capable guy attempts to swim back while the others bide their time on the boat. They come into more circumstances with the teens who are now slaughtering animals, a man who might be friend or foe with a shotgun, under water cages with skeletons, some strange visions of themselves, along with nature and darkness standing in their way to safety...and who could forget "The Reeds," which aren't always capitalized on--might as well be "The Shrubs," "The Fences," "The Palm Trees" (I know, I know). The boat goes through more trouble and trying to scramble away all at once leads to a share of injuries among the crew, which seems both convenient towards the storyline for getting people out of the way to concentrate on the hero, but then anticlimactic towards generating the nuances of danger and desperation in a horror film. At this point people hallucinate with no explanation as to why and it makes the experience and relevance confusing as to what is actually going on even more so.

The issue with "The Reeds" is it fails to set up a premise, what that place in particular means, why it encloses a legend, or even if it's capable of drawing people in from some force towards it. It eventually gets there but you're not watching the film from back to front and would need some valid clues in the meantime. I have a feeling that this was written that way and it shows. The bread crumbs it lures you with don't feel satiating enough to entice your hunger to go on. Basically you get a share of forced melodrama with six people you could care less if they live or even die. The general tone feels confusing and tedious rather than mysterious or intriguing. You're left standing with no subtext or steady direction towards a focal point. Instead you get a share of general characters with attributes that are neither capable of bringing about a sense of the dramatic or in the way of entertainment. One of the women named Laura is an exception by showing some strength and a knowledgeable medical background to help her friends and get help. You have to sell your audience and this feels more mundane than delivering cinematic material that would be in the way of gripping or alluring. On top of that, the editing and camera angles are all over the place when the action heats up and can give one a headache with what's shown and for what reason. At times, certain events happen out of the blue and instead of being shocking or thrilling, it makes your throbbing brain work that much harder to figuring out what they're trying to portray and how it was relevant to the shot before it since it's not always framed up or hinted at beforehand, such as people appearing and disappearing without context.


Part of the outline is eventually explained towards the end through the "resident legend guy" yelling it back and forth with snippets of information that's supposed to make it sound more natural. Its twist seems too far fetched without more foreshadowing beforehand that would make it truly rewarding or fascinating. There's some atmosphere generated towards the latter portion when there are less characters in the way and it's nice that the film tries to go for something that isn't a straightforward template like some other horror films, as well as changes around the survival format somewhat. The performances were of decent caliber for what they're given and they seem to have some chemistry together as a group. Though its convoluted ideas and unsteady execution have little backing power in the greater scheme of things and really bog this down.

Rating: 2/10

Director: Nick Cohen (Voodoo Lagoon)
Link: IMDB

The Broken (2008)

Scared of your own reflection?

An English radiologist named Gina gives her father a surprise birthday celebration and during the festivities a mirror suddenly breaks. She gets a strange feeling at work as if someone was in her office. Then on the way home, she spots a woman that looks identical to herself driving her same car. She follows the look alike and enters her apartment only to see a photo with her image and her fathers. Puzzled, she leaves but gets into a car wreck on the way out. Gina wakes up in the hospital with a fuzzy memory regarding the crash and a sneaking suspicion that her boyfriend, Stefan, is not really her boyfriend. The doctors call it Capgras Syndrome, which can result from a brain injury. With the help of a therapist, she unlocks bits and pieces surrounding the accident. From a dripping ceiling, to more mirrors being broken and others acting strangely to her, Gina sees danger at every turn where more people are out to get her due to a delusion made worse by the crash or something else.

"The Broken" is mainly a mystery/suspense film that for a share of it does the genre justice with little nuances and slight shifts that make those films so gripping. Revelations come about as it gradually paces itself and the audience is let on to more and more of its secrets. Unfortunately the growth of the plant slows down and it eventually squeezes less and less of the nectar out of its storyline. After a certain point it goes from a kind of Hitchcock-esque pacing to a sort of extended Twilight Zone-like episode that pulls out a magnifying glass and inspects a tainted situation underneath everyone else's nose. Its drawback is that it's too light on some of the rules and mechanics and then motivations for its antagonists, which makes it more easy than encapsulating the full potential that it could have been. It had every right to be a thoroughly challenging classic but didn't take it that extra few steps. I liked the engaging experience it laid out but the more it's thought about, the more it comes with contradictions.

If one can look past that, the film's major strength is getting full use of its surroundings with an atmosphere to lock a viewer into the direct moment. It's not everyday that films can make one forget their surroundings and responsibilities. It's to the point where every other person and object becomes suspicious and paramount as a result. A neat idea is employed with abrupt flashes to remember the past and some surreal imagery to translate Gina's troubled state. This uses basic but still powerful mechanics due to built-up anticipation and careful crafting beforehand, such as deja vu, sleeping next to someone you immensely distrust, being vulnerable in the shower, and also someone you recognize that doesn't act like their old self, making you instead question your own self and mind. Needless to say, this has a share of creepy and unsettling moments, rather than going for the throat with its shock value. It's titillating at points but not always forceful like other horror films.

There's a share of stringed instruments that no sane person could listen to and not tense up. "The Broken" seems to be made to play on nerve endings by not letting the viewer relax for long till another pulsating situation arises. It has that down pat though it could have used a few more areas in its story that hint more at what's going on, especially for motivational reasons, otherwise the viewer is left too much in the dark as to what, how and why after the credits roll. It seems to be a film less for the theorists and more for those that appreciate the ride and surface sensations in the moment. I have to admit, for the most part, it did keep me from thinking outside of the box that it presents when I was actually watching it since there was always something either intriguing or rousing going on. This still works with a shred of ambiguity, but the scales are still tipped a little more away from the viewer. It mainly plays on a general sense of paranoia for those that are broadly suspect, as well as has some calculated areas for the logical minded, even if it doesn't go full steam ahead for the skeptic's sake.

Some parts carry a message of sorts, such as securing and appreciating your life as someone or "something" else might take over when you have your guard down. It's more of an undeveloped "what if?" question that will make some people fascinated just because of the idea itself as well as gravitate towards its heavy use of mood while at it. However, with some others I'd imagine it might leave a person more puzzled or frustrated without fully fleshing out a bigger picture from the questions it posed itself. It's not to the point of ambiguity like "Silent Hill" but should be kept in mind before stepping into its alleyway with dark and looming shadows that you might never figure out what's always a step behind or what they're doing there...

Rating: 7/10

Director: Sean Ellis (Cashback)
Stars: Lena Headey, Richard Jenkins, Melvil Poupaud
Link: IMDB