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hinghammark
Reviews
Housebound (2014)
Really fun and suspenseful ghost story/horror romp...
Of all the movies that are out there on DVD and VOD for Halloween right now, 'Housebound' is really a winner if you are looking for a movie that delivers a good dose of comedy along with some genuine suspense and just enough heart and family drama to make you care about the characters involved and their relationship.
The story is about a young delinquent woman who is forced to move back in with her Mom after the court places her under house arrest. Once there, she is forced to confront the unexplainable supernatural occurrences that long plagued the property and to team up with one of her probation officers to solve a fifteen-year-old unsolved murder. At the same time, she must mend the damaged relationship she has with her mother and family, but all this stuff is done with wonderful subtlety and never weighs the movie down with sappy nonsense.
The movie's plot takes some wild twists and turns, some of them coming out of nowhere, but you easily forgive this and some of the movie's other many flaws just because of how much fun the whole thing is.
While it does deliver some very genuine moments of creepiness and suspense, this movie is really, at the end of the day, more comedy than horror. The movie come from New Zealand, so maybe it's no accident that it reminded me a lot of some of Peter Jackson's earlier works, like 'Dead Alive.' Recommended--particularly for a fun Halloween movie.
Blood Punch (2014)
Consider my mind blown--a monumentally smart, fresh, and totally fun low-budget horror/film noir/black comedy
I saw this under-the-radar low-budget gem at the New Orleans Horror Film Festival a couple weeks back, where it pretty much blew myself and the entire packed house away and went on to walk away with that festival's Best Feature Film award.
It's such a difficult movie to describe, especially without giving too much away. The story begins as a classic Film Noir Love Triangle. Regular guy Milton is lured by the scorching femme fatale Skyler into a scheme to cook up a gargantuan batch of crystal meth for her psychotic corrupt cop boyfriend, Russell. You've seen this story many times. But just when you think you know exactly where the whole thing is going, it begins taking delightfully clever supernatural twists and turns that keep on coming and coming, right up until the end of the movie.
But unlike a lot of movies that try to take you on a ride like this one, the twists and surprises that keep unfolding here never feel forced or unmotivated. The movie is incredibly smart in its storytelling and direction and really respects the intelligence of its' audience, challenging them to put two and two together on their own rather than spoon-feeding them information. The three young actors who play the leads are also really impressive and convincingly carry the movie, keeping their characters grounded in reality and believable as real human beings, no matter what inexplicable chaos or craziness is berserking around them.
In some ways, some might consider this more of an art-house movie than pure horror, more early Cohen Brothers than Sam Raimi--but it somehow manages to maintain that sense of rollicking good fun and attitude that is definitely rooted in the very best tradition of low-budget horror flicks.
If you told me that a little movie like this could come along out of nowhere to seamlessly and successfully blend horror, film noir, and black comedy, I would have scoffed. But Blood Punch has made a believer out of me. See it if you can--highly recommended.
Savageland (2015)
Intense and effective--definitely a notch above the average "found-footage/pseudo documentary" horror films out there.
It seems like whenever I'm about to call it quits and give up on the whole tired deluge of mediocre "found footage"/"fake documentary" movies that have flooded the horror genre in recent years, one will come along and win me back by effectively using that narrative platform in clever and inventive ways that help better reveal their stories and characters.
As easy as it is to find dozens of bad examples of these kind of movies over the past few years, there have also been a few gems like THE CONSPIRACY and AFFLICTED that stand head and shoulders over the others and serve to demonstrate how much potential these kind of movies can have if they're done correctly.
I caught SAVAGELAND tonight as part of the New Orleans Horror Film Festival and, I'm happy to report, that it is definitely counts as another one of these "found-footage"/"fake documentary" gems that has, at least temporarily, restored my faith in that overplayed genre.
Told in news-footage/documentary style with the use of interviews, stock footage, etc., SAVAGELAND tells the story of the fictional massacre of an entire small Arizona border town and the one man, an illegal immigrant, arrested for the crime. But as more information and evidence comes to light, the audience is forced to delve deeper into the mystery of what really happened that night.
While I found the movie to be a little too long and repetitive in places, it is generally gripping and very intense. I also think the filmmakers may have given the answers away to the audience a little too easily and a little too soon in the movie, but as a whole, SAVAGELAND succeeds at using its' documentary format to draw you into the story and identify with the characters.
If you're like me and are constantly looking for a beacon of light at the end of the long tunnel of mediocre found-footage horror movies, I recommend checking out SAVAGELAND.
Blue Ruin (2013)
If the Charlie Brown character from the 'Peanuts' comic went on a gritty revenge spree...
This low-budget gem flawlessly breathes fresh life into the very familiar and tired revenge film simply by introducing a main character who is completely unlike any that you've come to expect or ever seen featured the protagonist in this type of genre.
Macon Blair plays Dwight, a young homeless man who feels compelled to take justice into his own hands when he learns that the man who murdered his parents is going to be set free. But unlike most movies of this kind, Dwight isn't some ex-Navy SEAL or former Special Forces operative. He doesn't turn out to be a retired assassin for the CIA or a former enforcer hiding out form the mob. There's never that "whoah, they messed with the wrong guy" scene later in the movie--you know the scene I'm talking about, where the people he is hunting (or the police trying to stop him) pull out some huge file detailing his extensive martial arts background and years of Ninjutsu training.
No, what makes BLUE RUIN refreshing and brilliant is that Dwight really is just your average, mild-mannered guy. He clearly has no experience with violence and seems particularly ill-equipped to be embarking on this kind of mission. Seeing Dwight awkwardly stumble through his quest for revenge is both funny and heartbreaking at the same time. You can't help but laugh at his blundering missteps, but at the same time, you really feel for him because as much as we might like to imagine ourselves as bad-ass action heroes, deep down, we know that we have a lot more in common with the hapless Dwight. This connection really makes you care about him and care about the outcome of the story on a much deeper level. It feels very intimate, very personal, and very real.
BLUE RUIN is also a great-looking movie, just beautifully filmed and put together. I would highly recommend it. The fact that I enjoyed it so much and that none of my friends had even heard of it motivated me to write my first review here on IMDb and I plan to continue to seek out hidden and lesser-known gems like this one.