Review Category: Movie

THE MORTUARY COLLECTION / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR & SCREENPLAY: RYAN SPINDELL / STARRING: CLANCY BROWN, CAITLIN CUSTER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Anthology movies, naturally, rise and fall on the quality of their segments, but also on how well they fit together as a whole. In the case of The Mortuary Collection, the framing device for its series of lethal and humorous tales of death is not just an excuse to launch in to the next short, but remains an integral part of the film in its own right and just as significant an aspect of the experience.

In this case, death-obsessed teenager Sam is interested in a working in the local mortuary, and challenges its aged mortician to tell her the most gruesome tales of death to which he has been privy over the decades. As the magnificently monikered Montgomery Dark, Clancy Brown, seemingly made up to look like the Tall Man from the Phantasm movies, has a lot of fun looming ominously and orating in tombstone rumbles, while the far younger Caitlin Custer holds her own opposite the veteran, Sam never appearing cowed by the intimidating presence and revelling in the gradual unveiling of the surreal and death-ridden history of the town in which they live.

Each tale is efficiently alluded to in an opening sequence that drips with nostalgia for the ‘80s when films such as these were popular, and variously involve a thief at a party discovering something otherworldly in the bathroom; an obnoxious and womanising frat boy getting exactly what he deserves after tricking a fellow student into unprotected sex; a melancholic account of a middle aged man caring for his chronically ill wife; and a teenage girl facing the fight of her life after a murderer escapes from a nearby mental hospital.

The highlight of the quartet is the final of these, director Ryan Spindell’s slasher short The Babysitter Murders that ran the festival circuit a few years ago. Rather than just splicing in some pre-existing material its events are deftly incorporated into those of the movie, turning what was a simple standalone tale into an integral piece of the setting’s history that comes back around to resolve the movie’s narrative in a neat and satisfying manner.

While certainly first and foremost a collection of horror tales, an undercurrent of humour also runs strong, keeping the tone light amidst the practical effects gore and gruesomeness that (sometimes quite literally) explodes onto screen. The tone is amplified by the visuals being colourful, hyper-real and heavily stylised, feeling like the stories are live action adaptations of animated shorts shown at 2 am on [adult swim].

Although each tale is set in a different decade and visually styled to the associated aesthetic, they each also possess a timeless quality that allows you to imagine them taking place right up to the present day, relating human foibles that are realistic and relatable whatever the point in time. This also applies the wraparound story, the gothic ambience of the funeral home appearing as something lifted directly from a Victorian backstreet and transplanted into the coastal town.

The Mortuary Collection is a mixed bag that won’t be for everyone, but a distinct assortment of tales of humorous death with practical effects that add to its charm and amplify the retro stylings make the collection as a whole worth seeking out.

A NIGHT OF HORROR: NIGHTMARE RADIO / CERT: TBA / DIRECTOR: OLIVER PARK, JASON BOGNACKI, A.J. BRIONES, JOSHUA LONG, SERGIO MORCELILLO, ADAM O’BRIEN, LUCIANO ONETTI, NICOLÁS ONETTI, PABLO S. PASTOR, MATTHEW RICHARDS / SCREENPLAY: MAURO CROCHE, MICHAEL L. FAWCETT, MICHAEL KRAETZER, GUILLERMO LOCKHART, MATTHEW RICHARDS, SANTIAGO TOBOADA / STARRING: IAN COSTELLO, MUUCHELLE COSTELLO, CLARA KOVACIC / RELEASE DATE: TBC

A late night radio host fills the airwaves with tales of encroaching death and supernatural terror, regaling his listeners and inviting them to contribute their own stories and experiences. As the night stretches into the small hours, a series of mysterious phone calls pulls him into a world of terror far more personal.

The best anthologies are ones that ultimately have a purpose and function as a whole either thematically or content-wise. A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio is not one of them. It doesn’t help that the shorts were not actually made for the anthology, but assembled from previously filmed material then strung together with a framing device of the radio DJ that does little more than introduce them, like an excessively bearded Crypt Keeper who has swapped bad puns for cheesy dialogue.

The wraparound story does itself have a small plot but is interspersed too little to make any kind of impact, and as the film goes on for so long by the time it comes around to be revealed it’s become unimportant, ultimately being just a jarring way of ending the film on some unconvincing ambiguity as if that neatly wraps things up rather than posing more questions. It’s entirely possible that the shorts were intended to introduce themes and concepts that tie into this ultimate revelation, but it doesn’t always work, leaving the collection feeling highly disjointed and reinforcing its artificial construction.

Taken individually, some of the tales are suitably eerie, such as Post-Mortem Mary, featuring the creepy experiences of a young girl working with her mother as a corpse photographer; In the Dark, Dark Woods, a fairy tale about an invisible woman and the evil she perpetrates from a life confined to the shadows; or The Disappearance of Willie Bingham, seeing a convicted murderer undergoing a series of retributive amputations ordered by the family of his victim. However, by and large they blur together into a series of uninspired twists that inspire little other than an awaiting for their inevitable final revelation.

The tales are so disparate there is not much to warrant them being brought together like this, with the only real theme being a disproportionately high recurrence of young women being stalked, abused, assaulted or otherwise menaced. You’d have really thought we’d reached a point where we can do better than this.

Nightmare Radio is mildly entertaining as a film, but despite its moderate running time still feels stretched out for far too long with little in the way of true development to maintain much interest for the viewer, and then once it’s finally got where it’s going it just… ends.

THE CLEANSING HOUR / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: DAMIEN LEVECK / SCREENPLAY: DAMIEN LEVECK, AARON HORWITZ / STARRING: RYAN GUZMAN, KYLE GALLNER, ALIX ANGELIS, CHRIS LEW KUM HOI, DANIEL HOFFMANN-GILL, EMMA HOLZER / RELEASE DATE: TBC

Hunky priest Father Max is the face and talent of an internet series that sees him exorcise demons in histrionic rituals that affirm the power of the Almighty in the face of evil. Of course, it’s all a sham, until his latest possessee doesn’t show up and his girlfriend takes their place, only to become genuinely possessed by a powerful demon who takes exception to the hypocrisy.

The Cleansing Hour has a lot to say about the perception of truth, beginning with a sequence that plays exactly like the climactic scene of any Exorcist-lite movie, only afterwards to pull back to reveal the artifice and reveal the technical wizardry at play. It’s an ingenious way to start proceedings, and instils in the viewer thoughts about how much of what can be seen can be believed. Unfortunately, it doesn’t manage to maintain such craftiness, and soon descends into a litany of demonic possession clichés.

The film has more ideas than it knows how to fully develop, muddling the story and ending up with too much going on for a single story, to the extent it becomes difficult to fully decide what point is ultimately being made. Additionally, it’s hampered by a flip-flopping tonal dissonance that leaves the film too brutal to be much fun but not stoic enough to be taken seriously.

Much of the plot hinges on the demon taking over control of the production and sending out the results into the wilds of the internet to convince people of its power. It’s one thing to show shots of people around the world who are regular viewers of the trash chaos perfectly willing to be taken in by the performance, but with people being sceptical enough of information reported on the reputable news programmes, to convince the viewer that everyone else believes that underway is a technological domination by religious entities a majority of the world don’t believe even exist requires a level of persuasion that the film simply doesn’t supply.

The demon forcing confessions of various sins that further damage the characters’ already fractious relationships is fairly standard fare, although one of them has unpleasant implications of relationship dynamics and women’s unspoken obligations towards men that have no place in such revelations. Although that said, the film does go the atypical route of having its male lead be the one forced into a position of an object of lust subjected to the perverse proclivities of a demon’s sadism, rather than the damsel in distress.

On the subject of such a thankless role, special mention must go to Alix Angelis as the possessed Lane, who gives a heartbreaking dual performance alternating between terrified cries for help in the few moments she manages to break free, and the throaty taunts of the demon forcing her to the limits of what a person can both physically and psychologically endure.

A further missed opportunity is to further elaborate on the flashbacks of Max’s childhood experiences being taught by nuns, and instead of delving into how people can be affected by the lingering echoes of abuse within strict religious educational systems, it merely acts as just a waiting piece of revelation hinted at for most of the movie.

The Cleansing Hour is mildly entertaining experience of well-trodden material, but not much more. A more balanced tone and greater exploration into its central themes would have done it wonders.

ANDERSON FALLS / CERT: TBC / DIRECTOR: JULIEN SERI / SCREENPLAY: GILES DAOUST / STARRING: SHAWN ASHMORE, GARY COLE, DANIELLA ALONSO, RICHARD HARMON, LIN SHAYE / RELEASE DATE: TBC

 

Contrary to popular belief, film critics don’t enjoy tearing a movie apart. On the contrary, we do this job because we love movies and try to look for something to enjoy in everything we watch. However, every now and then something comes along that is so utterly inept on all fronts it’s impossible to even pretend to be positive about it.

 

The plot of Anderson Falls sees detective Anderson (see what they did there?) investigate his wife’s death despite it being ruled a suicide because he knew she would never kill herself and is convinced she was murdered, and the process realises a series of such deaths were the work of a father-son team of serial killers.

 

This isn’t any kind of spoiler, as the film’s opening shows a protracted scene of the luckless woman in question being forced to swallow a bottle of pills, thereby removing any sense of ambiguity from proceedings and instead leaving the audience bored and frustrated while the police come to painfully obvious conclusions.

 

It’s easy to highlight everything about a film that makes no sense, as all movies to one extent or another require a certain degree of suspension of disbelief. However, when a plot runs on nothing but gormlessness, stupidity and histrionic overacting, all that you’re left to talk about is its litany of shortcomings.

 

No character involved behaves or speaks like anything resembling a functional human being, but since every word and action is required for the ludicrous plot – for lack of a better word – to progress, the audience is forced to endure them as it stumbles along to the revelation that the killers are driven by nothing but hateful misogyny. Not even in a way that makes a point or has something to say, but rather just moronic diatribes practically copy-pasted from the online domains of MRA morons.

 

Some scenes will inspire a few laughs, such as Anderson getting inside the killers’ heads by staring at photos of successful women and screaming “I hate you” at them, or the image of  a pictures-and-red-string wall of crazy like Charlie Day in that It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia meme, although any humour gleaned is entirely unintentional. Its all intended to be taken very, very seriously, but the preposterous histrionics instead result in the kind of overwrought soap opera dramatics that given a minor violence edit wouldn’t be out of place screening on Sony Movies on a Sunday afternoon.

 

There’s no two ways about it: Anderson Falls is quite simply a terrible film. It may find an audience in midnight marathons whose audiences can laugh along with a film’s sheer awfulness, but there really isn’t anything else even vaguely positive to be said about this spiteful, incoherent, nigh-unwatchable melodramatic shambles.