ANIMAL (2014) Blu-ray Review

Animal (2014) d. Brett Simmons (USA)

This Chiller-produced creature feature plays like an amalgam of other films – notably Night of the Living Dead, Jurassic Park, and Feast, the latter of which borrowed liberally from Romero’s playbook – but it’s all put together so slickly and with such a knowing tone that it makes for a surprisingly entertaining beer n’ chips Friday Night Fright.

Interview with BENEATH Director Larrry Fessenden!!!

 

“I’m on the side of the fish.”

In the nearly two decades since his 1995 festival hit, Habit, was released, Larry Fessenden has established himself as a proud independent godfather of sorts, with his NYC-based production company Glass Eye Pix fostering such rising talents as Ti West (The House of the Devil, The Innkeepers), Glenn McQuaid (I Sell the Dead), James Felix McKenney (Satan Hates You) and Jim Mickle (Stake Land). He also continues to direct (Wendigo, The Last Winter) and act (lending his memorable gap-toothed mug to four to five screen roles each year), seemingly content to thrive outside the Tinseltown web of wheeler dealers. His indomitable spirit remains alive and well, trumping high throttle studio machinery with the power of a simple story well told.

CHILLING VISIONS: 5 SENSES OF FEAR (2013) Blu-ray Review

Chilling Visions: 5 Senses of Fear (2013) d. Various (USA)

The multi-headed anthology film, where a disparate group of filmmakers ally forces (or at least throw their respective hats into the same ring), continues to gain steam and **thisclose** to being a legitimate subgenre unto itself. Three...Extremes, Chillerama, the V/H/S films, The Theatre Bizarre, Little Deaths, The ABCs of Death and so on. However, I can’t say I’ve been really impressed by most of these, since many simply feel like a two-hour short-film festival with little unifying rhyme or reason. On the one hand, I’m happy these artists are reaching a broader audience than they might just shilling their short on YouTube, Vimeo, et al., but at the same time, my nostalgic heart pines for a time when the portmanteau format was utilized with a bit more cohesiveness and forethought, where a unifying vision ran through the proceedings. Even if the stories themselves were uneven, they at least felt like they were of the same universe. Happily, Chilling Visions (originally produced for and aired on the Chiller network this May, and now available on Blu-ray from Scream Factory) is that rare beast where all involved are pulling in the same direction even as they utilize the “divide and conquer” method of filmmaking.

THE MONKEY'S PAW (2013) movie review

The Monkey’s Paw (2013) d. Brett Simmons (USA)

Kicking off with a bleaker version of the original tale’s finale, this adaptation by screenwriter Macon Blair acts as a both a sequel to and an updating of W.W. Jacobs’ classic short story of twisted wish fulfillment. C.J. Thomason stars as a New Orleans blue collar worker with minimal prospects and even fewer aspirations, content to grind out the hours then drown sorrows at the local watering hole with co-workers Stephen Lang and Corbin Bleu. But one night, former supervisor Daniel Hugh Kelly brings out the titular wrinkled keepsake from his youth, gives it to Thomason and before you can say “Deadtime for Bonzo,” the ill-advised wishes start a-flyin’.