LATE PHASES (2014) Blu-ray Review

Late Phases (2014) d. Adrian Garcia Bogliano (USA)

Retired Vietnam War veteran Ambrose McKinley (Nick Damici) has a disability and a problem. The disability? He’s blind. The problem? He’s been “reassigned” to a retirement community, or, in less politically correct parlance, an old folks’ neighborhood. As Ambrose puts it, “This isn’t where you go to live, it’s where you go to die.” Unfortunately, a bigger problem lies within the first, issuing forth once a month like a wolf in human’s clothing. Yes, Crescent Bay has become the favorite feeding spot of an insatiable lycanthrope, and the old soldier’s new neighbors are being picked off like so many sheep, quite possibly by one of their own. Will he be able to pick out/pick off the shapeshifter in time, or will the cycle of death and mutilation continue?

UNDER THE BED (2012) movie review

Under the Bed (2012) d. Miller, Steven C. (USA)

After being sent away two years prior for burning down their house, troubled teen Jonny Weston returns to live with his father (Peter Holden), younger brother (Gattlin Griffith) and new stepmother (Musetta Vander), but it seems the literal monsters of the past are still present…and hungry. Even if director Miller hadn’t said in his pre-show intro that this was his ode to Spielberg-era kid-horror films like The Goonies and Poltergeist, it’s clear that’s the note he’s striving for from the opening frame. Unfortunately, he’s also clearly interested in doing his version of a Spielberg-era kid-horror film, and like last year’s Super 8, pale imitations – however well intentioned – are no substitute for the real thing.