Photo: Christos Kalohoridis

While I had to miss opening night of Night of the Living Dead Live — damn you, Dark Prince Bunnykins! — the theatrical version of the classic zombie film, put on by the fine folks of Hamilton, Ontario’s Nictophobia Films at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille, looks to be a fun (and funny) take on George Romero’s debut feature. The DLB spoke to co-writer/director Chris Bond, the man behind Evil Dead: The Musical, and executive producer Phil Pattison about resurrecting NotLD on stage.

Why get involved?

Christopher Bond: Chance to work with George Romero, pretty amazing if you’re a horror nerd like me. Also I felt that, we’re talking about zombies and zombies are so mainstream, everyone’s loving up zombies. I just came up with a film myself, A Little Bit Zombie, I wrote that with Trevor Martin who’s in the cast and who co-wrote this with me. It was cool because back in 1968 there was so much social unrest, and sexism, and racism, and so much stuff happening, the kind of things that get overlooked in today’s zombie apocalypse.

George Romero, John Russo, and Russ Streiner are executive producers. What has their actual involvement been?

CB: A lot of just checking out what we’ve been doing, reading the script, just basically going “we’re comfortable with this,” “what do you think about that?” George has been really supportive; he likes what we’re doing. John and Russ have been even more hands on, they’ve showed up at a few rehearsals and they really like our work. So they’ve been good, they’ve been great. We’ve taken what they’ve given us when they say “Hey, here’s some ideas,” and they’ve been really solid. But I think they trust us, we have that Evil Dead pedigree behind us and people think we know what we’re doing, and I feel we do. They’re comfortable, we’re comfortable, and we’re making magic.

When was the decision made to make this a comedy take rather than just a straight horror take? Why was that decision made?

Phil Pattison: Well, Chris Harrison and I first wrote the first draft of the play. Now we’re filmmakers, so we went into it with the filmmaker writing mode. Then when we presented it to Chris Bond our director, he said “this is a great script that will translate well on film, I don’t think it’s going to translate well on stage, this is what we have to do.” Horror and comedy are very visceral together, and I think Chris convinced us that we have to bring that comedic element into it. Of course Evil Dead: The Musical being as successful as it was, it worked very well as a comedy piece. Even though Evil Dead is more of a campy film and it worked well on stage that was kind of the challenge to bring Night of the Living Dead on stage in a comedic way, but Chris assured us that the writing was going to be, basically we handed the writing job over to Chris and his writing team, Trevor Martin and Dale Boyer, so they could bring us something that was stage presentable.

How do you feel about George Romero seeing your work?

PP: I am super excited. We had John and Russ down last week to one of our rehearsals, which was actually the first rehearsal we attended as producers, so we all kind of went in with fresh eyes together. That was a little bit nerve wracking because it’s the first time these guys, who enjoyed the script, but you never know what they’re going to say about the material being presented right in front of them. John and Russ were clapping louder than the producers, they were on the floor laughing harder than anybody, and as soon as that happened I knew that we were okay, I knew that George was going to love it. I that George is going to be a big fan of this, and any nervousness about him not liking it just went out the door that day.

What’s the level of gruesomeness for the show? Are you grateful that it’s kind of family friendly so that kids can go and see it as well?

PP: Well we wanted to make it a family experience because the whole zombie genre has taken over the last five to ten years. My little nephew who’s eight years old, he’s a really big fan of zombies and I really wanted to bring him to this. So I wanted to make sure that we could bring in a younger audience. Rebrand Night of the Living Dead for a new generation, and bring this material which pretty much started the whole zombie genre up to date. As far as the gore, everything’s in black and white, we don’t have any red blood, it’ll be black blood. I know when kids are watching movies and there’s red blood, for example Men in Black is a violent film, but it’s cartoon violence. Instead of red blood it’s green slime, and kids laugh at that. So that’s kind of what we want to do with this.

What were some of the more interesting challenges to staging this show?

PP: Making sure that we stayed true to the original content and being able to present it on stage, and because we have Christopher Bond from Evil Dead: The Musical we wanted to separate the two products. This is a completely new show, this is not Evil Dead: The Musical. Even though there’s a lot of alumni from that show, mainly Christopher Bond, and we have Mike “Nug” Nahrgang on our cast as well who was a key member of the original Evil Dead cast. We just wanted to make sure that we’ve separated the two. You’re getting a brand new show, a brand new exciting experience, and if you loved Evil Dead: The Musical you’re going to love this just as much, if not more.

How to do you feel about non-horror fans and regular theatre goers coming to see the show? Maybe winning a Dora at some point?

PP: Winning a Dora would be absolutely amazing. When we first started this project we wanted to expand the idea beyond the horror fan. We want people who love theatre to come out and enjoy it. We have such an amazing cast that they’re going to present the material to our horror fans and they’re going to love it, but also if you’re into theatre and live anything you’re going to love it as well. It’s going to feel like you’re watching a movie live on stage. It’s going to be the best 3D experience you’ve ever had.

Night of the Living Dead Live runs April 26 to May 19 at Toronto’s Theatre Passe Muraille (16 Ryerson Avenue). Go to www.nightofthelivingdeadlive.com for more information.

Those of you curious as to why posts on The DLB have been so infrequent in recent months, please meet the reason: The Dark Prince Bunnykins! The past several months have been taken up serving this little fledgling Monster Kid on hand and foot, as well as his beloved mother. I am planning to ramp up posting, when time (and sanity) allows.

The DLB had the chance to speak to The Last Exorcist Part II director Ed Gass-Donnelly last week in his hometown of Toronto about working with series star Ashley Bell, shooting in New Orleans, his vision for the franchise, and working with a low budget

First of all, tell me about New Orleans. Tell me about, obviously the typical thing is it’s a character in the movie, certainly Louisiana was very much a character in the first one, in terms of depression of Ashley’s character, Nell; talk about working there and New Orleans as a character in your film.

Well, the big thing for me is that you’ve got this girl in the first movie that has lived in such a repressed environment. Her father won’t even let her go to school and won’t let her listen to music that’s not Christian music, so I loved the idea of what would it be like for that girl to suddenly be…the movie starts with her sort of lost and feral in the woods, almost no memory of what happened, and then she gets put into a transitional home in New Orleans, so you go from like a cabin in the woods where you have no sense of culture, to suddenly being in the middle of Mardi Gras, and certainly what I love about horror movies is it a chance to explore bigger themes and ideas but in a very sort of pop culture environment, so to me this movie is sort of a metaphor for ultimately girls discovering their own voice and sexuality.

What’s the challenge of making a sequel to a successful film which, given that it’s low budget, I just talked to Jason Blum a producer who is doing Dark Skies which opens tomorrow and he was talking about how, “I can do big films but I wouldn’t have the freedom, where as if I am doing a 2 million dollar production in twenty days, I can give it to a director and say do what you want, you have the freedom to do that.” What are the challenges of having a franchise with maybe expectations, but at the same time the creativity of a low budget?

I mean the coolest thing on this project was I got to make a movie that really is entirely my film; it’s specific to me and it’s the movie I wanted to make, but from the get-go I knew it was going to open on two, three thousand screens, and that was the biggest bizarre of a shift. This movie was made with 5 million bucks, which is almost $4 million more than…Small Town was like $1.3 million, but once you actually start paying people a normal livable wage, paying union fees and blah, blah, blah, I felt like we had $1 million more to put up on screen than I did on Small Town, because on Small Town we basically paid people like nothing.

What was the mood like on set, given the seriousness of the material but given that you are doing take after take, blah, blah, blah?

Because we were focusing so much on the…we were trying to make a very elevated movie so we were trying to focus much more on the internal journey of the character. It felt like we were shooting a drama except when the weird shit started to happen, but I think there was really just a lot of comraderie, a lot of the sense that we were really trying to make something special. I think when people really bought into the fact that we weren’t just trying to do a quick cash-grab of a movie. We were actually trying to be bold and do something…It’s funny, I can’t imagine if I tried, if somebody’s writing this movie from scratch, there’s so much freedom because it’s a sequel in many ways because I was actually able to I think explore some themes and ideas that I don’t know if I could have gotten away with. We knew we were going to get a wide release, just by the fact that the first one was so successful. Of course the fear as the movie comes out on thousands of screens is of course if it doesn’t do as well or people don’t respond to it, but in the end all you can do is make the best movie. I tend to put blinders on and just not pay attention to that stuff because if the movie does great, if the movie doesn’t do great, there’s nothing I can do to control it at this point. I made the movie, I’m proud of the movie, obviously I want people to like it. I hope people will like it.

Where is Nell at the beginning of your movie?

At the very beginning of the movie we find her basically feral and lost in the woods with almost no memory of what happened. She is put into a hospital, has no memory, and then slowly transitions to a half-way house environment with some other girls with troubled pasts, and sort of like more of a transitional home for her to start developing some sort of…because all of her family members are dead and then slowly she just starts to find her own voice and starts discovering friends and embracing music and makeup and boys and this amazing world she had never been able to see, and then of course this presence starts to haunt her and again it becomes that you’re not sure if this is a figment of her imagination or memories or is it actually a darker force planning something bigger?

And what’s the relationship between Nell and the demon in this film, because there is obviously a certain amount of – in the promos I’ve seen – a seduction going on…seems like a possessive relationship.

Well that’s just it, I mean that’s why I say there’s a much bigger mythology. It was in her but now it’s fulfilling a much larger destiny and it was much more of a seduction then. You get a sense that essentially he even loves her and wants her and is trying to make her discover…at one point there’s a line, “Together we can do such wonderful, horrible things,” so it wants her and it wants to…ultimately it’s Vader reaching out to Luke saying, “Take my hand, embrace the dark side of the Force”.

Talk about working with Ashley Bell. What’s she good at?

She’s good at bending into a pretzel. I think she’s good at everything, honestly. She comes from a comedy background. She’s physically capable, she can both be extremely tough but also vulnerable and I just think what people will be really impressed by in this movie is just the very vulnerable and nuanced performance she gives. It’s actually really quite an authentic and emotional journey that she goes through. We really tried to keep it still very restrained. There was one day where she had to do four scenes in a row of…and I don’t usually find it dramatic or moving to see people actually cry, it’s usually like it’s more about seeing people on the brink of tears, because once you start crying that’s a release, whereas it’s the tension of not wanting to cry in front of somebody. So she’s going through so much, she’s trying to put on such a brave face. She did four of those scenes in a row and she was just emotionally battered by the end as an actress, but she was just so committed to delivering the best movie possible. She just was relentless.

Did you get any particular advice from producers Eric Newman or Eli Roth in particular? What was their guiding hand on this film, if at all?

It was always just being supportive and encouraging. I think they really bought into what my idea was and what it should be and it was really about just being supportive. That’s honestly the biggest…obviously you don’t want people always saying yes to you. You always want people challenging you, not telling you what to do but always questioning your ideas because then I don’t pretend that I shit brilliance. I think I have really good taste but at the same time there’s a process, that’s why it’s dangerous to make movies in a bubble. You want collaborators and that’s not to say that every idea that I get thrown I embrace, but it’s like out of every ten ideas if one of them is great that’s one more great idea you didn’t have ten minutes earlier so it’s really just about having…and frankly, if you get into challenges being able to call them back and be like, “Come on guys, I really need help getting this done” and really push to make this happen, they’ll be there.

Let me finish off with a couple things; were there any particular stylistic or cinematic touchstones you were using to either inform the colour palate of the film or the tenor of the film; obviously you mentioned seventies Polanski, that sort of thing?

The biggest thing was even the idea of restraint, the idea that less is more and we were trying to play with using master shots a bit more and holding back and letting the beats play out, and I think one of the things that you look at in a lot of seventies horror is putting in a sense of dread and tension, which sometimes can now be lost with the quick cutting gore or violence, but I really think there’s immense power in a wide-shot. A recent example where the limitations of their story forced them into this was Paranormal 3, because they were using those 1980s style cameras and they were limited to three POVs. In the contemporary ones you can basically have any camera angle you want and pretend that there’s a camera on the ceiling, there’s a camera here, and one of the best signature sequences in that movie is when the camera is on an oscillating fan, all playing out in one shot, and there’s…so I really wanted to play with that and use that, and not to be copying Paranormal 3, there’s nothing in the movie like that, but embracing that…which frankly, I did in my last movie, Small Town because I wanted a nostalgic approach to movie-making and we shot it on film. My DP is probably like that’s the last movie I will shoot on film, just because that’s where the industry has changed, but…I forget what the question was now…

Stylistic references, like films that you were referencing or works of art, either in terms of the script or plotting or the look of the film…

I think thematically, it was more the feel of movies like Rosemary’s Baby or The Tenant, and just the restraint…and again, there’s a lot of, the movie is pretty much either static or steady-cam, depending on the scenes and visually that kind of lends to The Shining, being sort of a bit of a reference behind that. But Brendan and I (and Brendan shot Small Town as well), we both have what we find beautiful is often very naturalistic and restrained and it’s all about trying to find elegance…it’s trying to be elegant, and even when it’s dark subject matter, that’s why, again, why I got the tattoo, is making it rich and beautiful and interesting as well as terrifying and frankly just cool. You want the audience to walk away jazzed to see a third one.

And finally what do you feel in a nutshell that you brought to the film in terms…what’s personal about this film for you? What did you bring to it that would say this is an Ed Gass-Donnelly film?

I think it’s that it’s really an internal journey of the character that is very specific to me and it feels very much of me, and that’s the stuff that I tend to be drawn to, just strong character-driven work. I love genre, I love action movies but the one’s that linger the most with me, other than things like Star Wars just because you grew up with that, but it’s just really strong character work that takes it to another level. It makes you care that much more about the consequences, care about the people involved. I really love that movie Ronin, like it has the greatest car chases, but also, I love the performances, I love that there’s mystery. I always say that when I approach things on a dramatic level, I try to treat them as emotional mysteries, rather than just character stories; discover who these people are, let there be mystery within that because I think human beings are fascinating things to discover and to structure a movie that way leads to good results.

The Last Exorcism Part II opens Friday, March 1.

The DLB recently spoke to Dark Skies producer Jason Blum about the alien abduction thriller about to hit theatres tomorrow. Blum is the name behind Blumhouse Productions, the production company behind low-budget horror successes like the first Paranormal Activity, Insidious, and Sinister. Amongst our topics: making scary movies on small budgets, working with director Scott Stewart (Priest, Legion), the next Paranormal Activity and Insidious films, as well as working with Rob Zombie on The Lords of Salem. Part 2 of our chat will be posted tomorrow.

How excited are you about the way Dark Skies turned out?

I’m really happy with it. It’s exactly the movie that Scott…Scott brought me the movie a year ago, pitched it at me, well not exactly but very close to what you saw. and I really like an emotional story, you know, character, emotional work and the family drama that is depicted in the movie and to have a family upset by this dark force and I’m really proud of the movie and I am really pleased at how it turned out. I wouldn’t be doing these calls if I felt differently, obviously.

And why did you want to make it?

I always look for the same things in the movies that we decide to do, which is, is there a great drama and is there a great story. I think unlike a lot of the other companies that make horror movies I really look at the story first and the scares second, and I actually think that makes the movies scarier. I think a lot of places say, well tell me the scares and then we’ll work the story out later, and I think that’s not super effective, and so that’s a long answer to your question, but Scott checked all the boxes with this movie. It’s exactly the kind of movie we’re looking for and I would continue to make. Obviously I don’t want to repeat ourselves, we want to excel. And I think the movie is very different than Sinister and Insidious but certainly just as scary.

Speaking of Scott, what is he really good at and why did you want to work with him?

I never met him before we started the movie so I could only look at his movies, and what I got from his movies relates to what I just said, is that I thought he was really good at directing actors, he’s gotten really good performances, and that’s what I was drawn to, and I think that he continued to get that. Both Josh [Hamilton] and Keri [Russell] have seen the finished film, they love it, they want to work again with Scott, and I don’t have to tell you this but that doesn’t happen too often. So that’s what I thought he was good at, and I’m not always right, but I was right about that and I was happy about it.

Speaking of Keri and Josh, why did you want to cast them, especially given that they don’t have backgrounds in horror films? Or is that an advantage?

To me that’s an advantage. I did theatre in New York but I was just starting out in my career. I had a company called Malaparte and Ethan Hart and Calista Flockheart and Steve Zahn and Robert Sean Leonard and Josh Hamilton, among a bunch of other people who were in the company and Ethan did Sinister and Ethan did a second film with me called The Purge and the casting of all of our movies, ultimately the directors have the final say, but I’ve encouraged them to cast actors who aren’t necessarily associated with horror. You can say that of Ethan, and you can certainly say that of Josh Hamilton and Keri, for that matter.

There are a lot of alien invasion films, a lot of alien abduction films, but to what extent do you think is Dark Skies scarier because it’s told on an intimate scale – it’s one family, as opposed to a more global invasion big-budget films like Battlefield Earth or Independence Day?

I don’t see this as an alien invasion movie at all. I know that may sound surprising after you saw it but an alien invasion movie implies exactly what you said, being a spectacle close-encounter, I see it as a family disrupted by a menacing force and to me, in Paranormal Activity you never see what the force is; in Sinister and Insidious you see it a bit more, but to me what the actual evil is, is much less interesting to me than what the evil causes. And that’s what I like about this movie, I don’t look at it like an alien invasion movie at all.

On that note though, how much discussion went into how much you would show the aliens and what they would look like, given that they are secondary as opposed to the effect upon the family itself?

Very little. I think less is more when you are showing evil forces, and again, I think the conversations were about who should be in the movie, who should play it, what problems they were facing and in all the films that our company works on, we don’t spend a lot of time thinking about the…we give a personality to the evil by not showing the evil. We can’t compete with the bigger movies on showing evil forces, we just…so I feel we get a lot more mileage out of not showing them and letting people imagine. Whatever you can imagine is way worse than whatever we have the ability to show, so I encourage filmmakers to let audiences imagine what’s bad as opposed to see it.

Dark Skies opens Feb. 22.

Heather (Alexandra Daddario) is menaced by Leatherface (Dan Yeager)

TEXAS CHAINSAW 3D

Starring Alexandra Daddario, Trey Songz, and Tania Raymonde

Directed by John Luessenhop

Written by Adam Marcus & Debra Sullivan and Kirsten Elms

VVS Films

Nearly 40 years after its release, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre is no longer “just” a horror classic. It is a brand, with the direct sequel Texas Chainsaw 3D, out today, just the latest iteration in a line of sequels, prequels, and remakes. The fact that this new Chainsaw manages to draw fresh blood makes it all the more impressive because, really, who thought this might actually be good?

Drayton Saywer (Bill Moseley, centre) defends his homestead.

Percy Jackson & The Olympians co-star Alexandra Daddario leaves behind the sterility of that tween franchise to play Heather, a young woman who inherits an estate in Texas from a grandmother (Marilyn Burns, original Chainsaw) she never knew. Together with some friends (including singer Trey Songz as her boyfriend Ryan), she travels down to Newt, Texas, and discovers something sinister going on in the town, not limited to who might be lurking behind the steel door in her new basement.

Texas Chainsaw (producers dropped “Massacre” from the title in the wake of the movie theatre shooting last summer in Aurora, Colorado) is a direct prequel to the original film, set years later. So, yes, we get an older Leatherface (played here by the mountainous Dan Yeager) and we get answers to what happened after the skin mask-wearing hulk let Sally (Burns) escape his clutches (told in an opening sequence that casts TCM 2 veteran Bill Moseley as Drayton “The Cook” Sawyer, filling in for the late Jim Siedow). But giving away more of the plot would spoil what modest surprises the film has in store.

Let us be clear: no, this film is not nearly as terrifying as the first TCM, although it does have its share of peril-induced frights. And, yes, it does think that gore (something its direct predecessor mostly eschewed) equals horror. It also falls prey to the modern diseases of casting impossibly pretty young actors (Daddario and her flat stomach included) and exhibiting stupid horror movie logic (albeit perhaps parodied here with a sequence in which a police officer explores the Sawyer place at the behest of his superior, despite our knowing that Leatherface is just around the corner). Even the 3D seems to exist merely to let the filmmakers throw a chainsaw at the audience.

Dan Yeager as Leatherface

But… all that said, TC 3D is fun. Producers pay due respect to the original, casting Burns, Moseley, John Dugan (Grandpa Sawyer in the original, reprising that role here) and even original Leatherface Gunnar Hansen in cameos. But, most importantly, they treat the franchise with respect, even managing to imbue it with a modicum of emotional resonance by giving Leatherface motivation. In this way, the overgrown, homicidal adolescent takes his place beside Frankenstein’s creature in a heaven populated by misunderstood monsters. And Daddario, as our final girl, exhibits much of the same pluck that carried Caroline Williams through to the end of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (1986).

While this film may have been made with more than the usual degree of cynical motives – i.e. to exploit a well-known title to maximize first weekend box office – the end result is a worthy addition to the franchise, and is far from the worst in the series. (I’m looking at you, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning.)

Indeed, Texas Chainsaw 3D makes the cut.

Rating: 3/5

The DLB recently spoke to director Quentin Tarantino for MSN Canada about his new movie DJANGO UNCHAINED. Perhaps surprisingly, the film — a Western — is featured on the cover of the latest issue of Fangoria. I reached out to Fango editor Chris Alexander to explain their choice:

“Tarantino has long been a friend of the magazine. Like me, like many of us, he grew up on FANGORIA and horror, cult and macabre exploitation filmmaking, it defined his language. Spaghetti westerns are of course part of that universe, stemming from the violent, operatic horror and thrillers coming out of Europe in the 1960′s. It was the dark, gothic, psychological Italian oaters that really pushed the envelope for splatter (remember that Argento’s first credit is as a co-writer on Leone’s ONCE UPON A TIME IN THE WEST) and that violence was reflected in horror. Peckinpah, Corbucci, Jodorowsky – all laid the groundwork for the explicit horrors of the 1970′s (what is Chainsaw Massacre if not a Western?). So when I heard QT – who ALWAYS uses western tropes in his films – was doing his own riff on Corbucci’s DJANGO crossed with a Blaxploitation film, I was interested…but only if we could get on set to scope it out. Sure enough the splatter was through the roof. Tarantino asked if he could write an essay on the history of violent westerns and how could I refuse? On top of that, one of our writers is dating QT and gave us what I think is the best damned interview with the filmmaker ever, totally relaxed and forthcoming. QT also sent us a pile of exclusive, excessively nasty photos including the one I fashioned for the cover, a violent shot that was actually cut from the film! At the end of the day, what we have in our humble mag is a vibrant masterclass in the making of what I think is the best film of 2012, of any genre.”

The latest issue of Fangoria is on newsstands and online. Django Unchained opens in theatres today.

CITADEL

Starring Aneurin Barnard, Wunmi Mosaku and James Cosmo

Written and directed by Ciaran Foy

Mongrel Media

With the DLB about to become a father himself, the Irish horror film Citadel (which was mostly filmed in Glasgow) – about a single father trying to protect his infant daughter against evil – hit home pretty hard, even if its foundation is not quite rock solid.

Aneurin Barnard stars as Tommy Cowley, a young father left to raise his infant daughter Emma alone when his pregnant wife is attacked by a gang of hooded thugs in their crumbling council estate high rise. She is left comatose and he is left a single father crippled by agoraphobia. Tommy is helped by a caring (and attractive) nurse (Mosaku), but an encounter with a volatile priest (Cosmo) leaves him fearing for his and Emma’s safety as the thugs – who may in fact not quite be human – return.

Barnard is utterly convincing as the fearful Tommy. Beyond the makeup that makes him look as though he has not slept in a year, Barnard radiates sheer terror but also evinces a steely strength as a poor young dad who will do anything to protect the only family he has left.

Writer-director Ciaran Foy, making his feature debut, is smart enough not to reveal too much too soon. The nature of the hooded creatures that attack Tommy remains mysterious until near the film’s end, and Foy drops enough strange visual cues (empty buses, deserted streets, half-glimpsed horrors) to evoke Adrian Lyne’s classic mindfuck film Jacob’s Ladder. Things get a bit silly at the end as Tommy and the priest face off against a high rise full of the feral things, with back story filled in a bit too quickly by the priest, but the end result is mostly horrifying.

With its near-apocalyptic vision suburban blight and a creeping sense of menace, Citadel is one of most dread-filled (and least dreadful) horror films of 2012.

Rating: 3.5/5

Citadel opens in Toronto at Yonge & Dundas, with more cities to follow.

SILENT HILL: REVELATION 3D

Starring Adelaide Clemens, Kit Harington and Sean Bean

Written and directed by Michael J. Bassett

Alliance

Having been on the Silent Hill: Revelation 3D set, I can tell you that the people who made it were committed, enthusiastic, and looking forward to taking the legacy of the first Silent Hill film, as well as that of the video games upon which the franchise is based, and moving them forward with the sequel.

Unfortunately, they failed.

Revelation is, quite simply, a mess. The set-up, taken from the Silent Hill 3 video game has potential: Sharon (Clemens), now on the cusp of her 18^th birthday, has spent her adolescence moving from city to city with her father Mason (Bean). They have been running from the forces of Silent Hill, about which Sharon has been having nightmares. Installed at a new school, Sharon tries to remain incognito but attracts the attention of another newbie Vincent (Harington: Game of Thrones).

Soon enough, Harry has been kidnapped by The Order, the religious faction that rules Silent Hill, and Sharon and Vincent follow him into the shadowy netherworld to rescue him. Along the way, they encounter all manner of strange creatures – yes, including Pyramid Head and the nurses – as well as Alessa, the ostensible source of Silent Hill’s horror.

To say more would be to ruin the surprises but would also be difficult, so circuitous is the film’s plot. Writer/director Michael J. Bassett has attempted to connect the first film to the video game, but his script is so convoluted that keeping track of what is going on is nearly impossible. Cameos by first film stars Radha Mitchell and Deborah Kara Unger are throwaway at best; shoehorned into the action to please fans but with little in the way of narrative importance.

Having quickly scanned a Silent Hill game wiki, it appears that fans of the games may have an easier time of it, as Bassett has invoked many of the characters, creatures and devices from that world, although, gamers being gamers, we can only imagine the complaints they will have about this adaptation.

Gaming aside, Revelation is – bottom line – a Silent Hill sequel made by filmmakers with as much passion but less money, less imagination, and fewer resources than their predecessors.

Rating: 2.5/5

PARANORMAL ACTIVITY 4

Starring Kathryn Newton, Matt Shively and Katie Featherston

Directed by Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost

Written by Christopher Landon

Paramount

Rue Morgue Magazine received a lot of incredulous feedback when they published my review of the first Paranormal Activity film. I had written that it was the scariest filmgoing experience I had ever had; that was misinterpreted as “Paranormal Activity is the scariest movie ever made.”

It is true: the Paranormal Activity films are best experienced in a movie theatre, which is why Paramount uses night vision footage of screaming preview audiences to hype each new film.

So it will be interesting to see how audiences react to PA4. The guy to my left at last night’s screening was talking, checking his email and texting throughout, and said, “Thank God that’s over” at the end, while the four teen guys to my right were vocal about their enthusiasm for each set piece. (“Bitch got owned!” greeted the death of one character.)

The plot goes like this: five years after the events of the first film, Katie (Featherston), who killed her sister and brother-in-law in PA3 and kidnapped her nephew Hunter, has moved across the street from 15-year-old Alex (Newton) and her family. Katie’s strange young son (?) Robbie (Brady Allen) moves in temporarily with Alex’s family after Katie is apparently taken away in an ambulance. Strangely formal and just plain odd, Robbie bonds with Alex’s six-year-old brother Wyatt (Aiden Lovekamp). The activity begins (hint: look for Katie’s cat clock to gauge when), strange happenings happen at Katie’s house while she is allegedly hospitalized, and it all climaxes with some genuinely disturbing night vision visuals.

To say more would ruin the surprises directors Ariel Schulman & Henry Joost (PA3, Catfish) have in store. They do a reasonably good job of keeping the shocks and scares fresh, given that at this point in the series, most of us think we know what to expect. Yes, the found footage conceit gets stretched to its maximum, with Katie often toting around a laptop to show her boyfriend Ben (Shively) what is going on via webcam, but that is easy enough to overlook.

Funnier than any other PA film, PA4, as a film journalist acquaintance of mine remarked “answers as many questions [about the PA universe] as Prometheus does” about the Alien universe. That’s fair. The cult aspect introduced in PA3 gets some play, but not enough to answer any questions definitively. That means that PA5 is a certainty should this one make enough money this weekend.

Rating: 3/5

The Toronto After Dark Film Festival returns to the newly renovated Bloor Hot Docs Cinema this year, opening with two highly anticipated entries, the Irish horror comedy Grabbers, screening at 6:45, and The Soska Sisters’ blackly comic American Mary (as seen above).

As I’m about to head out the door to see Paranormal Activity 4 (review tomorrow), The DLB will have to cut and paste each summary:

GRABBERS

A small Irish fishing village on Erin Island has a big problem. Fishermen have disappeared, and dead whales are washing up on shore. As if that’s not enough to deal with, local policeman (and perpetually drunk) Ciaran has another problem… his newly arrived, by the books, partner Lisa.  It’s soon apparent that something monstrous and possibly alien is lurking just offshore, and with the help of the local village scientist they’ve discovered the creatures Achilles heel… a lethal allergy to alcohol. So obviously, the best way to survive the night and a full on giant alien squid invasion is to get the entire town righteously drunk!

The spirit of films like TREMORS is alive and well in the horror/sci-fi comedy GRABBERS. Take an age old Irish cliché, a village of quirky characters, a touch of romance, and some fantastic small budget special effects, and you have a raucously deadpan giant monster extravaganza. You’ll laugh all the way to last call, and maybe certain doom when the GRABBERS come to call.
- Steven Landry

AMERICAN MARY

Three years ago, female directing duo sensation Jen and Sylvia Soska made a bloody splash and created a lot of fans including Eli Roth with their grindhouse throwback debut, DEAD HOOKER IN A TRUNK. Now the Twisted Twins are back with their latest, AMERICAN MARY a stylish horror thriller that is taking the festival circuit by an even bigger storm!

After medical student Mary (GINGER SNAPS star Katherine Isabelle in a fearless standout performance) finds herself disillusioned with both the poverty of student life and chauvinistic treatment by her peers, she begins to look for an alternative lifestyle that might better reward her surgical skills. A chance encounter at a seedy nightclub opens the door to a lucrative but dangerous side career: performing extreme body modifications for private clients. But working in the shadowy underworld of illegal surgeries comes with unforeseen, horrifying, and yes…bloody consequences.

Don’t miss this exclusive chance to be the first in Canada to see AMERICAN MARY with the Soska sisters live and in person!
- Adam Lopez