Tag: 2022

Directed by Bradley Steele Harding [Other horror films: N/A]

I really wanted to like this one. The opening was quite interesting, and struck me as promising, so I went into this movie hoping – really hoping – that it could work out.

Regrettably, I just don’t know if the idea here was executed that well.

No doubt, the base story here is quite interesting – a somewhat reclusive young woman, following the death of her aunt, finds old records of scary stories (think modern-day podcasts, like the No Sleep Podcast, only on records) and soon discovers herself in a dark and scary world. Sort of.

Part of my issue, and perhaps my biggest issue, is that I’m not quite sure what’s happening in the film. When a movie is subjective (technically, I know, you could argue any movie is partially subjective, but that’s not the point here) in terms of the events – such as having events that could be explained either by supernatural events or mental breakdowns – I lean toward mental problems, as I don’t have much truck with the supernatural.

There is a conclusion here that tries to explain things, but I’m not sure if I got it. It’s not clear to me, for instance, how much of the events of the film were supernatural-based or mental instability-based. I’m likely not explaining this well, but I guess I just have a difficult time understanding what exactly happened in this movie, insofar as the central character’s reality is concerned (and not the possibly confused experiences of the said character).

I liked the records of scary stories here, but I didn’t always get how much the main character experienced them. Again, that might not be phrased correctly, and so I’ll go into as much detail as possible.

The movie sometimes did a thing where the main character Agatha was doing something, such as going into a spooky house in the neighborhood, or defending herself from an aggressive lover. During those sequences, there would be one of these scary stories overlaying the scene. It wasn’t playing in the real world – it was purely for the audience (to my understanding). What I’m not sure about is whether or not Agatha had listened to these stories previously, and was relating that to the situation she was facing presently.

I have no idea if that’s nit-picky, or if that confusion is even coherently stated, but it’s just another element that I had a difficult time getting my head around. I didn’t really understand the finale entirely. I mean, I got parts of it, but then bodies were possibly raised from the dead (or was it just a hallucination?), and I just lost the thread of things. I hate to harp on this, but I just don’t know what was actually happening here.

There’s a sequence in which Agatha’s going through a house (it’s not clear to me why she was doing this, on a side-note), and finds heroin, which is somehow related to the death of her aunt? And there was an old woman in the house – the story that’s playing while this is going on describes her as a witch, if I recall, and she might be? Maybe? I just don’t know. Maybe someone can make sense of this, and perhaps the fault is all mine, but I had a difficult time understanding the connections and the story here.

Despite my personal issues with the plot, I’m done going after it, because despite my problems, I did appreciate the ambitious ideas that this independent movie was tackling. It was filmed in Dallas, Texas, and the locations looked quite nice. The budget was low, sure, but the movie looked decent.

On a really random side-note, I noticed in the ‘Thank You’ portion of the credits, thanks were given to Anthony Brownrigg and Maegan Brownrigg. I don’t know who these two people are, but a part of me wonders if they’re related to the Brownrigg family – S.F. Brownrigg was a regional horror director (behind films such as Don’t Look in the Basement and Keep My Grave Open), and his son, Tony Brownrigg, is both an actor and director (and in fact, directed Don’t Look in the Basement 2). The ‘Anthony Brownrigg’ mentioned could actually be Tony Brownrigg; I have no idea, and this speculation may be meaningless, but I found it interesting and worth noting.

Though I didn’t understand her character, I thought Bridie Marie Corbett was solid as the lead. I’d have liked to understand her character more than I did, but hey, she wore nice skeleton gloves. And honestly, she’s the only important performance. Van Quattro (Silent Night, Deadly Night 5: The Toy Maker) had a couple of scenes, and his character was decent, and both Lara Clapp Williams (Amityville Cult) and Daniel Frank (Anna 2) have their moments, but it’s mostly focused around Corbett’s character.

The film does open, though, with a poem recited by Udo Kier. Kier’s been in a lot of things – from Feardotcom and Shadow of the Vampire to Mark of the Devil and Flesh for Frankenstein. I know the German actor best, though, as the voice of Professor Pericles, a character in Scooby-Doo! Mystery Incorporated (one of the best renditions of the franchise, in my view), and hearing Pericles reciting a poem to open the film was pretty fun.

As far as the special effects go, while there weren’t a ton in the film, when they popped up, they were decent. Someone was stabbed in the eye, another stabbed in the gut. Nothing too much insofar as gore goes, and what probably works better is the atmosphere of the film.

Like I said early on, I went into 13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black with the hopes that it’d come out a well-executed film, and I don’t think it quite made it. I think it’s a really interesting movie, and I would like more people to see it, if only so I could discuss it with others, but it’s not a movie I can honestly say I enjoyed once the credits started rolling. For some audiences, I suspect the movie would work, but at least with one watch, it didn’t do much for me aside from disappoint me.

That said, it is a movie I’d be willing to give another shot to, and if that ever happens, perhaps my somewhat negative views on this movie would change. Certainly I can always hope, as for now, it’s clearly a below-average film.

5.5/10

Directed by Karen Lam [Other horror films: Evangeline (2013), 7 from Etheria (2017), Shevenge (2019, segment ‘Doll Parts’), The Curse of Willow Song (2020)]

Being the first horror film I’ve seen from 2022, Bring It On: Cheer or Die had a lot to live up to, and while this Syfy original has some problems, I can’t say that I didn’t have fun.

In part, likely a large part, I imagine this has to do with the film being a slasher. Syfy have made some decent originals before, such as Killer High, Neverknock, and They Found Hell, but I can’t think of many original slashers of theirs, and luckily, this one was decent.

To be fair, I don’t think they stuck the landing (see, I tried to use cheerleading terms and nailed it, amiright?), and the finale isn’t great. The identity of the killer, and the reason behind the killing, struck me as a bit ridiculous (and by ‘a bit,’ I actually mean ‘a lot’).

Also, some of the humor, such as the Cheer or Die portion (basically, the insane killer revealed themselves, and is now forcing those still alive to perform cheer moves; if they mess up, they die), or how sometimes by performing a cheer move, someone can dodge being struck by an arrow, but it’s overall not as bad as you might think.

I should now mention that I don’t know a thing about Bring It On, which is apparently a cheerleading movie series that started in 2000. I have no idea if this is supposed to be a spin-off, or completely unrelated, but to be honest, as I will never watch a Bring It On movie in my life, I doubt it matters. It’s certainly an interesting use of an idea that some people already know – to be honest, I’ve possibly never once thought about cheerleaders in the last ten years, so this was different.

Also, it’s modern, and by modern, I mean I feel like an old fogey watching it. There’s one scene in which it shows people on their phones, and the texts they’re writing pop up on the screen (like Non-Stop, an action movie I saw once). It only happens once, but reeks of the modern age. There was a joke made about eggplants and tacos – I still use a flip phone, but I was able to follow along with the intended joke well enough.

Like I said, not all the humor hits.

When it comes to performances, I was expecting a little more from Gino Anania and Samuel Braun, but that’s more where the story takes them. I don’t think that Makena Zimmerman’s character was fleshed out that well, and Tiera Skovbye (Summer of 84, Forever 16, Even Lambs Have Teeth) didn’t appear as much as I was hoping.

Even so, much of the central cast of nine is good – Kerri Medders, Alexandra Beaton, Alten Wilmot, Sierra Holder, Rudy Borgonia, Sam Robert Muik, Marlowe Zimmerman, Madison MacIsaac, and Erika Prevost mostly all brought something to the movie. Not all were necessarily memorable – Erika Prevost, Marlowe Zimmerman, and Rudy Borgonia didn’t get a lot of good characterization – but all were at least manageable.

I do think Kerri Medders (Do Not Reply) made for a solid lead. She wasn’t notable insofar as personality goes, but she did well as the main character. For comedic relief, Alten Wilmot was great – his line ‘Oh my God, were the chains on sale?’ cracked me up quite a bit – and I did dig his character. I wasn’t moved by Sierra Holder at first, but then she had a scene with Alexandra Beaton that I thought was awkwardly cute.

See, Beaton’s character finds a notebook with a list in it of the nine characters – not by name, but by stereotype (stoner, slut, jock, badass, klutzy nerd, ditz, sexy blonde, basic bitch, and final girl). Beaton, who sprained her ankle early on in the film, was complaining to Holder that she didn’t find it fair to be labeled the ‘klutzy nerd,’ to which Holder replies, ‘Well, you could be the sexy blonde.’ It wasn’t clear to me if this was intentional flirting or not (as it turns out, it was), but I found it awkwardly cute, and I shipped it immediately.

Sam Robert Muik (A.M.I.) only got one scene to really shine; being a stoner doesn’t usually grant much in the way of staying power in horror movies, unless you’re in The Cabin in the Woods. Even so, he was fun for his moments on air. Lastly, Madison MacIsaac did pretty well as a ditzy blonde. At times, she felt a bit too airheaded, but she was still reasonably fun.

And actually, maybe she wasn’t too airheaded. I remember, back in high school, a teacher was discussing nuclear power plants, and there was a girl in my class who was confused about how plants could be dangerous. She was thinking about plants that grow in the ground, as opposed to power plants. It’s small moments like that which lend credibility to some silly airheaded moments MacIsaac’s character has on-screen.

Unfortunately for a slasher, none of the kills were particularly good. That can’t be a big surprise, given this is a Syfy original and, as such, made-for-TV, but even so, it’s a disappointment. Someone got suffocated with a pom pom, another got their head bashed in, someone else took an ax to the back, but nothing here is at all gory. Also, while the killer’s design is okay – simply the mascot of the school these girls are cheering for – it’s nothing that really stands out much.

Bring It On: Cheer or Die isn’t a good movie, but I can’t say that I didn’t have a decent amount of fun with it. The finale doesn’t do the rest of the film justice, and I could have done without a couple of the sillier moments, but honestly, I had an okay time with this one, and could easily see myself giving it another watch, if only because some of the characters and dialogue were solid. Below average, sure, but not a bad time at all.

6.5/10

Directed by Shawn Wright [Other horror films: N/A]

While a rather simplistic movie in many ways, Night of the Axe is an indie slasher that made me a happy lad, and what it might lack for in budget and special effects, it makes up for in heart.

In the vein of independent slashers such as You’re Not Getting Out Alive and Don’t Go to the Reunion, and even non-slashers like Vampire Ticks from Outer Space, Night of the Axe is a very simple movie. It’s a short one too, running at just over an hour. The special effects are minimal, the story is somewhat thin, and the performances are so-and-so. It’s not a movie for those who haven’t delved into independent horror, but if you have, it can be a rather fun time.

Sure, the performances can be shaky, but that’s just how independent films be. Honestly, most of the cast did fine. We never really learned much about the characters, but they could be reasonably fun, but that may be because half the characters were stoners, and I appreciate that lifestyle. Shawn Mongold had some quality vibes to him, Justin Sisk had a good, straight man feel to him, and Angel Nichole Bradford brings some of that flesh to the table. Others that are worth a mention include Amanda Megan, Tony Giannott, Gary Carper, Lera Savannah, Kaci Frick, and Nate Nelson.

Given the film is about a hulking escaped mental patient with an axe, there is some gore here, the best of which may be early on when someone’s arm gets lopped off. However, we also have someone’s brains burst from their head, another individual’s head gets stomped on, someone gets beaten with a hammer, and a simple, yet effective, axe to the face. Look, this is a low budget movie, so don’t expect any of these kills to look great, but I found that most were serviceable.

I also should mention that I enjoyed the synth music of the film. It felt like a retro throwback to the slashers of old, and I appreciated that. They even had a song during the end credits titled “Beast on the Loose” (performed by Black Phantom), which, while not great, reminded me of the theme-songs from Madman and My Bloody Valentine.

Oh, and the last sequence entirely cribs Halloween, which amused me.

It’s clear when you start this up that they knew exactly what type of movie they were making, and if you’re into indie horror, than I think you could have a good time with it. If indie horror’s not something you’ve had much experience with, though, I think it’s safe to say that this movie may not be for you. Personally, though, I found Night of the Axe quite fun.

7.5/10

Directed by Nick Gregorio [Other horror films: N/A]

I didn’t have much expectations going into Old Strangers. I liked the idea of the plot, and just went in hoping for the best. After seeing this, while I don’t think the film’s great, I definitely don’t think it’s that bad, either.

The plot is what pulled me toward this one – three friends meet up at a secluded cabin in a mountain town, and run across something “dark and terrible in the deep woods.” I had no idea where exactly the movie was going – it could have been some werewolf story, perhaps another monster of some kind. Maybe dangerous plants, maybe some alien parasites. Truth be told, “dark and terrible” does not a descriptive quality make.

Because of that vagueness, I feel I can’t touch too much on the actual details here. The good thing about that is Old Strangers is a short film – it runs for just an hour and two minutes – so if you want to figure out what that “dark and terrible” thing is, it won’t take too much of your time.

I can say, though, that there are minor elements of body horror here, a little bit of slasher, and a little bit of unknown organisms. We are given a clearer picture toward the end insofar as the nature of the evil is concerned, which was nice, but it’s also fair to say that given the film was quite short and limited in scope, it doesn’t quite have as much meat as one may like.

There’s no doubt, though, that the film looked quite nice. Truth be told, when I watch a lower-budget film on Tubi, I expect, well, lower-budget camera-work. That’s not the case here, as Old Strangers had rather solid cinematography. I was actually surprised by some of the shots and techniques (such as a timelapse, which looked rather nice) used here. There was even a sequence which showed a meteorite flying through space, which didn’t look amazing, but certainly felt ambitious.

Performances were also pretty good. My personal favorite was Ted Evans, as I liked his style, and he seemed a cool guy, but Madeleine Humphries made for a fair focal point. Colton Eschief Mastro didn’t get quite as much time to shine, but he was good with what he had, and director Nick Gregorio even popped up in a scene. I actually expected to see his character again toward the end, just to tie a few more things together, but as the man said when he looked into the used Monopoly game, “no dice.”

Like Last the Night, the movie is very much of the time period. These three friends are escaping the quarantine they’ve been under, and before getting together, all got tested, showing each other the results before removing their face masks. When they’re interacting with a police officer, their face masks stay on, only to be taken off once a character points out they’re standing six feet apart. There’s also references to Airbnb and Kanye West’s amusing 2020 presidential run. It’s a product of it’s time, and so feels fresh, while also keeping with a traditional sense of suspense and science-fiction fun in the latter half of the film.

There’s a lot to appreciate about Old Strangers, despite the lack of depth I’d have personally preferred. The movie looks damn nice, and while it was short, what with the performances, plot, cinematography, and honestly, many aspects, it stood out quite nicely. My one concern is that I feel it could have had a bit more to it, and because of that, won’t end up being that memorable, ultimately. Still, if you want an okay time, I don’t think checking this one out would be that poor an idea.

7/10

Directed by Michael Crum [Other horror films: Cypress Creek (2014), Anna (2017), Fall of Grace (2017), Lake Fear 3 (2018), Anna 2 (2019)]

To be frank, I was expecting far more from Mold than what I got.

Admittedly, that’s my fault. When I read about this movie on IMDb, I was sort of hoping for something like Splinter. I didn’t know that instead, it’d be a mix of body horror and monster movie, and unfortunately, neither of those sub-genres do much for me (especially the body horror aspect).

At first, though, things are okay. There’s some decent cinematography, interesting lighting at times, and some occasionally solid sequences. For instance, there’s a random softball scene that was solid (though it also didn’t tie into anything, as far as I could tell, and for a scene so dramatic, to not have it relate to anything else in the film, just felt bizarre beyond words).

Despite those positives, I couldn’t get into this past the first 25 minutes. Once the first mold monster pops up, I was outtie. See, there’s three main characters – one is sort of trapped in his apartment for a good portion of the film. The other two are trapped in another apartment. To add to the joy, these mold monsters (yes, there are multiple, and no, we never learn a thing about their origins) primarily hunt by hearing. They don’t seem to have sight, but they can hear with the best of them, so the characters don’t often speak.

And it was just awful. For large portions of the film, there was absolutely minimal dialogue, which, perhaps in better hands, could have been quite suspenseful, but personally speaking, I was bored out of my fucking mind. I was mentally gone by the end of this, and given that I thought the first twenty minutes really did have promise, it was a damn disappointment.

Oh, and along with large swaths being free of dialogue, the last two-thirds of the film had some dark scenes at times. It was sometimes hard to tell what was actually going on, and that didn’t do Mold any wonders either.

I don’t have much to say about the cast. My favorite character was played by R. Steven Blake – this guy didn’t get much screen-time, which is a tragedy, as his stereotypical gay persona was a lot of fun. Honestly, he was the one fun thing in the film, and he appears the least, which was #disappoint. Leads Gerald Crum (Anna, The Ouija Experiment 2: Theatre of Death, Blood Vow) and Shanon Snedden (Cypress Creek) did very little for me, though I thought they had potential, and I never cared for Harmini’s character. Harmini, on a side-note, seems to be a rapper from Texas, so if you’re curious as to why he just has the one name, well, there you go.

One thing I will admit to appreciating, aside from the few aspects I listed above, is that a public domain movie appears here, and it’s not Night of the Living Dead, which was a nice surprise. Instead, we get some action from The Screaming Skull, which is a movie that I swear I’ve seen around three times, but I’m not positive I’ve ever gotten through it without falling asleep. Still, it was nice to see a random public domain film like that utilized as opposed to more popular options.

More than anything, Mold was just tedious to get through. The large portions with minimal dialogue were tough to watch and keep focus on, and honestly, I just feel really disappointed about this one. It had promise, but it couldn’t do anything with it, at least in my opinion.

4/10

Directed by Christopher Leto [Other horror films: If I Can’t Have You… (2010), The Housewife Slasher (2012), Die Die Delta Pi (2013), Rough Cut (2013), Theatre of the Deranged II (2013, segment ‘My Aunt is Coming to Town’), Crazy Lake (2016), Sammy Slick: Vampire Slayer (2023), Psycho Science (2024)]

I was careful to approach this one with mild expectations. From the first time I saw the title, I wanted to give this one a go, but I also knew that the chances it’d be a good movie were somewhat slim. Luckily, though, my hesitation wasn’t borne out, and while The Cheerleader Sleepover Slaughter certainly had some flaws, I thought it was a decently fun movie.

For a lower-budget independent film, I thought the production value looked quite nice. It reminded me a bit of Truth or Double Dare (TODD), albeit with quite a bit more feeling. This was apparently filmed in Florida (in New Port Richey and Oldsmar, specifically), which was fun. While I was watching it, I got the sense it was a coastal community, but I was thinking the Northeast, perhaps in Maine or Massachusetts, so I was half right.

To be fair to those who didn’t care for this one, it is true that there’s some obvious padding here. Given the total length of the movie is just an hour and two minutes, it’s not like they padded the hell out of it, but there were two scenes which definitely could have been cut down – we see the cheer squad performing their moves during a game, which is something like a two-and-a-half minute sequence, and we also get two minutes of a ‘twerk off.’ Certainly I can imagine worse ways to spend time, but even so, that sequence didn’t just look ridiculous, but also felt longer than necessary.

It’s also true that the movie doesn’t really reinvent anything. There’s nothing new or innovative here. I did appreciate the opening titles of the film – it’s designed as though the cast and crew were in a yearbook, so that was cute – but everything here’s been done before. The kills weren’t great, the finale was just so-so, and given the film’s so short, it’s not like we got a whole lot of understanding on the characters we had.

And boy, were there characters.

I’m not great with faces. If I don’t know the actor or actress, I’m screwed, and so I often keep a handwritten list of the characters and, if possible, any attributes I can link to them (for instance, black wavy hair, or straight bleach blonde hair). It’s quite useful when watching slasher films that can have 8+ different people who, to me, all look quite similar.

Here, we have Lisa (Indica Jane), Summer (Mikayla Kane), Ali (Vera Marlowe), Renee (Sydney Spaulding), Kelly (Aja Toombs), Brandy (Sydni O’Nan), Marcy (Sushii Xhyvette Holder), Kayla (Michelle Jones), and Lori (Taylor Herd), and for the guys, we had Jason (Jayden Leto), Joe (Collin O’Neill), and Bo (Beux Leto). True, the film did start out with a cheerleader roll call, with each of them calling out their names, but it still took a while to fully separate some of these characters.

On that note, it’s hard to say that there was any one stand-out performance. I really did like Jayden Leto here; I found his character fun, not to mention sassy. Taylor Herd made for a decent focus, though I’d have preferred if a bit more of her character had been delved into. The others all did well (though I think that Aja Toombs did have one bad piece of dialogue), but I don’t think any of them made a giant impression.

Oh, another thing I felt may be worth mentioning. While there’s not a ton of nudity in this film, there are a couple of spicy portions that may be of interest to the lads out there, not to mention the ladies who lean toward the ladies. I’ve largely felt I’ve grown past the point where I point out nudity in a film, but in this case, should that be something you look forward to in a movie with both “Cheerleader” and “Sleepover” in the title, you probably won’t be disappointed.

Here’s another thing that I learned throughout the course of writing this review: there’s a piece of dialogue toward the finale that rang a bell to me, dealing with murders at a sorority house. The dialogue was quite specific, and I was sure it was a reference to something. After looking through Christopher Leto’s other films, I noticed that he was one of the directors behind Die Die Delta Pi, a movie which I saw back in 2017. This movie appears to be a loose sequel. To be sure, if you’ve not seen Die Die Delta Pi, I can’t imagine you’d dislike this film any more, but it does give a piece of added context, and I’m at least glad I have vague memories of the film.

Certainly there have been better independent slasher films. One that I always have to mention is Don’t Go to the Reunion, which I found great. Still, The Cheerleader Sleepover Slasher had a lot of charm to it, and despite the padding and lack of interesting kills, I had a decent time with this one. It’s nothing mind-blowing, but if you enjoyed Bring It On: Cheer or Die, then I think this would work for you also.

7/10

Directed by Steven C. Miller [Other horror films: Automaton Transfusion (2006), Scream of the Banshee (2011), Under the Bed (2012), Silent Night (2012)]

The trailer for Margaux seemed interesting to me, and despite the fact that the film had some lukewarm-to-negative reaction, I thought I’d check it out. As it is, while Margaux’s not a terrible movie, I don’t really know if there’s much to it.

Certainly the idea of being trapped in a smart house with murderous intent has potential. The problem is, this isn’t just a typical smart house (and while I say ‘typical,’ I’m speaking only from what I’ve gleaned from movies, as I myself have never been in a smart house, nor do I know if they’re even actually real to a large extent), it’s also a 3D printer with nanotech liquid, meaning that it can create pretty much anything from scratch. At one point, it even creates some clones.

For perhaps an hour and ten minutes, we’re given a somewhat uninspired but perfectly serviceable film, and then in the final thirty minutes, things, in my view, go off the rails. It’s true that I didn’t care for the tentacles that the smart house uses to shave people, or mix drinks with, but it gets worse, as clones are created to fight against the smart house, and more clones appear, and there’s even a twist (which anyone who’s seen Halloween III: Season of the Witch could have expected) dealing with a clone. It just started to feel totes ridiculous, brahs.

I don’t lay any of the fault onto the performances. As the lead, Madison Pettis was perfectly solid, and a decently likable character. Likable also was Jedidiah Goodacre (Marry F*** Kill, The Recall), who had a Remember-the-Titans Sunshine look going for him. We never got a great hang on Phoebe Miu or Jordan Buhat, and Vanessa Morgan’s social influencer personality was a bit much, but it comes with the new-age territory. Stoner stereotype Richard Harmon (Grave Encounters 2, I Still See You, The Return, The Clinic) was pretty fun, at least.

Performances aside, though, I just don’t know how memorable Margaux is. None of the kills were that great – you had someone get suffocated, another electrocuted, someone drank down acid. True, a man’s head was squeezed until it popped in the opening scene, but past that, there’s not much here to write home about. We also never really learned about how Margaux’s programming got altered. Maybe AI can just uproot themselves from programming – perhaps that’s the point – but I was hoping for something more.

Like I said, Margaux isn’t an awful film. However, I can definitely understand many of the lukewarm things I’ve heard about it, and though the production value is no doubt high, and the movie looks beautiful much of the time, I can’t say it’s anywhere near a great film.

6/10

Directed by Matt Leal [Other horror films: Hacked (2020), Tales from the Grave: The Movie (2020, segment ‘What We Leave Behind’), Hacked 2 (2022)]

After reading the plot of this one and getting a feel for the characters, I really wanted to come out of it with the ability to recommend it to anyone. Unfortunately, while aspects of ShadowMarsh are decent, I can’t say that I’m not largely disappointed with this one, as much as that does sadden me to admit.

What I think the film really nails are the characters – there’s a young woman (Ellen Woomer) and her uncle (Mike Ferguson) moving back to a small town, in which the uncle reconnects with his friend the sheriff (Lew Temple), and the young woman reconnects with her friends (Corrinne Mica and Shani Drake), a lesbian couple. One of these women is the daughter of a mayor (Dave Sheridan) running for re-election, to add a little more flavor to the mix.

There’s not a ton of characters in the film, as you can see, but the characters they have are pretty fleshed out. True, Sheridan’s mayor is somewhat of a one-note character, at least up to a point (his prime concern is his re-election campaign, which he takes very seriously), but there’s some conversations between Ferguson and Temple that were quite touching, and Ferguson’s character also has an argument with Woomer’s character that hits some good notes also.

If the movie were a drama about trying to readjust to small town life and an old hometown, I think ShadowMarsh really could have worked. Where the movie really lets me down, though, are the horror and mystery aspects.

With the horror, it’s pretty clear to me that they did what they could. There’s a “demon of the dirt” that pops up for perhaps five seconds total of screen time throughout the whole film, and we never get a particularly good look at it. Most of the kills just show a splash of blood hitting trees. That type of thing happens at least four times throughout the film. We do see a body or two after death, and one is pretty gruesome, but insofar as the horror goes, it really struck me as weak.

That didn’t need to be a negative, though; if they had a bit more meat regarding the mystery of the small town, the mysterious killings by the demon, and the cult that summoned it, not to mention more about the many missing reports in the Forest Department, then any lack of explicit horror could have been excused. If we got a legit small town cult mystery, complete with some history of the town and cult thrown in, perhaps things wouldn’t feel so shallow. Aside from a few pieces either hinted at or shown toward the end, we don’t really get that type of thing, though.

Oh, and this may be a small thing, but there were a few scenes that seemed to be going for a light-hearted tone. The opening of the film, in fact, has an almost comedic scene with a cult. What’s odd about that is ShadowMarsh isn’t by any stretch a comedic movie – most of it is pretty dramatic, including the rather somber (if not disappointing) finale, and the scenes which veered toward humor just felt out-of-place tonally to me.

Little of this is the fault of the performances. Ellen Woomer does well as the lead, dealing with being uprooted from her life in Michigan and the death of her mother. Mike Ferguson (Amityville Uprising, Devilreaux, Amityville Hex, Moon of the Blood Beast) is strong as an uncle with a criminal history, and his friendship with the sheriff, played by Lew Temple (Halloween, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning, The Devil’s Rejects) is among my favorite parts of the film.

I suspect more probably could have been done with Shani Drake and Corrinne Mica (Evil Everywhere), but in their limited roles, I think both were fine. Dave Sheridan (Blood Craft, The Special, Victor Crowley, Scary Movie) was mostly a one-note character, but got a hint of depth toward the finale, and Felissa Rose (mostly known for Sleepaway Camp, though has been in tons of horror films, many of them with Dave Sheridan) pops up too, though I don’t think she adds much.

Naturally, I was disappointed with this one. The finale had potential, and as I said, it was dramatic, but it also felt largely inconclusive. The horror aspects especially felt light, as blood splatter hitting trees was 95% of what they had going on. Certainly the highlights were the characters and potentially the atmosphere, along with the setting. I’m not sure where this was filmed, but I did think that the town and nearby forest looked good.

Overall, though, ShadowMarsh was indeed a disappointment. I don’t think it’s an awful movie, and certainly I believe that the film had some good potential, but I don’t think it got there. There are definitely worse things that someone could be watching, but that said, I believe this is a movie I’ll not soon be recommending to anyone.

5.5/10

Directed by Jacob Estes [Other horror films: Don’t Let Go (2019)]

I’m not entirely sure what to make out of this one.

Very much a home-made movie, He’s Watching deals with two siblings (Iris Serena Estes and Lucas Steel Estes) who are home alone while their parents are in the hospital with a mysterious illness, and find themselves dealing with something beyond their control.

This illness I referenced isn’t COVID, but I did, at first, think that’s where this one was going. While out and about, Iris and Lucas see very few people – the streets seem empty, and they’re wearing facemasks. I don’t believe the credits listed the filming location, but I would suspect Los Angeles, which certainly makes sense given their lockdown during the time.

Here, though, the illness seems to be primarily a danger to adults – hospitals are overwhelmed, there’s little movement outside, and when Iris and Lucas are trying to get some help, they’re unable to find any adults able to do so.

He’s Watching isn’t really about the illness, though – it’s about the two young siblings getting on each other’s nerves and trying to contend with some malevolent entity around their house. What with odd video clips being sent to them, or messages left for them, and what may be some occasional possession, they certainly have a lot on their shoulders at their age.

This movie’s quite bizarre. It feels like a low-budget movie in the vein of Clownz R Us or Loon, but it’s not like Jacob Estes, the director, had to go this route. He directed a 2019 horror film called Don’t Let Go with has a 6.4/10 on IMDb with around 12,000 votes (a movie, I should say, that completely got past me), a 2004 crime/drama film called Mean Creek that has a 7.2/10 with over 33,000 votes, and a 2011 dark comedy starring Tobey fucking Maguire called The Details. I can’t say I’ve heard the name Jacob Estes before today, but he’s definitely not a no-one.

I imagine He’s Watching is largely a family project. The characters Iris and and Lucas are played by, you guessed it, Iris Serena Estes and Lucas Steel Estes. The film has a rather experimental feel going on – while I’d hesitate to label it avant-garde, or even disjointed, there’s definitely a lot left up to interpretation, especially toward the finale.

There are some creepy scenes here and there, along with some uncomfortable scenes, made all the worse by us never really finding out what’s going on. I was even reminded of Desolation Wilderness, though this movie isn’t quite that extreme. Still, portions of the film were wholly experimental, and while I imagine that could turn some off, I thought there was a charm to it.

I also wanted to mention that I appreciated many of the techniques used here. I’ve said many times before that I’m not a behind-the-scenes guy, and I’ve never made a movie, so I don’t have the vocabulary to describe the techniques utilized in the film, but I can say that for a film of this style, I thought some rather creative shots were taken, and though the story feels more like a fever dream than a well-thought out plot at times, I was still impressed.

Naturally, I have no idea how old either Iris Serena Estes or Lucas Steel Estes are, but both did quite a decent job. I was somewhat amused by the fact that Lucas was always able to decipher the hidden messages in the mess of random objects left around the house, as though he’s some entity specialist, but given that these two are actually siblings, I thought they felt quite authentic.

He’s Watching was a far more involved film than I was expecting. While I immediately compared this to Clownz R Us in my mind, there’s really not that many similarities. I don’t think this movie is that great, but I do think it was plenty ambitious, and I can appreciate that in this case. I also found the credits oddly creative, and some of the sequences (especially the narrated dream sequences of Iris) quite captivating.

Honestly, this was a deeper movie than I expected. I don’t think it was good, and I can certainly understand some of the negative reception it’s gotten, but I also have to fully admit to finding the experience fascinating. Whether I liked it or not is entirely up for grabs, but I can easily see myself giving this another go in the future, and that has to mean something.

For now, I’ll give this one a below-average rating, but I don’t think it’s near as awful as some people are suggesting.

6/10