Before I watched the trailer, based on the theatrical one-sheet featuring a ponytailed, plaid skirted schoolgirl—complete with ax and skull mask—I was expecting a (predictable) slash of Brian DePalma’s Carrie with a splash of John Carpenter’s Halloween. I figured: we have a non-psychic Carrie White as a tortured prep school student—with a love of Halloween and slasher pics—extracting a Michael Myers-styled slaughter. . . .

One Night in October is my first exposure to the work of writer-director Chris M. Carter. In addition to four shorts, he’s completed two direct-to-video features: The Sister (2012) and Road Trip (2013), as well as supporting his fellow filmmakers as a producer, crew member and actor—so it’s obvious he has a passion for the craft. And looking through the credits of all of those projects, it seems Carter works with a Woody Allen-vibe: he utilizes the same actors across all of his projects (who also work as screenwriters and crew in their own right); that creative-synergy is a good sign that you’re getting a solid production with this, his third direct-to-video feature.

And after watching and reviewing the Greek-made Wicca Book and the upcoming Argentinian A Night of Horror: Nightmare Radio, I’m in the right frame of mind to watch Carter’s twist on the anthology format. As with Wicca Book: One Night in October unfolds as three tales within a common thread, but the stories unfold as would a multiple-story arc of an hour-long television drama (i.e., cop solving crime, but has problems at home; the lawyer on the case has a tale to tell, etc.). As result, while an “anthology,” One Night in October flows as a single, semi-cohesive narrative. Each tale does not have a “title,” there’s no evil mailman, hitchhiker, or crypt keeper delivering the tales, and the “connection” is that the events happen on the same night-timeline. The fact the stories mysteriously unfold in bits n’ pieces—and not as three complete tales one at a time—is appreciated.

When I pulled up the trailer for One Night in October on You Tube, the first suggested watch was the trailer for Eli Roth’s remake of 1977’s Death Game, aka 2015’s Knock Knock—and that’s how the “timeline” opens: with a home invasion gone wrong—for the masked invaders. Their just-moved-in-and-loves-Halloween target (Jessica Morgan) turns out to be more violent than her attackers. And what’s up with that creepy neighbor that introduced her to the neighborhood? Say hello to Ms. Split Personality, creep. (Well played by Morgan: the acting highlight of the film. The most engaging “segment” of the three; there’s a feature film in this tale to be had.)

Across town, a group of devil-may-care Halloween-inebriated teens—the type who discover an errant skull with a blood red candle jammed in its skull amid the corn stalks, and don’t get the hell out there—decide to frolic through the cornfield anyway, even after a creepy farmer’s wife warns them. Here comes the supernatural, ax-wielding scarecrow—or is it? Damn, that dead battery! And no cell signals? Not again! Do they poke around the old barn and find a grimoire? Did they stumble into a coven?

Then there’s Emma’s twisted, symbiotic “one date every three months” relationship with Dominic that invites a holiday, skull-masked stalker into her life—who discovers what a real demon is. And Dominic learns that that love is a dish best served red, wet and cold.

And it all connects back to the foretold slaughter at the old farm amid the cornstalks. . . .

One Night in October is now available on DVD and VOD through Wild Eye Releasing. They’ve also made it available as a free-with-ads stream on TubiTv. You can learn more about the film on Facebook. You can also listen to a director’s commentary track about the production on Soundcloud.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR company and had no bearing on our review.

Good, bad, or indifferent, French filmmaker Jean Rouch, the father of cinèma vèritè (okay, one of) brought us here.

And American documentarian D.A Pennebaker applied that truthful eye to rock ‘n’ roll and gave us an inside look at the life of Bob Dylan in Don’t Look Back (1967). Then the Maysles Brothers upped the game with their chronicle of the Rolling Stones in Gimme Shelter (1970). And the format’s rock ‘n’ roll roots blossomed with Rob Reiner’s parody of the handheld-camera style and popularized the mockumentary format with This Is Spinal Tap (1984).

And, to the chagrin of his rattling bones, Jean Rouch’s style of surrealism became horror de rigueur courtesy of Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sànchez’s $60,000 dupe—The Blair Witch Project—about the disappearance of three student filmmakers. And while Blumhouse-Paramount brought horror-inspired cinèma vèritè to the mainstream with Paranormal Activity (2007), James Cullen Bressack technologically reinvented the format with For Jennifer (2018)—the first commercially-released film shot entirely on an iPhone 5.

Unlike many of the eh-not-bad-but-not-so-good found footage improvs marketed as a documentary—only to reveal another long-in-the-tooth mockumentary (e.g., 2017’s critically derided Helltown that was picked up by Travel TV)—Case 347 floats above the fray courtesy of its ABC Television Network pedigrees: Director Chris Wax made a successful transition from award-winning short filmmaker to directing several episodes of the ABC medical drama Black Box; Maya Stojan starred on ABC’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D and Castle. In with the welcomed assist on the casting front is the excellent-in-everything-he-does Richard Gilliland—who’s been in television since forever: you’ve seen him on Antenna TV’s ‘70s reruns of McMillan & Wife and, most recently, on Bravo’s Imposters. And the unknown, self-assured support cast sells their roles as “crazy” documentary subjects: they are far from being classified as “amateur” actors.

While Wax’s Case 347 is no Blair Witch, and no found footage flick in that film’s wake ever will be, his take on the genre—with extraterrestrials stepping in for the usual supernatural shenanigans—is an engaging, fresh take on the genre nonetheless. In Wax’s bizzaro-X Files world: Dr. Mia Jensen (Maya Strojan), instead of proving aliens exist, is out to prove they don’t exist and the “existence” is a mass psychosis—and she uncovers a terrifying secret about her own family.

It all starts with that ubiquitous “warning” (that we just roll with) that the raw footage we’re about to watch has not been tampered with or manipulated. Then we meet Mia in her present-state: as a drugged-up mental patient.

In flashback (in a tradition that dates to the writings of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle), her case file, “347,” is opened: We learn Mia set out with a two-man film crew to “search” for her father—who died mysteriously—amid the hoarded files in the paranoia-filled bunker of his New Mexico home. As clues found in her father’s files lead them to White Sands, the slow-tension starts to burn—with mechanical-looking “smoke rings” appearing the skies, spindly desert shadows leave footprints to nowhere, along with red-herring Yūreis appearing on roadsides, and the foreboding revelations of her father’s oddball colleague (Richard Gilliland).

It’s Richard Gilliland’s utterly convincing portrayal of Dr. Gustav Berchum occurring at the film’s halfway point (evoking actor Donald Hotton’s paranormal authority of Dr. Samuel Dockstader from 1983’s One Dark Night) that keeps one watching so they don’t miss the third act’s alien siege—masterfully crafted by Chris Wax as blaring light, peripheral shadows, and croaking voices from the alien possessed—on a remote farmhouse, and leaves Mia as the lone survivor.

What’s that? You say you need more conspiracies of the third kind?

Well, do we have some under-the-White Sands-radar and off-the-Area 51-reservation oddities for you.

You need watch, what we like to call, a post-Star Wars dropping: Starship Invasions, a fictional tale cobbled together from “actual UFO accounts” that deals with warring alien races, kidnapped extraterrestrial experts, and intergalactic underwater pyramid space bases. The 1977 film wasn’t Canadian director Ed Hunt’s first time at White Sands rodeo: In 1976 he crafted Point of No Return, another fictional “based in fact” sci-fi thriller about an investigator looking into a series of violent deaths—via suicide and murder—that are “somehow” connected to UFOs and nuclear research (a repeated plot device in Starship Invasions). In 1979 Hunt wrote and directed a documentary proper: UFO’s Are Real, featuring reenactments and insights from respected “military and science professionals.”

Then there’s the ‘70s UFO visitation predictions and “interdimensional science of life” teachings of the Unarius Church chronicled in the documentaries In Advance of the Landing (1993) and Children of the Stars (2012).

And Sunn Classic Pictures, the ‘70s purveyors of “everything you are about to see is true” conspiracy reenactment-documentary tales, broke out the lie detectors, hypnosis, and the Patterson-Gimlin footage to convince us bigfoots were real in The Mysterious Monsters (1975). Then they tried to “Ed Hunt” us with their dramatization of the mysteries behind Hanger 18 (1980). Sunn was also responsible for a trilogy of early ‘70s Rod Sterling-narrated box office bonanzas: In Search of Ancient Astronauts, In Search of Ancient Mysteries, and The Outer Space Connection. The Utah-based studio’s biggest success was 1970’s Chariots of the Gods, which was the 9^th highest grossing film of the year.

So, what’s real . . . and what’s cinéma vérité?

Case 347 made its streaming debut on March 3 courtesy of Dark Coast Pictures and TriCoast Pictures on Amazon, Google Play, iTunes, Vimeo on Demand, Vudu, and You Tube Movies. You can watch the trailer on You Tube.

The film’s fascinating ambient score was done by sound mixer and composer Yagmur Kaplan. While the music from Case 347 isn’t commercially available, you can listen to his music at his official website and learn more about his catalog on Instagram. The soundtrack also features two very cool, indie alt-rock tunes by Homesick for Space and The Lightjackets—and we never tire of being tuned onto new music, so much thanks to Yagmur and Chris Wax.

Here’s the rest of the great films released under the Rock Salt Releasing/TriCoast Worldwide co-banner we’ve reviewed:

Agatha Christine: Spy Next Door
Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids
Bombshells and Dollies
Dollhouse
It All Begins with a Song
Lone Star Deception
My Hindu Friend
Nona
Revival
The Soul Collector
Tombstone Rashomon

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

If you’re a regular surfer at B&S About Movies, you’re familiar with our perpetual droning about Philippine cinema—especially post-apocalyptic Philippine movies. Oh, how we’ve gone on and one, ad nauseam, about the films of Eddie Romero (Mad Doctor of Blood Island), Willy Milan (W is War), and Cirio H. Santiago (The Sisterhood). Yeah, we may poke a joke or two at their expense in our reviews, but that in no way diminishes our affections for their work.

So when you offer us a film that opens with a sharp graphic novel prologue featuring blood-sucking, shape-shifting aswangs in a Philippine martial arts fantasy film exhibiting the fighting flare of John Wick (which pinched its chops from Asian cinema; but that’s the homage-point) colliding with Quentin Tarantino’s From Dusk till Dawn, it’s a given we’re clicking the click bait.

However, unlike those Asian-action VHS gems of our analog youth, Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids is a Romero-Milan-Santiago 10.0 upgrade—a modern day, jet-fueled Philippine action film of yore, featuring the exquisitely choreographed fight scenes we expect from today’s Asian digital-cinema, complete with rich, vibrantly flowing cinematography. Even more amazing: It’s all at the cost of $5 million. The John Wick films cost $30 to $40 million a pop. And we are loving the battle camp scene that takes us back to the martial arts gold standard: Enter the Dragon.

Now if you know your post-apoc (shameless plug: if you don’t, brush up with our two-part Atomic Dustbin roundup on those films), you’re up to speed and know we’re in an undiscovered time and place beyond yesterday. And as with all apoc-films, we’re in an acid-trip western—but all American westerns ripped off Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo or Seijun Suzuki’s Man with a Shotgun, so we’re home.

Gabriella (Sarah Chang) is our “girl with no name” as she embarks on a scored-earth mission to avenge the supernatural-monster slaughter of her family. Her skills lead to an alliance with Bolo (Vincent Soberano), who recruits her into a secret society of warriors, the Slayers (international action film aficionados will notice Filipino taekwondo champion Monsour del Rosario as Monte, the leader of the Slayers). Then the pseudo-Magnificent Seven trek into the wastelands to wipe out the Hybrid, a new mutation of supernatural witch-vampires. Led by the demon warlords Naga and Gundra, the Hybrid will protect the Monster Queen at all costs. But never trust the threat of a Hybrid, for all is not as it seems.

Now, while we’re not exactly getting a John Wick or a Tarantino joint here, we’re also not getting a SyFy Channel when-animals-and-zombies-attack mockbuster-romp, either. (Although we’d love to see Soberano’s work receive wider exposure in the U.S via the cable channel). The production value and costuming is well-done, the fight chorography excels, and there’s lots of blood and bone-breaking. While the acting is a bit dodgy in places, everyone is affable; the character development in the first act—with the occasional action burst—is appreciated. We love the backended action: when the film starts moving, it cooks. The CGI—the demon morphings—is convincing, while Soberano knows his way around a camera and takes Final Cut Pro through its editing paces with aplomb.

Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids is derived from writer and director Vince Soberano’s short film, Blood Hunters, which won two “Best Short Film” awards at the Cinemax HBO Action Film Competition and the Urban Action Showcase and Expo. After following with a short-sequel, 2018’s Blood Hunters: Aswang, Soberano expanded the Slayers vs. Hybrid concept into the Rise of the Hybrids feature-length film, which won the “Best Feature” award at the NYCA Film Fest.

This film seriously cooks, so our incisors drip in anticipation for Sarah Chang and Vincent Sorberano’s next film. Currently in post-production, Circle of Bones is the story of an FBI agent investigating an international terrorist cell in the Philippines that’s actually a cult of demon-worship fanatics led by an ancient evil spirit that feeds on human souls. It sounds like Tarantino doing a remake of Stallone’s Cobra—and we ain’t hatin’.

Bottom line: Philippine cinema is still alive and well in the skilled hands of Vincent Sorberano—and Blood Hunters: Rise of the Hybrids needs to be your click bait for the week. TriCoast Entertainment and Dark Coast released the film on the Amazon, Vimeo on Demand, FlixFling, Vudu, and FANDANGO digital platforms on March 17. You can learn more about Sorberano’s work on Facebook.

Here’s the rest of the great films released under the Rock Salt Releasing/TriCoast Worldwide co-banner we’ve reviewed:

Agatha Christine: Spy Next Door
Bombshells and Dollies
Case 347
Dollhouse
It All Begins with a Song
Lone Star Deception
My Hindu Friend
Nona
Revival
The Soul Collector
Tombstone Rashomon

Disclaimer: We were provided a screener by the film’s P.R firm. That has no bearing on our review.

About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies and publishes on Medium.

“It’s not creepy, it’s kitschy.”
— famous last words of another desert clown-cult victim

Clown Fear (aka, Circus Road during production) is an affable, ‘70s retro-grindhouse flick that tears down the tents of Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes and rips you through a Tobe Hooper Texas Chainsaw Massacre-inspired fun house—with a side-organ order of Steven Chiodo’s Commander USA’s Groovie Movies classic, Killer Clowns from Outerspace. Except these aren’t celestial clowns: they’re terrestrial. But for you modern-horror dogs: Rob Zombie’s House of a 1000 Corpses—only not so serious. But we’re also feeling a bit nostalgic for those good ol’ southern folks from Hershell Gordon Lewis’s 2000 Maniacs—only the clowns aren’t ghosts and Clowntown, U.S.A. is real and doesn’t plot-twist vanish into the wilds of Nevada.

“Hee-hee-hee! It makes me think of León Klimovsky’s Vampires Night Orgy*. You know, instead of stranded motorists with vampires, we got FUBAR clowns.”

“Hey! The Marvolous Mervo from Bill Rebane’s Blood Harvest*? I figured you’d show up. You’ll never let me rest, will you? “

“So, R.D., since Circus City is built over an ancient coalminer cemetery, any chance we’ll get a Paul Naschy-styled out-of-left field zombie siege, like in Horror Rises from the Tomb*, only with with zombie-clowns?”

“No, no one will ever match a Paul Naschy FUBAR joint. But we’ll add that to the review. Thanks, Merv. You’re the best horror clown ever, by the way.”

“Hee-hee-hee. You still have to keep your fingers crossed and hope no puppets or friggin’ stringless marionettes show up, R.D. Your suck-up is for naught. I know how you are with puppets.”

Oh, shite. Pampers alert.

Anyway, Carlee (screenwriter Sadie Katz) is a runaway bride (the wedding fell apart amid her “cheating” being exposed) who decides that a Las Vegas road trip with her bridesmaids Amber, Mia, and Nicole is in order. (Tiffani Fest, of the recently reviewed Rootwood and For Jennifer, stars as Amber.)

Yep, they wreck the car in the middle of FUBAR, Nevada, near one of those old-fashioned theme-motif motels typical of the off-roads in middle and southwest America. You know the type of vaycay spot I’m talkin’ ‘bout, Merv. There were “Indian” and “Cowboy” western-motifs; ones that resembled old country German Tudors with a neon-blazing “Yodel” sign; in New Mexico they’d have an “Alien” or “Atomic” prefix. But we are in the middle of Nevada and this is Captain Spaulding country, with a bunch of inbreds carnies of years gone by who just wanted to be left alone.

So to that end: our daisy duke and bikini-adorned quartet end up at the circus themed Clown Inn (Ha! I bought my first beater from “Circus Cars” back in the day), smack dab in the middle of Conal Cochran’s Santa Mira, Calfornia, of Halloween III. And these clowns, like the laddies pumpin’ out those Silver Shamrock masks, have deep, mythical roots in the region. And what exactly are they? Just your run-of-the-mill witch or devil coven donning makeup, or are they just your run-of-the-mill f’d up redneck off-spring of the coal miners who once lived there? Am I in the lands of Jack Starrett’s Race with the Devil or Robert C. Hughes’s Hunter’s Blood*?

Whatever in the Cirque du Soleil they are, there’s some a-sacrificin’ to be done to satiate their clown-God in a demon-cum-circus themed ceremony. And these four chicks will fit on the ol’ dunk tank and Wheel of Death altar just fine.

The only quirk I had with Clown Fear is, that for a dark-horror comedy, it runs a bit too long at almost two hours (all of these 80-minute indie direct-to-DVDs I watch these days have ruined my patience for anything that’s of a theatrical length). That presents a problem with post-VOD distribution on a SyFy Channel two-hour programming block; a tighter, 80-minute cut would have been to the benefit of this feature film debut by director Minh Collins. But let’s face it: Cable TV is going the way of terrestrial radio: it’s a dying broadcast medium and we live in a streaming world. So my critical piffle about the film’s length is just me being a, well, piffling critic. In fact, eh, I should delete this paragraph. . . .

“Hee-hee-hee, R.D. Nah, it makes you look snobby, like you know what you’re talking about. Image is everything, when writing film reviews, R.D.”

“Excellent point, Merv. You really are Marvolous.”

“Thanks for the suck-up, R.D. But I’ll still be seeing you at 3 A.M. And I’m bringing along the Blue Meanies from Pepperland. I’ve got a new twist for your recurring Yellow Submarine nightmare.”

Oh, shite. Pampers alert.

Anyway, on the plus side: We get a fair amount of blood and gore-kills. The set dressers and designers of the motel rooms, especially the demon-clown-circus ceremony-trial, went all out. All of the clown actors—leads and backgrounds—certainly relish their characters and are a having good time selling the “world” they live in. And for the lonely lads on a Friday night: there’s plenty ‘o skimpy outfits, and boobs, if you want ’em. And for the CGI-rejecting guys like me: the old school in-camera effects play nicely into the retro-grindhouse vibe. Nothing beats an ol’ fashioned prop knife to an eye socket. To quote our victim’s famous last words: “It’s kitschy.”

Mihn Collins currently has two new projects in the pre-production stages: Blackjack Mountain is a family-oriented adventure film. And Asphalt Jungle looks exciting, as it stars Bruce Dern of The Incredible 2-Headed Transplant fame. You can’t go wrong with Bruce Dern.

Clown Fear was released in mid-February as a VOD, PPV, and DVD courtesy of Lionsgate at all of the usual online and brick-and-mortar retailers. You can learn more at the film’s official Facebook page, which offers trailer (the one we embedded for an easy watch either ends up removed or “black boxed” age-restricted. We give up!).

* Retro-film reviews—as off the wall as they wanna be—by R.D Francis. And Clown Fear is pure retro-Drive-In love of the first degree.

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR company and, as you know, that has no bearing on our review. Besides: R.D Francis likey this movie.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

“My new best friend and my new ex-girlfriend, making out in the graveyard like a couple of sexy ghosts.”

Same Boat is a guerilla-shot, micro-budget indie comedy most exemplary.

As result of the filmmakers’ guerilla tactics, the film looks a lot bigger and more expensive than it really is: co-writers Josh Itzkowitz, Mark Leidner, and Chris Roberti (who directs and stars) brilliantly filmed their time traveling, sci-fi rom-com on-the-fly without permission on a cruise ship. But make no mistake: Same Boat is not of the Ed Woodian Plan 9 variety. This is a memorable dealmaker analogous to Spike Lee’s She’s Gotta Have It and Robert Rodriguez’s El Mariachi.

In terms of time travel flicks, Same Boat is high up on the list alongside George Roy Hill’s adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaugtherhouse Five and Woody Allen’s Sleeper. If you’re a fan of the low-budget time travel romps Primer (2004) from Shane Carruth and Colin T. Tervorrow’s Safety Not Guaranteed (2012): this is your picture. If you want Will Smith in Gemini Man and Bruce Willis in Looper . . . well, I got this faulty flux capacitor back in Hill Valley I’d like to show you.

In this quaint take on James Cameron’s The Terminator crossed with the 1993 French comedy Cible émouvante (aka Wild Target; remade as the 2010 Billy Nighy-starring British comedy of the same name), James (Roberti) is a time traveling assassin (who uses a repurposed non-contact infrared thermometer as his “weapon”) from the 28^th century sent to the year 2018 to kill the vacationing Lilly (Tonya Glanz)—who just dumped her boyfriend—aboard a cruise ship on the way to Key West, Florida. But when his assistant-trainee, Mot (Julia Schonberg, doing a fine job in her acting debut), is sidelined by seasickness, and a paperwork snafu stymies the mission, James decides to take a vacation himself and inadvertently falls in love with his target—over karaoke and slices of key lime pie.

Will duty . . . or love prevail?

As result of my never-miss-an-episode fandom of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, I immediately recognized actress Tonya Glanz from her recent guest-starring role as “Monica Russo” on the series’ 21^st season episode “She Paints for Vengeance”—as a street artist who use her art as a weapon against her rapist (she’s excellent in the part). Another standout is short film and web series veteran Katie Hartman (Assisted Living) as the Katja, the salty-mouth, sexually-suggestive cabin steward. And Chris Roberti is perfectly dry and droll for the roll: all jobs, regardless of the times, become a lesson in monotony and we start to phone it in: even 28^th century assassins.

Mark Leidner and Josh Itzkowitz are also the writing and production team behind the superb, 2018 black & white sci-fi thriller (that reminds of Darren Aronofsky’s 1998 feature film debut, Pi) Empathy, Inc., which deals with a conspiracy behind a VR company selling “non-virtual” reality programing. You can watch the trailer on You Tube; the film recently made its free streaming bow on TubiTv.

Comedian Chris Roberti has been around for a while, working on a wide array of short films and web series. The most successful of those web series, the Vimeo-streamed comedy High Maintenance, is currently in its fourth season on HBO. You can watch the season four trailer on You Tube and stream the series via HBO Now or Hulu.

Same Boat is currently making the festival rounds, with well-received showings at San Jose’s Cinequest and Chicago’s Midwest Film Fest. You’ll be able to watch this inventive film when it debuts on VOD and PPV on April 7 courtesy of Dark Star Pictures. You can also learn more about the film at their official website and Facebook page.

We love our sci-fi here at B&S About Movies, so much so that we did a month-long September blowout on apoc films, a week-long tribute to Planet of the Apes movies and its knockoffs (in light of Disney announcing their newest ape flick), and a week-long December rally of Star Wars-inspired films (in tribute to the release of Star Wars: Episode IX – The Rise of Skywalker). You can catch up with all of those apoc reviews with our two-part “Atomic Dust” round up, along with our “Ape Week” and “After Star Wars” retrospectives.

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.

At one’s first read of the film’s logline: A suicidal man in a remote cabin is suddenly faced with protecting a kidnapped woman from three sexual deviants and their sadistic games,” you think you’re getting a by-the-numbers extreme horror film of the New French Extremity variety. (See the recently reviewed (and very good) German radio-horror flick, Radio Silence, as an example.)

Ah, but what you’re really getting is a loose film noir—a very violent film noir of a double-crossed victim and a reluctant anti-hero trapped in a downward spiral, bowtied in a home invasion-siege picture that updates Ingmar Bergman’s granddaddy of rape-invasion-revenge movies: 1960’s The Virgin Spring.

Lulu (the great in her film debut Drew Lindsey Mitchell) is one of those sweet girls with self-esteem issues that goes for the bad boy. And her controlling boyfriend Shane blows a gasket when she decides to go back to college to finish her degree. Then, when she heads off in a rideshare to a Halloween party hosted by her (closeted pervert that pines for her) Uncle Chad, she’s besieged again by a clown-costumed, masturbating pervert. . . .

That leads to Lulu dragging her bruised and bloodied body onto the front porch of a remote forest cabin, where she interrupts the suicidal owner, Dylan (Kelcey Waston), who was just about to eat a bullet for breakfast. Then the portly-businessman Uncle Chad shows up at the cabin with his ex-cellmate Neil—and a bogus story that Lulu is an autistic that ran away from their car accident. And why is that Goth-chick sneaking around the cabin?

Dylan soon discovers Uncle Chad, Neil, and Neil’s leather-clad squeeze, Snack, gang raped and beat Lulu at the Halloween party—a party set up for that sole purpose. And based on that can of gasoline and the remote location: they were planning to depose of Lulu. So begins the night-long siege. Can a man depleted of the will to live for himself, find the will to protect the life of a stranger? Will Dylan and Lulu be . . . dead by dawn? Not if those booby-traps Dylan and Lulu tinkered based on the zombie defense guide written by Dylan’s deceased young daughter—who was the catalyst for his wanting to commit suicide in the first place.

I appreciate the skilled, creative choices writer-director Sean Cain made with Dead by Dawn.

While the title, in conjunction with its theatrical one-sheet, is a tip o’ the hat to the Sam Raimi sequel, the film doesn’t follow that expected cabin-in-the-woods route. Cain could have easily cheapened the film’s suspense by having Lulu’s obviously violent kidnap-torture-rape and her terrifying bound n’ gagged trip in the SUV on-camera; he keeps it expositional. There also seems to be a loose homage to Night of the Living in Lulu’s character—not the 1968 George Romero version, but the 1990 Tom Savini remake: Lulu is analogous to that film’s stronger-determined Barbara portrayed by Patricia Tallman. Lulu not turning into a catatonic or hysterical mess—and discovering her inner strength—is a bonus.

In addition, Dylan’s daughter saving his life “from the beyond,” not as a supernatural deus ex machina zombie or J-Horror yūrei, but via her zombie-hobby, is a refreshing, appreciated twist-of-the-script by Sean Cain’s bright pen (well, laptop keyboard). Lastly, Cain opted to not to take the put-a-star-name-on-the box-to-encourage-rental route; he allowed his unknown cast—featuring the effective Bo Burroughs as the ski-capped psycho Neil, Timothy Muskatell as the squishy-sleazy Uncle Chad, and Bobby Slaski as the abusive hubby, Shane—illuminate the dark, foreboding woods.

This is my first exposure to the acting career of Kelcey Waston. He’s worked on a wide variety of shorts, indie films and web series since the early 2000s. But you may have seen him on the SyFy Channel with Sean Cain’s previous effort, Jurassic City (2015), the Eric Roberts-starring Cowboys vs. Dinosaurs (2015), and the post-apocalypse romp, Road Wars (2015)—so, as you can see, Watson’s a busy actor.

And solid actor. He turns in a major-studio level performance. I also appreciate the fact that his race had no bearing on his casting. There’s no racial subtext to the story; writer-director Sean Cain cast Waston simply because he’s a good actor and was the best actor to convey the character—and that’s what its all about: the acting. And Waston throws those acting cards down on the table and cleans up the chips.

Equally excellent in her co-starring role is Jamie Bernadette (TV’s NCIS: New Orleans), who admirably held her own against Camille Keaton in 2019’s I Spit on Your Grave: Deja Vu, as the crazy, leather-clad morbid-bitch, Snack. You’ve also seen her on your Lifetime Channel excursions with 2018’s The Wrong Teacher. She has a whopping fifteen other films in various states of production. You don’t get cast that often if you’re bad at your job. She really delivers the goods.

Writer and director Sean Cain has an intense, extensive resume. While Dead by Dawn is his tenth film in those dual-disciplines (you may have, along with Jurassic City, stumbled into one of those films on the SyFy Channel), he tuned his Steenbeck chops with the Lifetime Channel’s endless catalog of prefixed “Killer,” “Nightmare,” “Perfect,” and “Pscyho,” and “Wrong” damsel-in-distress potboilers, along with editing a slew of documentary vignettes for Blu-ray reboots of popular films.

Dead by Dawn is available from Uncork’d Entertainment on all online streaming and PPV platforms and DVD in the U.S on April 7. Currently, you can purchase DVDs at Amazon and Family Video (both as a rental and purchase) and stream it on iTunes and Vudu. Plans are in place to also offer Dead by Dawn on Comcast, DirectTV, Dish, Fandango Now, GooglePlay, Spectrum, and Xbox. Visit Uncork’d on Facebook for the latest news on their releases. You can learn more about Sean Cain’s Velvet Hammer Films on their Facebook page.

Disclaimer: This movie was sent to us by its PR department. As always: you know that has nothing to do with our feelings on the movie.

About the Author: You can read the music and film reviews of R.D Francis on Medium and learn more about his work on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.