This movie looks like it came out of a web series and is now a full-length movie. It tells the story — four stories — on a stormy night, including tales of priests exorcising demons, an ancient evil, a group of friends facing their worst fears and two men entering a bar and only one surviving.
Filmmakers Jessica Morgan, Dustin Rieffer and Christopher M. Carter claim to have been influenced by Ari Aster, John Carpenter, Sam Raimi, Fedi Alvarez, Leigh Whannell, Ridley Scott, Robert Eggers and countless others.
The same team created One Night in October. If you enjoy the recent run of modern streaming anthology films, this will be right up your alley. It’s short and sweet but doesn’t add much new to the form. That’s fine — these movies are constantly coming out now and give opportunities to new horror directors to learn their craft with shorter stories.
Dark Chronicles is available on demand from Terror Films.
Unlike many documentaries that only show murder from the outside perspective, Alice Is Still Dead follows the story alongside the victim’s family through every step of the process, from the detective’s notification to her family facing the killer in court.
This movie was made by Edwin P. Stevens, the brother of the late Alice Stevens. Intended as a tribute to her life, it’s also his way of pondering whether he and his family can move forward. He explained the unique situation by saying, “In 2013, only a week prior to my wedding, my little sister, Alice, was murdered. I have been at a loss for years about what I could possibly do to put the grief, anxieties, anger and feelings of utter loss and regret into a story that might do her memory justice. These desires culminated in this film.”
If seeing real imagery of violence and the impact of murder upsets you, you may want to be ready to avert your eyes during this film. It does not pull back or shy away from the grisly aftermath of a double murder.
If the journey in the film seems exhausting to you, the viewer, one can only imagine what it felt like to be part of Alice’s family. There’s a search for answers, such as how could any of them change her behavior or speak to her or avert a senseless tragedy. In the end, there’s no catharsis, only loss and changing the way that you deal with the world. It’s never over. It just keeps going.
While so many true crime docs that simply sensationalize cases or glorify the technology used to catch the murderers, this film stays human and near the family, taking you through the very raw emotions as well as how the murder and trial have kept the filmmaker from establishing a family of his own.
Haunting, powerful and real, Alice is Still Dead is available digitally and VOD from Global Digital Releasing.
The final film by Nobuhiko Obayashi, Labyrinth of Cinema has the late director returning to the subject of Japan’s history of warfare. If Obayashi had only made one movie — and that movie was House — he would still be celebrated. This film brings his career — and life — full circle to a small movie theater in the seaside town where Obayashi shot a dozen films in his early. years.
During an all-night showing of war movies, lightning takes three men through a cinematic journey through Japan’s history of war and the sixty years of his career.
Shot and edited his final film while Obayashi was receiving cancer treatment, this film finds the artist recreating, commenting on and even making fun of Japan’s warrior cinematic history. The boys are trying to rescue Noriko, who has tumbled into the screen. but that’s just the story skeleton for Obayashi to hang his theme of cinema being at once a seducer and a source of empty promises.
There’s also a time traveler involved, frequent appearances of animation, remembrances of other directors and the title that reminds you out loud that this is a movie, not real, but a piece of filmed art to fall into yourself, explore and wonder about your place in the world, just as the creative genius that gave it birth did, staring at the end of his life.
Somehow, this movie makes three hours feel like three minutes. Were that all experiences were this filled with promise, with joy and with inspiration that maybe we can all retain our artistic ideals like its creator.
When six young and hopeful actors land roles in an experimental horror film shooting on a remote location with no crew present — what is this Makinov directing the Who Can Kill A Child? remake? — and only drones to film the events. Of course, before you can say snuff film, that’s exactly what starts happening.
Director/writer Bobby Marinelli has done just about every job there is to do on a set, so his knowledge of the way these characters behave is probably pretty well informed.
He told Timothy Rawles of iHorror, “A lot of my career as a reality television producer was based on manipulating ordinary people into extraordinary situations. I often wondered how far this could be taken and it developed into a really interesting premise for a horror film. With Death Cast I was able to blend reality docudrama tropes with those of a slasher flick, the result is familiar but unique to the genre.”
I got major vibes of a better David DeCoteau Full Moon production here, which is not a bad thing, so if you’re in the mood for a slasher that plays with technology and the need to be a star, this is the one for you.
Death Cast is now playing Salem Horror Fest. When we have streaming info, we’ll share it in this post. For now, you can follow that link to buy a festival badge and check out several other films during October. You can learn more at the Facebook page and official site for the movie.
Written and directed by Sarah Kennedy, Miss Blueberry Beauty Pageant brings you back to 1984 as three finalists — Sandra (Joanna Clark), Maribelle (Hannah Elaine Perry) and Daisy (Jericah Potvin) — realize that they may not survive to win their tiara. Thomas Ian Campbell is great in this as The Host and I love the way his sale copy reveals exactly what is going on.
Beauty pageants are frightening enough, but when you throw in vampires — the main one at the end is incredibly cool — things get so much better. While this is quite short — you can see how it could be an entire movie — it’s also packed with some hilarious moments.
Miss Blueberry Beauty Pageant is now playing Salem Horror Fest. When we have streaming info, we’ll share it in this post. For now, you can follow that link to buy a festival badge and check out several other films during October. You can learn more about this short at the official Facebook page.
“Have you ever felt the need for vengeance?” opened the film review posted at our fellow WordPress site, On the Subject of Horror. They, like B&S About Movies, take a Charlie Kaufman-approach to reviews and write ourselves — along with our past fears and pains — into our reviews. Why? Because that’s how deeply we associate with films. It’s therapeutic. So, I kept reading . . . and discovered a film that slipped by me, as result of Mr. Covell’s engaging writing. So, you see, personalizing film reviews, in conjunction, with a little self-deprecation, works. For we leave the haughty Variety, to well, Variety. Yeah, they’re a fine publication, as is The Hollywood Reporter, but well, you gotta go gonzo and be a little different on the digital plains along the muddy banks of the ol’ Allegheny.
And “different” best describes The Head Hunter: a film that just isn’t a piece of once-swallowed-and-gone-head candy and click, “next-movie” consumption: this movie sticks to your brain and burrows into your marrows — where those pesky little Tardigrades swim amid your biology.
Sure, we enjoy the big, CGI “shock scares” of the A24 and Blumhouse variety, and James Wan (Malignant) never steers us wrong, but it’s the little guys that get us. What really intrigues us at B&S About Movies aren’t those filmmakers with ten or one hundred million dollars in their pocket: it’s what the filmmakers with $10,000 or $100,000 in their pocket can do. You know those films: the production cost of one shot/scene in Martin Scorsese’s The Irishman could cover the entire production cost of an indie streamer.
Such a film — discovered courtesy of One the Subject of Horror (Read. That. Blog.) — is The Head Hunter.
Geezus. He looks like a bad acid-tripped Batman.
Using Jean-Jacques Annaud’s 1981 film Quest for Fire as inspiration and shooting in Portugal and Norway, this brilliant feature film by Jordan Downey and Kevin Stewart, the team behind the ThanksKilling franchise (?), was shot for a mere $40,000.
Let me say that again: this film was short for four Salmon P. Chase greenbacks. By the ThanksKilling guys.
In some faraway Norwegian wood, we meet our medieval bounty hunter who tracks down monsters and other beasts of burden for his kingdom. When his daughter is slaughtered by one of those beasts, he transforms into an unstoppable “slasher” for the cause. Only, instead of flailing and wailing “final girls”: he’s collecting the heads of monsters.
Our father (an excellent Christopher Rygh) comes to learn that the dish of cold vengeance from which he dines, as with Max von Sydow’s Töre in Ingmar Bergman’s The Virgin Spring, will never fill, never quench his internal furnaces of burning hate. “Father” isn’t a bully, but as in any bully: Sure, the initially draw of first blood floods the cortex with sweet brain candy. Then the emptiness, returns. For vengeance never quenches. Revenge never satisfies. Well, maybe for the narcissist and the sociopath who walks down a school hallway or sits in a manager’s office. . . .
As our buds over at On the Subject of Horror pointed out: the team that gave us the ThanksKilling movies, movies about a rabid, profanity spewing turkey puppet, made this. Which makes this $40,000 streaming wonder all the more amazing.
Are there a production faux-pas? Sure there is, as is par for the digital greenways, uh, maybe (my eye saw none). But there is no question this is a beautifully shot film and a non-sugary feast for the brain.
As another fan opined on another You Tube upload of the trailer: “Someone give these guys a budget, this movie was great!”
Indeed.
Initially distributed by Vertical Entertainment on digital media, The Head Hunter found its way to DVD through Lionsgate. You can watch it online at Amazon Prime and Roku. To learn more, the film also has a very well-written and informative Wikipage that will take care of the “DVD supplement” needs in a streamer’s live.
Do yourself a favor: watch this movie. For if ye do not, thy shall feel the wrath of . . . oh, who are we kidding? We’re bully-scarred milquetoast movie calves . . . and you can kick our little white-veal asses to kingdom come with the slightest branch of Norwegian wood. Like the warriors from GWAR: you wouldn’t even break a sweat dispatching us. But you could take a moment to hit that “like” button or leave a comment for us hard-writing lads.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes film reviews for B&S About Moviesand publishes on Medium.
After his mother’s death, Hudson goes on a journey throughout the Hudson Valley to scatter her ashes and perhaps learn a few lessons about life, serve up some imaginary ice cream cones and even get in a few rounds of miniature golf. An accident as a child has left him a timid and reclusive mess of a human being, but he’s charming and ends up showing that he knows way more than those in his life who claim to be adults.
Directed by Sean Daniel Cunningham, who co-wrote the film with star Gregory Lay, who plays Hudson’s cousin Ryan, this movie surprised me because I generally can see through the sentimentality of most films as cheap emotion. Instead, this film has a genuine heart.
There’s a great appearance by Richard Masur — Clark from The Thing — as Hudson’s father, as well as stand-out performances by Lay, Mary Catherine Greenawalt as the hitchhiker Sunrise who comes into their lives and David Neal Levin as the title character.
While the tale in Hudson isn’t something that breaks new ground, it does stand out by the gentle interactions between its characters, the gorgeous way that it was shot and just that it’s so competently made, which seems more and more doesn’t seem to happen in major films, much less smaller efforts.
If you met Hudson in real life, you may be put off by his behavior. But if you stayed with him, gave him a chance and actually listened to him, you’d end up having a richer and fuller life. This film gives you that in much less time and from the comfort of your home.
Hudson is available on Amazon, Apple TV and On Demand from 1091 Pictures.
Editor’s Note: What does this all have to do with the obscure, progressive rock band Pheonix and their connections to the Kinks, MTV popsters Charlie, and New Wave of British Heavy Metal stalwarts Saxon? Indulge me and keep on reading. Russ Ballard is more influential than you realize . . . beyond the smash hits he wrote for America, Ace Frehley, Kiss, Rainbow, Three Dog Night, and Uriah Heep.
Yeah, it’s no secret I’m a huge Russ Ballard fan.
In the “alternate universe” of the musical-fantasy, Yesterday, a failed singer/songwriter gets a bump on the head and wakes up in a world where the Fab Four never existed; he subsequently becomes an overnight sensation with the greatest hit-making album in the world — based on the Lennon-McCartney catalog (Who?).
In this writer’s ‘Yesterday’: R.D Francis becomes an overnight sensation with the greatest hit-making album in the history of recorded music — based on the songwriting catalog of Russ Ballard. . . .
Sadly, the screenplay based on my Russ Ballard-fantasy was rejected by all the major Hollywood studios. Even the dinky indie studios rejected me; the ones that pay struggling actors and screenwriters with an “IMDB credit” and “copy of the DVD.” (Even the studios who offer you a producer’s credit and an acting role . . . if you pony up several thousand dollars to make the movie.)
My fellow aspiring actors and struggling screenwriters know about those “deals”: the DVD never arrives and you have to send the self-professed auteur a self-address-stamped-envelope to receive your “pay” — and they misspell your name on the IMDB page. So goes our trip down the boulevard of broken dreams.
“Who?” smirked the high-seated, cigar-chopping movie executive to the sniveling screenwriter cowering in a low-slung chair before the golden throne of fate.
“Russ Ballard, ah-em. He wrote songs for Kiss — .”
“Russ Ballard? Never heard of him.”
“Well, uh . . . what about Billy Steinberg, he wrote songs for Pat Benatar and Heart— .”
“Mr. Weinstein, you’re 4 PM massage is here,” crackled the receptionist’s voice over the intercom.
(Sorry, Mr. Weinstein. Just a little creative license-joke? Okay?)
“That’s not funny, kid. You’re finished,” scowled Mr. Weinstein.
And . . . creative license revoked. Goodbye, screenwriting career.
So, since you will never see my biographical movie or hear my album, ‘Yesterday,’ it’s back to keyboard-jockeying once again. Yes, my fair-weathered readers, it is time for another ethereal journey into the phantasmic wormhole with another rock star you never knew or forgot (at least in the U.S., anyway). No, not me — it’s Russ Ballard.
“Hey, wait a minute, R.D. I thought Russ Ballard never existed and you wrote all those hit songs.”
Oh, yeah . . . I did . . .
The record breaking, most successful hit-producing album in the world . . . with every song a hit, your’s truly, R.D Francis, wrote it!
My album!
. . . And it was a whirlwind.
Jimmy Fallon, James Corden, The View, Live with Kelly and Ryan. The girls! The parties! A world tour as a headliner my first time out on the road! I’m best friends with Danny “Hey, Baby Doll” Collins, who looks exactly like Al Pacino (from the opposite end of the wormhole, you know, where Al Pacino is “Al Pacino,” and he’s an actor).
I became the only artist to have four hits simultaneously in the U.S. Top Ten. I charted more singles from a debut album and charted more #1 hits in multiple countries than any other artist — even the Beatles!
I charted on Adult Contemporary radio with “You Can Do Magic.” I ruled the metal charts with “Riding with the Angels.” When my drummer, Ian McLatchen-McManus Davis Mitchell III, on loan from Spinal Tap, went up in flames, Dave Grohl from the Foo Fighters sat behind the kit to finish the tour. Dave told the Rolling Stone that I was “more prolific than Kurt Cobain.” When AC/DC was in a jam, I filled in for Brain Johnson and helped Angus and the boys finish their world tour.
In this brave new rock world: Weezer doesn’t exist. Rivers Cuomo and Patrick Wilson have an alt-rock band, Sixty Wrong Sausages. Sure, they had a very cool “SWS” logo, but their hit, “Freddie Garrity,” was stupid, as was its video that parodied TV’s Leave It to Beaver.
In this continuum variant-mishap: Van Halen doesn’t exist. The producer of Van Halen’s landmark debut, Ted Templeman, was successful in having David Lee Roth fired from the band and replaced by ex-Montrose lead vocalist Sammy Hagar.
The infamous “VH” wings-logo doesn’t exist: Van Hagar’s logo is a “VH” inside a white circle — emulating an old-style Formula 1 racing car — emblazoned on the side of Sammy’s red Trans Am. I ended up marrying one of the models covered in soap suds washing that red Trans AM on the album’s rear cover — Sir Denis Eaton-Hogg’s niece, Icelandic superstar model Erika von Bjőrn.
David Lee Roth sold a lot of albums with his next band: Diamond Dave. Erika and I vacation with Dave and his wife every year. Our best friends: David Coverdale and Tawny Kitaen. The oft told tale about my old band, Wyatt, Brian Adams, and the Moose in the hotel room, is true. When that grasshopper got stuck up my nose, Nikki Sixx, who wisely stuck to snorting ants, rushed me to the hospital.
Oh, and SWS had a pair of alt-radio hits with their quirky covers of Wyatt’s big hit, “Hold Your Head Up,” and “Hash Pipe” from our final album.
However . . . before my hit solo album, ‘Yesterday,’ I was in this little ‘ol band, Wyatt, that did a couple of albums. You bought Leather Assassins and Red, White ‘n Screwed, right? You might remember our big FM radio hit, “Hold Your Head Up,” and our tours with Van Hagar (Who?), AC/DC, and Whitesnake (yep, we hung out with Tawny Kitaen*). And that embarrassing onstage melee we had with Guns N’ Roses; regardless of what the press says, Axl didn’t start it — I did. I kicked his punk ass back to the Sunset.
Then, it all came to a screeching halt.
Jimmy Fallon ambushed me during my third appearance on The Tonight Show. He brought out these two chaps from England who claimed they were responsible for all the songs from Wyatt, and ‘Yesterday,’ my solo album. Some guys named Russ Ballard and Rod Argent. . . .
. . . Well, back to the wormhole and through that space-time continuum rip to my crappy, boring life. You play a good game, Mr. Ballard. Until we meet again. You can have your life back . . . for now. See you at the next vortex, Chewie.
The Reality of the Real Russ Ballard
Born on October 31, 1947, in Waltham Cross, England, Ballard joined his first professional band, Buster Meikle & the Day Breakers, in 1961 with his older brother, Roy, and drummer Bob Henrit. Together, Ballard and Henrit joined Adam Faith’s backing band, the Roulettes. The band appeared a record-breaking nine times between 1964 and 1965 on the legendary U.K. television series, Ready, Steady, Go!
I hear voices . . . oh, my brains are like scrambled eggs . . .
After the world famous, hit making Zombies took a pick axe to the brain for the last time in the late ’60s (“She’s Not There,” “Tell Her No,” “Time of the Season”), keyboardist Rod Argent formed his namesake band, a harder-rocking affair, Argent; he drafted Russ and Bob from the Roulettes into the group, along with his cousin, bassist Jim Rodford (ex-Mike Cotton Sound). Argent, Ballard, and Rodford shared lead vocals.
During the Russ Ballard years, Argent produced five popular, U.S. progressive FM radio favorites with their 1970 debut, Ring of Hands (1971), All Together Now (1972), In Deep (1973), and Nexus (1974). While “Liar” and “God Gave Rock ’n’ Roll to You” became progressive FM album cuts, Argent scored only one U.S. Top 40 and Classic Rock radio staple (now criminally absent from the airwaves), “Hold Your Head Up,” written by Rod and sung by Ballard, which made it to the Top Five in 1972.
While Russ Ballard recorded as a solo artist with his old band’s label, Epic, Jim Rodford (bass) and Roger Henrit (drums), along with Ballard’s replacement, John Verity (guitar/bass), rose again on Columbia Records with Phoenix; they issued two albums: Phoenix (1976) and In Full View (1979).
Phoenix with “Easy” from 1976. Sound and feels a little bit like early ’70s Rush, right?
Verity and Henrit were then drafted as the rhythm section for the European-respected, British pop-rock outfit Charlie on their 1981 RCA Records release, Good Morning America. Henrit remained with the band for their follow up, Here Comes Trouble (1982) and their U.S. radio and MTV breakthrough, Charlie, which featured their U.S. Top 200 hit, “It’s Inevitable.” Verity also became a sought-out producer; he worked on the debut album for the pioneering New Wave of British Heavy Metal band, Saxon. (Yeees! SAXON! SAXON!)
Charlie’s lone U.S. hit single and beloved 1982 MTV-era hit, “It’s Inevitable.”
Saxon’s self-titled debut with their European hits “Stallions of the Highway” and “Backs to the Wall,” produced by John Verity.
Verity and Henrit worked together again in the Kinks during Ray Davies’s well-deserved “American” career resurgence with the hits “A Rock ’n’ Roll Fantasy,” “Low Budget,” “(I Wish I Could Fly Like (Superman)”, “Paranoia,” “Around the Dial,” and “Come Dancing.” (Hit remakes of the Kinks ’60s hits “You Really Got Me,” “Where Have All the Good Times Gone,” “Stop Your Sobbing,” and “All Day and All the Night,” by Van Halen, the Pretenders, and New Wave of British Heavy Metalers, Praying Mantis (know your Iron Maiden sidebars), respectively, sparked Ray Davies’s resurrection.)
However, unlike Davies, Russ Ballard was unable to forge a front-and-center career as a solo artist on U.S. shores; instead, his songs created a rapid succession of U.S. — and worldwide — Top Ten and Top Forty chart hits for other artists:
“Cookoo” — Bay City Rollers “Free Me” — Roger Daltry “God Gave Rock ’n’ Roll to You” — Kiss “I Surrender” — Rainbow “I Know There’s Something Going On” — Frieda (Fältskog; of Abba) “Liar” — Three Dog Night “New York Groove” — Ace Frehley of Kiss “On the Rebound” — Uriah Heep “Riding with the Angels” — Samson (w/Bruce Dickinson of Iron Maiden) “Since You’ve Been Gone” — Rainbow & Head East “Some Kinda Hurricane” — Peter Criss of Kiss “So You Win Again” — Hot Chocolate “Voices” — Russ Ballard “When I’m With You” — Sheriff “Winning” — Santana “You Can Do Magic” — America
Thanks to MTV’s support on the video frontier, U.S. radio stations were encouraged to chart Ballard as a solo artist with “Voices” from his eponymous 1984 effort and the title cut from the The Fire Still Burns, which became his best known U.S. solo hits (Russ is known for a lot more throughout Europe and Asia).
In addition to “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins and Glenn Frey’s “Smuggler’s Blues” on episodes of the hit U.S. television series Miami Vice, “Voices” was also featured in an episode: “Calderone’s Return: Part 2 — Calderone’s Demise,” which aired on October 26, 1984.
The London-based soft-rock outfit America, whose radio chart career with a succession of early-to-mid ’70s gold and platinum U.S. Top Ten hits (“Horse with No Name,” “I Need You,” “Ventura Highway,” “Tin Man,” “Lonely People,” and “Sister Golden Hair Surprise”) had tanked by the late ‘70s, experienced a career resurgence in the early ’80s with Russ Ballard’s “You Can Do Magic,” which put the band back into the Top Ten around the world.
This “Russ Ballard” playlist (over on my personal You Tube page) features the solo versions of his most popular tunes, along with a few artists who covered his material — when versions by Russ cannot be located. Some of the songs appear on the following albums:
Catalog
1976 — Winning (Epic) Features “Winning,” “Since You’ve Been Gone,” and “Cuckoo.”
1978 — At the Third Stoke
1980 — Barnet Dogs Features on the “On the Rebound” and “Ride with the Angels.”
1981 — Into the Fire
1984 — Russ Ballard (EMI) Features “Voices.”
1985 — The Fire Still Burns Features “The Fire Still Burns.”
For Russ Ballard’s complete catalog, visit with him on Discogs.
Russ Ballard’s most recent worldwide hit came courtesy of the 1998 rock ’n’ roll dramedy, Still Crazy. The soundtrack and film spotlights his song, “What Might Have Been,” sung by British actor Jimmy Nail, the “bassist” for the movie’s faux-British rock band, Strange Fruit. Russ wrote the lyrics, while his collaborator on the song, Chris Difford of Squeeze, wrote the music.
The bottom line: Russ Ballard is one hell of a songwriter and vocalist. In this writer’s reality, Russ’s albums shelve-proud alongside the multi-platinum, hit-driven catalogs of Neil Diamond, Billy Joel, and Bruce Springsteen, and the not so hit-driven ’70s catalogs of Moon Martin and Warren Zevon — and some guy named Michael Bolotin (read about him on Medium).
Richard Curtis previously wrote another great, rock ’n’ roll film, The Boat That Rocked, aka Pirate Radio in the U.S. (2019), a comedy about Britain’s late ’60s pirate radio scene. When Danny Boyle and Richard Curtis are on the marquee, you don’t overthink the movie, you hold onto your popcorn bucket and go for the ride.
So, save me the aisle seat . . . and don’t sue me, Mr. Curtis, for having some fun with this “review” of your film to honor one of my all time favorites in Russ Ballard.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook. He also writes for B&S About Movies.
Poster Image Left: Yesterday poster courtesy of Etalon Films/Working Title Films/Universal Studios, via IMDB.com. Image Right: Graphic by R.D Francis. Russ Ballard’s Voices courtesy of Discogs. Typeface: “Anton” and “Dustismo” courtesy of Picfont.com.
Sidewalk Star courtesy of redkit.net image generator.
Wyatt Album Image Left: Graphic by R.D Francis. Peter Fonda/Easy Rider screen cap by R.D Francis. Chopper: unknown, from the R.D Francis image archives (Google Images can’t located it). “Flying W logos” designed by and courtesy of Weezer drummer, Patrick Wilson. Image Right: Record graphic By R.D Francis. Yellow 45-rpmImage: R.D Francis.
“A parable on the ambiguity of political narratives. Possibly an “un-biopic” of Hillary Rodham set in 1969 Alaska. Possibly a collective dream about a young woman with only the most abstract connection to the politician. Possibly both.”
How can you not be fascinated after reading that?
In 1969, Hillary Clinton was just Hilary Rodham and she spent the summer after graduating from Wellesley by working her way across Alaska, washing dishes in Mount McKinley National Park and sliming salmon in a fish processing cannery in Valdez, which fired her after a few days of work and then shut down overnight when she complained about the unhealthy workplace. Then, she went to Yale Law School and this past adventure was forgotten as she entered the world of history.
Addison Timlin plays Hilary and the film is careful to never say whether or not she is the future First Lady and Secretary of State. Instead, she’s just a young girl just learning to make her way in the world of men, even discovering how her speech works like a short sword against the males that she attempts to connect with.
Zachary Cotler and Magdalena Zyzak, who co-directed with Colter writing the script, also workd together on another challenging film, The Wall of Mexico. Just like that film, this one subverts the story that you expect and pushes you to confront your preconceived notions.
As the moth moves in the stages of its life, from egg to larvae, coccoon to taking flight, the path remains fixed and rigid. No matter what happens between Hilary and her temportary friends Ryohei and Mitsuru, men who live within the wreck of a ship left behind by the last tragedy that struck the town of Valdez, her life seems as if it already has been decided. Is the summer amongst the common peopleher last gasp at trying to change all that? Or her just realizing that she should know who the little people are before she begins to command them?
No matter how you feel about Hilary Clinton, I recommend that you watch this. There hasn’t been a film like it in some time.
You can get this movie on all digital platforms from Dark Star Pictures.
Necropolis is one of my favorite late 80s direct to video movies probably ever. How else can I do anything but become obsessed by a movie in which an evil witch — who looks like Tianna Collins or Lois Ayres — eats human brains to give the proper nutrition to her demon babies through her six breasts?
There’s no way that this movie can live up to that one, trust me.
Instead, this film seeks to be a reimagining of that tale. Satanic vampire sorceress Eva (Ali Chappell channeling Cinzia Monreale instead of acting as a punk rock devil woman) frightens the villagers of the past so much with her sex magick that they murder her inside her lair. A hundred or so years later, occult writer Lisa (Augie Duke) movies into that home and soon becomes the body with which Eva will return to our world.
Director Chris Alexander was the third editor-in-chief of Fangoria and the co-founder/editor of Delirium. You may have seen his other films, Queen of Blood or Female Werewolf. Working from a script by Brockton McKinney, who has worked on several other Full Moon efforts like Blade the Iron Cross and Weedjies: Halloweed Night, he puts together a decent enough film, but the love in my heart for the original is so strong. That said, the psychedelic visuals are strong in this and they didn’t skimp on the blood, the gore and the breasts with fangs in them, because isn’t that what Necropolis is known for? Even better, Lynn Lowry is always a welcome sight.
I want more of this story*, however, and here’s hoping that the end of this film isn’t the last that we see of Eva or Lisa. I’m usually one for less is more, but at sixty-one minutes, I found myself wanting more.
Necropolis: Legion isn’t going to replace the first movie and that’s fine. It’s still awesome to see someone else’s vision, much less knowing that someone other than me has seen the original movie.
*There’s also a comic book — available from Full Moon — that tells the origin of Eva.
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