HORROR YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: WIND CHILL (2007)

WIND CHILL (2007)

(Clicking the highlighted links brings you to corresponding reviews and articles here at The Movie Madhouse!)

A young woman (Emily Blunt) takes a ride share with another student (Ashton Holmes) on her way home from college on Christmas break. The pair are off to a rocky start, especially when he takes a side road off the main highway and through the woods. The two are run off the narrow road by an oncoming driver and are now stranded deep in the woods and in deep snow. That’s not the worst of the girl’s problems, as not only is she suspicious of her driver’s true intentions, but there may be something unnatural lurking in those bitter cold woods.

Flick is directed by Gregory Jacobs from a script by Joe Gangemi and Steven A. Katz. The movie starts out interestingly enough with Blunt’s unnamed young woman, being suspicious of Holmes’ unnamed young man, as his conversations with her reveal he has not been honest with his fellow student. As the film progresses and they are trapped together in the stranded car, with no heat, no food, no water and in extreme cold, we start to learn more and more about his true intentions. It’s enough to give this film tension and make it a bit unsettling as it is. Jacobs and the writers then add a supernatural element with mysterious figures lurking in the woods and a few corpses, both animated and not. It’s all very spooky and adds an interesting caveat with stalker-ish guy and snooty girl bonding over mutual fear and concern. Aside from a few briefly seen supporting players, this is a two person show and both perform well. Blunt is strong as the somewhat difficult yet likable “Girl” and Holmes is appropriately a little off as the “Guy” who lies his way into a ride with the pretty student from his class. If anything holds this unnerving little movie back a bit, it’s that it takes a while to “warm up” and sympathize with our lead characters, with him being an awkward stalker and she difficult and rude to him, even before she starts to suspect their ride comes with ulterior motives. While ambiguous for quite some time, we do start to get clues as to what is going on here supernaturally. It is satisfying and spooky in a Twilight Zone kind of way, but at the same time, a little disappointing considering the build-up had us expecting something a bit more bizarre. It still works and effectively portrayed, even if familiar.

Overall, this is an enjoyably spooky flick even if what it turns into is something a little more routine than we hoped for. It is still well done and our leads help us overcome somewhat negative characters to like and sympathize with them. The film is shot nicely, with good use made of the wintery woodland locations and it has some nice atmosphere without relying on violence or gore to give us the chills. Flick is currently streaming free on Crackle, or as a cheap rental on Amazon Prime. Supporting cast includes Ned Bellamy, Martin Donovan and Chelan Simmons.

-MonsterZero NJ

Rated 3 (out of 4) rolls of duct tape, which adds sealing malfunctioning car windows to it’s 1001 uses.

 

 

 

 

 

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HORROR YOU MIGHT HAVE MISSED: SEE NO EVIL 2 (2014)

SEE NO EVIL 2 (2014)

(Clicking the highlighted links brings you to corresponding reviews and articles here at The Movie Madhouse!)

I’m not a big fan of the original See No Evil. Despite the use of the imposingly massive WWE superstar Glenn “Kane” Jacobs, the film was a by-the-numbers slasher that generated very little suspense and it’s juvenile delinquent characters didn’t generate much endearment to give us someone to root/fear for. But the film does have a bit of a following and did well, especially on home media. So, after 8 years…Jacob Goodnight is back and he’s not only bringing fan favorite scream queens Danielle Harris and Katharine Isabelle along with him, but he is being directed by the devious duo behind American Mary, the Soska Sisters, as well.

The story opens the same night as the massacre at The Blackwell Hotel, with pretty morgue attendant Amy (Danielle Harris) about to leave her shift and head out to celebrate her birthday. But with bodies from the massacre heading in, Amy decides to stay and help her co-worker Seth (Kaj-Erik Eriksen) with the added workload…and thus her friends, including vixen with a morbid side, Tamara (Katharine Isabelle) decide to surprise her at the morgue with an impromptu birthday party. But there is still some life in the prone corpse of vicious serial killer Jacob Goodnight (Glenn “Kane” Jacobs) and soon he rises from his slab, with an assortment of postmortem surgical tools at his disposal, to continue his work by slaughtering the “sinners” who are partying in the morgue. Will any of them escape alive as Goodnight seals them in and begins adding to the bodies already stored there?

With the Twisted Twins taking over from ex-porn director Gregory Dark, the film is an improvement over the first one and for some very surprising reasons. The Soskas are working from a script by Nathan Brookes and Bobby Lee Darby and thus it doesn’t quite have the delightfully eccentric tone of Mary, that they wrote themselves, but it does have their style and does have a bit more fun with this slasher sequel than the deadpan and too-serious-for-it’s-own-good first flick. At first I was a little disappointed as the film started out and seemed to be a bit routine coming from directors whose work is anything, but until the second half suddenly cranks things up considerably and that’s where the film surprised me a little bit. And it’s not with the kills, which are cool, that the Soskas really got my attention with, but with some surprisingly poignant moments between the characters, mostly involving Harris’ Amy, that really resonated and really added something to the proceedings. It’s been a while since I’ve seen a slasher/horror that took the time to have such nice character moments between the carnage and it really added to the endearment of those characters and the suspense of wanting them to get out of there moderately intact. The film also deviated at times from the slasher formula and that added some freshness to it and the Soskas, as with American Mary, give us some disturbingly gruesome moments, but without going overboard or being gross for gross sake like SNE #1. A little restraint makes the violent moments all the more effective when they do come…and there are a couple that elicited an out loud “whoa” from me as I watched. Add in some nice moody cinematography by Mahlon Todd Williams that takes good advantage of the city morgue setting and a nice score from The Newton Brothers and you have an entertaining little slasher that does have the usual slasher plot holes…such as, are there so few exits in such a large public building that Goodnight could seal them all on all floors and without anyone knowing…and why are the guests’ cellphones locked in a safe?… but it still entertains like it’s supposed to.

As for the cast… “Kane” is as imposing as ever as Goodnight. Harris does really strong work here. Not only in creating a little depth for Amy, who has chosen a career that is obviously not popular with her family, but really shines in some of those character moments I mentioned before. Amy is a strong, though slightly cynical, heroine with guts and a heart. She also has a nice chemistry with Eriksen, who is good as Seth. Seth is crushing on her big time and she knows it and the scene when they reveal their mutual feelings for each other works really well and the actors’ chemistry makes it work despite there being a 7 foot madman stalking them at the moment. Isabelle is a hoot as the promiscuous babe with a dark side, Tamara. It’s not a deep role as her Mary Mason and it seems like, this time, she’s having some fun with a more ditzy part and letting Harris do the more serious emoting. Her postmortem lap dance for Jacob Goodnight’s corpse is a fun number, to say the least. The rest of the cast are solid and despite Amy’s brother Will (Greyston Holt) being a bit of a self-centered jerk, we have a fairly likable cast of supporting characters with Chelan Simmons as pretty blonde Kayla, Lee Majdoub as Tamara’s boyfriend Carter and Michael Eklund as the chief morgue attendant Holden. A much more endearing bunch than the angry delinquents that populated the first flick.

So, See No Evil 2 may not be a classic, but it is a solid and entertaining slasher that has some surprisingly effective quieter moments in-between the well-orchestrated carnage. The Soska’s bring the action and suspense, especially in the second half and even with it’s barely 90 minute running time, give us some nice resonating character scenes bolstered by it’s lead actors especially, Harris, who does some of her best work. And that’s what impresses about the Twisted Twins the most…they can deliver some very sick and twisted moments, but can also deliver some poignant quiet moments in between, just like the little conversations between Mary and Lance in American Mary. Another intriguing film from two of the more original filmmakers out there.

3 extremely hot morticians.