Lady
Horrors and Thrillers
by
Kristin Battestella
Moms,
cops, daughters, or scientists – our latest round of contemporary
horror ladies must battle family terrors, tigers on the loose, cult
ghosts, and bad aliens. Oh, my!
Burning Bright – Suspicious animal sales and “Never
touch the cage” warnings make for a shady
Gulf Coast mood as a young woman is trapped in a
boarded up house during a storm with her autistic little brother and
a hungry tiger who has an evil streak and a taste for pretty things.
The family argues over their overdosed mother's will, our step-dad is
silencing everybody with his Benjamins, and there's a life insurance
policy afoot, wink. Big sis does care – the smothering dream is
unnecessary – but deferring her scholarship to raise her
frustrating brother is not what she had in mind. Fortunately, blue
shadows and the tiger silhouette on the wall accent the animal
perspectives and predatory camera panning. Sinister growls, attack
sounds, and banging on the door frights pepper the little dialogue in
tense solo scenes while cat zooms, giant paws, and a bone crunching
teeth create fear. He's a beautiful orange, electric predator, but
it's downright terrifying when he looks up and you’ve caught his
eye. How do you defend against a tiger roaming your household? Where
can you go with an unaware autistic child that a tiger can’t? At
times, obvious horror clichés and plot contrivances detract from the
unique animal siege. Padding opening credits waste time on whirlwind
effects when the hurricane a'comin news on the radio would suffice.
The drinking step-dad and college bound daughter in her wet white
tank top and tiny shorts also don’t look that far apart in age –
or we're annoyingly accustom to seeing older leading men romancing
ladies decades younger – and “No
inmigración!”
is the bare minimum diversity in a sea of white people. We know the
internet is down without seeing outdated computers and under the bed
is not
the
place to hide despite a tiger
that is apparently unable to smell sweating humans. Baiting the tiger
with hamburger laced with mom's old pills or spreading perfume to
deflect scents are underutilized while the kid is left roaming alone.
Nobody searches for tools or household weapons, a late revolver with
precious few bullets does diddly, and hello flammable alcohol and you
know, fire. We can't really see any way out of this, and viewers
shout at the TV recoil despite apparent composite trickery and
forgivable CGI tweaks for the intimate tiger scenes. Mirrors and
glass doors add to the tiger leaps and desperate chases, but our
still child not reacting keeps himself off the tiger’s radar. One
older autistic protagonist using a hidden wit to survive might have
been intriguing, as the heroine's family doubts feel hollow. They nor
the tiger get realistically beat up in the battle, there's hardly any
blood or gore, and lengthy end credits skimp more time off the
so-called eighty-six minute duration. Our desperate dad could have
been more sadistic with a generator and surveillance cameras to watch
the pussyfoot – seeing him damage the tiger cage or rehearse his
animal alibi might have clarified some of the thin veneer. This isn't
trying to be deep, but it could have something more, perhaps with a
trio of soul searching adults drawing straws or aligning to sacrifice
one, and opening evil talk or any potential paranormal autistic
connection between boy and beast remains unexplored. Thankfully, the
well filmed trapped animal intensity carries the weaker moments, and
the twists don't overstay the welcome. That tiger however certainly
has enough personality to be a franchise star – a ne'er do well
tomcat roaming the coast in search of supple ladies. I can dig it.
Last Shift – A phone call gets the viewer up to speed for
this 2015 rookie lady cop on the night shift. Dad was killed in the
line of duty and mom's worried her baby's alone in her closing
precinct, but the incoming calls are rerouted to the new station a
block away and cleaners are coming to discard leftover hazardous
material. What could possibly go wrong? The rules and uniforms add
formality but there's also hardened language and attitude resisting
the ticking clock and boring desk – not to mention icky food, gross
bathrooms, creaking pipes, a nasty vagrant, and a prostitute with
tales of a Manson-style cult family hung in this very lock up.
Buzzing lights, strange voices, banging doors, and mysterious calls
disrupt the quiet while blackout scenes force the viewer to pay
attention to how many people may or may not be present amid radio
static, sirens, and fallen flashlights. The camera moves with officer
Juliana Harkavy (Arrow), letting the unexpected simmer build
with long hallway tracking and slow zooms. Internal televisions and
cameras likewise create spooky eye witnesses and ghostly
interrogations. References to pigs the animal, the nasty female
nickname, and cop slang pepper unhelpful conversations with male
colleagues on the other end of the line. Our new gal is alone, but
equipped and capable despite eerie spins on night sticks, tasers, and
handcuffs – the usual occupational hazards. She's scared but calm,
reciting police codes to combat phantom sing songs when most of us
would get the heck out of there. Is this a haunting, imagined
hysteria, an occult set up, or a rookie prank? Every person is
suspect amid men versus women toughness, flirtatious fellow officers,
and layered female roles – good girl daughter, mother, whores,
victims, and willing cult women. Ties to a previous police raid and
anniversary clues help us piece together what is fact or paranormal,
yet meta within meta supernatural redials keep one and all
questioning what is really happening, including an apparent
acknowledgment that suspicious activity may be the reason for the
station house move. Gruesome photos, gunshots, bodies, and choice
horror visuals don't over rely on fake boo jumps, allowing the
poltergeists, hangings, and shootouts to escalate the entire ninety
minutes as the confined location becomes a disturbing house of
horrors with twisted revenge and room for post-viewing discussion. Of
course, the spinning chairs are a bit silly and the haunting versus
prank or dozing unreliability herrings are obvious, however the well
filmed suspense avoids mainstream horror cliches and found footage
gimmicks by using very little for a fine sense of unease and edge of
your seat atmosphere.
Orphan
– Grieving couple Vera Farmiga (The Conjuring) and Peter
Sarsgaard (Flightplan) adopt the precocious Isabelle Fuhrman
(The Hunger Games) in this 2009 thriller with bloody pregnancy
gone wrong dreams, snowy landscapes, a frozen lake, isolated woods,
tree house perils, and mod cabin architecture. These yuppies eat off
square plates, but nun C.C.H. Pounder (The Shield) is
stereotypically reduced with the same old black person in horror sage
and sacrifice treatment. Other trite genre elements such as evil
foreigners, the internet research montage, useless police, and false
jumps complete with the cliché medicine cabinet mirror ruse are lame
and unnecessary – as are the dated Guitar Hero moments
and a jealous son with a porn magazine stash like it is 1999. The
twisted horror suspense builds just fine with realistic threats and
mature family drama amid the escalating child shocks. The Sign
Language and silent subtitles create a sense of calm and innocence
for the youngest deaf daughter, contrasting her mother's
drinking temptations as the old fashioned dressing Esther says
everything their parents want to hear. She wants to sleep next to her
new daddy, and the couple is intimately interrupted with who's
watching photography and peering perspectives – not to mention that
is some luxury playground equipment with crazy bone-cracking
injuries! There's Russian roulette, razor blades, vice grips,
vehicular close calls, and fiery accidents. The adoption history
doesn't add up and the children are clearly terrified by their
titular sister, but of course dad doesn't believe his wife's theory
that Esther is at fault. Do you confront your new daughter or take
her to a therapist? At times, the adults act stupid just to put the
kids in peril, and these two hours feel a little long – how many
disasters are going to happen before someone gets a clue? This isn't
as psychological as it could be, dropping its uniqueness for a
standard house siege and apparently leaving more pushing the envelope
elements on the page to play it safe. However, the female familial
roles are an interesting study with surprises and an unexpected
reveal. Choice gunshots and broken glass accent the silence and maze
interiors, using the home, weapons, and weather for full effect.
Though partly typical and not scary, the dramatic interplay, thriller
tension, and wild performances give the audience a yell at television
good time.
Don't
Waste Your Time!
Moontrap:
Target Earth – This 2017 unrelated science fiction sequel
to the 1989 Moontrap doesn't have its own Wikipedia page –
the first indication of its college film project quality before a
terrible opening dream sequence, embarrassing special effects, and
shitty intergalactic props. Poor acting, dumb pillow talk, and
obnoxious phone calls make it tough to hang on in the first five
minutes. People keep talking about presenting alien relics newly
discovered in Navajo country, but what could be interesting SF ends
up late on its pseudo science capitalizing with bad dialogue actually
quoting Ancient Aliens, Chariots of the Gods, and
“Fake News.” The attempted science is ridiculously
unrealistic with no archaeology teams, digging equipment, or research
documentation yet killer shadow government agents know all the
details thanks to easily read love letter hieroglyphics that keep
promising “But wait, there's more!” hyperbole combining Stargate
and Prometheus.
Nineties music video visions
allow our lady scientist aptly nicknamed “Scout” to magically
contrive answers – she's not strong or intelligent, just bossy with
an obnoxious attitude joking that this was so easy Ray Charles could
translate it without needing a Rosetta Stone. The messy plot and fast
moving editing are ridiculously presumptuous with its science
on top of some sort of esoteric statements, and the bottom of the
barrel performances and fly by night production look like a soft core
movie without the actual porn – but there's nudity of course. This
is the absolutely wrong way to make a shoestring picture; proof that
not everything with crowd source funding is going to be good or even
watchable. After skipping ahead, I ultimately quit before she even
got to the damn moon.
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