Movies
An ambitious horror film, but the execution is subpar. There are some good ideas here but it felt like I was watching some 90s direct-to-video project that was only recently recovered. Apart from the soundtrack, which almost mimicked Kawai's work on Ghost in the Shell, it was just messy. Meredith has only recently recovered from a troubled relationship when she meets Bruce, a mysterious art dealer who invites her to spend the weekend at his cabin. Once there she feels ill at ease, and not without reason. Bruce is a serial killer who thinks a mythical figure is ordering him to kill women. When horror is mixed with the art scene, kitsch is never far off. A Wounded Fawn was unable to escape that dreary fate. The performances are pretty bad, the effects almost comical, and while the soundtrack is cool, it's too unfitting to compensate for failures elsewhere. I appreciate the effort to do something different, but the execution just wasn't good enough.Read all
When people buy a house in a horror film, you can bet your life it's going to be haunted. Girl on the Third Floor has a pretty plain premise, but with a house that oozes slime and spits out marbles there are some novel touches. It's a shame director Stevens never quite manages to tie everything together. Don and Liz bought a new house, moving from the city to the suburbs. Liz is pregnant, so Don goes ahead to prepare the house for Liz' arrival. Once he starts cleaning up the place, strange things begin to happen. The house seems to harbor a dark presence, but Don is unaware of the danger he's in. There are some fun ideas here, but the execution isn't on point. The performances are quite poor (Brooks in particular is hard to stomach), the horror elements aren't very effective and films drags, even though the runtime is relatively short. This could've been a pretty solid horror flick, but it needed a better crew.Read all