The winners will be announced Oct. 19th at the Folio Eddie & Ozzie Awards Luncheon in New York. Jason wishes to thank the team at Folio, and also thank and congratulate AC editor-in-chief and publisher Stephen Pizzello, managing editor Jon Witmer (also a fellow nominee), and the entire AC team.
By Joe Bendel. Madison is a conscientious mother, but since the death of her emotionally disturbed husband, she has been saddled with a difficult mortgage and a problem child. Unfortunately, she cannot sell her son Jacob, because that would be wrong, or her house, because it is haunted. The family is stuck between a rock and a supernatural place in Alistair Legrand’s The Diabolical, which opens this Friday in select theaters.
By now, Madison, Jacob, and his younger sister Haley fully accept they are living in a haunted house. They have simply seen too much, too frequently, to remain in denial. Madison has brought in paranormal researchers, but they have all beat hasty retreats. So who’s she gonna call? Maybe Nikolai, Jacob’s cool science teacher, who she has been seeing on the sly.
Unfortunately, when it rains for Madison, it pours. Just as Jacob was finishing his mandated counseling sessions for his last “incident,” he launches into another fight at school. Ostensibly, she seems to catch a break when her mortgage company offers to buy back her house at favorable terms as part of a dodgy development scheme. However, an unseen force refuses to let Jacob and Haley leave the property, attacking their nervous systems as soon as they advance past the front porch.
Actually, things are not what they seem in Diabolical, but it would be telling to explain how so. Technically, we have seen all the elements Legrand eventually reveals in some form or another in any number of previous films, but he gives them all a deeply sinister twist, while telegraphing absolutely nothing. His execution is unusually tense and creepy. With co-writer Luke Harvis, Legrand taps into the current mortgage-based economic anxieties, without overplaying the topicality card. Viewers just get a visceral sense Madison is physically and emotionally trapped in that house.
Despite still looking like a supermodel, Ali Larter is quite compelling as Madison. Frankly, her work as the anxiety and guilt-ridden mother compares favorably with Essie Davis in the over-hyped Babadook. (The Diabolical addresses similar themes, but does a better job taking care of the genre business.) Arjun Gupta’s work as Nikolai is also notable for its subtlety and intelligence, especially when grading on a horror movie curve.
This is turning out to be a very strong season for horror films—and The Diabolical definitely reinforces and advances that trend. Larter and Gupta show actors can still ply their craft in genre films, while Legrand maintains a distinctively uncanny atmosphere. Recommended with enthusiasm for horror fans, The Diabolical opens today (10/16) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema and also releases on iTunes.
By Joe Bendel. After a long, hard semester of sun & surf, Kaylee and her friends can finally enjoy spring break. So far, there has been less reality in their lives than a typical episode of Friends, but karma, if not realism, is about to catch up with them. Something hatched during their bon voyage blowout and it has turned the beach deadly in Isaac Gabaeff’s The Sand, which releases today on DVD from Monarch Home Entertainment.
There was a lot of drinking and hooking up the night before, but nobody will be embarrassed, because Mitch had the foresight to collect everyone’s phones and smart devices. He will spend the night consoling Kaylee over her ex now hooking up with her former bestie Chandra, but that is as far as he gets. It is already awkward when Kaylee and Mitch wake up in the life guard station twenty feet from the convertible where Jonah and Chandra still slumber. However, things really get awkward when they realize there is something horrific lurking under the sand.
Kaylee only needs to see a few seagulls sucked under to draw the right conclusions, but Mitch, Jonah, and Ronnie in the backseat, will have to watch her boyfriend die a gruesome death before they accept the situation. Unfortunately, Jonah the knucklehead drained the battery over the course of the hedonistic night. Things will get uncomfortable for them as the sun starts to beat down, but the convertible trio is still better off than their pal Gilbert, whose tubby butt was stuffed in a barrel.
From “The Sand.”
Do not jump to conclusions based on the bikinis. The Sand might sound like a silly Cormanesque beach monster mash-up, but it is really a surprisingly credible lifeboat thriller, executed with Kevin Williamsonesque attitude. Granted, these are all nauseatingly privileged airheads, but by horror movie standards, they are extraordinarily proactive. Following Kaylee’s lead, they start taking productive steps as early as the first act. Unfortunately, the beach patrol blowhard is played by Jamie Kennedy, so no help there. At least, it is his funniest screen appearance in years.
It turns out Gabaeff is quite adept at staging their halting attempts to shimmy around the sand. It is sort of like a lethal game of twister in which both feet must remain on a hard surface. He rather sparingly shows the monster itself, which is just as well, since the big CGI spectacles are not so hot looking. However, whenever someone falls into the same, the resulting gore is totally satisfying. While it is conspicuously obvious why Brooke Butler, Meagan Holder, and Cynthia Murrell were cast as Kaylee, Chandra, and Ronnie, they never give the sort of awkward line-readings you would expect to find in 1980s direct-to-video gems. Seriously, they are all pretty solid. Yet, it gets downright painful (in the right way) to watch Cleo Berry’s Gilbert sweltering in his barrel.
If you are the sort of person who approaches every new low budget horror movie with optimism, The Sand is the kind of film that justifies your faith. It has a knowing fondness for all the piranha and crab monster creature features that came before it, but it still gets down to genre business quite effectively. No kidding, this is a cool film. Recommended for anyone looking for Halloween viewing with a lot of beach bodies, The Sand is now available on DVD and VOD from Monarch Home Entertainment.
By Joe Bendel. Being a scientist is sort of like a form of original sin in horror movies. Linda Wade inherited that sin from her parents in the form of a very sinister artifact. For years, she tried to protect her own family, but when her well-meaning husband starts snooping into her past, he stirs up a ferociously powerful force in Nathan Hendrickson’s The Hollow One, which screens during this year’s Toronto After Dark.
Michael Wade had two daughters with Linda, but he literally did not know the first thing about her past. You might think he would figure she had her reasons, but instead he hires a private detective at the urging of his youngest, Anna. What he gets is a manila envelope full of field notes and a pepper grinder from Hell. It seems Linda’s medallion fits rather snuggly in the artifact. Unfortunately, Wade will not have much time to peruse the material before dark malicious figures start tormenting him.
At least the Wade sisters were not around when darkness fell over their home. Linda Wade tries to contain the damage, but to no avail. Ironically, she will be fatally injured when she dashes in front of Matt Hoffman’s car. He and Rachel Wade were a heavy item, but she refuses to forgive him for her mother’s death. However, the tragedy leads the Wade sisters away from the rural Washington State town for several years. When they finally return, they find the place a veritable ghost town. What few zombie-like people remain, including their apparently deranged father, have bizarre, ancient metal disks affixed to the back of their necks. To get to the bottom of it all, they will have to work with Hoffman, who was just finished serving his sentence for the accident.
Although Hollow has not played a lot of the big genre fests, it is one of the scariest films currently in circulation. The ominous forces threatening the Wades are not merely malicious. They are malevolent in a greater, metaphysical kind of way. Probably the last horror film that dared to suggest an equivalently big, evil picture was H.P. Mendoza’s I am a Ghost.
While the implications of Hollow are massively unsettling, the execution is also wickedly effective. Hendrickson’s macabre visuals and the Exorcist-esque sound design are profoundly unsettling. Honest to gosh, if this film does not give you the heebie-jeebies than you must have absolute nerves of steel. Still, it is not quite the pinnacle of perfection. Hendrickson often resorts to glaring contrivances for the sake of advancing his narrative. Frankly, there are a few “oh, c’mon” moments in there.
Still, we can forgive such micro shortcomings, because the macro whole is so blasted creepy. When the sisters and Hoffman start investigating the wreckage of their former home, detail after little detail will just set you on edge. Production designer Lisa B. Hammond and her team did terrific work crafting the distinctive look of the film. The cast is also uniformly consistent and credible. It should also be noted how much Tonya Skoog and Kate Alden’s Rachel Wade look like mother and daughter.
A lot of scary things have come out of Washington State, like Microsoft, so it is nice to see one that is frightening in a good way. Hendrickson’s film will truly get into your head and under your skin. Therefore highly recommended for horror fans, The Hollow One screens this Sunday (10/18) as part of the 2015 Toronto After Dark.
