Author: BRWC

Shut Eye 2: Review

By Louise Agostino.

Directed, written and starring Lauren Cooney and Isaac ‘ICEY’ Tomiczek this is the sequel to their first short film, Shut Eye (2016).

Shut Eye 2 (2017) is very meta. When Lauren and Isaac go to the Cucalorus Film Festival in Wilmington NC it is to showcase their first feature the duo did called, Shut Eye which has the vibe of Trainspotting (1996) mixed with the dangerous dinner party horror, The Invitation (2015), along with of course Lauren and Isaac’s current story in Shut Eye 2.

This short has all the inklings to suggest it could go down a (the) Blair Witch Project (1999) pathway. There are the warning signs that only one of the filmmakers returns back and a scene where Isaac and Lauren go into the woods to even talk about murders that have happened there. Yet Shut Eye 2 is quite an original idea. It connects us to substance abuse and the way it could lead to violence even turning to psychological breakdowns, connecting these two as a collective in our society.

Here’s the first film:

It does tacks on the same ideas, which can be affiliated with President Donald Trump’s leadership though and how this has caused people to react and be paranoid and divided. In this regard, perhaps Shut Eye 2 would be more beneficial as a feature presentation; it could really articulate its core themes and physiological horror strengths. But for now, this is a great little short to be enjoyed.

Shut Eye 2

6th November 2018
Review: Peripheral

By Eric Trigg.

Peripheral is a science fiction thriller that centers on Bobbi Johnson, a young author who has grown in popularity due to her first novel. Directed by Paul Hyett (Heretiks, Howl) the film tackles the dangers of a technology addiction. Starring Tom Conti, Rosie Day, Jenny Seagrove, Elliot Langridge, and Hannah Arterton as Bobbi Johnson. Peripheral does an amazing job with its visual imagery, and special effects but the story seems a bit incomplete in ways.

Characters come and go from scenes without explanation, and random moments of pleasure occur on screen without flowing with the rest of the film. Bobbi (Hannah Arterton) is a growing literature success and she even has her own stalker already. Struggling to write her second novel she receives a smart editing software from her publisher that begins to write Bobbi’s book for her. Peripheral seems to want to play with the idea of technology controlling reality if we are not careful with how it is used. The idea that technology can be controlling was presented on screen earlier in the year with Upgrade.

Peripheral struggles with keeping focus a bit and certain scenes offer nothing to the film and should have been cut. Witten by Dan Schaffer it appears that the character of Bobbi is part of a social thought control which could be the writer poking at society in the real world. Technology is expanding every day in society, and the future seems to lie in artificial intelligence being at the helm of everyone’s existence.

Bobbi’s newly installed artificial machine takes over her mind and begins deciding how it wants the narrative to play out. The film may not make complete sense upon first watch, but multiple viewings could assist in putting all the pieces together. Peripheral is a unique take on the dangers of technology and should be watched with an open mind.

Hannah Arterton gives a solid performance as the main lead, it is visually stunning, and although the film is heavily flawed there is still a lesson to be learned when watching Peripheral.

3rd November 2018
Mandy: The BRWC Review

By Louise Agostino.

Mandy is a new film by director Panos Cosmatos, who employs a similar hallucinatory dream-like atmosphere as in his debut film Beyond the Black Rainbow.

Mandy came out at this year’s BFI and a week later finding itself in independent cinemas.

Well for starters I had to have paracetamol after the pounding film score by the late Jóhann Jóhannsson (Prisoners, Sicario, Arrival) whom the film dedicated itself to at the end credits. Like a teddy bears picnic gone horribly wrong, Jóhannsson employs something akin to the Italian horror maestro band Goblin and even employs the whimsy of David Lynch’s Twin Peaks. Jóhannsson makes this quite unique.

Basic really, Mandy presents a couple in love. Mandy (Andrea Riseborough) who looks a lot like Shelly Duvall From The Shinning and Red (Nicholas Cage). Mandy and Red are so comfortable with each other’s skin that communication is arbitrary but being almost telepathic, gives the couple a better insight into each other’s core emotions and existence.

Mandy and Red live in a secluded area away from civilization. Their house looks like a 80s greenhouse furnished with wood and a small telly. Enduring a pattern of symbolic dreams bridging from childhood and foreseeing the future, Mandy knows something is foreboding. They don’t really talk about it but you can see the anguish through their communications. It is also unclear why they live there although Red remarks they should leave, they don’t (classic horror trope). The film gets dark after Mandy witnesses a car of strange degenerates, which takes the narrative to a clearly illogical journey. Determining the next series of outcomes.

Since the backstory is so minimal, Mandy (the film) has so much more personality going on. It is the congealing of its imagination and the score, which Panthos uses and makes Mandy a gut-wrenching horror experience, both poetic and strange. The acting is also sparing and played down. It is a role perfect in the hands of Cage. When he does give the audience raw emotion it is delightful and quite manically hilarious. Riseborough on the other hand, has some serious inner emotions. It is through her eyes that gleam with fear and brings out the seriousness and disgust to this story. As a couple they are believable and what you would expect from a couple crazy in love.

Mandy is a film that runs off adrenalin. Assuming you are going for the right reasons will go nuts for this hectic nightmare.

31st October 2018
Is Jeepers Creepers 4 Still Going Ahead?

By Eric Trigg.

Jeepers Creepers 4 News: 4^th film Still Planned!

Victor Salva wants short series as well?

Last we heard about Jeepers Creepers 4 was from Jonathan Breck who plays the winged monster in the series. Breck gave an interview last year about what Victor Salva has written stating:

“Yeah, if we’re lucky enough to have it happen. I don’t know that there’s a script written yet for Four. I know that we had a script for a long time for Three. You’re probably familiar with the name Cathedral. Cathedral got broken up into a TV series. So, he re-wrote three to be what you’re going to see on-screen on Tuesday night. But he still has Cathedral, which is written out into the first season of a TV show and it’s amazing. So that’s already written and ready to go and there’s a good possibility that a TV will be spawned from this movie. But beyond that he’s already working on the script for Four and that’s really going to get interesting because we must go a whole new direction and deal with a whole new 23 days, right? So, we’re either going to go forward or we’re going to back, or we’re going to go some combination of both.”

I want to focus on the section regarding the potential TV series because a friend of mine met writer and director Victor Salva over the summer and was told that 4 is happening and will start off in the barn we last saw the creeper in back in 2003. Hopefully this means Ray Wise can return and Gina Philips is already set to come back to hunt the creeper one last time as Trish Jenner. Now it seems Victor may be transitioning his focus to bringing the creeper to the small screen.

There is a Facebook group called Jeepers Creepers fans and it is under control by individuals that were involved with Jeepers Creepers 3. One of the members knows Victor Salva personally and claims he was told that Salva would rather focus on the TV series. This individual also claims that the reason Jeepers Creepers 3 was not a sequel to Jeepers Creepers 2 as planned is because Salva “didn’t want to do the origin story in the lowest budget film of the series.” The individual also shared his approval from reading sections of the tv series and says it will be set in the Poho County area from the first three films.

It seems Jonathan Breck’s statements from last year are true and a Jeepers Creepers television series is written and waiting to be made. For fans of the films it seems we may be getting Jeepers Creepers 4 and Jeepers Creepers: The Series.

26th October 2018
Halloween 2018: What Happens Next?

By Eric Trigg.

Click away from this article if you haven’t seen David Gordon Green’s Halloween.

Serving as a direct sequel to the 1978 John Carpenter classic we pick up 40 years later following Laurie Strode who has become obsessed with the return of Michael Myers. The events in 1978 have caused several years of PTSD for Ms. Strode. She has become a survivalist of sorts over the years and is essentially the woman who cried wolf for Haddonfield. Jamie Lee Curtis returns to the role that made her a household name and she is joined by her daughter Karen (Judy Greer) and granddaughter Allyson (Andi Matichak) Michael Myers finds his self-facing three generation of Strode women who have been affected by his attacks from 40 years ago.

In the end of the 2018 Halloween Michael is seemingly “killed” by the women and they escape in the truck of a passing driver. The last shot we see is of Allyson clutching the knife of Michael Myers. I personally feel there is no need to do a sequel to this film, but the ending was rather abrupt and of course money is the deciding factor at the end of the day. A sequel could focus on how Allyson was affected by her encounter with Michael. Perhaps a body was never recovered from the fire and Laurie begins prepping her granddaughter for combat with the boogeyman.

25th October 2018