film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Redwood Massacre: Annihilation – Review

    Redwood Massacre: Annihilation – Review

    A few years after the events of The Redwood Massacre, Max (Damien Puckler) has become obsessed with them, even influenced by them. So, when he meets Laura (Danielle Harris) and Tom Dempsey (Jon Campling), a family affected by the Redwood Murders, he sees his chance to take them on a hunt to bring the Burlap Sack Killer to justice.

    After a while trekking through the woods to get to their destination, they see the entrance to an underground bunker and without thinking twice, the gang comprising of Laura, Tom and their friends Gus (Gary Kasper) and Jen (Tevy Poe) venture into the bunker to find the killer. Little do they realise that their guide has led them right into his trap.

    Redwood Massacre: Annihilation is the sequel to The Redwood Massacre released in 2014. Following its predecessor also written and directed by David Ryan Keith, Redwood Massacre: Annihilation sets its horror in an enclosed space where the killer picks them off one by one, whereas the original did the same, but with a group of campers.

    However, the familiar settings of the Redwood Massacre movies may be a bit more satisfying if along with its classic tropes, it tried to do anything engaging with the story and characters. Instead Redwood Massacre: Annihilation just does what it feels it needs to do in order to qualify as a horror movie.

    Fans of the original (wherever you are) will be met by the same kind of knowingly cliché horror that the first one provided albeit with a new cast of characters and a new kill list in order to watch them all die in various horrible ways.

    The problem is that newcomers who may not even realise that this is a sequel may not be all that impressed as the characters and plot are put together so lazily that they won’t care about anyone.

    There are some attempts at a bond between the characters which includes a mild flirtation between Gus and Jen, but by the end the audience will just see the movie for what it is and wish they were watching something with more imagination.

  • Expulsion: Review

    Expulsion: Review

    Scott (Colton Tapp) and Vincent (Aaron Jackson) work for a company called Cicero Market Technologies Corporation that makes technology that the world may never know about. Tasked with developing new technology and testing the boundaries of what’s possible, they take some of it home and it’s not long before Scott makes a breakthrough.

    Working on theories about portals and parallel universes, Scott invents a literal door to another world and although he knows how potentially dangerous this discovery may be, it’s not long before his curiosity gets the better of him as he passes through to the other side.

    That’s where he meets Other Scott (Colton Tapp) who has been expecting him and warns him about the dangers that are ahead of him if he continues his work. However, Scott doesn’t realise that Other Scott has ulterior motives that may put his life in danger.

    Expulsion is a science fiction movie written and directed by Aaron Jackson and Sean C. Stephens. Following in the tradition of many science fiction stories that have been written about parallel worlds and scientific discoveries gone wrong, Expulsion seems to know exactly what it wants to do and how to do it.

    With a clearly limited budget and resources, it may be easy to write off Expulsion but thankfully the script is the thing that holds it all together, giving the movie no more and no less than it needs to tell its story.

    The acting is also of the low budget variety and often it seems that the script may be better served with performances that match its preciseness. However, the actors do what they can with the script and although the scenes and dialogue may be very familiar, the fact that the movie was done on such a low budget shows that often it’s the script that matters most.

    Expulsion is the kind of science fiction movie that has been done many times before in both television and cinema, but those fans of the familiar tropes and themes of this subgenre of science fiction may feel comforted to know it’s still done well.

  • Monochrome: The Chromism – Review

    Monochrome: The Chromism – Review

    Isaac Ward (Josh Bangle) lives in a world of black and white, he goes about his days just like everybody else not expecting anything bad to happen and generally hoping for the best. Then one day Isaac is shot in the street and he starts bleeding red. Rushed to hospital, the doctor says he’s never seen anything like this before and Isaac is quarantined.

    His wife, Victoria (Cat Merritt) is understandably worried about him, but she knows he can pull through and overcome the virus of colour that is spreading throughout his body. However, Isaac doesn’t feel any different and once he recovers for his wounds, he escapes the hospital finding that there are others like him that are being hunted down.

    Monochrome: The Chromism is a science fiction drama shot in black and white, written and directed by Kodi Zene. Cleverly using colour to get its points across, Monochrome feels like a dystopian sequel to 1998’s Pleasantville and one that speaks to a modern audience who feels the tightening grip of hatred and intolerance coming from all sides.

    What could have been a rather heavy-handed analogy though, comes across as much more balanced because of the way the world feels today. It seems that today no matter what gender, sexuality, race or political standpoint may be, there is always somebody passionately opposing your view so Monochrome never tells its audience what to believe.

    Instead it lets the characters experiences be an imprint of the audience’s own. No matter how you feel, Monochrome’s message of communication over hatred and prejudice is something we all share.

    Josh Bangle and Ryan Barnes play their parts well as brothers forced onto different sides with the latter chasing down the former. Although they don’t physically resemble brothers all that well, their performances shed light on their characters’ points of view, keeping the audience watching as their conflict escalates.

    However, there are parts that feel a little out of place, such as the villain and his masked henchmen which certainly have different connotations today as to when the movie was shot. Also, the monologues from Isaac that bookend the movie make it feel more like an extended pilot for a television show rather than an insightful and clever science fiction movie which it is for the most part.

  • Don’t Look Back: Review

    Don’t Look Back: Review

    Caitlin Kramer (Kourtney Bell) has a good life, a great relationship with her father, (Orlando Eric Street) and Josh (Skyler Hart), a wonderful man who loves her. Then one day as her father is visiting, Caitlin opens the door and has her home invaded by a group of masked thugs. In a matter of seconds, they have knocked her down and killed her father.

    Sometime later after Caitlin has recovered and is going to grief counselling, she takes a stroll through the park and sees a handsome man and she smiles and turns away to go about her day. However, as soon as she does the man is brutally attacked and beaten to death. There are many onlookers, but nobody seems to want to get involved to stop the attack with some even filming the attack, but Caitlin starts to feel guilty about what she witnessed and did nothing.

    She then decides to go to an open-air vigil held by Lucas (Will Stout), the brother of the man who died and from that point Caitlin starts experiencing supernatural visions. Not to mention she starts fearing for her life when the other witnesses that were in the park that day are being killed one by one by what she thinks is a supernatural force.

    Don’t Look Back is a horror movie with a made for television quality and an incredibly predictable plot. Whereas some horror movies try to do something different, Don’t Look Back is a horror movie that anybody could happily watch with their grandparents on a Sunday afternoon.

    There are attempts at jump scares, but they just seem to be inspired by other horror movies and are somewhat inconsistent. So, if you are looking for a good horror movie which will at least unnerve you, Don’t Look Back may not be for you.

    However, if you are looking for a horror movie that’s incredibly cheesy, predictable and easy to watch then Don’t Look Back is perfectly fine.

    You may know exactly where it’s going by about the first ten minutes, but sometimes there’s something comforting about something so familiar.  

  • J.R. “Bob” Dobbs & The Church Of The SubGenius: Review

    J.R. “Bob” Dobbs & The Church Of The SubGenius: Review

    J.R. “Bob” Dobbs & The Church Of The SubGenius: Review – Sometime in 1978, Ivan Stang (Douglass Smith) and Philo Drummond (Steve Wilcox) decided to write a pamphlet satirising religious gatherings and cults that had become widespread across America.

    Their ethos was to gather all the people that felt that they didn’t fit in, they wanted to find the weirdos who thought that the ‘normal’ people were the crazy ones and that they and their followers, the SubGeniuses should have their voices heard. Little did they realise, but over 40 years later their idea would gain such a gathering that they may have even become a cult themselves. Whether they liked it or not.

    J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and The Cult of The SubGenius is a documentary that tells the story of a joke between two friends that kind of got out of hand and in many ways (both of which they’d deny and confirm) would become a religion.

    Their main belief being that ‘f*ck ‘em if they can’t take a joke’ has run right through their religion and the documentary tells how their initial idea came to rise in popularity (something that they were against), with celebrity fans such as Nick Offerman, Richard Linklater and Penn Gillette. However, it also tells of the repercussions that they had not considered when the joke kept rolling.

    Going through the 80’s, 90’s and into the 21st Century, their core group belief in fun and not taking themselves too seriously stayed the same, but the documentary doesn’t shy away from those people who took it more seriously.

    Talking frankly and honestly about its ‘members’, J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and The Church of The SubGenius shows that although they never intended it, that view of ‘not everybody getting the joke’ could be harmful, particularly going into the changing climate of the 21st Century.

    However, the documentary gives them a chance to tell their side of the story and admit to having to adapt as the world changes. J.R. “Bob” Dobbs and The Church of The SubGenius is an insightful look at the world today and the madness that engulfs us on a daily basis, and if you don’t get the joke then that’s ok. As for me, sign me up.