film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Time Now: Review

    Time Now: Review

    Jenny (Eleanor Lambert) has been estranged from her family for some time. When her twin brother, Gonzo (Sebastian Beacon) unexpectedly dies though, Jenny has to go home to be reacquainted with the family.

    When she does get home, her mother Helen (Jeannie Thompson), isn’t exactly thrilled to see her. However, Jenny’s aunt Joan (Claudia Black) is more than happy to pick up where they left off, especially when she meets Jenny’s son.

    Time Now is a drama about grief, loss and family which takes its time in telling its story. The pacing and the setting for Time Now does make its audience wait, but it also makes it feel more real. As Jenny starts to meet more people that were in her brother’s life, she realises that she could always rely on her brother to do the right thing.

    Although as the story of the last few days of his life are told, Jenny comes to realise that that can’t be said for everybody else.

    The story for Time Now has many avenues it could have gone down. It could have been a heart-warming drama about getting back with family and healing old wounds. It could have been a crime thriller where Jenny’s hunt for her brother’s killer could have ended in a dramatic and satisfying showdown. It could have also been about the emotional journey that Jenny takes as she grieves for the person that she was the closest to in her life.

    Unfortunately, although Time Now goes for a realistic portrayal of life and doesn’t try to go the melodramatic route to play on audience’s emotions, it does feel like the characters are at an arm’s length. The audience gets to know Jenny through her interactions with people and the stories they tell told in flashbacks help to round out a character that they didn’t get to know. However, when it comes down to Jenny’s motivations and her feelings, it feels like the filmmakers want the audience to have to assume without saying.

    This may have worked in some films, but the ending may leave people feeling a bit cold. This is because although some may have guessed where it was going, there never really is a connection that gives the audience a reason to understand her.

  • Dashcam: Review

    Dashcam: Review

    Jake (Eric Tabach) works as a video editor for a local news programme and he reports to live anchor, Tim (Zachary Booth) who is the face that people see when they want to know the facts. Jake is lucky enough to be able to work from home as he has all the equipment he needs, but being alone for a long time is, well, lonely.

    So, when he’s not editing, he’s dreaming of what it would be like to be in front of the camera and not the faceless editor that he is. Then one day Jake gets sent some shocking footage of an important political figure who was gunned down during a routine check by the police. However, what seemed to be a tragic incident holds more secrets as the evidence is revealed to Jake and he realises that there may have been more to the murder.

    Dashcam is a political thriller in the same vein as The Conversation from which it is clearly inspired, although brought right up to date. An ambitious project taken from Christian Nilsson’s short film which achieved great success, Dashcam is the feature debut of the seasoned journalist turned writer/director.

    Like The Conversation, Dashcam shows its audience everything that it has to offer, but doesn’t hold their hands. So, those expecting everything to be explained to them may be lost if they’re not paying complete attention. However, this is where the direction holds its strength because it follows Jake’s efforts to uncover the truth throughout so there is no stone unturned and no avenue unexplored.

    Thankfully though, Dashcam isn’t completely tied to its premise, so while it attempts to tell its story almost entirely through audio and visual recordings, it knows when to take a breath. Getting to know Jake more, the audience realises his insecurities and his enthusiasm, so when he does realise what’s going on, the audience is rooting for him to do the right thing.

    However, there could have been a little less of unnecessary conversations with his friends over Zoom and one big scene which lays out the plot in detail.

    Saying that though, Dashcam is tense throughout and will draw in those conspiracy theorists who love nothing better than a film with an intriguing plot. Well devised and put together, Dashcam could be the reinvention of the political thriller as we know it.

  • Demigod: Review

    Demigod: Review

    Robin (Rachel Nichols) has suffered a loss after her grandfather has died. So, along with her husband, Leo (Yohance Myles), they return to Germany where she was born and back to where here grandfather lived in the Black Forest. There they are greeted by Arthur (Miles Doleac), an eccentric woodsman who strikes up a conversation about the folklore in the area which is rich and plentiful telling tales of witches and demons.

    Robin and her husband laugh about it at first, but little do they realise that they’re being hunted by the witches and demons which patrolled the Black Forest for centuries.

    Demigod is a horror movie written, directed by and co-starring Miles Doleac. Set in the Black Forest, but clearly actually filmed in the US, Demigod is a microbudget horror movie which wants its audience to suspend their disbelief.

    After all, a good imagination is no substitute for a high action, high octane CGI blockbuster, but the results of the movie are hard to ignore. Although having a good set up, there’s a certain amount of unintentional comedy that comes from watching Demigod.

    Firstly, there’s Doleac’s performance, which the audience is supposed to believe is of a man who has spent far too much time in the wilderness and has become rather affected by it. In most films, this may be the highlight of the film because actors in those roles tend to play them in such a heightened way that they’re memorable whether they’re good or not.

    Whereas Doleac certainly does give an exaggerated performance, it doesn’t seem to suit him and the dialogue makes his serious performance come across as more comical than intended.

    In fact, there’s a lot about Demigod that’s unintentionally funny and it may also be down to the budget. When writing a horror movie such as this about witches and demons then it may have been best to make sure that the characters look suitably menacing and somewhat believable.

    Unfortunately, this is where Demigod fails because the villains’ costumes look like they’re LARPers rather than any real threat. This includes the rather laughable main villain who looks like an actor struggling to be heard through a plastic mask. One to skip unless you really must watch every horror ever made.

  • Grave Intentions: Review

    Grave Intentions: Review

    Tis’ the season and along with the many horror TV shows and movies that come around this time of year, so does the horror anthology which put together some short films which may delight horror fans looking for something to set the mood. Horror anthologies can come in many guises, they could just be straightforward short stories that go from one to another with no explanation and then there are anthologies that try to dress things up a bit and put a framing device around the proceedings. Grave Intentions falls into the latter.

    Magical Madame Josephine (Joy Vandervort-Cobb) introduces her audience to the mystic arts of black magic. As Madame Josephine takes whatever she can get her hands on, she uses the stories within the anthology to elaborate on the points that she makes about magic. Some of which work and some that don’t.

    Stories such as a dog-eat-dog situation between two women, a man cut down in his prime and a disappearance feel like stories that are a little unfinished. Also, an appearance early on by Robert Forster makes it feel like the story was found and there was a thought that his name could sell the anthology on that alone. However, thankfully there are better stories as the anthology goes along which end up being far more effective.

    That’s the thing about most horror anthologies, because the short films are directed differently and are often have different production companies then the quality varies quite wildly.

    What starts off with a short story that has recognisable faces, it suffers in its budget. Where there is a story about a man in prison whose life has changed irrevocably, it seems as if it doesn’t know how to end.

    Unfortunately, it seems that the stories in Grave Intentions may have been gathered together from different sources with little or no idea what to do with them. This leads to Madame Josephine and her magical framing device being little more than an afterthought. The set, the props and her lazy characterisation may be tongue in cheek, but not so much as to suggest that the filmmakers are in on the joke.

    Grave Intentions is hit and miss in terms of story, but maybe the most dreaded thing of all is the thought of having to go back to Madame Josephine as she hastily tries to connect the dots.

  • The Maid: Review

    The Maid: Review

    Joy (Ploy Sornarin) has applied for a job at the house of a rich family led by Uma (Savika Chaiyadej) and her husband, Nirach (Teerapat Sajakul). They live in the very definition of opulence and Joy is hoping to impress.

    Joy’s main duties go around looking after Uma and Nirach’s daughter, lovingly known as Lady Nid (Keetapat Pongrue) and Joy’s loving nature means that her and Nid soon form a close bond. However, there’s still the question about why the last maid left and what secrets the house holds which could put Joy in danger.

    Joy then goes on to meet the staff governed by Mrs Wan (Natanee Sitthisaman) who warns her to keep to herself. However, curiosity gets the better of her and soon Joy finds out things that she wishes she’d never known.

    The Maid is a Thai horror written and directed by Lee Thongkham which is a modern horror that feels so old fashioned in parts due to its characters and the ghost story genre. Told in three chapters, The Maid sets up a story that supposedly tries to subvert the audience’s expectations and although this is not necessarily a bad thing, this is where it might lose its audience.

    The first chapter sets up a very typical horror story, there are ghosts, spooky children and even a toy which may or may not be alive. The audience may expect that they’re in for a typically generic horror story about a haunted inanimate object, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The second chapter is perhaps where the audience may start to lose interest though, because this is where the tone changes so sharply and it insists on telling a drawn-out backstory which may bore some.

    Then there’s the third chapter and although the third may arguably be the most enjoyable, it seems to take a very long time to get there.

    The Maid is beautifully shot and Sornarin gives a great performance which may have cemented her place as queen of Thai horror, but the whole is not as good as the sum of its parts. Because of the tonal shifts between chapters, the story feels disjointed and often may make the audience question whether they really are watching the same story throughout. However, by the end the audience may wish that the film had been like that all the way through, if they even watched that far into the film.