film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Eye Without A Face: Review

    Eye Without A Face: Review

    Henry (Dakota Shapiro) is lonely and struggles with anxiety issues brought on by childhood trauma from an abusive father. His roommate, Eric (Luke Cook) couldn’t be more different though as he’s a minor social media star and everything is about people seeing him doing amazing things. Henry also has a secret – he hacks into people’s webcams and watches them go about their lives and enjoys the comfort of watching their stories unfold when he feels like he shouldn’t exist.

    Then one day while Henry is watching Laura (Vlada Verevko), one of his favourite people, he realises that she’s drugged and murdered her date. Shocked and having no idea what to do, Henry and Eric start to devise a plan to bring Laura to justice despite only have partially knowing where she lives. However, when Laura finds out, she vows to track down Henry and take her revenge.

    Eye Without a Face is a familiar story brought up to date for the modern age and does so surprisingly well, with a great script, likeable characters and a thrilling plot. The idea to update Rear Window and to put it on a computer screen is a great idea and is done so easily that it’s hard to believe that nobody had ever done it before.

    Shapiro and Cook also have a great chemistry and both play their parts well. The former displays a nervous, anxiety ridden character and the latter is so obnoxious and self-absorbed that it feels like it shouldn’t work. Yet the pair are good on screen and the audience will believe in their unlikely friendship.

    However, there are some issues that revolve around the plot and the ending. As with Rear Window, there has to be a certain suspension of disbelief and as with the original, the events of the film have to happen in front of the protagonist. This is where it falls down slightly because once Laura knows Henry is watching then she can easily make him stop.

    Also, unfortunately there’s a twist ending that while it fits with the rest of the film and is cleverly surprising, it does also fall back onto a lazy trope from one of Hitchcock’s other films.

    Eye Without a Face is well told, ambitious and daring to take on such a familiar story, it’s just a shame that by trying to doing something so different that it falls in its final moments.

  • The Boy Behind The Door: Review

    The Boy Behind The Door: Review

    Bobby (Lonnie Chavis) and Kevin (Ezra Dewey) are best friends. They spend a lot of time together and are practically inseparable, then one day while they are out playing, they get kidnapped. The boys find themselves in a house and somewhere they don’t recognise and the panic as anybody would, particularly when they are faced with their captors.

    However, Bobby manages to escape and makes a run for it, although hearing Kevin’s screams, he realises that he cannot leave his best friend behind – so he goes back inside the house. What happens next is a cat and mouse game and a fight for survival that men twice their age may not be able to escape from.

    The Boy Behind the Door is an intense psychological horror on Shudder about two young boys and the bond they share as they fight for their lives. Probably the last taboo of horror, putting children in danger is probably the last thing any horror director would think of doing, except perhaps for John Carpenter in the Seventies. Saying that though, the movie plays out just as any other horror movie would, except that the protagonists are children.

    Both Chavis and Dewey do well in their roles, making the audience believe in their friendship and their willingness to do anything for each other. Although it’s Lonnie Chavis’ performance that shines through as he has to hold the weight of the movie as he tries to free his best friend.

    The Boy Behind the Door is indeed tense, but unfortunately it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t fall into familiar cliches and once the cat and mouse game begins, then the cliches come thick and fast. As mentioned earlier, the lead characters could be anyone in this kind of situation and they’re usually lone women as is often the case. However, despite its unique set up it tends to rely too much on what the audience already knows about horror.

    The ways that the boys get around and manage to overcome their assailants on multiple occasions are often down to luck rather than intelligence. The ways that the movie is stretched out so that the boys have time to think and consider their next move does mean a certain suspension of disbelief as well.

    Even the way that the villain finally has their comeuppance is something that has been seen in horror movies many times before. The Boy Behind the Door is still a well-made horror, just don’t expect much innovation.

  • The Return: Review

    The Return: Review

    Roger Emmerlich (Richard Harmon) is coming home after the death of his father. He’s not had a great childhood and there are bits he doesn’t remember so clearly, but nonetheless Richard is returning with his friend, Jordan (Echo Andersson) and his girlfriend, Beth (Sara Thompson).

    As he enters the house though, Roger thinks that there’s more going on than he knows and there may be something buried deep in his past that he needs to uncover. Also, little do they know but they’re being watched by a corporeal entity which has evil in mind.

    The Return is a generic horror movie which falls into all the tropes that an audience would expect, however it unfortunately doesn’t make any sense either. First of all, the first rule of any horror movie should be that you never show the monster, but it seems that the filmmakers hired somebody to do the CGI so at every given opportunity the monster appears.

    It also doesn’t help that there’s not a lot of consistency with the look of the monster either and the explanation for its existence is also somewhat confused.

    Although the cast try and do the best with the script, there seems to be very little chemistry between Roger and Beth as well. Not to mention the unusual choice of making Jordan into the most annoying character in the film, but forgetting to add anything that makes her endearing rather than childish.

    The typical things happen such as creepy noises, fleeting glances of the monster and people going where they shouldn’t, but there really isn’t enough to keep the audience invested, even when one of the characters does bite the dust. It also seems that the rest of the cast agree and when they do finally discover the body it’s as if they never existed and they carry on.

    The Return seems to be a ghost story that wasn’t really well thought out and all those involved were just there to get paid. There’s an attempt at a few surprises along the way and a final twist, but it will just leave the audience frustrated and confused.

  • How To Deter A Robber: Review

    How To Deter A Robber: Review

    Madison Williams (Vanessa Marano) is the youngest in her family and she’s feeling unappreciated. Her mother, Charlotte (Gabrielle Carteris) is hyper critical of her daughter and it’s driving Madison insane. Although Madison does still have her boyfriend, Jimmy (Benjamin Papac) to keep her company over the holidays so it’s not so bad.

    Then one night Madison sees a light on in her neighbour’s house and she knows that they’re not at home, so she convinces Jimmy to help her investigate. When they get there though, nothing is out of the ordinary so seeing as nobody is about and they’re alone, they settle in for the night. However, once they realise that their neighbours have been robbed and they slept through it, Madison and Jimmy have to find who did it and bring them to justice.

    How To Deter a Robber is a dark comedy thriller set at Christmas which may be a great alternative if you’re not the kind of person who enjoys Christmas. It’s also been released recently, so you may enjoy it if you’re one of those ‘Christmas in July’ people as well – apologies for the late review.

    The comedy aspect of the film is also of the dry variety, so if you’re looking for a laugh out loud comedy then you may want to try something else. Although How to Deter a Robber does have its moments. For the most part though, it’s a light hearted comedy thriller with a dark streak, so if that sounds like your kind of thing then you’re bound to enjoy it.

    The cast are all well suited, Madison and Jimmy’s relationship is more like brother and sister than boyfriend and girlfriend, but that plays well into the script and keeps the energy going.

    Also, Madison’s uncle Andy (Chris Mulky) plays a great part once he gets involved with helping the pair deter the robbers.

    There are a few surprises along the way and a twist at the end which the audience will not see coming, but may only add to the dark humour that an audience may enjoy. It does feel a little weird watching it in August though, so if you really want to then maybe wait a few months.

  • Finding Ophelia: Review

    Finding Ophelia: Review

    William Edgar (Jimmy Levar) is having trouble sleeping because every time he closes his eyes, he has a vision of a beautiful woman named Ophelia (Christina Chu-Ryan) that he cannot get out of his head. He’s been to a psychiatrist that tries to help him but it doesn’t help and he realises that there’s nothing else for it – he has to find Ophelia. Although only having a picture to go on, his search for the woman in his dreams may be harder to find than he thought.

    Finding Ophelia is the feature directorial debut of Stephen Rutterford, who not only wrote and directed, but served as cinematographer and editor as well. However, it seems that cinematography is where Rutterford’s talents lie because although Finding Ophelia is visually stunning, it falls down on the simplistic writing of characters and plot.

    There are many reasons to enjoy Finding Ophelia if you like uniquely visual directors like Zack Snyder and David Lynch, but those who are looking for more of a story with interesting characters then they may want to look elsewhere.

    Also, there are times where the film goes out into broad daylight and unfortunately this takes away from the artistic flair of the film. Whereas Rutterford’s vision may have been one to keep his audience in a certain mood and tell a story, there can be little cracks which may be due to budget.

    Finding Ophelia’s leading actors are also as visually stunning as Rutterford’s cinematography, but overall, there really isn’t much there in character and so Levar is left constantly running around, making the audience where he’s going.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwQ_Bd2l7aY

    The audience may also never know whether William’s journey is real or not adding to the dreamlike state and so there doesn’t really feel like there are any stakes or that what William finds will be really worth it.

    There are some interesting aspects of horror along the way, but Finding Ophelia never really holds onto it for too long, making it feel at odds when the twist in the story is finally revealed. Finding Ophelia may look pretty, but its running time feels too long for the story it wants to tell which may leave audiences unsatisfied.