film reviews, interviews, features | BRWC

Author: Joel Fisher

  • Backwoods: Review

    Backwoods: Review

    Molly (Isabella Alberti) is a beautiful high school cheerleader that all the boys want. She starts to get close to Noah (Michael Anthony Bagozzi), the team’s waterboy and they end up going to a party to blow off some steam. Hunter (Matthew McCoy) is your typical high school football jock who only thinks about himself and is surrounded by friends who buy into the toxic masculinity that he does.

    However, he has a soft spot for Molly as well and when Molly finds herself bound in the boot of a car after falling unconscious, she starts to think that Hunter may have taken advantage of her in her drunken state. Molly’s problems are about to get a whole lot worse though when she’s kidnapped by the local urban legend, The Hangman.

    Backwoods is a horror movie directed and co written by Thomas Smith and Erin Lilley. Billed as a slasher for the #MeToo era, there’s definitely something to be said in a fresh and original way about a murderous psychopath who kidnaps cheerleaders.

    The problem is that with Backwoods’ script and cast make it feel more like a production made by a traveling theatre group, visiting schools to warn them about the dangers of underage drinking and toxic masculinity, rather than something more nuanced.

    Although the cast try their best, the moments where the audience are supposed to suspect that certain characters may be evil are signposted so clearly that it would take an idiot to not realise what the movie wanted its audience to feel. Plus, the casting of Noah and Hunter is a mistake because they unfortunately look so similar that it’s hard to tell them apart.

    Then movie does eventually get into the horror portion of the script, but it leans heavily on familiar tropes seen in many horror movies before. So much so in fact, that the audience may feel that Molly is never truly in danger as her menacing villain is just a man in a set of overly exaggerated prosthetics.

    However much Backwoods wanted to do something current and topical with its premise, unfortunately it fails. With an all too familiar set of horror cliches, any deeper meaning is undermined and its abrupt ending makes it feel like it missed the point.

  • Thirst: Review

    Thirst: Review

    Hulda (Hulda Lind Kristinsdóttir) is a recovering drug addict who’s always in trouble with the police. They seem to always want to pin something on her and the latest is the death of her brother that happened the previous week.

    Hjörtur (Hjörtur Sævar Steinason) is an elderly vampire with a taste for men and despite how many times he tries to get what he wants he never feels satisfied. Then one day, Hjörtur is attacked by a couple of thugs and when Hulda intervenes it gives Hjörtur the chance to unleash his powers and get grisly revenge on his attempted murderers. With nowhere else to go, Hjörtur takes pity on Hulda and decides that he wants to repay her for her kindness. Even if it means raising the dead.

    Thirst is an Icelandic vampire horror comedy. The kind of horror comedy that’s a throwback to movies such as Re-Animator and The Evil Dead in terms of its outlandish plot and its buckets of blood that it throws to thrill horror fans.

    Unfortunately, it seems that Thirst is not as well thought out as it may seem. With a lot of characters thrown in just to add a bit more tension, Thirst isn’t really the kind of witty and insightful horror comedy that speaks about our modern life while dealing with the supernatural.

    Instead, Thirst is for fans of copious amounts of blood with admittedly well-presented practical effects and perhaps more dick jokes than is really necessary.

    There was a real chance here to have two people who are outcasts to properly bond and come together to fight the forces of evil. However, the relationship between Hulda and Hjörtur is a mixed one as one minute, Hulda is warming to her vampiric partner only for him to do something horrific which she finds unforgiveable and yet by the end she is fearing for his safety.

    Supporting characters are introduced with little to no explanation and whereas there may have been a chance to do some wry family comedy, Thirst is more interested in the gore and the special effects than the story. One for the fans of throwback horror comedy, but not for anyone expecting much humor or a coherent plot.

  • Hillbilly Elegy: The BRWC Review

    Hillbilly Elegy: The BRWC Review

    Hillbilly Elegy: The BRWC Review – J. D. Vance (Gabriel Vasso) is a Yale graduate who had a poor upbringing wrought with troubles. His mother, Bev (Amy Adams) was a nurse, but her addiction to drugs led her down a bad road with psychological problems and it eventually fell on J. D.’s grandmother, lovingly known as Mawmaw (Glenn Close) to look after him. Unfortunately, Mawmaw was just as tough even without the drug abuse and family issues.

    However, J. D. still grew up well adjusted and found, Usha (Freida Pinto), a woman he loves very much. He just became afraid of what people would think of him if they found out about his family’s problems.

    Hillbilly Elegy is a film directed by Ron Howard and based on J. D. Vance’s best-selling book. Tipped for Oscar glory with Close and Adams leading the charge with their incredible careers showing just how good they could be, it seemed like nothing could go wrong. The problem is that Hillbilly Elegy is so dull.

    Without having read the book, it’s hard to say what made it so great that it was deemed worthy of so much attention from the film industry. However, after seeing the film it seems that all the best bits of what made the book so worthy must have been left out.

    Vance’s own pride of having come from nothing to make something of himself through going to college is admirable, even if some critics claim that he is not as well equipped to talk about working class America. The problem is that it seems like the film is aiming at an Oscar audience and saying that its subject went through much harder times than anybody else to get where he is today.

    It’s not to say that there should have been some heightened melodrama in the telling of Vance’s story. It’s just that there have surely been some people who have had it so much worse and done so much more.

    There’s no doubt that J. D. Vance has a bright future ahead of him with a family that he loves, but the story of his young life on the big screen just doesn’t do justice to how he may feel about what he’s gone through to get the life he always wanted.

  • Sweet Parents: Review

    Sweet Parents: Review

    Will (David Bly) and Gabby (Leah Rudick) are a young couple that have finally managed to afford a place of their own. Unfortunately, they can only afford something very small and with their professions on the line, money is tight. Will is a chef who feels he’s unappreciated at work and Gabby is a sculptor whose work is being overlooked.

    Then one day when talking with one of their friends, they find out that he’s been forming relationships with older people and feels perfectly comfortable with them buying him things and giving him money, he calls them his sweet parents.

    Shocked by their friend’s behaviour, Will is appalled that anybody could ever think about taking advantage of somebody like that in return for sex and companionship. Then Gabby meets Oscar (Casey Biggs), an artist who was revered by her tutors when she was at art school. They get to know each other and Gabby starts to realise that Oscar is exactly the right person to give her career a boost.

    Will is instantly jealous and incensed that Gabby could even consider such a thing, but over time Will and Gabby’s relationship gets tested to breaking point. Especially when Will decides to court, Guylaine (Barbara Weetman) who takes an interest in his work.

    Sweet Parents is a bittersweet drama directed by David Bly and co-written with Leah Rudick. A realistic drama that talks about the things that go unsaid in relationships.

    A drama which may be compared to Marriage Story as it tells a realistic and grounded portrayal of a relationship on the point of breaking. As the film slowly sets out its story, it never feels contrived and forced. Instead Sweet Parents is helped along by naturalistic dialogue and a script that gives the audience an organic story which never tells them how to feel.

    Rudick and Bly’s chemistry is strong and the relationship between them feels natural with the film never making the audience pick a side or to judge either one. Sweet Parents may be hard to watch at times, but it may make you question where you are in your own lives no matter what your relationship status may be.

  • Beast Within: Review

    Beast Within: Review

    August (Steve Morana) is a game developer of Werewolves Within, a mobile game based on the popular party game of Werewolf. At the launch party for the app there are a variety of guests including August’s best friend, Stan (Marco Timpano), his boss, Brian (Art Hindle), and Cheyenne (Holly Deveaux) a beautiful and mysterious woman he’s been talking to online who he invited to the party.

    However, as the guests all settle in and get to know each other better it seems that one of them is hiding a secret and that one of them may really be a werewolf.

    Beast Within is a horror movie that takes the premise for the original party game and opens it up into a real-life game within a movie with plenty of potential to show its audience how fun the game can be to those who’ve never played it. Unfortunately, Beast Within takes itself far too seriously and although set up in a self-referential scenario, the movie tries too hard to be a serious horror and forgets to have fun.

    Also, for a relatively short film, Beast Within does like to take its time to set up its players. In fact, it ends up taking a good amount of time into the movie before anybody realises that somebody has died and that there may even be a werewolf which is quite frustrating to watch.

    There are also a lot of missed opportunities in the dialogue and the connections between the characters is all but lost as they all only really come together once they’re in danger.

    A better script could have made their interactions much more realistic and perhaps even humorous as the characters start to turn on each other. It might have even helped to add moments to the script that reflected real games of Werewolf that could have made players of the game laugh.

    The best part is really the reveal of the werewolf in all its glory because there has been a real effort in the effects, it’s just a shame that the execution of the movie wasn’t as involved.