Evidence - Movie Review

Evidence
2013
Dir. Olatunde Osunsanmi

I didn't want to do it, guys.  I know how many people out there hate spoilers and I tend to spoil movies in my reviews more often than not BUT I usually try to withhold from spoilers with twist endings and surprise killers in movies.  However, the twist ending in this movie is its ONLY SAVING GRACE.  So I kind of have to do it in order to give a complete review, but if you don't want to know who the killer is, just, um, don't read the last couple paragraphs? (Sowwy.)

That aside, Evidence started out great.  For about all of three minutes.  Our movie begins in 2012 in Kidwell, Nevada with a wide angle shot on a crime scene.  Fire ablaze, cops and coroners in mid-motion, everything and everyone frozen in time as the camera pans and zooms with ease on a disembodied arm, an incinerated body, a flipped shuttle bus, and a video camera being confiscated as evidence.  Everything is in bright vivid overly-contrasted colors with intense music playing and it is awesome.

Then we have about an hour and twenty-five minutes of crap.  Detectives Reese and Burquez are on task to review the video evidence recovered from the crime scene, on which we meet Leann, an aspiring actress, Rachel a documentary filmmaker, and Tyler, Leann's emo boyfriend who proposes to her at the beginning of the movie and gets hit with a,"No, I can't."  Ouch, it burns.  Even after the cold rejection, Tyler, Leann, and Rachel set off on a shuttle bus for a Vegas vacation they had been planning.  Their fellow passengers are Vicki, a dancer from Russia, Stephen a teenage magician, and a strange redhead middle-aged woman carrying a duffle bag full of cash.

All of this footage, by the way, is shot through Rachel's handheld camera with her as the narrator and she is annoying as balls and she never gets any less annoying throughout the movie.  She is snarky and conceited and snippy and none of it in a charming way.  Anyway, Ben, the shuttle driver ends up taking them down a back road as a shortcut to get through to Vegas when all of a sudden the bus runs over some barbed wire and flips.  Everyone is alive but shaken up and head out to the nearest abandoned dusty town full of vehicles and sheds to search for a phone.

Shut up, Rachel.

One by one, our characters drop like flies.  There is a healthy amount of tension builds, jump scares, and creepy, dark, abandoned building exploration throughout the film.  We are led to believe that our killer (who by the way is wearing a welding helmet and apron and wielding a torch) is supposed to be Gerald, a PTSD-suffering retired army sergeant married to Trina, aforementioned crazy redhead on the bus.  Gerald spent a fair amount of time in a mental institution and 90 grand was cleared out of his account two days prior.  We see Stephen, Vicki, and Ben lose their lives (allegedly) by way of stabbing, burning, and various other means of generic horror flick death. 

 

At this point, I'm getting a little frustrated because every time there's an intense scene and the camera falls out of someone's hands, the action taking place lands perfectly in-frame.  I sigh and yell, "C'mon, found footage film, be original!  Be realistic!  Have the camera film a wall for five minutes while someone gets flambeed in the background!"  As the film progresses, we learn that Gerald is dead and wanted Trina to take all his money and go to Vegas, but oops, Trina gets her throat slit by Mr. Welder Man.  There's also one part of the film where Mr. Welder writes "Fear Me As You Fear God" on a bathroom mirror in blood and then takes cellphone selfie footage of himself in the mirror and I cackle at the absurdity.

Gotta get my best angle.

So now our detectives realize that this whole thing was planned by the killer and that he is smart and meticulous and purposely wants them to see this footage.  Then they start to think, "Why did Ben take them down this back road on a nonstop trip to Vegas and how did he know there would conveniently be this rest stop nearby?"  Ben, the bus driver, becomes our prime suspect.  Eventually Mr. Welder attacks Rachel and sets her on fire and then the whole building blows up.  Just as the welder is taking off his mask, the footage freezes and this is the last file on the camera.  OR IS IT?  Suddely the detectives learn that all of this video footage has been leaked on the news as a snuff film after their server has been hacked.  Leann, after being brought into the police station for questioning, reveals that before Stephen died, he was choking on something.  Something like an SD card.

HERE'S WHERE THE SPOILERY STUFF HAPPENS

 

On this secret footage, we find out that Tyler, the emo boyfriend, killed Stephen for spying on him and Leann arguing.  Tyler is the killer!!  But wait, the detectives realize that the time codes on the footage aren't breaking with the film glitches - they're not glitches, they're EDITS.  It is revealed that Leann is the other killer and Rachel is still alive.  Yep, they were all in this together, they planned this, they finally made their masterpiece movie with miss aspiring actress Leann as the star damsel in distress.  The movie then gives us a quick flashback of all the footage that wasn't seen in the previous hour and a half, showing how they committed all the murders, all the quick costume changes into the welder gear, etcetera etcetera.  My jaw drops and I chuckle to myself because after suffering through an hour and a half of stupidity, this twist is executed quite well and now I'm sitting here wondering if I actually liked this movie afterall.

Does anyone else experience this like I do?  You sit through a movie being bored, disappointed, unimpressed, but then something so badass happens at the end, you're like "Well, crap, now I like it" but you don't want like it?  Ah, so conflicting!!  I totally appreciate the typical bait and switch setup of Ben supposedly being the killer and then I started to figure Leann might be the killer or even Tyler but I didn't put together that it was all three of them and that they had meticulously planned this from weeks before.  And then I go, "A-ha, there's actually a reason why every time the camera was dropped, they landed precisely in frame!!"  They got their footage on all the major media outlets, they're famous, mission accomplished.

However, one question remains, why did Ben take them down that back road if it was supposed to be a nonstop trip to Vegas?  Dun, dun, dun...

-Amanda

The Town That Dreaded Sundown (2014)

The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Directed by Alfonso Gomez-Rejon
Produced by Ryan Murphy
Released 2014
NO killer reveal spoilers ahead

The Town That Dreaded Sundown is loosely based upon the original film of the same name released in 1976 which is loosely based around actual events.  This updated version actually puts a new spin on remakes, which I quite enjoyed.  Rather than just rehashing the same characters, plot, and scenes of the original film, Gomez-Rejon's modern day version weaves the existence of the original film into the 2014 version as a catalyst for a new string of murders.  I was slightly hesitant about this film, seeing as it's produced by Ryan Murphy, better known for Glee and American Horror Story fame.  Murphy's work is questionable - Glee started off great and went downhill very quickly and American Horror Story is teetering on the edge, especially after the disaster that was the most recent season "Freak Show."

I digress.  'Sundown' is based in a town on the border of Texas and Arkansas, aptly named Texarkana.  In 1946, there was a string of horrific murders over the course of three months committed by someone known only as the 'Phantom Killer', who would follow young couples into isolated areas to murder them.  In reality, the killer's identity was never discovered, but the movie has a slightly different take on it.  I also have to disclose that I have not seen the original 1976 version of the film, so I cannot give a comprehensive view of how both films bounce off of each other, but I will do my best based solely on the 2014 version.  Every year in Texarkana, the original film is screened at the drive-in on Halloween night (this actually happens in real life) and this is where our 2014 movie begins.

 

Our main couple in the film is introduced at the drive-in, Jami and Corey.  They leave the showing to sneak off and make out in the woods in their car.  They are quickly approached by a creeper with what looks like an ace bandage on his head who bashes in their car window, chases them for a bit, then kills Corey.  He tackles Jami as she tries to run and tells her, "This is for Mary.  Make them remember" and then lets her live, as she crawls back to safety under the drive-in movie screen, causing the crowd to scream and run to aide her.  As a funny side note, Gary Cole and Anthony Anderson play the deputy and ranger in the town, which is pretty hilarious to me.  Jami's grandma gives her some history of the Phantom Killer from the '70s and we learn that the aforementioned Mary was one of the original victims.

The movie then progresses through a series of murders of different couples, one being a veteran coming home and reuniting with his girlfriend in a hotel room, another being a gay high school couple.  The murders are definitely unique, I will say.  The vet gets his head cut off and smashed through a window and one of the high school boys gets a knife to the back of the head attached to a trombone.  Why, I don't know, but it was kind of funny in a WTF type of way.  I feel like I might've had to have seen the original to fully grasp that one.

Anyway, Jami does some research in the archives and makes a little boyfriend out of one of the workers there and receives a creepy Zodiac-esque manifesto but through email rather than news bulletins, since this is 2014 and all.  The police aren't very receptive to her concerns, so Jami decides to take matters into her own hands.  She and her boyfriend, Nick, go visit the son of the director of the original film, Chuck Pierce Jr. and he tells them the story of a man, Hank McCreedy, a victim of the Phantom Killer whose body was found on the train tracks cut up into pieces.  We discover Mary was Hank's pregnant wife and Pierce thinks the new Phantom Killer may be the grandson of the McCreedys, angry that his grandfather's death is not remembered and honored by the town of Texarkana.  After a few more deaths in the town, Jami's grandma freaks out and says she and Jami are going to move to California to get away from it all.

But of course, before they can make it to California, there's a good old fashioned shoot-out and chase scene at the town gas station at the conclusion of the movie.  Jami is chased by the Phantom Killer and quite literally takes an arrow to the knee (a Skyrim nod, I'm presuming) and an arrow to the chest before finding out the TWIST identity of the killer.  I will tell you though, it's somewhat of a letdown.

The remake of The Town that Dreaded Sundown received overall favorable reviews on Netflix and Rotten Tomatoes, but here I come to be a Debbie Downer.  I didn't really like it.  I didn't really hate it.  I'm basically indifferent about it for a few main reasons.  The movie, excluding credits, was only an hour and twenty minutes long and although it seemed to go by fast, it also felt like the entire storyline just dragged on with rare spurts of excitement that were here and gone far too soon.  The murder scenes were unique and gory but extremely quick and over in a flash before you could truly feel any build of anticipation.  There were no surprise death scenes - every one was lined up and predictable.  Essentially anytime you saw two people together that were in any various stage of undress or intimacy, you immediately knew they were going to die, the man first followed by the woman.

The thing I will say about this film is I enjoyed the incorporation of the original film and the nods given to it throughout the film.  There was even footage of the original movie spliced into certain scenes and the cops were able to trace where the deaths would be taking place based on the killer following the trajectory of the deaths in the original movie.  I liked that they incorporated the character of the director of the original film, weaving fiction and reality together quite seamlessly.  Overall, I would definitely say give this film a shot if you want something to do on a weeknight, but don't expect too much excitement or any actual fear to be gained from it.  It's a modern day twist on a vintage slasher that seems to hold the test of time and wasn't f'ed up too badly by Ryan Murphy but wasn't truly given the glory it maybe could have had.

But it does get ten points for killing someone with a knife attached to a trombone.  Really, that's pretty epic.

-Amanda

Come Back to Me - Movie Review

Come Back to Me

Released 2014

Directed by Paul Leyden

Slight plot spoilers but NO ENDING SPOILERS

Hold the phone, alert the presses, a pig has grown wings and just flew past my head, I found a recent horror movie that I LIKE, I really like!! In fact - I watched Come Back to Me on a Friday night while my husband was out and when he got back I told him about it and we watched it together Saturday morning and HE liked it as well! (Normally we rip movies to shreds when we watch them together, haha.)  This means, I watched this movie twice within a 24 hour time period and perhaps I have a fever but I'd actually watch it a third time.

Now granted, before I get too carried away, this isn't an Academy Award worthy picture, folks.  In fact, there's nothing too special or over the top about it.  It isn't exorbitantly freaky or disturbing or groundbreaking.  It's a good 'ol fashioned tale of a lead female with anxiety stalked by the creeper next door with requisite long hair and smelly house.  But it gets deeper and there's a twist at the end that is epic and I'm not gonna tell you what it is for once!  However, all I will say is this, if you're a fan of happy endings, well, you're SOL on this one.

Our story opens with a teenage boy, Dale, sitting on the couch holding his pet rabbit and hearing his mom get murdered by his stepfather.  Or so we are led to believe...

 

Flash forward about ten years and we meet our main character, Sarah, a late 20-something blonde generic cute girl, married to Josh, wanting to have a baby, writing her thesis on the effects of porn on relationships.  Josh and Sarah notice Dale moving in across the street and bring him a plate of Rainbridge Farm cookies, which Dale creepily asks if they're homemade and then seems pissed off that they're not but accepts them anyway.  We later see Dale working in the grocery store and helping Sarah load her groceries in her car, being as friendly as he possibly can while still looking and acting like a major creepo.  

[Oh yeah and there are about five different scenarios in this movie where Dale eats cookies like a creep, all fast and maniacal, and that alone is worth the price of admission for the sheer WTF level of it all.]

We learn that Sarah had recently been in a bad car accident and had head trauma, resulting in insane night terrors where she sees Josh get killed, finds blood on her sweatshirt, wakes up in different rooms in the house, wakes up naked and smelling cleaning products, and all other varieties of strange scenarios.  Her very pregnant friend and therapist, Leslie, tries to help Sarah through all of her issues while Dale lurks around every corner saying hi to Sarah every chance he can get.

 

Eventually, Sarah starts to get suspicious of Dale and sneaks into his house one day after he leaves for work.  She finds an entire cabinet full of cookies and a box upstairs of keys.  Turns out, Dale made an impression of Sarah's key the same day he loaded the groceries into her car and has been sneaking into her house every night.  But what has he been doing?  Suddenly maybe the night terrors aren't nightmares at all, but reality.  We also learn that Sarah becomes pregnant but Josh shoots blanks, thus causing a giant rift in their marraige as he thinks she has been cheating on him and moves out to his buddy's house.

After months of frustration and fear she is losing her mind, Sarah sets up a smoke detector camera in her bedroom to get to the bottom of what exactly is happening during these night terrors/blackouts.  What she finds is alarming.  Dale has been sneaking into her house every night, tying her up, dancing with her in his arms, eating cookies, raping her, then slitting her throat.  Yes, you read that right.  Dale has been killing Sarah every night, BUT after cleaning up all the blood, before he leaves the room he breathes life back into her and all her wounds are healed yet she remembers nothing.

Turns out all those years ago, Dale's mom didn't actually die because that night Dale discovered his power and brought his mom back to life.  He then went out of control with it and began killing girls and animals all around his neighborhood and bringing them back to life, slowly driving his mother to insanity.  She hung herself, slit her wrists, and tried all other methods to die, but Dale would keep bringing her back to life.  Finally, Dale's mother set herself on fire in front of the police and was sent off to the insane asylum in order to get away from Dale.  Sarah goes to visit her and we learn Dale's back story and why he is the way he is today, including the fact that he is forever stuck in a preteen's mentality and when he first discovered his power, before he would bring people back to life, he would demand his mother make him homemade cookies with milk.

 

Our story comes to a grand conclusion when Sarah returns home prepared to shoot Dale, but finds he has tied up Josh and now their lives are in danger.  Sarah must come up with a plan to get Dale out of their lives for good and let's just say it begins with a cookie date over a wine glass full of milk and ends with, well...I want so badly to spoil the last ten minutes of the movie because it gets EPIC but I will not because I feel this one is much more fun when you don't know what's coming.  I'm also leaving out a couple of key scenes for brevity's sake, but let's just say they involve bunnies and babies.

 

Now, I learned after watching this that Come Back to Me is based on a novel, "The Ressurectionist" by Wrath James White, this BAMF right here:

White is a former World Class Heavyweight Kickboxer, distance runner, performance arist, and former street brawler.  Proof that you can't judge a book by its cover or an author by his snazzy suit and tie.

Once again, I would definitely give Come Back to Me a high approval rating.  Of course it has its cheesy moments and the lead actress is sometimes slightly insufferable with her over the top gasps and facial expressions and shrieking, but I can overlook this because of how well the other actors fit their roles and embody their characters and how this is one of those films where you know something is not quite right but you can't exactly figure out what's happening until it all just smacks you in the face.  Dale is a complex character who does heinous things but you realize deep down inside he's an emotionally-stunted momma's boy with a power he didn't ask for and really has no idea what to do with and, man, he just really likes cookies and milk.

Come Back to Me will make you think twice about whether some of your nightmares are a little more real than you'd like to believe and also make you side-eye that one neighbor who always seems a little too interested in where you're going or what you're doing.  And, hey, who doesn't love a horror movie that leaves you with a lingering sense of paranoia, am I right?  Anyone...? 

- Amanda