CENTRAL PARK -- Movie Review by Porfle

Another group of annoying teens is stalked by another mysterious slasher in another forest, but this time the forest is in CENTRAL PARK (2017) and the teens are even more annoying, and dumber, than usual.

Of course, the fact that they're so annoying and their antics and dialogue so insipid actually helps the film's realism.  As for "dumb", well--they're in the heart of New York City and they still can't manage to get through to 911 on their cell phones when the gore hits the blade.

The reason they're in Central Park in the first place is to help cheer up their friend Harold (Justiin A. Davis), whose father has been caught bilking people out of about three billion dollars, throwing his family and his whole life into chaos.

Thus, time for a friendly get-together around the campfire with a few illicit substances and, since the group consists of three couples, some harmless hanky-panky.
   
But first, the exposition, and CENTRAL PARK takes its sweet time introducing us to all the characters and showing what daily high school life is like for them--a little getting in trouble with teacher in English class, a little girl talk in the girls' room, and, for Harold, some really hurtful taunting about his criminal dad.

By the time they finally make it into the park, we're about ready for a break, too.  And after some extended chit-chat, including a tense game of "Truth or Dare", first-time writer/director Justin Reinsilber brings on the carnage and doesn't let up.

 

Everything's complicated by a subplot in which a woman who lives nearby enlists her ex-husband, a plainclothes cop, to help locate her current husband who's missing after taking a bike ride into the park. 

Gorehounds may be disappointed, since much of the violence is implied (unless you count some quick shots of a guy on fire and a glimpse of a blade protruding from someone's mouth) and there really isn't that much of the old wet stuff to be seen.

The killer himself turns out to be rather intriguing after a surprise reveal late in the story in which we learn both identity and motive.  As for his victims, the more likable ones go first (that's purely subjective, of course) leaving us to rather enjoy watching the rest of them get picked off.

And speaking of "dumb" again, the first time they stumble across a body they all go screaming off into the dark woods in different directions, alone, making themselves perfect targets for the killer to dispose of at his leisure.  His techniques, we discover, are fairly ordinary as far as stalker/slashers go.

CENTRAL PARK itself is pretty standard, old-school stuff of the kind one might have rented on VHS (video stores used to be full of titles like this) or watched on Cinemax back in the 80s.  Nothing special, but perfectly passable entertainment for undemanding genre fans with some time to kill.


Premieres at Dances With Films Saturday, June 3, 2017
TCL Chinese 6
11:45 pm
6801 Hollywood Blvd
Hollywood, CA 90028

Tickets:  https://danceswithfilms.com/central-park/

CENTRAL PARK -- Movie Review by Porfle

LAKE ALICE -- Movie Review by Porfle

I always think I know pretty much what I'm in for when I sit down to watch a horror flick about people vacationing in a secluded cabin who are beset by a ruthless, mysterious, bloodthirsty killer or killers. 

But sometimes, as in the case of LAKE ALICE (2017), the filmmakers pull a fast one on me and employ a secret weapon--skill--in order to get me all nervous, scared, and jumping at shadows all over again.

That's how the main characters themselves will be acting soon enough, but at the beginning they're just a nice group of people--happily married couple Greg (Peter O'Brien, X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE, "Queer As Folk") and Natalie (Laura Niemi, CHASTITY BITES, JOBS), their daughter Sarah (Caroline Tudor, REPARATION), and her likable fiance' Ryan (Brad Schmidt, FIFTY SHADES OF BLACK)--who are spending Christmas at their vacation cabin in the wintry wilds of Wisconsin. 

In a lot of these movies, the characters are so cliched and so irritating (especially the teens or twenty-somethings who are just there to PAR-TAAAY!) that we welcome the unstoppable killer's attack that will lay waste to them in entertainingly bloody fashion. 

Here, however, is the rare case in which writer Stevie Jane Miller and her accomplice, first-time feature director Ben Milliken, use that secret weapon--skill--to write people who act and speak in a natural, realistic, and engaging way (of course, it helps that the cast are so good), so that as we get to know this nice family and their concerns, we begin to dread whatever will eventually happen to them in that cabin out there all by themselves. 

But before that, we meet the people of the small rural community nearby where Sarah grew up, and, wouldn't you know it, damn near all of them are either creepy, scary, mildly unsettling, or just plain odd. 

 

With Sarah's jealous ex-boyfriend, a couple of unreasonably hostile town cops, an unpredictable and possibly dangerous simpleton, and other characters running around, we can be pretty sure that one of them is going to be the killer while the rest are just red herrings, and half the fun--if you can call it that--of the ensuing carnage will be trying to figure out who's who.

LAKE ALICE takes its time getting to that point, but that's good because by the time bad things start to happen, we're at least emotionally invested enough to care.  That way, the deaths aren't just part of a meaningless "body count" and we aren't giddy at the cool, creative ways that people meet their violent ends. 

Moreover, director Milliken knows how to build suspense, whether it be an all-out stalker-killer attack or just one of those creepy episodes where someone hears a strange noise in the house and thinks there may be someone hiding behind the window curtain. 

Suspense, in fact, is the main element here, so gorehounds, unfortunately, will be disappointed in that regard.  But the sheer nail-biting tension that follows the first nocturnal invasion of the family home and the nagging questions of "who" and "why" should be more than adequate compensation.

As good as it is, I found LAKE ALICE painful to watch for the same reasons that made THE STRANGERS a bit of an endurance test--relatively realistic and likable protagonists, an unreasoningly evil, violent and downright scary killer or killers, and situations that inevitably detour into the dark, irrational logic of nightmares. 


Breaking Glass will release the film on DVD and all major North American TVOD platforms July 18, 2017
 
Read our original coverage HERE

LAKE ALICE -- Movie Review by Porfle

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle

One of the joys of movie watching is discovering new (to me anyway) low-budget filmmakers with a knack for turning straw into gold.  Or at least making the straw look better.  1985's serial killer thriller MURDERLUST (like its Intervision DVD companion PROJECT NIGHTMARE) is very good straw. 

Here, two very independent filmmakers--writer/director Donald M. Jones and writer/producer James C. Lane--have joined their noteworthy talents together to concoct a viewing experience which, while not exactly something to write home about, is admirably well-rendered considering that the budget was around $30,000.  That includes shooting on 35mm film, which in the pre-digital days ate up budgets like Homer Simpson going through a box of donuts.

In their script, which was begun by Jones and completed by Lane, Eli Rich (THE JIGSAW MURDERS) plays Steve Belmont, whose activities at the local church (he teaches Sunday School and counsels troubled kids) mask the fact that he's a vicious serial killer in his spare time.

Steve actually leads a triple life, since in addition to these two sides of his personality there's a third--that of a surly working stiff whose real jobs are marred by extremely disrespectful and irresponsible behavior.  When he isn't planning his next kill or being Mr. Nice Guy at the church, he's telling off his boss, trying to cajole his landlord to extend his rent deadline, or soaking his straight-laced cousin Neil (Dennis Gannon) for loans and favors. 

Interestingly, it's the non-serial-killer stuff that MURDERLUST spends the most time on.  In fact, the film is more about how Steve struggles to maintain his everyday life and keep up his clean image at church than about his homicidal activities.  So those looking for blood and gore or a series of graphic, cinematic murders for their own sake will likely find much of this story rather slow going.  Maybe even boring.

But if you get caught up in Steve's story then that should be sufficiently involving.  His standing at church is threatened when a disturbed young girl accuses him of inappropriate touching (of which, surprisingly, he's innocent) and a chance encounter with a fellow member who professes her secret love for him (Rochelle Taylor as "Cheryl") has Steve thinking that maybe he has a chance for a normal life after all.

"Normal", however, just isn't in Steve's makeup, and he keeps returning to what he does best, which is luring women into his apartment or his "creep" van, dispatching them, and then driving them out to the desert to dump the bodies.  (He'll eventually be known by the press as the "Mohave Murderer.")

Jones stages the murder scenes pretty matter-of-factly, without lingering over any of the details or indulging in anything gratuitous.  It's the drama and suspense that occur between these scenes in this leisurely-paced character study that he and co-writer Lane are concerned with.  That, and delivering as good-looking a film as they can for their meager budget.

This is where Jones' knack for solid, economical staging comes to the fore, with the help of a highly capable cast led by the talented Rich as our anti-hero Steve.  Producer Lane also adds his valuable expertise in various technical aspects (camerawork, lighting, sets, etc.) as well as pulling off some beautiful helicopter shots in the desert which he describes in detail in his informative commentary track.

As you can probably guess, Steve's veneer of normalcy comes crashing down around him in the film's climax, as his true nature is revealed to a horrified Cheryl.  Even here, though, the main goal of MURDERLUST is to draw us into its story rather than shock us.

I found MURDERLUST to be involving, if perhaps a bit overly low-key, and was interested to see how it had been put together with such limited resources.  (Watching it along with Lane's detailed commentary is especially enlightening.)  Stalker-slasher fans in the mood to be thrilled and horrified, however, will likely deem it a yawner.



The second film on the disc is Jones and Lane's first feature effort, PROJECT NIGHTMARE, which finally found distribution in 1987 after some of their subsequent films had already been released.

With an even lower budget and a soundtrack in which all the dialogue was looped, the film manages to look better and, in my opinion, present a much more intriguing "Twilight Zone"-esque story.

The brash, outgoing Jon (Seth Foster) and the quiet, introspective Gus (Charles Miller) are two old friends whose camping trip in the mountains is interrupted when a strange, unknown force begins to chase them through the woods.

Seeking shelter in a secluded cabin, they meet Marcie (Elly Koslo), a strangely accomodating woman who not only trusts them implicitly on sight but quickly falls for Gus, whose feelings are guarded but mutual.

After a series of vain attempts to return to civilization, all three eventually find themselves fleeing the mysterious force and end up stranded in the desert.  Several events bordering on the supernatural occur, but after Gus finds his way down into an underground bunker, he discovers the true origin of all the strange occurrences that have been plaguing them.

Up to this point PROJECT NIGHTMARE has been having a ball leading us through a maze of inexplicable twists and turns which it must now labor to explain.  Thankfully, the ending isn't one of those copouts that leaves us hanging, and the resolution to all the mysteries consists of some pretty interesting science fiction for us to wrap our heads around.

Technically, the film is thoughtfully directed by Jones and is rife with great outdoor locations that are well-photographed in 35mm. The underground facility betrays its low budget at times but not really to the film's detriment.

A nightmare sequence early on is quite expertly conceived and edited, ending dramatically with a series of still shots timed to a pounding heartbeat.

With a combination of "Twilight Zone", "The Outer Limits", and, according to Lane in his commentary track, FORBIDDEN PLANET, the story manages to maintain our interest throughout.  This is helped in no small measure by a very capable cast.

Despite playing second fiddle to MURDERLUST on this Intervision double-feature disc (whose bonus features consist of the two James Lane commentary tracks and a MURDERLUST trailer), I consider PROJECT NIGHTMARE the more interesting and rewarding of the two features.  Together, they make for one very worthwhile DVD which I found richly entertaining.

Buy it at Amazon.com

MURDERLUST (w/ PROJECT NIGHTMARE) -- DVD Review by Porfle