What independent film does so well is the singular presentation of unbridled imagination and ingenuity. Uninhibited by preponderance mandate and for-the-majority edicts, indie filmmakers can let their innovative stories shine. Sure there is a lack of budget, sometimes wooded acting and the technical work can swing in wild directions within the confines of a single film often diluting the intended scope. Yet indie fans know this and are quite willing to cull the gems from something presented with passion and heart. Thomas Smith’s THE NIGHT SHIFT is one of these special films with a great concept and a love of fun accessible entertainment.

Rue (Khristian Fulmer) & Claire (Erin Lilley) are confronted by a resident.

Smith’s core concept with The Night Shift is pure gold – an undead night watchman Rue Morgan (Khristian Fulmer) must look over a graveyard of “residents” (read zombies, demons and their like) to ensure they all stay within the gated walls. Smith sets up this concept quickly in the opening scene; a girl walking at night stumbles upon the graveyard just as a ball rolls out from inside. Curious she wanders in only to bump into Curly (Jordan Woodall) a resident zombie who just wants to get his ball back. Faced with an undead the girl quickly runs away, but not before dropping the ball to which Curly quaintly grunts a thank you for and returns to his game among the other residents. Though the girl is quite stilted and unconvincing, much like the numerous extras playing the students or kids who wander into the graveyard at night, the setup is great especially when following Curly through the grounds. Here Smith layers his universe with a collection of fun archetypes and Romero-inspired characters (including a baseball player with a ball imbedded in his left eye). It’s all meant to be fun of course, so each of the characters are approachable and designed in a way to play up the cheese factor, including the use of green and blue colouring, something any modern zombie aficionado will know isn’t how corpses decompose.  There is little in the way of gore or blood in the design of the undead, and honestly you never miss it. It’s a great campy premise on which to build a rich and textured world.

When introduced to Morgan he’s in banter with his skeletal sidekick Herb (voiced by Soren Odom) who accompanies him on his rounds each night between games of cards and checkers. The interplay between Morgan and Herb is one of the best things about the film and the most realized of the relationships. With Herb cracking wise and Morgan playing the straight man for the most part, it’s classic Laurel and Hardy interplay and gives the film an immediate nostalgia for those bygone days of cinema. Truly most of the film plays like it’s lost in another time with references to antiquated technologies and the dress of the modern characters (as everyone in the graveyard wears what they were buried in). The core of Smith’s story revolves around the dynamic between Morgan’s romantic interest Claire Rennfield (Erin Lilley) who is his very mortal boss and conduit to his employers Management, his nemesis Roderick Blake (Jonathan Pruitt) a revolution-era southerner, and the tenuous nature of his position as night watchman brought about by his blundering tendencies. Blake covets Morgan’s job and uses his sad-sack interest in Rennfield to manipulate him into constantly making a fool out of himself.

Rue Morgan (Khristian Fulmer) just wants to be loved.

Yet there is more afoot at the cemetery as Morgan soon discovers with a series of supernatural events. He’s forced to contend with an Adramelech (read: nasty demon) with a affinity for western garb, a corpse-turned-werewolf who’s noshing on pedestrians, and a hostile takeover from a rival cemetery Weeping Willows who want the grounds for reasons unknown. In creation and execution the key adversaries had a definite inspiration from the quirky films of Don Coscarelli (Phantasm, Bubba Ho-Tep) who also knew well the power of having tongue firmly planted in cheek when working with a low budget. If Coscarelli couldn’t afford the best costume in the world, he’d make the most fun and entertain you that way. This wisely skews a liability into an asset, something Smith does deftly throughout the film.

Claire (Erin Lilley) fights off the advances of a real dog.

That being said there are a number of things that prevent the film from rising to its full potential, namely the pacing and running time. At just over two hours in length, the film takes far too long to play out its story. This isn’t due to the script per se, but more the pacing of the dialogue scenes, which are drawn out. What Smith needed here was to play up the nostalgic elements he’d already imbued his leads with. Having the exposition heavy dialogue rattled off rapid fire as in the classic films of the 40’s and 50’s, such as His Girl Friday (1940), or Scared Stiff (1953), would have added a needed dynamic between Morgan and Rennfield and certainly would have cut the running time down considerably. There’s also a few technical problems throughout the film: the sound is a grab-bag with dialogue heard for the most part but buried under the music from time to time; the picture quality also varies, suffering from heavy post filtering which ultimately blurs the image here and there; and there are some blatantly obvious gaffes that happen which tore me right out of the movie due to how obvious they were. Finally there is the way Smith chooses to handle his ending; he sets up and foreshadows a very clear cut and, if it had been allowed to play out that way, quite satisfyingly sweet ending but instead abandons it in the eleventh hours to deliver something quite mediocre given the logic and nature of everything he’s worked to establish in his world.

Rue Morgan (Khristian Fulmer) shows em' who they're messing with.

Yet given these flaws the film is still quite fun and engaging. Smith is self aware enough to both parody his material and allow the characters to comment on such. This is most evident during a great moment in the climax where Morgan and Blake send their entourages out to fight each other and are both underwhelmed with the sluggish grunting results. Morgan voices his shock to which his boon companion Herb exclaims: “Well what did you expect from a bunch of dead guys?” Smith’s influences are quite obvious throughout, from Romero to Coscarelli and the last great Italian zombie film Dellamorte Dellamore (1994), but here he does what all great next-generation filmmakers do by distilling them down into something uniquely his own.

Ultimately The Night Shift is a fun and engaging Sunday afternoon diversion that is more than suitable for family viewing. It’s sweet 80’s fare with a sly nod to the absurd, nostalgic heart and ample breadth of imagination.

-Vance Garrett

Visit the Official Site: http://thenightshiftmovie.com/

Poster for The Night Shift (2011)

I’ve been propagating a simple ideal for a great many years, something that most of you who frequent this site can relate to with your love of independent films:  the indie film is as purified a cinematic experience as we can achieve in a corporate conglomerate world bent on exploiting endless tie-ins and subsidiary markets. In essence the indie film holds the promise of true vanguard storytelling muted only by their lack of budget and experience. Freed of focus groups, corporate eidos, and producer interference that has more to do with conformism than business or innovation, the modern independent film is seemingly the last vestige of exciting entertainment made for the audience. These filmmakers cull their films from a wellspring as clear as the south sea waters: being a film fan first. They want to perpetuate the lexicon of cinema, adding and evolving it with their own unique voice, filtering what they fell in love with and distilling it into a tonic that new fans can imbibe in with the same furor. As if tapped directly into this promise, writer-director-star Pascal Aka’s EVOL is the epitome of contemporary indie cinema that mergers his obvious love of martial arts films, French cinema and the urban gangland film into a voice distinctly his own.

Randy Love (Dennis Lafond) lines up a shot in EVOL.

EVOL tells the story of bodyguard Randy Love (Dennis Lafond) who, after years working as the personal security for businessman and philanthropist John Hardy (Phillipe Paquette), is bequeathed Hardy’s fortune of three million dollars. Love, being a good man, is taken aback by the deathbed gift from his surrogate father, but ultimately comes to accept that he’s now a millionaire. He’s thrown a curve when he arrives to receive his inheritance at the estate hearing. The fortune isn’t money, but instead three separate one million dollar life insurance policies for Hardy’s illegitimate sons naming Love the sole beneficiary. Enter slick and streetwise lawyer Miles Harrison (Pascal Aka) who takes Love under his wing and reveals the true nature of his inheritance. It seems Hardy wasn’t always the humanitarian Love knew him as, at one point he was the most feared crime lord in the city. Now his trifecta of progeny – Volcano, Earthquake (both played by Daniel Lavigne) and Hurricane (Andre Givogue) – have taken over in his mantel and are ruling the city with an iron fist. Both Volcano and Earthquake are deadly and dangerous wildcards, controlling the streets and all the vice there. Hurricane however is clearly the man in charge, his criminal empire bolstered by his brothers enterprises and his own white collar activities. Harrison explains that Hardy, having known of Love’s training and rather violent history, bequeathed the life insurance policies to him in order to help make things right. So for Love to gain his inheritance he must kill each of Hardy’s bastard sons and save the city from his criminal legacy.

Randy Love (Dennis Lafond) & Miles Harrison (Pascal Aka) in EVOL.

Aka delivers this set up very quickly despite the intricacies of the plot. Things are laid out with a combination of scenes and news reports keeping the pace up even though the setup is exposition heavy. Lafond does a commendable job with the material, never letting Love skew or fall flat, he’s a man clearly in conflict with his own morality. Though there are a few moments at the beginning that hint Love’s motivation is to obtain the money, subsequent scenes really present it as the underpinned father-son connection he and Hardy shared. As the film progresses though, and Love’s humanity is gradually stripped away in his pursuit of Hardy’s redemption, they money becomes a way for him to ultimately clean away his own sins. Aka is also quite amazing in the film, texturing Harrison with the right amounts of blind ambition and serpentine cunning to give us more than just a lawyer, but a man in pursuit of that which he has earned by selling his soul. The interactions between Lafond and Aka are some of the best moments in the movie, and the two men have a great chemistry on screen. Lavigne, as both Volcano and Earthquake, is a gem possessing both the physical prowess to carry the roles and the various fight scenes connected to them, but also the swagger to portray the thug mentality convincingly.

Volcano (Daniel Lavigne) opening up a can of whoopass in EVOL.

Visually Aka’s film is stunning. On its own merits EVOL is well presented, composed and executed giving the right amount of contrast, grit and vibrancy to the scenes. When taking into account the films budget – under ten thousand dollars – the visuals become amazing. From the dolly and jib moves and the amazingly well captured fight scenes to the myriad of convincing newscast graphics and other such effects, EVOL is a visual treat and wonder to behold. The small criticisms, important screen text being illegible due to font and style and the unconvincing gun effects, become irrelevant when the film is taken as a whole.

As with any independent film, there are those things that just don’t work. One of the primary newscasters whom appears numerous times in the film just fell flat for me; she just didn’t possess what was needed to really sell the authenticity even though visually the segments were flawless. The detective character, George Wintley (Gary Peterson) also never really clicked for me. Obviously written as a foil for Love, Wintley’s potential is never fully realized, in part due to Peterson’s portrayal, but also in part with what’s unspoken between the two men. There was a lot of history hinted at between them, an important subtext, but on screen it read as though neither man knew exactly what that history was. I can understand why the character was there, but ultimately Wintley didn’t propel the story, Love or act as that needed foil, and the film could have operated just fine without him. Givogue as Hurricane is a mixed bag for me; on the physical end it’s obvious Givogue has the skills to carry the role, and visually he does cut an somewhat imposing figure especially when he’s flanked by his entourage, but when it comes to his portrayal it’s hit or miss. There are moments where I could buy Givogue as the crime lord of the city, but most of the time he just didn’t read like he would survive at the head of the pack in such an alpha-male dominant social structure.

Technically the film has very few flaws, there are some moments where the sound could have been better, some of the montage sequences are overly long, and the line of sight between cuts is off here and there, but all of these are really minor. The largest flaw for me was the gunfights, of which there are many. Both the composite muzzle flare and the sound effects were blaringly bad; for a viewer there is nothing worse than the canned gunshot sound effect. I realize that such audio samples are expensive to obtain or create, but there are a number of online sites that sell high quality versions individually for a reasonable price. As a viewer I’d rather hear three or four convincing gunshot effects repeated ad nauseam than hear one canned gunshot effect. Reducing the authenticity even more, almost none of the actors holding the firearms react with any recoil. They instead move with their weapons static, arms ridged in positions anyone who’s ever fired a gun before would immediately know would cost them in flesh. With the gunfights being such a major part of the film’s texture, having them of such poor quality compared to the rest of the film made them a blaring blight.

Hurricane (Andre Givogue) gets medieval in EVOL.

That being said, Aka and the people from The Ottawa Action Team, namely fight choreographer Lafond, present a spectacular near flawless chopsocky film. The myriad of hand to hand fight scenes in the film are breathtaking, each of the actors able to perform the complicated, and at times jaw dropping moves with power, grace and speed. One of the major misgivings about low budget or indie fight films is the sequences come off soft, not here though. Every fight has a visceral feel about it filled with cringe worthy moments and enough skill to fill a hundred movies of its kind. Aka wisely dolls out the fights with growing prowess and intensity, each better and more bone crunching than the last. By the time you get to the climactic showdown it delivers one of the best fights of the movie with Givogue really shinning in this moment. In fact it is the one place in the film where I can honestly say Givogue is completely convincing as his character. When you hear that cast members of The Ottawa Action Team have worked on large budget movies, you can understand why. Simply put: they are amazing and if you were to watch this film for nothing more than the hand to hand fights, it’s well worth that alone.

Yet Aka’s film holds so much more. It’s a textured character piece about the cost of morality and loyalty; it’s a con film with twists and turns abound, some obvious and others brilliant; it’s an action film filled with spectacular set pieces that belie its budget; it’s a French noire where the lines between right and wrong are blurred and even the most righteous man can fall. To have such a stark and unique voice appear is a wondrous gift, and Aka and team have created a vibrantly entertaining film they should be proud of.

Without a doubt, EVOL is as pure a cinematic experience as I’ve had in a very long time; it wears its love and affinity for film proudly out front and gives a new voice to the lexicon that fans can imbibe in for many years to come.

-Vance Garrett

Official Poster for EVOL.

From its telemovie style opening, to its blatantly obvious-from-the-beginning “ending”, the film plays as an ad-hoc collection of class study scenes. What narrative thread there is to tie all these scenes together is so shallow it would have been better served in a film a quarter of the running time. Though only 73 minutes in length, Fallen Before Falling pads every moment of screen time it can with nonsensical photo montages and fade outs to every single scene. The scenes themselves are rife with dissolves, to the point of lunacy, as if the editor had never used a cross fade before and fell madly in love. The overuse extends every banal shot and grinds the already languid pace to a halt making for a painfully slow movie. Music is splashed over almost every minute of the film, and drowns out the dialogue countless times. For the brief moments the music is gone, usually for the transition to another track, it’s the overbearing foley that drowns the dialogue out. When you are able to make out what the characters are saying, it’s so stilted and trite that it sucks out what little life there is in the film.

Anastasia (Cecile Butt) confronts her demons in Fallen Before Falling.

Fallen Before Falling purports to tell the story of professional actress Anastasia (Cecile Butt) seeking refuge in the country to deal with some form of psychological malady. She rents a dilapidated farm house from cowboy-with-a-heart-of-gold Matthew (Bruno Talotta) and once there proceeds to lose her mind. I used the phrase “purports” due to the film’s entirely inept handling of its own material. If you forgot to read the back of the DVD box you have no idea Butt is a professional actress, it’s not revealed until 47 minutes into the film, then only as a toss-away line. The film starts with a nonsensical scene of Butt gagged and tied to a chair that takes way too long to reveal. When Butt and her surroundings are revealed, a badly over-dubbed masked man enters, says one line, then the scene just slowly fades out. Was it a dream? A portent of future events? A moment from one of her movies? The scene serves as a warning of things to come: the laboriously padded build towards intended, but ultimately sleep-inducing, tension with zero pay-off. Not one thing in the entire running time of the film is paid off. You’re never given insight into Anastasia’s malady or its crucible, and the film doesn’t end so much as run out of steam like a deflating balloon whimpering the last of its air. When the aforementioned scene returns later in the film, once again presented in its entirety, it is neither illuminating nor insightful.

Anastasia (Cecile Butt) and Matthew (Bruno Talotta) try and connect.

Debbeldam makes all the mistakes of a first-time director here. The script is hackney, rice-paper thin and padded to the extreme like a Jess Franco film. His attempts at style fall flat as does the evolution of his characters, their relationships and the central theme of mental deterioration. The camera work in the film is pedestrian and oddly framed; shots don’t cut together well, the image is static and lifeless, we’re shown the back of a featured character’s head through an entire scene when they’re the focus, and more than one scene is played out in a single, terribly long, shot. Technically the shots frequently break line of sight or are edited together haphazard, and the idea of actually composing the frame seems to have eluded the camera operator. The lighting is also overly flat, making the already barren sets all the more deserted and uninteresting.

Still, there was opportunity here to explore some interesting themes. In another rather abrupt moment we’re introduced to one of Anastasia’s symptoms: a high libido. These very rich psychological waters could have been plumbed to wonderful success, had it been allowed. Debbeldam even returns to it a number of times throughout the film, though each time it is handled as feebly as the first. Instead of a welcomed moment of coitus showing Anastasia in full primal bloom, we’re given kissing with a fade out and a forced internal monologue explanation as the liaise drives away. A later pivotal scene, in which this sexual psychosis plays an integral part, just abruptly appears without a much needed lead-in and deflates rather than concludes or resolves. Some kind of scene before was a constituent element, not just to allow the development of key character interaction and tragedy of the aftermath, but to offer crucial insight into Anastasia. The entire film plays out like something written after skimming through a first year psych textbook: just enough to touch upon the subject but not enough to fully develop the subtext and origin of the psychosis to its full cinematic potential.

Anastasia (Cecile Butt) and Susan (Sarah Plummer) have some Mother/Daughter time.

The subject matter Debbeldam and company chose to explore requires one thing sadly lacking from the film: risk. Butt handles herself well in the role, all things considered. There are some rather good scenes here and there, but overall she doesn’t seem to pour herself into the role. Seemingly content to simply play it safe, actress and director askew the inherent demands of the role and subject matter that she be audacious and daring. Though she definitely has some chops, the character portrayal here is far too meek and superficial to be engaging; and engaging the audience is precisely what the film needs. Love interest Talotta is neither convincing nor engaging. There is never a moment where you believe him as Matthew, he’s just there moving through the scene until the inevitable fade out.  As such, you never feel for Butt and Talotta’s relationship, or its growing importance.  In the end it becomes little more than a footnote as the film sputters to a stop.

If Debbeldam continues making film, he should continue with caution. As a writer he seriously needs a collaborator, or at the very least a good editor with an ear for dialogue. He also needs to do a lot more research before tackling something rooted in such a cinematically rich milieu. As a director he needs to learn the art of risk, both with his cinematic vision and his work with the actors. It is far better to fail reaching for the stars than fail in quiet acquiescence. Maybe with a little time and a lot of work Debbeldam will return with a film that expounds its potential.

With a subject matter rife with potential, and a location that could have been an amazing setting for a decent into madness, Fallen Before Falling is an overly padded and flawed film filled with missed opportunities.

-Vance Garrett.

I think it’s inevitable that people will come to find the documentary a more compelling and more important kind of film than fiction… In a way you’re on a serendipitous journey, a journey which is much more akin to the life experience. When you see somebody on the screen in a documentary, you’re really engaged with a person going through real life experiences. So for that period of time, as you watch the film, you are, in effect, in the shoes of another individual. What a privilege to have that experience.

The greatest documentaries take the viewer on a journey of discovery of the individual and through the individual. As such the audience has a dual experience of learning what came before and watching what unfolds. My love of documentaries first came from the film The Last of the Gladiators (1988). Though it is certain that I had seen many documentaries before, The Last of the Gladiators held for me something quite special, the breadth of which I didn’t come to realize until much later in life. For people in the 1970’s Evel Knievel was as mythic a figure as you could get. He was a man on the ragged edge, able to come back from things that would kill most mortal men. He was cult figure that transcended the boundaries of what stuntmen had been before him, and even since. Only someone like Tony Hawk could be compared on a cultural impact scale alone. Yet in the film Knievel allows himself to be presented with all his flaws, baggage, wear and tear in a stark contrast to the myth that decade created. Here was Knievel the man, for the first time. Suddenly he was very human, relatable, and without overstating it, the film was as flawless a document of the man as you could get. I didn’t realize just how special the film was until the recent wave of opinion based “documentary” films overtook this amazing genre. For the longest time I was left holding onto brilliant films like Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (1998) for pure subjective presentation. That was until a 54 minute gem came across my desk; Pain is Temporary, Pride is Forever (2010) is a masterful work of non-fiction that restores my faith in the genre but moreover repeated my experience from that 1988 film I love so much.

Josh Lee films brother Nick Tower sparring in Cambodia.

Award winning Australian director Josh Lee (A Dollar for the Good Ones) does what most documentarians have seemingly forgotten how to do: he presents a very personal film with an objective and unflinching eye. Rooted in a love of Cambodia and the people there, and further spurred by volunteer time in the country, Lee found the experiences had

…strengthened my bond with the country, and cultivated a desire to develop a documentary project with a Cambodian backdrop. The next step was to find a topic that was both achievable and resonant with my interests.

That subject soon presented itself in the form of his brother Nick Tower. A budding kickboxer, Tower had competed once before in Cambodia and won. Now years later, in a bid to salvage his own life, Tower would devote himself completely to the sport leaving his hell-raising and hard drinking lifestyle behind.

Nick Tower trains for his fight in Cambodia.

When I watched the film I purposely did not read any of the advance material before hand, nor any of the credits. I experienced the film raw, without any knowledge the director or his subject knew each other. It is a testament to both men that the finished film plays so unbiased, starkly showing Tower battling his demons, and for the most part succumbing to them. At first you don’t know if you like or understand Tower, but Lee deftly weaves together a texture of conflicting personalities with footage of his brother sober and intoxicated. It is a masterful touch, constantly walking a tightrope, and knowing just when to offer up the counterpoint. It illustrates a man at war with himself without adding bias or opinion, something that must be applauded.

Everything about the film belies its origins. Here Lee demonstrates a breadth of ability far exceeding his age; everything from the pace of the film, to the use of counterpoints at perfect junctures is so far advanced that you expect a seasoned veteran, not someone in the twenties. The brandishing of the term wunderkind is something quite apt when discussing Lee. The setting of Cambodia is masterful, as is the stunningly beautiful camerawork (again Lee) which captures both the colour and texture of the country and adds a wonderful subtext to Tower’s journey. It is a perfect backdrop for a man battling back from a world he feels alienated from; in Cambodia Tower is the alien and yet feels more at home. The sound is also brilliant; each scene is crystal clear and layered with sounds of street music, traffic and the rich culture. It also possesses one of the best endings to a documentary I have seen in years, and fitting conclusion to a wonderful journey.

Nick Tower kicking with coach.

Lee has crafted a remarkable film. Its lean 54 minute running time could have easily been longer, but it is such an accomplished piece that you’re left wanting more. From the opening moments to the closing credits it is a challenging, uplifting and richly textured journey. Tower’s story is so pragmatically universal that it teaches us about ourselves and rewards the viewer with inspiration and joy. It is as if both men inherently knew the truth of what John Grierson once said of the genre:

The only reality which counts in the end is the interpretation which is profound.

Pain is Temporary, Pride is Forever is an amazing journey, a fantastic film and one of the very best documentaries I’ve seen in years. What a privilege it was to have that experience.

-Vance Garrett

Official Theatrical Poster

I was reminded of Abel Ferrara’s Body Snatchers (1993), the third film adaption of The Body Snatchers by Jack Finney, when I sat down to write this review. The first film adaption, Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956), though classic in many ways, was a veiled McCathyistic communist nightmare; the Philip Kaufman’s 1978 remake remains to this day a terrifying cinematic fever dream. It is a masterfully textured film about the loss of self, which is far more terrifying and effective than the veiled threats of “them”. Unlike Kaufman’s classic, Ferrara’s film askews the human need to explain the events in lieu of a brief and terrifying certainty of failure for our protagonists. It’s a brilliant ploy by screenwriters. What is happening cannot be rationalized or explained away, it’s just pure chaos. This is all summed up in a beautifully surreal moment where Steve (Terry Kinney), having just escaped being cloned himself, is in a panic to leave his infected home but is unaware that his wife Carol (Meg Tilly) is already a clone herself. In an eerie tender tone Carol attempts to first calm Steve, then rationalize with him about his predicament by stating:

“What happened in your room is not an isolated incident, it’s happening everywhere, to everyone. So, where you gonna go? Where you gonna run? Where you gonna hide? Nowhere. Because there is no one like you left.”

It’s a chilling certainty of doom punctuated further by her stolid demeanour. It’s also all the explanation ever provided. On a primal level alone that moment is the epitome of pure horror: being trapped by indefinable events and thus unable to be resolved, with the loss of self being the end result, not simply death. That theme is so frighteningly rich is has been plumbed by literary luminaries George Orwell, Philip K. Dick and Robert A. Heinlein to great success. Cinematically however the waters are quite shallow, with only a handful of works providing proper counterpoint to their literary kin. Most are content mining just the core concept without fully exploring the depth of the inherent themes; the resulting films ultimately leave viewers pondering the missed opportunities. This superficial plumbing has not been more accurately presented than with the Edmonton-by-way-of-Drayton Valley film The Corrupted (2010).

As a rule I generally dislike tearing into a film. The ability for anyone to complete a feature with a low budget is an admirable success and should be acknowledged as such. Such praise must be tempered with a very real critique of what the filmmaker has chosen to present to their audience. The hope, of course, is not to stifle but to allow the filmmaker to grow.

Co-directors Knighten Richman and John Klappstein soldiered out with a limited budget, time, and expensive RED camera gear to craft a Body Snatcher/Puppet Masters hybrid. The cast is comprised of first time actors, and unfortunately it shows. Save for female leads Keltie Squires and Ashley Tallas, the majority of the dialogue delivery in the film is overlong, painfully stilted, and counter intuitive. Where certain plot and character points are repeated ad nauseum, such as their friend possibly being back on drugs to explain why he’s acting so strange, others are only obtusely hinted at. This counter intuitive nature carries over to the characters themselves and ultimately the structure of the film as a whole. Tallas’ character is blatantly played up as being a lesbian the entire film. Later it is all but confirmed through a quick exchange between male characters as they discuss her perchance for luring only women out to a lake raft. Yet, almost randomly and without explanation of any kind, she suddenly abandons all character development to place herself in coitus with one of the surviving men.

With low-budget or independent films the audience should expect some of the inherent accoutrements; I refer to it as the muting effect for lack of money. There is however a huge difference between drawing out a shot or scene to create tension and padding a films running time. Throughout The Corrupted I questioned why the filmmakers chose to fill so much of the running time with ultimately unnecessary scenes. For example: a trifecta of characters enter the film for an overdrawn party scene only to vanish completely immediately thereafter. Nothing in the party scene hadn’t been presented before, or isn’t repeated after. It possesses no revelations, important character development, or exposition that propels the story. The film just stops dead for 25 minutes presenting instead a montage of drinking and laughing, interrupted only by brief interludes that repeat information already stated many times before. These scenes could have offered character insight to these people so the audience could emotionally connect with them. Instead what dialogue is spoken is so mundane, stilted and badly delivered, that you end up disliking everybody. The whole sequence is capped off with a congregation of key characters on a dock where I assume they talk of important foreshadowing; unfortunately the sound is so horrible at this moment that none of the characters are audible, only the deafening sounds of lapping water.

This is my main point of contention with indie filmmakers: the importance of sound. Sound comprises 85% of the audience’s experience. Without proper sound your audience becomes combative with the film because they want to know what’s happening. The sound in The Corrupted deteriorates fifteen minutes in and from there it’s a tossup of good scene-bad scene. One moment you’ll hear everything, another nothing except the foley. The effects sounds are also embarrassingly bad throughout. With the affordability and accessibility of inexpensive high-quality sound effects online, or in affordable media libraries, to have the booming cannon-gunshot effect for a hunting rifle is insulting. Moreover it rips your audience completely out of the film, shattering whatever hard work you’ve put in to involve them emotionally.

The Corrupted claim another victim.

Through the final act of The Corrupted characters abruptly abandon their own established natures and situations become contrived beyond all sense of reason. Creatures are allowed to get close enough to disarm our protagonists even though it’s been revealed they’re infected. The creatures themselves are all over the map; though all the same species, none of them act the same way or possess the same abilities. Finally there is the protagonists need to talk about what they’re going to do without actually doing it. This happens throughout the film and grinds the already languid pace to a halt. Their main villain, Jeremy Hook, has the stature and ability but not the voice to carry the threat his character needed. Instead of working with their limitations and wisely leaving the explanation a mystery, they give Hook nearly 2 minutes of dialogue and double out his voice Exorcist-style. This was a huge misstep on filmmaker’s part. Referencing my opening statement: the unexplained is horror. It offers no resolution for the protagonists and ultimately the audience.

Samantha (Keltie Squires) gets nasty with a Corrupted.

There are a few things to be noted positively. Keltie Squires is a stand out and handles her role with a wealth of ability. She is a great lead, engaging and charismatic, and the best thing in the film. Ashley Tallas is strong, though at times comes off as she may be just as confused about whom her character is as we are. Jeremy Hook is an amazing physical actor, adding menace in his stillness. One of the best surrealist moments in the film shines mainly because of him. The musical score is also quite brilliant. When I was first informed of this film I watched a teaser trailer, and the use of the music was so masterful I was immediately intrigued. Here the music elevates the film immensely, adding life and needed tension to scenes. The photography for the majority of the film is well composed but it’s the stunning scenery shots which allow the 4K image of the RED to shine.

The Corrupted is a film of mixed blessings, missed opportunities and indicative of the current independent media trends. More and more filmmakers are drinking the Koolaid that all they need for a successful film is the best camera. Time and again it is proven that before the camera, you need a great script. Shooting on the RED does not automatically make it a good film. Good acting, inspired direction, and a solid script make for a good film, the rest is just the medium you use. The truth is that both Richman and Klappstein possess these necessary skills, their teaser trailer is clear evidence of that. There are a few inspired moments in the film when they allow themselves to experiment visually and it belies the film’s overall pandering nature. Finding a solid script editor, working harder in the casting department, and the hiring of an editor would have elevated this piece considerably.

Overall The Corrupted is far too flawed to recommend; it’s not even sleazy enough or campy enough for the bad movie crowd. The filmmakers have shown some hints of talent here. I really hope that they take a lesson from this, correct their course and grow as artists for their inevitable next project. The concept is ripe and there is a good film in there somewhere. It’s truly unfortunate that this wasn’t it.

-Vance Garrett