The Veil

Title: The Veil
Release Date: 2016
Score: 3.5 out of 4


I love it when around half-way through a haunted house movie the characters actually realize the place is haunted, and aren't pretending its normal rational explainable stuff. This is one of those movies and so it satisfied me greatly. In this case, its a haunted compound in the middle of the woods that was the site of a Jonestown-esque massive cult suicide, which, to no audience member's surprise - is haunted.

An obsessed filmmaker who lost her father after his deep obsession with the case, and the girl who was the only survivor, now all grown-up are the main drivers of the plot, and are reasonably well developed. The film crew is much less fleshed out, and seem to be merely fodder for the evil presence still infesting the camp. But there's way more going on in this movie than a simple haunting, or psychological obsession, or gruesome found footage (which are all present). There are mysteries, and questions raised that kept me engaged until the end.

It features a surprisingly strong performance from Jessica Alba as the filmmaker, but the definite star was Lily Rabe, a relative new-comer, who played the mysterious girl Sarah Hope, now an adult with some serious neuroses.

What I liked the most was how normal-person the characters acted. While they certainly should have left the compound several times, there were compelling reasons for them to stay. They reacted like real people would do the situations that arose and that was great. Too many times have I seem movies where they think they can get away with characters who make decisions on a sub-moronic level because its "just" a horror movie.

So, it had me rolling my eyes a few times but it was a pretty good movie. I can't say that it actually scared me on any level but it was refreshing to see realistic characters dealing with a horror movie scenario, and it enough interesting subplots to keep the movie from going stale with slow pacing.

I would love to see more mid-budget horror movies with professional actors, especially if they're as good as this or better.

Jug Face

Title: Jug Face
Release Date: 2013
Rating: 3 out of 4

You know, I really wanted to like this movie. From the credit sequence I thought it was going to be some pretty messed-up stuff but it was a lot more sedate and boring than I expected. It didn't live up to my expectations, which usually aren't very high, but this billed itself as a different kind of horror movie -- one that could be appreciated on a cinematic level. I mean, I still gave it a pretty high rating because it was well acted, and well made, and it did hold my interest all the way through but in the end it just didn't deliver what I like in horror.

The film revolves around a small community of back-woods hillfolk who participate in a death cult based on appeasing "The Pit" which is a Lovecraftian hole in the ground with some murky water at the bottom. This is actually less stupid than it sounds! There's a troubled girl, a touched prophet, star-crossed lovers, mean parents, human sacrifice, and at least three scenes where people are disembowled. I don't want to give too much away because, to be honest, there isn't much substance to it. If I reveal more of the plot I'd probably be ruining the movie for you.

I wanted more explanation about The Pit, or at least, what the people who worshiped it thought about it. I wanted to know why they had a lot of modern conveniences but washed their clothes in the river with washboards. I wanted to know why, in 2013, these people made moonshine instead of growing pot. This was more of a character-driven drama with horror elements, and if that's your thing you will like this. If you want something deeply disturbing or intellectually compelling, I'd look elsewhere.

But hey, at least the movie explained what a Jug Face is.

Finale

TITLE: Finale
RELEASE DATE: 2009
SCORE: 3 out of 4


This is a well made and visually striking supernatural tale of a family unraveling the pieces of a young man's life that led up to his apparent suicide. The role of the mother is a stereotypical uptight Christian, consistently in dour long dresses and prominent cross-wearing. Fortunately, the actress, Carolyn Hauck, transcends the cliched trappings and delivers a stellar performance. She comes across as a clever, instinctively canny mom, yet also delivers a profound sense of frailty, as she is inflicted with night terrors and disturbing episodes of sleep-walking -- she pulls this off very convincingly. Her guilt, paranoia, and obsession are really what carry this film. While most of the cast is quite capable, she definitely comes away as the strongest.

Anyway, It quickly becomes apparent that her son, "Sean Michaels," (I suppose the production team never heard of Shawn Micheals, but this had me laughing every time they said the name -- which was frequently!), dabbled, or was possibly quite deeply involved, in black magick and left-hand path occultnik stuff. Yet it soon becomes apparent that his death was not the end of the dark troubles he unleashed.

Early on, the film suffers from being over-stuffed with montages of "found footage" of SHAAWWWWN MICCHEAALLS as a happy go-lucky college kid before he turned all dark and evil. This grainy boring nonsense is contrasted with scenes of Mother Helen wracked with guilt, pouring through his crazed notebooks and hunting for clues. Although a devout Christian, she seems unable, at first, to sense the obvious evil black magic trappings that surround her son's death. I'm not sure if this is quite believable or not; why do people in horror movies seem to never notice that there's ghosts or demons or Satan or whatever involved in the events that happen to them? I mean, if I found my son's secret stash of stuff and it was notebooks with crazy William Burroughs cum Aleister Crowley type scribblings and creepy newsprint cut-and-pastes as well as 16mm footage of secret ritualistic sex orgies - ya know I might just suspect that he could have been fucking around with black magic!! (I know, call me crazy...)

Well anyway, it fortunately doesn't take too long before she suspects something spooky is afoot and that's when the movie starts to really pick up. There are a lot of very creepy sets and unsettling visual effects, and some quality gore. The plot is fairly bog standard and predictable, aside from getting a little complicated at the end (and a little too light on the exposition about just what the kooky culties were up to), but the strong characters and captivating visuals kept me from yawning. I have to make a note, however, of the exceptionally cornball performance of Elizabeth Holmes, who's idea of acting sinister is apparently to channel Pearl Forrester from MST3K...

All in all it was quite good and I thoroughly enjoyed it. I recommend it and its on Netflix streaming, so if you have that, you have no excuse not to watch it!