SHE WHO MUST BURN - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Blood in the Snow Film Festival

She Who Must Burn (2014)
Dir. Larry Kent
Scr. Shane Twerdun & Kent
Starring: Sarah Smyth, Shane Twerdun, Missy Cross, Jewel Staite, Andrew Dunbar

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Seventy-eight-year-old Larry Kent's She Who Must Burn is such a great picture on so many levels that I'm compelled to occasionally pinch myself to see if I dreamed its very existence. It was no dream. In all its greatness, it most certainly does exist. If there is any dream fulfillment here, it's one I long to experience with every movie I see, but these days, seldom do. For me, it's one of the best movies of 2015 and certainly one of the best of the new millennium. It gloriously infused me with the kind of rhapsodic gooseflesh I experienced earlier this year while watching 70-year-old George Miller's Mad Max: Fury Road.

Not only is Kent's work representative of filmmaking at the highest levels of proficiency and artistry, but it's proof positive that we must never forget that our senior filmmakers often have it in them to knock it out of the park in ways that the young turks everyone seems happy to bestow accolades upon can ultimately only dream about.

Most notably, it's a film that's as current as it is prescient - a film that reflects the madness of contemporary religious fundamentalism in a manner so beyond the ephemeral that it represents a work that will only gain in importance whilst eventually reaching its own august years and beyond.

She Who Must Burn is, without question, a masterpiece.

With the recent events in Colorado Springs on Friday, November 27, 2015 - a whack-job's gruelling siege at a Planned Parenthood clinic in which he murdered three people and wounded nine - Kent's picture is almost beyond topical. It sadly and chillingly reflects the reality of Christian zealots who ultimately, exhibit absolutely none of what it means to be Christian. (And let's not just crap on Christians, but all organized religions worldwide.)

The state of Colorado has been home to some of the most heinous mass-slayings in recent American history (Columbine, Aurora and now Colorado Springs.) Robert L. Dear Jr. is the waste of breathing air who perpetrated his domestic terrorism, in the name of the Lord, no less, upon those who would dare advocate planned parenthood. Even scarier is America's seemingly endless history of violence against similar individuals and institutions.

She Who Must Burn is a relentless, savage and terrifying thriller - a genuine horror film for the ages - true horror.

Angela (Sarah Smyth) voluntarily runs a counselling service out of the home she shares with her husband Mac (Andrew Moxham), a deputy sherif in a small midwestern American Bible Belt community. The local planned parenthood clinic she'd been running had its funding cut by the State after considerable pressure from the Religious Right.

Angela's continued support for women in the community concerns Mac's boss, The Sherrif (Jim Francis), even though he's well aware of the nefarious work of the local pastor Jeremiah Baarker (a chilling, oily Shane Twerdun who is also director Kent's co-writer). Jeremiah's entire family (and parish) is insanely devoted to stamping out the "evils" of birth control and abortion. His father Abraham Baarker (James Wilson) already languishes in prison for killing a doctor at point blank range, his sister Rebecca (Missy Cross) continues to do the dirty work behind the scenes as it needs to be done and constantly attempts to get her pussy-whipped hubby Caleb (Andrew Dunbar) to begin pulling his weight as a "soldier" of Christ.

The entire parish rallies behind the sleazy slime bucket Jeremiah and takes part in endless protests and harassment of Angela's commitment to the health and well being of the town's most vulnerable. These "Christians" are happy to break any man-made law to fulfill their own perverted interpretations of "God's Law" and increasingly display irrational behaviour in their war against "baby killers".

False accusations, physical assaults and murder is not far behind.

The film is relentlessly terrifying. As over-the-top as the Christian psychos are, what's scary is how the behaviour is tolerated by both law enforcement and state legislators. Kent's film mounts in jaw-dropping horror and no matter how extreme things get, they never let up. Evil infuses the work of "the Lord" and builds to a savage, sickening climax and denouement.

Intelligent, audacious writing, first rate performances, overall production value of the highest order and taut direction in the Hitchcock tradition all add up to one barn burner of a horror thriller. Christ's remains, wherever they may be, must be spinning in their grave constantly for the events depicted in the film which sadly, are not far removed from the kind of evil taking place all over America and frankly, anywhere and everywhere in which organized religions have their insidious talons plunged deeply and ravenously in the flesh of all those who would dare transgress laws which no real God, no real Supreme Being, no genuine entity of love, spirituality and forgiveness would ever in its wildest dreams imagine, much less consent to.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***** Five Stars

She Who Must Burn is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

WHITE RAVEN - Review by Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

White Raven (2015)
Dir. Andrew Moxham
Starring: Andrew Dunbar, Aaron Brooks, Shane Twerdun, Steve Bradley,
Cindy Busby, Sarah Smyth, Catherine Michaud

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The oft-used phrase "the script's the thing" and its variants on a similar theme may well have entered the industry lexicon as cliches, but the fact remains that good writing ultimately makes for good movies. Some writing is so good, it can even be director-proof if the material is at least covered competently.

Luckily, White Raven is a picture that excels on both fronts. Writer-Director Andrew Moxham has delivered the goods on a movie that's as savage as it is creepy as it is altogether imbued with humanity. It also works very nicely on the most enviable perch of "what the fuck".

You're watching the picture, hopefully with no expectations going in (as it was for me) and you're gripped by the opening sequence, but it gives you just enough information that you're in that wonderful "what the fuck" territory. Then it shifts perspectives and characters three more times. Each time, you're "what the fuck", but not in a bad way at all - each time, you want to know more and to shift forward.

One thing becomes certain during the picture's first third - you appear to be in a kind of Raymond Carver-Neil LaBute territory in terms of four separate stories detailing male-female relations going (or having already gone) sour. The mise-en-scene is grittily kitchen-sink (not unlike the early to mid 60s "angry young man" pictures of the British New Wave) and the writing is always charged with a nice balance of ambiguity and pointedness, tenderness and rage - bereft of the occasionally effective, but often nastily trick-pony characteristics Neil LaBute used to be accoladed for in films like In the Company of Men and Your Friends & Neighbours (a bit too much emphasis on David Mamet-like rhythm with not as much feeling for pathos).

The next big "what the fuck" in White Raven comes at the end of the first act which, having introduced us to the four different sets of characters, makes it clear that the four male equations of the couple-strife-gymnastics are old buds who will be spending a weekend together in the wilderness (as they have for years).

This weekend is different though.

Booze, guns, relationship-hell-times-4-healthy-fellas, suicidal tendencies and a whack of other difficulties on the dis-unification front do not make healthy bedfellows at the best of times, but ESPECIALLY not out in the middle of the Canadian Wilderness.

Shit is going to happen and the keg of dynamite is on a slow, creepy sizzle.

You really need to know nothing else before seeing the picture. The script, direction, performances and technical credits are suitably edgy and effective from beginning to end and it's great to see a uniquely indigenous Canadian film which not only (inadvertently I suspect) swims in the same 70s waters as Canadian wilderness thriller classics like Rituals, but does so in its own unique fashion.

The movie always feels like its taking you to places you have been before - not in the movies, but in life. This is as exciting artistically as the pistol-whipping Moxham and company deliver emotionally - it's moving, rife with humanity and at times, scary as fuck.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: **** Four Stars

White Raven is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

SAVE YOURSELF - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Save Yourself (2015)
Dir. Ryan M. Andrews
Starring: Jessica Cameron, Tristan Risk, Ry Barrett, Marcus Haccius,
Tianna Nori, Caleigh Le Grand, Lara Mrkoci, Elma Begovic, Sydney Kondruss

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This movie should be terrific. It isn't.

The premise of Save Yourself is clean and simple. After a successful screening in some nondescript burgh, a babe female director of horror films (Tristan Risk) and her equally babe-o-licious colleagues (including Canuck scream queen Jessica Cameron) are on a road to trip to present their new film at a festival in L.A.

Piled into a van they stop at a nondescript highway road stop to use the little girls' room. The director disappears. As there is no cel phone coverage nor working pay phone, the ladies go looking for her.

Walking across a nondescript American landscape, they stop at a nondescript farmhouse to use a telephone. They're greeted by a creepy, but friendly dude and his equally creepy, though babe-o-licious wife (Elma Begovic). Instead of immediately using the phone, they sit down for tea. They're clearly not that stupid, but they obviously must be. The tea is laced with sleepy-time properties and they all pass out, only to find themselves locked in a dank basement.

Their hosts, it seems, are nazis following in the footsteps of Josef Mengele.

Let the torture porn begin.

A wonderful cast, especially the brilliant, beautiful and talented Tristan Risk are wasted in this style-bereft exercise in futility which also wastes a decent premise due to lame screenwriting and direction which borders on competence, but musters little more than that.

Suffering from a similar problem plaguing too many recent Canadian genre films is the nondescript nature of the setting - no doubt to please American buyers and audiences who are purportly unable to accept anything not American. The lack of a flavourful indigenous setting contributes mightily to the picture's lack of genuine atmosphere. Given the Nazi angle, the film is also bereft of the slightest touches of demented Weimar-inspired fetishistic "qualities".

The movie simply has no sense of place nor much in the way of imagination to buoy the otherwise decent story idea buried beneath the picture's blandness. There's nothing vaguely unique nor intelligent about the proceedings and as such, leaves us with a horror thriller that's not scary nor even mildly suspenseful.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *½ One-and-a-Hslf-Stars

Save Yourself is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

THE DARK STRANGER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Katie Findlay in a star-making performance.
The camera absolutely loves her.

The Dark Stranger (2015)
Dir. Chris Trebilcock
Starring: Katie Findlay, Stephen McHattie, Enrico Colantoni,
Jennifer Dale, Mark O'Brien, Alex Ozerov, Emma Campbell

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Art and horror make for strange, but thoroughly appropriate bedfellows in life and art. True artists must be imbued with obsessive, self-reflective and often selfish qualities to create work of both originality and lasting value. Mental unbalance is not a pre-requisite, but comes in mighty handy amongst the best of the best.

The Dark Stranger is a curious and original genre film which delicately blends the elements of family drama, fairy tale (with literal graphic novel qualities) and outright horror (of the psychological and paranormal variety). Call it an everything including the kitchen sink motion picture experience which is buoyed by a superb cast and an overall one-of-a-kind directorial hand.

Leah Garrison (Katie Findlay, in a terrific star-making performance), is a young comic book artist in recovery from deep depression, a nervous breakdown and self-afflicted cutting. She lives with her loving university professor Dad (Enrico Colantoni) and typically goofy, but equally loving younger brother (Alex Ozerov) in a gorgeous, refurbished old house in one of the tonier (and leafier) neighbourhoods of downtown Toronto.

So, you might ask, what's this babe's problem?

Well, you'd possibly go bunyip too if your late mother (Emma Campbell), an acclaimed artist who passed mega-wads of talent DNA to her daughter, became increasingly agitated, irrational, roiling with rage and finally, exploding like Vesuvius - not only coming close to murdering her daughter, but in despair, offing herself. (It's also possible Leah inherited some wacko-psycho genes from Mommie Dearest to compliment her artistic gifts.)

Yup, I accept this.

During Leah's convalescence, a series of incidents converge to create a heady brew of horror. Witness: an art maven (Stephen McHattie) wishes to mount a show of her late mother's work, a series of nightmares involving an evil entity who serves as both artistic inspiration and tormenter and finally, an explosion of creativity that yields magnificent work, but in so doing, extracts the payment of self-mutilation.

Is this a psychological manifestation of the young Leah's despair, or is it something much more sinister and downright unholy? Or could it be both? Whatever it proves to be, we're offered a slowly mounting creepy-crawly terror that eventually releases a geyser of outright dread.

The Dark Stranger will certainly feel a bit oddball to audiences accustomed to a lowest common denominator story structure. The family drama elements border on an After-School-style special, the fairly tale aspects (reflected by gorgeously animated renderings of Leah's art) feel more suited to that curious blend of Grimm darkness and gentle naiveté inherent in the classic Soviet Gorky Studios fairy tales of the 60s and the horror itself blends David Cronenberg-like body mutilation with dollops of Clive Barker and Italian gialli thrown in for good measure. Add to this mix a dash or two of romance twixt Leah and her father's Teaching Assistant (Mark O'Brien) and the occasional visits from a well-meaning, but alternately annoying and sinister psychiatrist (Jennifer Dale).

And yes, there will be blood.

Veteran character actor Stephen McHattie.
Villain? Or hero? Or both?

In industry parlance, the movie might be seen as a "tweener", a film lodged between genres, but for those with a more discerning eye, the pleasures are varied and in summation finally create a wholly unique experience. At its most basic level, we have a movie with well-shaded characters and a compelling narrative which seems familiar, but takes turns surprising us just when things get too recognizable.

On yet another level, whether consciously intentional or not, the film provides a unique villain - the sort of entity many artists, especially in the film business, must face - the bureaucrat, the executive, the holder of the purse strings - that soul-bereft entity which causes the greatest confusion and turmoil within genuine creative people. Here our villain takes on properties of split-personality-like malevolence. (Like I said, not unlike the aforementioned gatekeepers.)

On one level, I did wish the more naturalistic aspects of the story had been tempered with a slightly otherworldly mise-en-scene to deflect from the more conventional family drama tropes which stick out like moderately sore thumbs. Ultimately though, this potentially fatal flaw is overshadowed. The Dark Stranger gradually and eventually takes hold with a vicelike grip, offering as many moments of genuine terror as it serves up genuine heartfelt emotion.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ Three-and-a-Half-Stars

The Dark Stranger is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

NIGHT CRIES - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Night Cries (2015)
Dir. Andrew Cymek
Starring: Colin Mochrie, Andrew Cymek, Brigitte Kingsley, Dillon Baldassero

Review By Greg Klymkiw

This movie is completely and utterly insane. I mean that in the most positive manner. At times it's almost ridiculously cheesy and suffers from being about twenty minutes too long, but it is clearly a work of imagination, talent, ambition and an infectious love for movie-making. Surprisingly, it's a movie with considerable heart and romance that will most likely appeal to genre fans who don't mind their horror-fantasy tempered with a dour touchstone upon reality as it delves into its otherwise phantasmagorical world.

In a nutshell, it tells the tale of a brave cowpoke adorned as if he escaped from a Tarantino western who becomes the hero and protector of a staggeringly gorgeous missy (gloriously played by Brigitte Kingsley) costumed like some valkyrie who jumped from the pages of a Robert E. Howard novel. There are horrible monsters and ogres threatening our damsel in distress and it's up to the cowpoke to see that she's safe.

Unfortunately, there is a prissy villain (a creepy AND funny Colin Mochrie) who runs this weird underworld with all the power of a dark overlord. Seeking a new babe for his harem, perhaps one who will grace his boudoir for an eternity, our heroine is in dire straights. Even our hero has his work cut out for him against this mincing, dastardly, floridly accoutred whack-job.

But, hold the phone, folks! This is no mere demented bit of sword and sorcery, but is rooted in the real world where a husband loses his wife to cancer (in a series of deeply moving scenes) and involves his journeys into the afterlife to save her soul. I'm not kidding.

You see? I told you the movie was going to be completely and utterly insane. But that's A-OK: this bizarre hybrid is replete with plenty of derring-do, first rate special effects, nicely directed action sequences, some mind-blowing and eye-popping visuals, and, thanks to the welcome relief of Mochrie's great performance, a deliciously demented sense of humour.

One wishes director Cymek would have taken the shears to this a bit more since it might have had way more oomph if it didn't feel like it was occasionally lolly-gagging. Still, I'll take a bit of dawdling when a low budget genre film is as ambitious and imaginative as this one is.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *** Three Stars

Night Cries is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

SECRET SANTA - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

One good poster & one bad poster for SECRET SANTA.
Not that it matters since the movie reeks.

Secret Santa (2015)
Dir. Mikey McMurran
Starring: Annette Wozniak, Geoff Almond, Keegan Chambers

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Some movies are so dreadful you almost feel bad for the poor actors humiliating themselves, but then you shrug and say, "No biggie, they were well paid for their efforts." Here's the rub, though. Some movies that stink to high heaven are low budget indie feature films where you know damn well the actors, not to mention the entire crew, are working for peanuts.

Secret Santa definitely falls into the latter category.

A pleasant, attractive and possibly talented group of young actors are stuck in this idiotic, repugnant Yuletide horror chiller which offers plenty of babes, plenty of gore and virtually nothing else. In this risibly written, unimaginative cesspool, a group of college students (attending what must be a college for the mentally challenged) are having a Christmas party after their final exam. One of the gals moonlights as a cyber sex performer, another is a T.A. carrying on with her professor, yet another is a foul-mouthed chippie who's so horny she's willing to bang a mega-nerd.

One of the girls is dead. She's been murdered already. Though her friends occasionally express concern as to her whereabouts, they mostly hang around the seasonally-decorated suburban home, suck back the booze and engage in endless, uninteresting conversation which reflects either the imagination of the filmmaker or the milieu in which he resides.

The babes of SECRET SANTA
don't humiliate themselves as much as
those of us who sit through the entire movie.

As the night passes, the friends are knocked off, one-by-one with the implements they've discovered in their "Secret Santa" gift boxes until eventually, the killer is revealed and a showdown occurs twixt the psycho and the nicest babe of the lot. The killer has "you-know-who-it-is-twenty-minutes-in" spray painted all over him/her/it since the movie is so underpopulated that it's not much of a surprise. As well, one would possibly have to be as stupid as the characters populating the film not to see the reveal that's so obviously telegraphed.

There's purported humour in the film, but none of it is funny. The scares are non-existent since the horror set pieces are directed with all the skill of an inebriated Krampus wielding a cudgel. The gore is plentiful, but none of that is ever much fun unless it's utilized in something resembling a good movie.

When one thinks back upon the genius of Bob Clark's classic Black Christmas, or the Joan Collins segment in 1972's Tales from the Crypt, or Finland's clever chiller Rare Exports or even the recent A Christmas Horror Story one realizes the considerable potential of mixing horror with the season to be jolly. Alas, the makers of Secret Santa have very little on their minds. The movie is sloppily rendered, sub-juvenile and distinctly moronic.

Or, as a character in Black Christmas says: "Ho! Ho! Ho! Shit!"

THE FILM CORNER RATING: THE TURD DISCOVERED BEHIND HARRY'S CHARBROIL & DINING LOUNGE - LOWEST RATING: FULL EXPLANATION OF RATING BY CLICKING HERE

Secret Santa is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.

FARHOPE TOWER - Review By Greg Klymkiw - 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival

Farhope Tower(2015)
Dir. April Mullen
Scr. Jeremy & Michael Doiron
Starring: John White, April Mullen, Evan Williams, Lauren Collins,
Tim Doiron, Brittany Allen, Ari Millen

Review By Greg Klymkiw

The script is everything, even in horror films aimed at the lowest common denominators. There has to be a "logic" which is worked out within the context of the film's world. If it isn't, you get something like Farhope Tower.

When an envy-driven hubby brutally beats his pregnant wife to death, then hangs himself before her pulpy, battered, bloody body, it sets off a curse which plagues the Farhope Tower. After a seemingly endless rash of suicides, the (nondescript) city to which it stands as a centrepiece, shuts the building down and allows it to remain shackled, empty and rotting for years - a blight upon the community, environs and worse yet, haunted.

Living in the same city, a group of not-too-bright twenty-somethings have been pathetically trying, for years it seems, to land a TV pilot for a ghost busting reality series - uploading their adventures to YouTube and believing they're on the verge of going big time. Alas, the network they've pitched needs them to deliver something more sensational before they'll offer a green-light.

They want them to tackle Farhope Tower.

In spite of the building's notoriety, it has apparently never been assailed by any other reality shows, which is already a tad hard to swallow. Even more ludicrous, though, is that our group of burgeoning TV ghost-busters have never tried to shoot there either, even though they live in the same city. Yes, the movie eventually delivers a lame backstory to explain this, but in a genre in which one is happy to strain a certain degree of credulity, one is simply forced to swallow wholesale, massive incredulity.

Given far too many other holes in the plot, the kind that pull us out of the drama because we're asking too many questions about the logic of the whole thing, it becomes almost nigh impossible to enjoy a few of the film's decently-directed frissons, occasionally creepy atmosphere and solid performances from an attractive cast of babes (one of whom is director Mullen) and hunks. We're finally left with a relatively short running time that feels longer than it is whilst we follow our group of reality-TV wannabes throughout the building as things go bump in the night and the inevitable body count takes over.

Part of the problem is the very nondescript nature of the film's setting. Without rooting the story in something even vaguely indigenous, removes all incentive for the filmmakers to pay attention to things like, uh, logic. Even the centrepiece itself feels removed from any kind of reality. The interiors feel like a warehouse rather than a high-rise.

It's too bad the script is so lame and rife with cliches since there are a few effective scares in the picture. Ultimately though, Farhope Tower offers little in the way of hope that the movie is going to be any more than a run-of-the-mill, straight-to-video time-waster.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: *1/2 One-and-a-Half-Stars

Farhope Tower is playing at the 2015 Toronto Blood in the Snow Film Festival.