Tag Archives: scary

LA Horror Review: “Revenant”

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Curiosity can be a dangerous thing.  It’s the cause of many problems for people in horror films and something that can ultimately become deadly.  How often do we see someone investigate a strange noise, pursue a forbidden curse or, in the case of “Revenant,” the new film from 2 Man Production, knowingly invite themselves into the home of a malevolent spirit?

Paul Anderson (Stephen Twardokus) is an aspiring writer who’s trying to get it together.  You see, Paul has never finished anything he’s set out to do, and with his new idea he’s more determined than ever.  Unfortunately for him and his girlfriend, Stella (Liesel Kopp), his new idea involves moving into the home of a recently murdered family and trying to communicate with its restless spirits.  Before long, both Paul and Stella realize that they are not alone and certainly not welcome…

The set up for “Revenant” is simple, but the execution is fantastic.  What filmmakers Derek Cole (director, producer), Stephen Twardokus (producer, writer, actor) and Jon Gale (producer, actor) have done is create a bare bones story that still manages to scare the piss out of you with a “less is more” mentality.  Wait, I take that back— “less is more” may not be an accurate way to describe this movie, because it is FULL of legitimate scares.  From your classic jumps to your slow, sinister sequences, “Revenant” keeps you on edge from the very first scene until the last.  It’s tense as hell and doesn’t let up.

What works about this film is its overall creativity in the things seen on screen.  As a filmmaker myself, I was perplexed as to how these guys pulled off some of these sequences.  There are no CGI ghosts in this movie, and the practical effects are ridiculous and always frightening.  From the spirit rising out of the bed sheets to an entire kitchen erupting in rage, the ingenuity behind the camera is this film’s most impressive feat.

Paul Anderson (Twardokus) has a naïve curiosity with the spirits in his house…

Yet, all of the horror elements in “Revenant” are amplified by Cole’s stellar direction.  His choices to make slow zooms, subtle camera movements and some clever editing always keep you in anticipation.  Every scene has the ability to give you frights and, trust me, most of them do.  Cole is clearly well-versed in the art of suspense, and fans of classic ghost stories such as “The Haunting” or “Poltergeist” would certainly enjoy “Revenant.”

While this film is exceptional in terms of the talent behind the camera, without good performances all may be for not.  Luckily for “Revenant,” it’s cast, though small, all pull their weight and add to the overall success of the film.  In particular, our leading man Twardokus plays the over-curious writer believably, and you can clearly see the shift in him when he realizes that he’s in far over his head in this house.  Liesel Kopp as Stella is the most relatable of the characters, given the fact that she is the rational of the two and is far more afraid of these spirits than her boyfriend.  Kopp really shines when things get rough.  Her panic and fear are felt through the screen.

“Revenant” is damn scary, and that’s no joke.  My advice to you if you get the opportunity to watch it:  give this movie the respect it deserves.  That means phone off, lights off, popcorn and a beer.

For more information about “Revenant,” please visit the films official website.  You can also check out “Revenant” on Facebook and Twitter.  Actress Liesel Kopp was LAHorror.com‘s first featured artist.  You can view her story here.

LA Horror Review: “Desolation Wilderness”

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“Desolation Wilderness” follows two friends as they seek inspiration outside the academic institutions they find so restrictive. Their experiences, rewarding at first, become increasingly battered by influences beyond their escape. The film praises art and the creative, lecturing that one must shun popular art and contemporary means in favor of engaging the naturally inspired sanctuaries of the world around you. It is a philosophy applied to and promoted within the film. Robby Massey and Derek Mungor comprise the creative team on both sides of the camera in this effective art house horror.

The film opens on the road, with our main characters Noah (Massey) and Russell (Mungor) engaging in small talk, pit stops and farewells to the big city. Their destination and intentions are not immediately clear, but it is these questions, along with their natural dynamic, that make for an enjoyable, albeit wandering, beginning. We are granted a mild sense of unease generated by the mystery of their actions and the peculiarity of their interactions. At a grocery store, they encounter a cashier seemingly automated in his responses. It is the introduction of atypical and it’s a big part of this film.

Desolation Wilderness – Final Trailer from Desolation Wilderness on Vimeo.

The remainder of “Desolation Wilderness” pays full respects to its title. Far removed from the distractions of city life, the characters eat, sleep, work and play while their perceptions of reality begin to fail. Increasingly odd behavior between the two builds to a wholly maddening climax. And therein lies the horror. While much of the film is seemingly mundane, slice of life type cinema, it is peppered with just enough weirdness to nurture a curious anticipation of things to come.

The film is beautifully shot and rendered predominantly in black and white. Sound design could be called minimalist, sometimes intriguingly selective. It bows out several times throughout the film in favor of mimed actions and dialogue. By the end, it has evolved into a series of drones that carry the viewer through a Lynchian sequence of images that are as gripping as they are perplexing. The camera, direction and pacing contribute to the roving feel of the entire film, along with the oft-employed montage. What initially strikes you as a presentation of happenstance in the most carefree of ways slowly descends into a surrealist nightmare punctuated with folk music videos. It is a unique film and it’s definitely not for everyone.

Massey and Mungor turn in authentic performances with natural and spontaneous dialogue that can be credited to finely executed improvisation. In the film’s more bizarre moments, all communication is prolonged with heavy use of dramatic pause. It is out of the ordinary, but not out of place, and helps achieve that which too few films strive for: to be disturbing without being grotesque.

“Desolation Wilderness” is an oddity. As a film, as a horror film and as art, it has few defining features, endless interpretations and a seldom seen composition of patterns, images and feelings uniting for a whole that is not easily defined by genre or category. It is engaging, disorienting and scary. Although not a horror film in the traditional sense, it is very much so in the emotional sense. It elicits uncomfortable feelings from its alarming use of imagery, close quarters, the unexplained and a generally off kilter presentation of the world. It is intentionally ambiguous and encouragingly subjective. Want though we may, we are not provided a Rod Serling epilogue to ease our minds. If you’re in the mood for a dark, psychological film that, without any sense of urgency, somehow manages to feel oppressive, this is a unique outing. “Desolation Wilderness” invites as much consideration as you can spare long after the credits roll.

“Desolation Wilderness” will be available via a self-released DVD soon.  Please follow this film on Twitter @enterdesolation.  You can also check out the film’s official website.  This review was written by Levi Caleb Smith.

LA Horror Presents: “The Baby”

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Happy Sunday!

Thought we’d start the week right by sharing a nasty little horror flick by Joe Sanchez, called “The Baby.” It’s a quick one but it’s full of emotion and creeps.  And besides, what better way is there to start your Sunday morning by watching a horror flick??  Enjoy horror lovers, we’ll be bringing new stuff all week!

 

The baby!  The baby!!

LA Horror Review: “Of Silence”

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“What if Silence was a Living Thing?”  An intriguing tagline from an equally intriguing film, Jeremiah Sayys’ “Of Silence” is a dark and brooding tale of a deeply disturbed man haunted by the silence that surrounds him.  It is a horror-thriller and a slow burn, a film that presents a number of questions and leaves many of the answers up to its audience.

Colby (Jeremiah Sayys) has just lost his wife, and he’s not doing well.  He has debt collectors hounding him, his family can’t cheer him up and to make matters even worse, he’s tormented by a presence in his seemingly empty house.   Now he must delve deep into the shadows and try to find out if he’s losing his grip on reality, or if there is truly an insidious being in his house that is after him.

As stated before, this movie is a slow burn and doesn’t pander to its audience.  Sayys (the writer, director, producer and star) obviously had a vision for this film and, to his credit, makes this a haunting experience through his one-man-show type performance and some tricky directing.  While the film doesn’t necessarily have the quickest or fullest plot, it’s much more of a character study and peek into the mind of a man gone mad.  Frequently, Sayys uses canted angles and slow moving shots to creep us closer to the film’s shocking conclusion.

Jeremiah Sayys plays the disturbed Colby in “Of Silence”

Sayys also manages this low-budget masterfully, and while the film does utilize special effects and some creative creature design, most of the scares come through the silence, or lack there of, in Colby’s life.  Frequently, we are forced to listen to the howls and cries of the house, the demonic noises that haunt Colby’s daily routine that truly send a chill up your spine.  You’re never quite sure who—or what—is causing them, and the clues that pop up in the film itself only lead you to realize that nothing in Colby’s world is as it seems.

The supporting cast is sparsely seen and is mostly comprised of Colby’s family and a few friends.  They do seem unsupportive of Colby’s pain at times, often cracking jokes and hooting and hollering when Colby is clearly uninterested in company.  The bright spot is the sweet and well-intentioned younger sister, Haley (Ashlee Gillespie), who seems like the only one who truly wants to help Colby deal with the grief he is constantly feeling.  Masiela Lusha also adds a creepy element to the film as Colby’s wife, who often appears on screen alive…and dead…

What I found interesting about this movie is that while it’s a horror film, the true villain remains unknown for quite some time.  It teeters on the border of ghost, monster and psychological thriller and has plenty of legitimate scares (one bloody hand scene in particular made me jump pretty high).

Sayys has no doubt succeeded in what he set out to do, and after watching this film, I certainly hope that he has the opportunity to do another horror film with a larger budget and a bit more gore (what can I say, I’m a gore hound).  Sayys proves himself as an actor and director with this ambitious project, and don’t be surprised if this movie puts him on the map, so to speak.  After all, “Of Silence” is a real scream!

“Of Silence” is currently making the festival rounds around the country and internationally.  You can view more work from WorldsLastHero Productions at their official website. Also be sure to check out “Of Silence” on Facebook.  Review by Hunter Johnson.

LA Horror Presents: Christopher Villa

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Christopher Villa and his Robot.

Since this website went live a couple of months ago, we’ve had the pleasure of meeting some of LA’s most talented, inspiring and absolutely terrifying horror artists.  From actors to writers to filmmakers and more, we’ve met someone for nearly every platform of horror art and expression.  But, today’s featured artist, a gentleman by the name of Christopher Villa, shows us just how deep a love for horror can go and how it can manifest itself in a variety of different platforms.

“I had a real inclination towards the darker side of art…my whole family has always looked at me as not only the black sheep, but the dark sheep,” Villa told LAHorror.com lightheartedly.  And who can blame them?   Villa not only shares the same birthday as one of his greatest inspirations, Edgar Allen Poe, but has also spent his entire career feeding his fascination of horror.  He utilizes multiple mediums to satisfy his inner darkness in both the form of a hobby and a profession.

“I really had a career in the theater for more than 30 years as a choreographer of stage combat and duels and fight scenes and slap-stick comedy, but through the whole period, I always worked on some type of project that had access to the darker sides of my own nature, whether it was a drawing or sculptures or something else,” Villa said.  And through those various forms of expression Villa has created a diverse portfolio of horrific pieces, which include poetry, sculpture, paintings, music and plays.

“In terms of creativity as an artist, I felt like if I ever get blocked up in one area, all I had to do was just switch media and that block no longer existed, and I would pursue that particular style of art for a while until I got blocked up there…and everything kind of steered off to the dark side no matter what I tried to do,” Villa said.

And Villa has truly embraced that dark side and let it steer his creativity.  He is open to its energy and allows it to take hold of his artistic process.  Take for instance his sculptures, “Yargoth” and “Garg.”  Based on characters from one of his own plays, these pieces were crafted with a free form process led by the imagination.  “I don’t really sketch that [many] pre-production sketches in my art.  I really like to let my hands kind of tell me where I’m going with it.  My hands created the gargoyle that you see,” Villa explained of his process.  Each figure stands at roughly 11 inches tall, though Villa has been commissioned to do work much larger than that (see the picture at the top of this story if you don’t believe us).

Yargoth, The Forgotten Guardian

Garg, The Gargoyle

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

And the true delight of Villa’s work is not only in the pieces themselves, but his entire approach to the creation of art in general.  He believes there is no reason for inspired individuals to deny their desire to create.  “Art manifests itself through you.  Many people have artistic ability, but most of them repress it in order to fit in….there’s a cubicle of society that they want to fit into and I never felt like I had to fit into this cubicle,” Villa said.  Take note, young horror lovers.

And on a closing note, we’d like to part ways with Christopher Villa by sharing one of his haunting poems.  And if you’re a horror lover like us, we know you’ll love it to death…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To view more of Christopher Villa’s creations and poetry, please visit Capriquarius Arts on Etsy.  You can also listen to some of Villa’s original music here.

“Ten Reasons Some Scary Movies Can Be Okay for Kids”

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It seems that a common theme amongst horror artists is that it all begins at a young age.  Nobody turns 18 and watches their first horror movie, no matter what kind of household in which you were raised.  Whether you had parents who were liberal enough to let you watch monster movies as a kid (I saw John Carpenter’s “The Thing” at the tender age of seven), or you were one of those kids who snuck the movies into your sleepovers or stayed up late and watched them on HBO, if you wanted to watch horror movies, you found a way.  If you had a fascination of fear, a desire for the dead or a craving for the creeps, you satisfied it, no matter what age you were.

But why then do parents often try to shield their children from monsters on the screen?  Isn’t growing up with certain fears a healthy part of childhood?  All kids should have at least a little fear of a monster under the bed or a ghost in the closet–it’s part of growing up.  Maybe scary movies are actually good for children in the same way that cartoons, comedies or musicals can be.

Tina Marconi, a frequent contributor and editor of www.babysitters.net, was kind enough to send us a link to exactly why she thinks scary movies are not only okay for children, but can actually give them a positive experience in their childhood.  Her article, “Ten Reasons Some Scary Movies Can Be Okay for Kids,” can be read here.  Check it out; it’s a unique and practical look at all of the glorious things that horror can do for our families, and we at LAHorror.com couldn’t agree more.

And let’s face it:  if there’s one group of people you can trust on a topic like this, it’s babysitters.  Jamie Lee Curtis taught me that back when I was a little kid.

LA Horror Review: “Broken Bones”

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A couple of months ago, LA Horror sat down with writer Paul Hart-Wilden and talked horror.  Hart-Wilden has written multiple horror films (most recently “Wolf Town”) as well as a collection of short stories that he has assembled in his self-published horror anthology, “Broken Bones.”  Hart-Wilden was kind enough to give me a copy of his “Broken Bones,” which I had the pleasure of reading last week.  Just do yourself a favor and pick up your copy right now because this book is legit.

Horror anthologies are tricky, and while I have read several, there are usually only one or two stories that really stand out and are memorable.  That’s not the case with “Broken Bones,” not by a long shot.  In fact, this past week I honestly haven’t been able to get some of these out of my head, not only because they were well written and interesting, but because they were disgusting and gory in the best ways imaginable.  Necrophilia, rape, brutal murder, hatred, demons, child murder, disease, self mutilation, love lost and even a couple of vampires—this book has just enough of everything to satisfy the sickest of horror fans.

The first story of the book, “The Way of All Flesh,” has some of the most graphic descriptions of human decomposition that I’ve ever had the joy of reading.  You can almost smell the rotting corpse through the pages, and hear the eerie sound of a thousand tiny insects devouring a human body.  Not only that, the story has one of the creepiest and most haunting endings that really opens up the floodgate for the rest of the book.  It is the perfect hook for “Broken Bones” and instantly grabbed my attention, smashed me in the face and gave me a nervous anticipation for the other stories.

“Dark Heart” was another one that really stuck with me.  It is a tale about two morticians who have an unspoken understanding about sexual desires, and how to use their surroundings to satisfy them.  However, things get hairy when one of their relatives, a beautiful young girl, ends up in a coffin.  It is incredibly creepy, has two very developed and interesting characters and a disgustingly ironic ending that really made me shake my head laughing.  Paul Hart-Wilden…you bastard…

“Black and White” was probably my personal favorite for a couple of reasons.  The story follows a young white supremacist named Jimmy and his gang of hooligans as they terrorize and ultimately murder a young black man on a night out.  After committing this crime however, Jimmy starts to notice something changing about him that he can’t control – his skin slowly starts to darken – and now the tables have turned and his gang is after him.  It is an excellent blend of social commentary, horror and heart that has a certain weight as you read it.  Not only that, the ending left a giant boulder in my guts that I can still feel now as I type.

I could go on and on about each story. There really wasn’t a bad one in the bunch.  The thing that made this book as a whole so enjoyable was that each story was horrific in completely different ways and often put my imagination in some very dark places.  Hart-Wilden has no problems creating interesting and developed characters in the span of just a couple short pages, only to thrust them into the worst and most gruesome situations imaginable – spoiler alert – a lot of people die in this book!  And not only was this a horrifying read, it was also interesting.  Many of the stories pointed out the true horrors in our own society in an intelligent way.

And lastly (and most importantly), I just need to emphasize once again, this book is sick.  Seriously sick in all the best ways.  And if you’re sick like me, then I highly recommend getting some “Broken Bones.”

LA Horror Presents: Alexander G. Seyum

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Alexander G. Seyum has been a horror fan for life.  He remembers fondly his days as a child watching Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” on VHS…over and over and over again.  After all, it was the first horror movie he ever saw and one that has stuck with him ever since.  But as Seyum grew older, he fell into the real world trap, putting his ambitions and dreams of filmmaking aside for a more practical profession.  And after five years of working in construction, he experienced a sort-of blessing in disguise.

“I was basically laid off for about a year and a half and then at that time I was saying, ‘Well, what do I really want to do with myself?  Am I really gonna, you know, stick to construction for the rest of my life or am I really gonna make a change and do film?’” Seyum told LAHorror.com.  And after his brother talked to him about the LA Film School in Hollywood, Seyum took the step and enrolled.

His first film he made was “Darkmoon,” a campy yet sinister werewolf flick.  “I was inspired by ‘An American Werewolf in London’ and ‘Sliver Bullet’…I used that old school 80s type of filmmaking when I did that short film.  That was the first one I ever wrote produced and directed.  I ended up being one of the top winners in the California Film Awards in 2010,” Seyum said.  “I wanted to create my first movie monster.”

In Seyum’s next film, the monster was less of flesh and blood and more in spirit.  “A Midnightmare” was his thesis film at the LA Film School and ended up being a finalist in The Directors Circle Festival of Shorts in 2011.

And while he has found success in directing horror, he knows it’s always wise to keep his options open.  “My first genre is horror.  Always will be horror.  But I can also do comedy; I can also do drama.”

Seyum is also a talented poet with a self-published book.  And while his poetry is not strictly horror, it does involve dark themes and struggles of good versus evil.  His poetry was also notably featured in the Midnight Black International Festival of Darkness in 2011.

Seyum and his production company, Carnival Pictures, are currently developing an urban crime-drama coming soon.  You can also check out Seyum’s latest piece, “El Cartel” here.