Film Review - Fields Of November

 

Over a year ago I heard of a film called Fields of November. The synopsis sounded like something I would want to watch and I watched teaser trailers and clips online over the following months. I saw the film last week and I will begin this review by saying that I wasn't disappointed, something that can happen easily after wanting to watch something for a long period of time.

 

A woman wakes, her alarm harsh through a silent room, and her eyes show a deep sadness, cold and red. The story tells of this woman, Sarah, and her strict routine, a routine that helps her deal with the loss of her soon-to-be-husband twelve months earlier. A loss she has never come to terms with or even allowed herself to heal from.

 

The long, distant shots of Sarah, her face often contorting to grief driven tears, are daunting and beautiful. Sometimes the camera lingers and you feel like you're seeing things that perhaps you shouldn't be seeing. The emotional response of Sarah after speaking to another man, the guilt in her eyes and the heartache she feels due to the guilt. It's amazing and truly representative of the constantly-there ache and punch to the chest that comes with mourning. 

 

We see the story progress as Sarah meets a friend of her late soon-to-be-husband, a kind man with a lack of pity in his expression that puts Sarah at ease and makes her feel a connection with him. The tale then turns to one that delves into the healing process. We see Sarah, a character that is so sad and  conflicted to begin with, find a reason to smile again. It's in these moments, where Sarah, played subtly and wonderfully by Louise Flory, shows a long awaited sense of acceptance, that are really moving.

 

There is a scene in the film just after Sarah runs into the male character, calmly acted with a quiet charisma by Peter Castle, that she begins to find friendship with. She has shared a taxi with the man and dropped him off at his apartment before going back to her place, her routine changed and interrupted slightly. The panic and sadness in her face in this scene, where she sheds tears and looks at her watch fearfully, is one of the most effective scenes I have seen in a long time. It speaks louder than a million words could have about how lost this character has become and how stuck she has found herself after suffering the loss of someone she loved.

 

 

Chad Ritchie, the writer, director, editor and producer of the film has a wonderful way of letting the camera settle on his characters, naturally affording them a sense of realism and honesty seldom seen in film. The actors, also afforded the chance to share in the writing process, seem like they are not in front of a camera at all and merely going about their day as we watch them from some invisible speck of light in their life.

 

The score by Jason Solowsky is minimalist and subtle which works really well with the style of the film and the way in which it unfolds. Anything more and the dialogue and effective silences would be lost under it. So often I find that a score seems like it has been dumped into a film without any effort put into how it fits in, this doesn't happen here at all.

 

If I had to find fault with Fields of November I would struggle, there is so much to like and so much to admire about the film that I had a hard time considering any negative aspects. The one thing I would pick is that the film is just not long enough, and I say this because of the vast enjoyment I had with the time I spent with it. I would have loved to have peered further behind the curtain of these characters' lives and progression. It's a small gripe, mind you, and one that further expresses my fondness for the picture.

 

Written and performed in a way I won't soon forget, Fields of November is a piece of cinema that lingers over the suffering that people can go through after losing someone that they love. Set under the sky of New York City, a city bustling, crowded, bright and loud, we see a quiet and grey area beneath it all, like a still lake under a giant steel bridge.

 

Fields of November is available now and I urge you to pick a copy up. It's an experience you won't find elsewhere and one I won't forget in my lifetime.

 

Fields of November is available to buy here:

 

Fields on Amazon

 

Fields Signed From Retrocon Media

 



Horror Movie Review - American Mary (2012)

 

Jen and Sylvia Soska should be on the radar of most fans of the horror genre and it's progression as a genre with something unique and interesting to offer the current earth or cinema. Their previous, and debut, flick was Dead Hooker in a Trunk, which was written and directed by the spooksome twosome, who also appeared in main roles in the flick. It wasn't anything special as far as I'm concerned but it has a cult following and it did show the capabilities of these two genuinely interesting filmmakers as well as offering a glimpse at what they could do in a shoestring budget and no-name talent.

 

American Mary came onto my radar when I saw advertisements for it premiering at London's Frightfest horror weekend and I was extremely intrigued by the synopsis, the cast and the fact that the Soska sisters were behind the camera, holding the pen and, for a couple of minutes, in front of the lens once again. I didn't see it in theatres because it didn't, as far as I'm aware, get a cinema release anywhere in the UK, so I bought it on BluRay when it was released early this year.

 

American Mary stars Katherine Isabelle who you might know as "Ginger" from the Ginger Snaps flicks where she played a sensual werewolf who got a little bit bitey after the moon came out. She plays "Mary" in this, a horror film about body modification. Iiiiiiinteresting.

 

The whole body-mod scene is an interesting premise for a film and it's kind of suprising that we haven't really seen a horror film go full on with this concept before. Not like this anyway.

 

Mary is training to be a surgeon and putting in all the hours she can to get where she wants to be but she cant afford her student loans and she's stuggling to keep her head above water financially. She, through desperation, takes a stripper job in a seedy club. She interviews for the job but when she is dragged to help a worker of the club who has been beaten half-to-death she ends up on the radar of the body-mod community for her prescise black-market surgery. 

 

She is then invited to a house party by a couple of doctors at her hospital and when she arrives her drink is spiked and she suffers sexual abuse at the hands of her perverted colleagues. This sets up the descent into madness that befalls Mary following the attack.

 

The film sets the reasoning for Mary getting involved in body-mods really well, with desperation mixed with depression from what happened to her. She is approached by people who want extreme body modification for their own personal reasons and Mary becomes famous in the scene, with people travelling from across the world to have her work on them. This storyline flows at the side of a vengeance plot involving Mary, the men who attacked her at the house-party, and her boss at the nightclub who has become fond of her.

 

Katherine Isabelle is great doing "angry" and "viscious" and is believable as someone unhinged, a definate compliment to an actress who hasn't seen enough roles in horror in my view. The direction of the Soskas is clean and fluid and again cements them as ones to watch. They can't act though, I will say that, but I can ignore that when they're only in the film for a few seconds.

 

I liked that they cast people who were actually part of the mody-mod scene in the film, it added some authenticity to the whole thing and that was cool. I thought Tristan Risk was a standout as Beatress, along with Isabelle. They stole the film and gave some laughs along the way to break up the gore and the serious and dark scenes that existed.

 

I'm excited to see what the Soska Sisters do next, they have made a film here that should please alot of people who like horror, because it isn't just a music video with limbs being chopped off like alot of recent horror films, and it isn't about the usual. No zombies, vamps, ghosts or masked slashers to be found, although Mary does wear a surgical mask at times, so ignore the last one.

 

The acting, at times, left me a little "meh" and I would have liked backstory to some of the other characters, but the things I liked far outweighed the things I didn't. Definately one of the more original and fun horror movies I've seen in the last couple of years. See it!

 

7.5 genital mutilations out of 10.



Horror Review - The Collector (2009)

 

 

Okay, so it's about time I get back to my roots, I realised that I haven't really been reviewing horror movies on here and I don't really know why. I guess I just haven't felt the urge and I've been reviewing newer stuff for the most part and I don't get inspired to write reviews about many recent horror flicks.

 

The collector has inspired me to write one though, but I don't really know if that's a good thing or not. I'd say not. Here's why.

 

The Collector, co-written and directed by Marcus Dunstan, a guy who's previous screenwriting has come in the shape of sequels to Saw, is a movie presented in much the same way that those films were. I'd go deep into it's plot and the characters but that whole area is very shallow, so it would be like trying to deep fry some breaded fish in a dry frying pan. The story is basic and "samey", following a desperate thief as he attempts to steal from a family he's worked for and get's caught in a house filled with traps being set by a masked guy with a penchant for bear traps and fish hooks.

 

Okay, so I'm okay with the shallow plot and the fact that I couldn't give a shiny pile of dog crap about any of the characters. I can let that pass, because, as a horror fan I understand that looking for depth in many of our genres releases is like trying to find intelligent dialogue in a Wayans brothers film. So, I overlooked that and waited for a cool series of interesting and complex traps and tricks from the unnamed assassin who looked like a long lost member of Slipknot. This is where the film fell flat on it's face for me. The traps weren't interesting and you'd have to be a bloody idiot not to see a chandelier of machetes hanging over your head, wouldn't you? The gaping holes in the story as well as the fact that noone seems to react natuarally to the fact that there are plenty of chances to get out of the house and/or kick the shit out of Joey Jordison when he has his back turned.

 

There's a room of fish hooks that do little damage to the protagomist (who's a thief, nice). There's a room of green sludgy acid, like something from "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" which again does little harm to the guy stepping in it. Wow, nice traps antagonist-in-silly-mask, they're really doing their job. *insert confused face*

 

Speaking of "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", Judge Doom is a much scarier villain than the lip-licking tosspot in this film, I'm sorry but there is nothing scary about a guy who's nine-hundred traps and weapons aren't doing more than leaving a couple of scratches on the fella who encounters them. So, okay, there's a plot going on with the family of the house too, who are being tortured by Corey Taylor in the basement, but that's boring and adds no sort of tension to the movie. The thief realises that there's a kid in the house and he tries to save her, which is fine, at least there's a little bit of reason to want the guy to escape now. This leads to a series of "Baby's Day Out" like close-encounters with sharp things.

 

I won't spoil the ending, the director will do that for you instead. This film left a bad taste in my mouth and confirmed my feelings on most of what comes through the gory train station of horror nowadays. It's all very usual and uninspired, and if it isn't a remake then it's the sort of tedious dumb-fuckery like this that might as well have been done a million times before. I'm not saying that I don't like any horror films that come out in the modern day. Spain, France and Asia have some swell little movies to be found, and I even liked a couple of recent remakes like "Evil Dead" but it's a shame that there is so little originality in a genre that can literally be as "out there" and bizarre as any other genre in the landscape of film. Come on, someone do something new!! It's surely not that hard.

 

I don't have many good points to make about this flick. It bored the pants off me, it made me sad that I'd chosen to waste time on it and it made me question the minds of the people who recommended it to me. Ha, I kid. Kind of.

 

Still, watch it if you fancy yourself a second-rate Saw knock-off, or prequel, or something. I don't know how it fits, or if it fits into the Saw franchise, I don't actually care either.

 

2 large bear traps soaked in viscera out of 10.

The Puffy Chair Review (2005) A Duplass Brothers Film.

 

Simply, to begin, I'll say that I am a Duplass Brothers fan. I like the style of their films and the everyman, modest and down-to-earth quality that each of their films possess. The Puffy Chair, starring brother Mark and directed by brother Jay is no different. Another wonderfully grey film with a soulful integrity and welcoming familiarity that immediately draws you in.

 

I saw this film much later than perhaps I should have, it was made in 2005 and I didn't see it until 2012, a few months ago. I had seen other Duplass-made pictures prior, enjoying each in different ways. Cyrus and Jeff, Who Lives at Home being the two that I most enjoyed and are perhaps the most well known of the films made by these talented indie filmmakers who had their start in short-film. It shows in their fairly short running times of their feature length flicks.

 

The Puffy Chair was made on a tiny $15,000 budget and it seldom shows because this isn't a film that really needs a budget, all it needs are a small amount of talented actors, a van, an open road...oh, yeah, and a puffy chair.

 

The film follows Mark Duplass's character Josh and his girlfriend Emily, played with subtlety by Katie Aselton, who is well-known in the Duplassverse. She does good here. Josh and Emily along with Josh's brother Rhett, plan to travek together from New York to Virginia, picking up a puffy chair along the way, that is identical to one that Josh's father had once owner. Josh plans to take the chair to his fathers house to give his dad for his birthday. An important thing for Josh to do, seen in his expressions and dialogue throughout the film. Rhett, the brother, is a hippy type who doesn't like conflict but also doesn't like to do anything to help anyone either. A fact that intrudes on the relationship of Josh and Emily at times during their road trip.

 

Mark Duplass plays the character of Josh with a mild anger at the world and while he at times seems cold he also backs it up with reason. He's likeable in his own way. His relationship with Emily is the basis for this film, she feels ignored and unsupported by Josh, and Josh just wants things to be fine without explanations needing to be given for things. Emily wants him to be more present in their partnership and she is deeply bothered that he doesn't appear interested in her worried regarding it. Rhett's character is perfect to bring a little insanity (or, at times, alot of insanity) to the mix. His "love for all things" is amusing on various occassions and scened, later in the film, are indeed "wackadoo".

 

The film takes on a documentary style of filming which works with the low budget but makes things seem very real and raw. This allows for improvisation to be done and it works really well, the lack of polish acts in the film's favour. The places that they visit throughout the movie appear real, lived in and used. It's a breath of fresh air to see places that are honest and at times dirty. Hollywood take note.

 

At times the dialogue gets a little mixed up and the Rhett character goes from being a realistic representation of someone who might be a little off kilter and generally happy to lay on the grass and stare at the sky while the world pays for him, but it takes turns that seem out of sink with the film and I would have preferred the subtlety to be constant.

 

The writing is top notch, the performances are excellent and the setting is perfect. It goes to show that all you need are a good script and a few people who can grab it and run with it.

 

It's on Netflix streaming now and I advise you to check it out.

 

8 puffy chairs out of 10.