Change Your Image
messiahrp
Reviews
They Live Inside Us (2020)
A New Halloween Classic
This is a story about a writer and his physically impaired daughter who take a short stay at a house that is supposedly haunted, as the town tales go. Along the way the characters address grief and how that has affected their family situation. The film shows off a living snippet of each of the horror ideas the writer entertains (and an honest affirmation of why they just don't seem to work) while playing up the real life dread building in the house. There are some unexplained pieces to the story but that's actually a very good thing. Michael Ballif, the director and writer of this story, doesn't want to hold your hand all the way through. There are just enough questions left over to keep you talking about all of the scenarios post-film and that's the best kind of film really. As far as everything else, Ballif knows EXACTLY how to create the Halloween vibe... perfect set decoration and lighting, great score, just enough scares to keep people on the edge of their seats. Ballif was inspired by the opening credits of Halloween IV and it shows. You get numerous horror story tropes played out all within the context of the writer's work. Really this is like a smorgasbord of Halloween and Horror. If you enjoy this, I would check out The Witching Season on Blu Ray, a collection of shorts from the same Director, with the same Actor (James Morris) and a very familiar vibe. You'll even get the short film version of this feature length film and it's fun to see the genesis of these concepts. A great film that definitely will make it into my annual Halloween rotation.
'Twas the Night Before Christmas (1992)
Clement Moore would rather gouge his eyes out with a spoon than watch this.
Outside of some of the worst animation ever and a script mostly made up of reindeer arguing and nonsensical sounds emitted from the characters... this is perfectly fine to watch to remind yourself people get paid tons more money than you to totally not care about their work. This is what you make if you hate Christmas so much that you want to burn it and the joy it brings children like a river in Cleveland.
Stay away and curse FHE for giving us THIS and not the Rankin Bass special when their Christmas Classics tapes already had so many of those specials under license.
Applecart (2015)
Completely different. Completely Brilliant.
Applecart comes at you immediately like a refreshing blast of cold water in a desert wasteland of missed opportunities that seems to permeate the Indie Horror scene. From the very first scene Dustin gives you an inkling that the film you are about to watch is going to offer imagery that might be bluntly presented to you and often can push boundaries.
This is a film that uses a silent film set up but uses a laugh track as a way to nudge the audience into understanding where the characters stand as well as making that track a character itself. The actors all use masks and use body language to evoke emotion but all put on incredible performances and articulate the character's emotions better than most speaking roles do. The masks themselves feel very natural very shortly into the film and you have to credit the cast for being able to make you forget they're wearing them. The stories themselves are all fairly short and tell tales of lust, cheating and failed seduction and are done so very convincingly.
The score is one of piano music that you would definitely associate with the old musical sets that would accompany the silent films in the theaters. Watching this on a bigger screen and even in a theater atmosphere gives you a vibe of instant nostalgia that only heightens the experience.
Overall this is a film without spoken dialogue yet it had a lot to say. The actors weren't hindered by masks that prevented their facial expression, they were enhanced and emboldened by it. Some people might find the graphic nudity and sexually explicit scenes to not be their cup of tea and to them I say - this is art. Art is expressive and raw and sometimes it requires an extremely open mind to really appreciate and interpret, but once you toss all of those prejudgments aside you really get a pretty amazing film.