It may not be October yet, but for FrightFest, spooky season happens year round! Don’t miss our full coverage of the all-genre film festival, exclusively featured after the jump.
Films
LAST STRAW
Full review at the link.
MOM
Full review at the link.
WAKE UP
Being a casual fan of directing trio Francois Simard, Anouk Whissell, and Yoann-Karl Whissell (Summer of 84, Turbo Kid), I have to admit excitement for their newest horror/thriller, slasher Wake Up. The logline involves a small group of activists with sights set on a very viral plan. Protesting the massive IKEA-esque “House Idea” department store, this young cast of characters head there during business hours to infiltrate. Their scheme to record masked video warnings aimed at the company (involving butcher’s blood and graffiti) goes terribly awry when a wayward security guard and his bumbling brother work the night shift. Upon catching Karim (Thomas Gould) red-handed, an incident unfolds leaving the unhinged Kevin (Turlough Convery) hungry for revenge. From here, it all plays out in typical slasher fashion, offering little in the way of shocks or surprises. Kevin brutally murders each member of the group off one by one. Exits are sealed, and the single setting often works in Wake Up’s favor. However, subtlety and stylistic flourishes are both missing from the final product. None of the characters leave enough of an impact to matter. The bleakness also commingles strangely with frequently campy tonal shifts. Wake Up lacks the lasting impact of Summer of 84; yet, the film still makes for an okay-enough modern slasher.
THE WELL
Just to get this easy pun out of the way: we are not just scraping the bottom of the barrel here, but dipping way too deep into The Well of mediocrity. This all-too-familiar, generic horror flick about a “cursed painting” and bulky baddies dumping unsuspecting cannon fodder into the titular well cannot overcome its blatantly obvious budgetary restrictions. Set in 1993 for some inexplicable reason, we follow Lisa (Lauren LaVera, Terrifier), a painting restorer arriving in a foreign town to restore a medieval painting. A foreboding mansion and a weird family somehow do not add much of anything to the film’s atmosphere, either. Much of The Well consists of shrill screaming, limbs being hacked off with cleavers, and hallucinatory visions/nightmares. Anyone who has seen even a single horror movie can probably skip it.
Until next time, we look forward to seeing what FrightFest and Pigeon Shrine will have on offer. Whether it’s scary ghosts or creepy crawlies, the programmers always now how to show a genre fan a good time!