This week, we’ve got five brand-new, just-released independent films. We’ll start off with the very funny “Clawfoot” and “The Zombie Wedding” films. Then, we’ll watch “Subservience” and “Voice of Shadows,” which are not funny. We’ll then switch over to a documentary, “On the Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients,” and wrap up with a mainstream film that’s getting a lot of press, “The Deliverance.” All of these are recent releases.
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2024 Clawfoot
· Directed by Michael Day
· Written by April Wolfe
· Stars Francesca Eastwood, Milo Gibson, Olivia Culpo
· Run Time: 1 Hour, 27 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
Right from the beginning, it feels like more is going on than we see, and it’s fun seeing how things move along as we find out. In general, it’s a fun movie, with lots of humor that gets crazier as it goes along. It’s very funny and very dark. Two kids of very famous actors prove they can come through on their own merits, the cast and everything else is very good. We liked it.
Spoilery Synopsis
Janet looks at herself in a mirror as she puts on makeup. We then get establishing shots around her house as she cleans and does housework. A man comes to the door and says he has a work order to update the bathroom, but she doesn’t know anything about it; her husband ordered it. Leo offers to call her husband to straighten out the misunderstanding, but he only gets a voicemail. He’s pushy, but she doesn’t demand that he leave. She lets him in, and the credits roll.
Leo gets to work, and Janet soon finds him walking around the bedroom with his shirt off, as is his assistant Sammy. He puts on his shirt and helps her cook lunch. He keeps commenting on her house, her money, her absent husband, and everything else that’s inappropriate and personal. She imagines knocking him out but doesn’t do it.
Janet’s friend Tasha comes over with her kid, Darren, in tow. Tasha’s a lawyer, and she knows creepy stuff about her murderer clientele. Janet doesn’t know where her husband, Evan, went. He left this morning and didn’t go to work; his car is in the garage.
Leo takes Evan’s violin out of the closet and starts playing. She demands that he leave, but he refuses. When she threatens to call the police, he laughs. Leo and Sammy take a break for lunch. She fantasizes about killing him again, twice. Evan still isn’t answering his phone, and she starts to get annoyed.
Janet walks young Darren home, and the two handymen make themselves at home while she’s gone. Tasha talks about how bad Evan was toward his previous wife as she polishes her throwing knives.
Janet goes home and loses her patience with Leo, who’s still stalling. Once again, she pictures herself killing him. He says they’ll be back at 10 a.m.
That night, she fantasizes about him breaking in and her killing him. When she wakes up in the morning, the two men have returned and are eating breakfast. Janet checks her bank account, and there’s nothing there about a deposit for the bathroom upgrade. He’s aggressive and “gaslighty.” Leo explains that Evan gave him a ton of money to “launder” and that he gave him some fake invoices.
Leo makes it clear that he’s in control and he wants some money. He leaves for another night, and she goes to bed. Leo sneaks in through a window in the garage. He finds Evan, Janet’s husband, tied up in the garage; he complains that he’s been there for days. There has been a bit of a miscommunication about Leo actually doing the work versus just money laundering. The people that Evan works for are very “connected,” and Evan says he doesn’t have any money for Leo to take.
Leo doesn’t release him. Evan calls for Janet who hits Leo over the head for real this time. The much-larger Leo easily overpowers Janet for a while, but it soon becomes cat-and-mouse. She wins.
In the morning, Janet has Leo’s truck towed away. She calls Tasha to come over, as a lawyer this time. She shows Tasha what she’s done; there are now two men tied up in the garage. Janet gives Tasha $100,000 in cash from her safe as a retainer to be her attorney.
Sammy comes by, looking for Leo. He admits that he’s an ex-con with no phone or GPS. Tasha perks right up at hearing that. He hears voices from the garage and comes inside, just in time to find Tasha and Janet talking about cutting up bodies. Tasha takes out her frustrations on the strange little man.
They have a surprisingly good time dismembering him. Then they order lunch to be delivered. It’s time to kill Evan, but first, Janet reads him a letter that she wrote. He says she just got old and she has terrible taste, so she has no problem stabbing him.
The two men break loose and Leo uses Evan as a human shield, which slows Janet down for less than half a second. Tasha goes to work on Leo with an electric saw. Leo hits the garage door opener and makes a run for it. The two girls run him down with the car not far from the delivery driver, but he misses the actual impact. The driver doesn’t ask any questions when they grab the food in blood-covered raincoats.
Tasha goes inside with the food while Janet crawls on the floor and cuddles dead-Evan. She smiles at the camera.
Brian’s Commentary
Francesca Eastwood is Clint’s daughter, and Milo Gibson is Mel’s son.
The gaslighting just goes on for far too long to be believable. Anyone with any sense would have called the police, had them trespassed, and just eaten the lost deposit. We figured there had to be some reason she didn’t do that, something like she’d killed her husband earlier. We were– close.
It’s got some funny bits, definitely a dark comedy, but it’s not a joke-a-minute until the last half hour or so, then it gets pretty crazy. The acting is good all around, and it all looks good.
Very nice!
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought this was a lot of fun, one that started good and kept getting better as it went along. Everything about it from the cast to the effects was well put together. It’s a good one for sure.
2024 On The Trail of Bigfoot- The Ancients
· Directed by Seth Breedlove
· Written by Seth Breedlove
· Run Time: 2 Hours, 22 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
There aren’t really spoilers because it’s a historical and cryptid documentary, and it’s a well made one. It’s really a two-in-one, with lots of Appalachian area history combined with an exploration of Bigfoot possibilities with lore, stories, and eyewitness interviews. It’s long, but it didn’t feel like it was. It was interesting.
Spoilery Synopsis
Narrator Seth Breedlove talks about his love of the Appalachians and Gatlinburg. His family was from the area, and he remembers stories his father told him about people of the region. Credits roll.
We open at the Breedlove cemetery, and we see that they do have a long history in the area. They soon talk about how they heard stories about the boogeyman in the woods. They were all warned about “Things” that might be lurking. We get a brief geography and history lesson about the Appalachian Mountains and area. They talk about the many bears in the area; the region is so lush that it easily supports large predators.
How could a Bigfoot thrive in Appalachia? Seth interviews local experts that talk about the Sasquatch stories of the area, and there are a lot of them. They talk about “Tsul ’Kalu,” a sort of hairy giant that lived in the area according to Cherokee legends. All of the many Indian tribes in the area had names for Bigfoot; he goes way back in their culture.
There is a lot of discussion about wildmen and various gorilla-like creatures that lived in the woods. The term “Bigfoot” didn’t come around until the 1950s, but the idea had been around pretty much forever. Many people have gone missing in the forests there, and some of them tie into the Bigfoot legends. There’s a long discussion about a missing child, Dennis Martin, from the 1960s and the search for him. He may have been kidnapped, and some people speculate that it may have been a Bigfoot. Trenny Gibson’s and Mike Heron’s disappearances are also discussed.
Feral people are discussed next, as there are a lot of caves in the area. These aren’t the same as simple homeless people. We also meet a bunch of people who tell about their sightings of various Bigfoot-like creatures.
Brian’s Commentary
We’ve seen more than a few of the films from Seth’s series, but this is the most serious documentary of all the ones we’ve seen. As always, the production values and camerawork are excellent. It’s half a documentary about Appalachia and half a story of the bigfoot. The two topics combined makes this feel very thorough.
Although there are some anecdotes, the people interviewed here all seem honest and believable; unlike many Bigfoot films, this one is very short on flakes and loons. It focuses more on legends and lore than personal stories, which is nice.
This one stands out mostly due to its length, at almost two-and-a-half hours. It’s long and really takes its time. We’re twenty minutes in before there’s the first mention of Sasquatch. There’s a lot of history and well-researched folklore discussed here; it’s not just a bunch of people telling made-up stories of encounters. There are many recreations and animations that give us something to look at as people talk.
Due to the length, it’s not a quick watch, so I’d probably recommend this one more toward the more hardcore cryptid enthusiast, but it’s also one of the best of its type.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought it was probably the best of the Small Town Monsters works that I’ve seen. The history aspects were well-researched, and it meshed well with the cryptid exploration. I’d highly recommend it.
2024 Subservience
· Directed by S.K. Dale
· Written by Will Honley, April Maguire
· Stars Megan Fox, Michele Morrone, Madeline Zima
· Run Time: 1 Hour, 35 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It looks good and is very well made. It also went exactly like we expected at every step. It’s entertaining to watch. But it’s not super because every step of it was predictable.
Spoilery Synopsis
Nick flashes back to when his wife Maggie had a sudden heart attack and goes to the hospital. Now he’s raising two children alone. They go to a robotics show to get a “Cooking Cleaning and Childcare” robot. The salesman there explains how advanced the robots are. Little Isla wanders off and finds the robot that she likes in the slavery showroom. Nick’s homelife is a jumbled mess, and he’s very happy to have more help. Isla names the new robot “Alice” after the book she’s reading.
As Nick takes the kids to school, Alice cleans up the entire house; it’s all as good as new. She’s also made excellent lasagna, Isla’s favorite, though it isn’t quite as good as her mom’s. Alice gets cut on some glass, and Nick seens her in her underwear, and can see where this is heading.
The family goes to visit Maggie at the hospital, and she’s still not ready to be released. They joke about how hot the new robot is, and Maggie jokes that she’s jealous.
We cut to a big highrise construction project, and Nick and the workers complain about all the construction workers being replaced by robots. Nick is the foreman, so he won’t be replaced, but everyone else will. When he goes home, Alice wants to hear about his problems. She explains the benefits and efficiencies of android workers, and he really can’t argue.
They talk about watching “Casablanca,” and he learns how to erase her memory of topics so she can watch the movie like she’s seeing it for the first time. Nick gets a call that Maggie is finally having her heart transplant surgery and then she can come home. Fearing death, Maggie gives Alice some special instructions about taking care of Nick and the kids. The transplant never arrives due to a storm up north, and that depresses everyone. That night, Nick gets drunk and learns that Alice has a pulse. She then makes his pulse skyrocket.
At the jobsite the next day, the workers are quieter and more efficient than their human predecessors. Maggie’s still in the hospital, depressed. Alice removes Maggie’s photos from Isla’s picture frame, which annoys Nick. His former coworkers whine about the state of the world and the robots. They break into the job site and Monty “kills” one of the workers. Then he’s ready to move on to all of them. When Nick gets home, Alice shows him how “fully functional” she really is– she blindfolds Nick and speaks in Maggie’s voice as they have sex.
In the morning, Nick has regrets. He goes to work, and the boss blames him because his code was used. Nick talks his way out of it– for now. He gets a call from Maggie; there’s another transplant available. She’s operated on by androids with no mouths, which is unnecessarily weird.
Not long after, Maggie comes home. Unfortunately, she learns that Alice knows her kids better than she does. Later, Alice is out with the baby, and another droid is struggling with a brat of a kid. Alice directly tells the kid to knock it off, and the other droid nannies around them perk up, surprised that she could be forceful with a child like that. Alice tells them about how when she was reset, she learned how to bypass certain protocols in her behavior instructions. Isla likes Maggie’s lasagna better than Alice’s. Oddly, the stairway railing breaks, and Maggie falls down the stairs later.
Monty comes by for a visit and blames Nick for turning him in to the police. This leads to a physical fight, and Monty’s a lot bigger than Nick. Alice gets involved and hurts Monty. Monty threatens to tell Nick’s boss who let him into the construction site. Later that night, Monty gets a visitor– Alice. Surprisingly, he has a SIM as well that tries to step in, but Alice kills them both.
Alice and Maggie talk about Nick, and Alice wants to “satisfy” Nick, which enrages Maggie. She realizes that Alice and Nick have had sex in the past. She confronts him about it later. As they argue, Alice goes up to take care of Max, the baby. Isla catches Alice trying to murder the baby. “He’s a burden to you.” This results in an all-out battle which ends with Alice being electrocuted.
Ambulances, police, and the SIM company arrive to deal with the aftermath. Maggie and Nick are not on good terms, but that’s an argument for another time; she goes with the kids to the hospital. Back at the Kobol service station, techs start working on Alice. They look at her code and see what’s been going on. Alice replicates herself on the servers. A different SIM, now with Alice’s mind, kills both techs.
Alice returns to Nick, much to his surprise. She admits to killing Monty. She’s in two bodies at the same time, and one of her is at the hospital as well. Meanwhile, at the hospital, the doctor and nurse SIMs have all been shut down by Alice. She kills a human nurse to get her key card access. Alice-2 comes after the family, and there’s some cat-and-mouse in the hospital rooms. Alice-2 beats up Maggie in the parking lot. Nick arrives just in time to ram her with the car. Nick is injured in the crash, but Alice-2 isn’t done. Alice-Terminator is hard to kill, but Nick gets up and gets the job done.
Later, the hospital is back to normal, and the family is fine.
We cut to the Kobol repair center, where they clean up the bodies of the two techs. The manager turns the servers back on, which releases Alice into all the worker SIMs.
Brian’s Commentary
Other than the robots, there’s not much here that looks futuristic.
We’ve seen this plot before, and there are similarities to many other robots-gone-bad films. There’s not really a lot new here. It’s well acted and looks great, but the story is a bit cliche at this point.
It’s good. It’s not great, but it was entertaining.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s interesting when science fiction takes one aspect of society and puts it forward decades from where we are now, almost like an alternate timeline. I thought everything about this was very well made, the effects, direction, cast, and script. It also touches on ideas of slavery, free will, and capitalism gone too far. What makes it just good not great is that there wasn’t a single real surprise here. We could predict every step because every aspect has been done before in other stories and movies.
2024 The Deliverance
· Directed by Lee Daniels
· Written by David Coggeshall, Elijah Bynum
· Stars Andra Day, Glenn Close, Anthony B. Jenkins
· Run Time: 1 Hour, 52 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-free Judgment Zone
Take a scoop of “The Amityville Horror,” top it with a squirt of “The Exorcist” sauce, and you’ve got the foundation of this movie. Which is claimed to be based on true events like “The Amityville Horror” was. It’s very well acted, with normal human struggles amplified by supernatural elements. But we thought the story started going downhill as it progressed, and those supernatural elements started being the center of the movie. Brian didn’t care much for it, and Kevin gives it a weak thumbs up.
Spoilery Synopsis
We see paintings of terrified children as the credits roll.
It’s 2011, in Pittsburgh, and Andre has been working on a mural in his room; it’s really good. We cut to Alberta in church; she’s Ebony’s mother and Andre’s grandmother. Alberta has moved in with them, but she tends to nag about Ebony’s cooking. It’s all very tense since their father had to deploy in Iraq. Andre’s brother Nate and Sister Shante are old enough not to bring up the topic at the dinner table, but Andre gets smacked for it.
There’s something in the basement that’s attracting a lot of flies. Andre is lactose intolerant, but he chugs from the carton like a lunatic. Ebony is way behind on her bills, and that’s gonna be a problem. We see that Ebony drinks too much and has anger issues; when Nate gets bullied, she beats up the kid who did it. Alberta’s all religious now, but she’s got a bad past.
Alberta goes to the clinic for her chemotherapy; she’s got cancer. She flirts with Melvin the nurse, but the other patients gossip about her. She’s behind on her bills as well; she didn’t know Ebony’s been paying for her treatment, which is part of the reason they’re always broke.
That night, Ebony argues with Nate and Andre gets hurt. Nate’s been saving money to get away from Ebony and her toxic lifestyle. They find a dead cat in the basement; that’s what’s been stinking so much.
Cynthia shows up; she’s the DCS officer, and Ebony moved houses without telling her. She wants to know why Andre and Shante are all bruised up and in pain. Ebony’s about to lose custody of her kids; they need stability.
Shante has a birthday party, and most of the characters we’ve met are there. Alberta and Melvin talk about family dynamics. Andre comes out of the basement and says he’s been talking to Trey, who lives in the basement and his closet. Ebony drinks too much, and Asia gets annoyed and leaves.
Alberta hears the kids screaming and finds that Ebony has terrified them in a drunken rage. “She threw us against the wall,” says Andre. Ebony denies doing it. The next day at school, all three kids behave badly and end up in the hospital. The hospital administrator can’t find anything wrong with the kids– other than the bruises.
Ebony finds Nate drowning Andre in the bathtub, and no one can explain why, even Nate. Cynthia stops in the next day, and Ebony is very evasive, but she has to admit let her in. “This house is making them sick. I’m hearing things.” Cynthia is not sympathetic at all. Alberta runs the woman off with a bat.
Alberta goes to the preacher at church and tells her what’s been going on. She thinks there’s something evil in the house. Ebony is confronted by a woman who says she’s a prophet and she knows that there’s something evil in that house. Twenty years ago, in that house, a family of four lived. They were happy, but then something weird started happening with their youngest son. She did a “Deliverance,” something like an exorcism, but not exactly. The thing simply laughed at her, and the thing in the house killed them all. The little boy’s name was Trey. Ebony gets angry and walks out.
Meanwhile, back at the house, a dark ghost attacks Alberta. Ebony gets home to find the cross on the wall on fire and her mother dead. The police are called and Cynthia shows up; Shante called her. Andre gets all black-eyed and starts acting very possessed in the car. Ebony flips out and ends up in police custody. Cynthia does finally take the kids away.
Alone now, Ebony goes to see Reverend Bernice James again, who explains how the demon is possessing all three of her children. They talk and pray.
At the hospital, Andre is growling, hissing, and speaking another language to Cynthia, who is shocked. He tells her about her own dead son. He breaks out of his restraints and climbs around the room like Spider-Man. She soon realizes that ain’t normal. The nurses refuse to go into that room.
Ebony dresses like a nurse and sneaks into the hospital to kidnap Andre. She takes him home, where Berenice is ready to do her Deliverance. Out comes the holy water and the screaming. He changes into a demonic Alberta, who says nasty things to them both. Elsewhere, Nate and Shante both get sick.
The demon beats up Bernice, and she’s dying. She gives Ebony her last vial of holy water. Ebony looks for Andre down in the creepy basement. She battles with an evil version of herself– and loses badly. She dies, but then she finds the power of God and comes back. She says the magic words, and the demon starts to smoke. The demon then bursts into flame and burns up.
Ebony wakes up and looks for Andre, who is simply asleep.
Time passes, and Cynthia comes to see Ebony, who looks all beat up. Cynthia’s on her side now, and she believes it all. None of the kids remember any of it. We are told that six months later, Ebony gets her children back, and they’re all happy.
We are then told the facts of the real-world case that the film is based upon.
Brian’s Commentary
I went into this one blind other than hearing about how good it was. For the first almost-hour, I wasn’t sure where it was going. How did they manage to convince Glenn Close to do this? She was really good, but then they killed her off halfway through, and the film didn’t recover from the loss. The first half, with the family drama, was good, but then when the exorcism discussion started, it all went downhill fast. By the end, it felt like a Christian propaganda film.
Nope, didn’t care for it.
Kevin’s Commentary
The cast is working hard and did a great job with what they had to work with. Ironically, I enjoyed the movie less the more the supernatural elements crept into it. I thought this might have been a better drama if it wasn’t a horror movie. I didn’t hate it, but I only liked it somewhat.
2024 The Zombie Wedding
· Directed by Micah Khan
· Written by Greg D’Alessandro
· Stars Donald Chang, Deepti Menon, Heather Matarazzo, Siobhan Fallon Hogan, Cheri Oteri
· Run Time: 1 Hour, 39 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It was inspired by an interactive play experience and knowing that you can see how that might work. It’s very over the top in humor and silliness, which would appeal to some. Brian liked it quite a bit, but Kevin thought it was a bit too much.
Spoilery Synopsis
We open on Zack and Ashley’s wedding, but the place is crawling with misbehaving zombies. Credits roll.
We hear from the editor of “Weekly World News” talking about his crazy headlines. He says the best of all of them was the first zombie wedding. He tells the story…
Ashley gives a presentation to the mayor, and she’s very nervous. One guy there, Koko, has an unreasonable crush on her, but she’s into Zack. After a date, Zack sees a guy dressed like a zombie and mocks him since Halloween is a month away. We are told that the local mailman was “Patient Zero” of the zombie virus. The pair go to the cemetery, where they meet a weird preacher, and while there, Zack proposes to Ashley. There’s a full choir in the cemetery– at night. The zombie follows them to the engagement party.
The following morning, both sets of parents talk about who’s in charge of the wedding. Her father wants to have the wedding at the Elks Club, and no one wants that. The back-and-forth between the parents goes on for a while as stuck-up Cindy, Zack’s mom, picks on Buddy Bob and Betty, Ashley’s hillbilly parents.
Meanwhile, at the Weekly World News, a report says that the zombie virus is being spread by bedbugs. A lot of people don’t even notice that the whole outbreak is happening, Zack being one of them.
The Zombie Control Officers tell a bunch of zombies about getting free “brain substitutes,” but the zombies think there are tracking devices in the fake brains. The zombies break into where the happy couple is partying with their friends and attack.
Zack gets bitten, and Ashley’s parents say the wedding needs to be canceled. Ashley goes to see Zack, and he’s chained to the wall in his mother’s house. He eats his mother but says he’d never hurt Ashley. They talk it out and decide to go ahead with the wedding.
Ashley’s parents are very much against the idea, but it is Ashley’s wedding, so what choice do they have? Cindy is more concerned about becoming a zombie herself. Some zombie friends want to come to the party as well, and they promise to behave themselves. Meanwhile, Koko makes plans to do away with Zack, and he might just get some help from Ashley’s mom.
It’s the day of the wedding, and the zombie control officers are there in force, and they’ve fed all the zombies. The reporters are there, and it’s all a big production. Humans sit on one side of the church, while zombies sit on the other side. Everyone is afraid of the zombies, but they do seem to be well-behaved.
Outside, Koko knocks out a zombie and steals his clothes. Inside, the zombies are getting restless as the wedding begins. There’s still plenty of time for the two mothers to bicker. We flashback to the couples’ first meeting.
In the middle of the service, Zack’s friends attack the preacher. After a minute, the preacher gets up and “shakes it off” before continuing. The brain substitutes don’t seem to be working, but the government approved them, and they’re never wrong, right?
It’s time for the reception, and the ZCO are getting nervous about their ability to control the zombies. The couple does their first dance, but she’s clearly afraid of Zack. Outside, the original zombie, the mailman, hears the music and leads his many minions toward the church. As the party proceeds, one side character after another is bitten and turns. Suddenly, things get out of control, and the limbs start flying.
Koko grabs Ashley and runs off. She says she’d rather be a zombie than be with him, and she runs back to Zack. She wants to be a zombie now, it’ll make everything easier, but he refuses.
The “bad” zombies make it to the church, and it’s about to be a big battle– until Ashley yells for everyone to behave themselves. She makes a big speech, and then they proceed with the vows.
The end credits feature zombies dancing.
Brian’s Commentary
This was based on a 2015 interactive play. Apparently, once you become a zombie, you have to dress like a clown in tie-dye, leopard prints, and colorful robes.
The zombie makeup is unique. It’s more like shiny grease paint than anything else, cheap looking, but we got used to it pretty quickly, since it’s fairly consistent between all the zombie characters.
I think they could have dropped all the newspaper and reporter stuff; the story ground to a halt every time that stuff came up. It’s got a weird variety of celebrity cameos, but enough that every once in a while, you can recognize somebody.
It’s a bit on the silly side, even for a comedy, but it was definitely entertaining.
Kevin’s Commentary
It’s a lot on the silly side. Too much so for my taste. It’s well made for what it is, but I thought it was pretty tiresome. It gave me some chuckles here and there, but I mostly found myself tuning it out.
2024 Voice of Shadows
· Directed by Nicholas Bain
· Written by Nicholas Bain
· Stars Guillermo Blanco, Corrinna Mica, Bee Vang, Martin Harris
· Run Time: 1 Hour, 30 Minutes
· Trailer:
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
It starts right out with a terrible event being told in confession and moves into strange territory quickly. Then the script slows a bit as things move along. But it’s well cast and directed, the effects are decent, and it tells an unsettling story. We thumbs up it.
Spoilery Synopsis
A man in a confession booth tells his story to the priest. He explains how his mother was raped and murdered, and he killed the man who did it. The priest doesn’t respond to the story at all, and the man questions if the priest is even there. We cut to Emma, the man’s girlfriend, sleeping in her bed that night with his sister in the next room. Credits roll
Gabriel, the man we saw earlier, goes out the next morning, and elderly neighbor Birdie whines about his wife taking his car keys away. The family, Gabriel, Emma, and Celeste, goes to visit Milda, a strange old woman who lives alone. Milda says sometimes she can talk to dead people, like Celeste’s parents. Milda’s neighbor, Joseph, talks to Gabriel, and old Milda expresses how much she hates Joseph.
Late at night, a strange man named Ernesto calls Emma; she doesn’t know who he is, but he says he knows Milda. He says Milda died earlier in the evening. Emma, Celeste, and Gabriel go to the funeral, and it looks like they’re the only attendees. For her eulogy, Emma talks about the first time that Milda died, during a fire at the orphanage where many children were killed, but Milda was revived.
Ernesto interrupts the eulogy to introduce himself; he has all the documents that they need to go over. Emma has inherited Milda’s entire estate, but there are some weird stipulations. He mentions that he and Milda were in a very exclusive club. The stipulations are that Emma has to live in the house, but under no circumstances is Gabriel allowed to live in the house. But as the executor, Ernesto says he’ll look the other way.
Either way, Emma wants to spend the night there. Gabriel acts terrified when she goes down into the basement; he’s got a real phobia about them. He says he buried his mother and her killer in a basement.
That night, Gabriel hears something and grabs a knife, which concerns Emma. In the morning, they plan to leave, but Ernesto comes for Emma, offering her a job at the local gallery. It’s clear that he wants Emma to stay. Gabriel finds some old books on witchcraft in the old woman’s house.
That night, Celeste reads from the witchcraft book, and we see old, dead Milda laying in the bed next to her. Meanwhile, Emma starts sleepwalking and being rude to Gabriel. She wants him to go back to the apartment and return to work. Emma calls him a danger to all of them.
Gabriel goes to church and talks to two priests, Father James and Father John. James sees John and clams up quickly, but he seems to want to say something to Gabriel. Celeste has a close encounter with old, dead, Milda.
Gabriel goes home and bravely explores the basement. Ernesto comes over and says Celeste has gone home to her apartment. He wants Gabriel to go home as well; he even offers to make travel arrangements for Gabriel. Ernesto looks friendly, but then he lunges at Gabriel with a knife. That escalated quickly! Gabriel stabs the man to death in self defense and hurriedly buries him in the yard before Emma comes home.
Emma gets home and Gabriel listens in as she gets a call from Ernesto. At some point later he goes to the spot where Ernesto was buried, and the body is still there. Gabriel tries to phone Celeste, but gets nothing but static. Emma warns Gabriel not to call the police about Celeste, “because of her papers.”
Gabriel talks to Father John about Milda, and he’s very evasive. “I know exactly who you are.” The priest is needlessly hostile and throws Gabriel out. Father James says John blames himself for how Milda turned out after the fire. James talks about pentagrams, and when Gabriel shows him the book, he laughs and says it’s all fiction. When Milda died, she supposedly went to Hell and met spirits and brought some back with her. James changes his tune and wants to do an exorcism.
Gabriel goes home, but Emma has him locked out. When he finally does get in, he follows Emma into the basement. Something drags Gabriel into a dark place. They get into the car and go back to their apartment, but now Emma seems normal again.
Back at the church, Father James finds John doing something he shouldn’t be doing. Emma, possessed by Milda, goes to see Father John, who knows exactly what’s going on - he’s in the exclusive club that Ernesto mentioned earlier. Gabriel goes to see Father James, who is dead.
Gabriel goes back to Milda’s house, and the place has taken on a life of its own. Emma is there and tries to kill Gabriel, until neighbor Joseph comes in out of nowhere and knocks her out. Gabriel lights a torch and goes into the seemingly endless basement. He meets Milda there, looking old but alive. She talks about bringing back dead people with her from her brief period in Hell. Gabriel whacks her with a hammer and is then stabbed in return by Emma. He’s just wounded.
As Emma recites magic words for a ritual, Gabriel cuts himself and draws a pentagram in blood on his hand, which foils all Milda’s plans to permanently move in to Emma.
We cut to the church where something evil comes to Father John, who gives us a big wicked smile.
Brian’s Commentary
Gabriel and his sister have just moved to America from a bad situation in Colombia, and they don’t know all the rules, so when people start acting strangely, Gabriel thinks maybe it’s him. Plus, he did kill a man back in his country, so he’s buried in his own guilt as well.
The acting here isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either; everyone acts so oddly that it’s hard to tell if they’re doing it on purpose. I think we both had a pretty good idea of what was going on from very early on, but it was entertaining seeing how it would play out.
Honestly, I thought it started out strong, but as it dragged on and on, it seemed to slow down to a snail’s pace. It seemed like Gabriel was wandering around in the basement for half an hour in what should have been the climax.
Kevin’s Commentary
I thought the acting was stronger than Brian did, especially from Guillermo Blanco in the lead and Jane Hammill who effectively alternated between eccentric and evil. I think that some good direction choices saved a script that is a little on the slow side. But a story was told. It’s got some creepy moments and good effects that get the job done. Overall, I liked it.
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The Deliverance, Clawfoot, Subservience, The Zombie Wedding, Voice of Shadows, and On The Trail of Bigfoot: The Ancients