Entertainment Maven

Stained – Independent horror from Karen Lam

Stained Poster — Image is not the property of Entertainment Maven

It seems like I have been reviewing a lot of films in which very minor plot spoilers could ruin the viewing experience for readers. It makes it very difficult to write a meaningful 500 words if I can’t write about the plot – my review for Kill List was almost ridiculous, given how cryptic I had to be. I’ve tried my best in this review to provide you with as much information as possible, without spoiling the dark heart that is Stained.

Picture this. Isabelle, youthful and beautiful, has moved away from home to open a used bookstore. She spends the majority of her days living alone in her apartment, unless you count her two cats, or working alone in her bookstore, unless you count her cat that lives there. Actually, she has a couple employees, I just wanted to let it be known that she is a cat or two shy of being a full blown crazy cat lady. The book store is bereft of customers and is an allegory for Isabelle’s love life, platonic or romantic, as her only meaningful human contact is over a telephone with her sister Jennifer, whose family adopted Isabelle when she was 12 years old.

Isabelle seems to be on a downward spiral towards crazy catlady-dom, after an uncomfortable encounter with a male acquaintance leaves her rather jarred. However, the next day, James, a man from Isabelle’s past, enters her bookstore, and reenters her life. Isabelle’s joie de vivre returns, but at the same time, the reappearance of this man from her past means that she must confront some memories that are anything but rosy. A more fitting word would be ‘bloody’.

Stained is the independent feature length debut from writer/director Karen Lam, and features a very impressive cast of Tinsel Korey (Isabelle), Sonja Bennett (Jennifer), Tim Fellingham (James), Anna Mae Routledge (Janna), Stephen Lobo (Dave), Stephen Huszar (Rolf) and Steph Song (Chloe). I recognized a number of the actors, a bit of a foreign feeling for me when watching independent cinema, but a welcome one.

I think that Stained has a lot to offer fans of horror films. The acting is well above par for an independent film, Tinsel Korey and Sonja Bennett are particularity good, while the rest of the cast does a great job in their supporting roles. The setting of the used bookstore is a wonderful choice. I think horror filmmakers need to use this setting more often; there are not many other locations that can match the lonely solitude of a used bookstore, and I think library stacks have been done to death. Also, there are a number of effective flashbacks throughout the film, the imagery of which is quite disturbing. Lam has done quite a good job with her debut. Stained is haunting, suspenseful, grotesque and scary. However, the narrative stumbles at times, and as a result, the atmosphere takes a hit.

The use of flashbacks has paid off to provide a creepy atmosphere, but at times can be a bit confusing. Sometimes the flashbacks are used to show Isabelle and James, as they were in the past, but they have just got back together and it can be frustrating differentiating the past from the present. Also, the narrative needed one or two more interesting events in the first two thirds of the film in order to have the viewer truly glued to the screen. It feels like there is a bit of unnecessary bouncing back and forth between the book store and the apartment, which could have been made more meaningful.

Stained certainly has more positives than negatives. It starts out as a very ‘safe’ film – some of the early shots felt a bit like a made for TV movie. However, something very exciting happened as I continued to watch. Lam started to take chances with angles, movement and sound. In particular, a scene in an alleyway is reminiscent of the ugliness and grittiness of a Michael Caine and Sydney Furie beat down scene from The Ipcress File. Also, the last act of the film really feels like expert film making, not an independent movie. I am very eager to see what Lam will do next if she starts her next film with the film making energy on display in the final act of Stained. I could be wrong, the film may have been shot and edited backwards, but watching Stained really felt like watching the maturation of a filmmaker.

I expect big things from Lam in the future.

Purchase Stained:

Itunes

Amazon.com

Amazon.ca

Little Terrors Volume 3 (Toronto) – Phil Graves Guest Blogging

Little Terrors Volume 3 Poster — Hand drawn art from Kevin Hutchinson (www.secondskincreations.net)

Editor’s note: It’s difficult to find guest bloggers that will work for free, that’s why I had to settle for Phil. Please don’t be too upset by his manner, he really is quite a nice fellow. Regardless, I should still take the time to apologize in advance, before I get a slew of angry e-mails.

I’m sorry.

Entertainment Maven

Good evening,

Horror correspondent Phil Graves, at your service. It seems that the last night of Little Terrors, back in August, was too much for the cowardly Entertainment Maven. Daily sessions with a psychiatrist and a few bottles of pills a week helped the Maven reduce his relentless nightmares, induced by the last evening of Little Terrors, to basic insomnia. However, he didn’t think his constitution was strong enough for another round, so he sent me in his place to attend Little Terrors Volume 3 at The Projection Booth in Toronto. For those of you who have been hesitant to come out and slay with us, Little Terrors is a deliciously terrifying evening of short horror films presented by the crawling cadavers over at Rue Morgue, and the unbalanced psychopaths at Unstable Ground. In fact, lead corpse Justin McConnell has been doing such a bang up programming job that he will likely be institutionalized in the near future, due to the reels of depravity and mayhem that his now brittle sanity has had to endure.

The nice thing about Little Terrors is that it caters to an audience who are normally hard at work during the evening hours, like myself. It’s nice for these lowstanding citizens to have the opportunity to get out of the basement and hang up their knives, machetes, and axes for the evening. At $8 a ticket I was eager to put down my own shovel for two hours of vicarious chills and thrills. Volume 3’s lineup featured a balance of hackles, cackles and shackles, and would not have disappointed any true fiend. Below are some comments on the recently exhumed shorts.

Off Season – Unfortunately some of the zombies working on the TTC caused me to arrive a little late for this one. But what I saw impressed me. A man and his dog spend some quality time together, sticking their noses into some abandoned cabins, and discover something that gave me CHILLS.

Next Floor – How often are you disappointed that a buffet doesn’t have your favourite dish? Well you’ll be overjoyed to hear that this short offers up a smorgasbord of grotesque treats, and features a mixed grill comparable to the contents of Noah’s Ark, that is, if it fell into some gluttonous hands. Excellent production value, uncharacteristic of many shorts, make this one tough meal for the squeamish to stomach.

The Screaming Skull – Reminiscent of old horror computer games like The 7th Guest and Realms of Haunting, this atmospheric spooker proves that you don’t always have to understand a plot to understand fear.

The Horribly Slow Murderer with the Extremely Inefficient Weapon – I don’t know about the killer’s choice of weapon, at this rate he’ll send my business to a grinding halt, but I have to admit that I don’t think I’ll be eating a bowl of soup anytime in the near future.

The Eyes of Edward James – A murderous tale that may remind viewers of the Christopher Nolan film, Memento. However, this story also uses a very interesting setting. Time is split between a therapy session and the first-person p.o.v. reminiscences of a patient, from the night of a traumatic event.

Legend of the Seven Bloody Torturers – The seven bloody torturers have been doing their thing for a long time, after all, they are legendary. But even these hard working gentlemen have to submit to bureaucratic rules and regulations. What is a poor torturer to do?

The Familiar – A vampire’s familiar is one of the least appreciated occupations in the underworld. The hours are long and the pay is little, only the allure of becoming a fellow bloodsucker could attract a young man to this job.

Rise of the Living Corpse – Clocking in at 30 seconds, this short gets to the harsh reality of being a new member of the undead.

Dead Bones – A wild west bounty hunter tale with an early twist. Gorehounds should find this one disgusting!

The scream team of Rue Morgue and Unstable Ground, and the screen scene at The Projection Booth have proved to be a ghastly combination. If I wasn’t so busy shoveling dirt every night, I might think about making the theatre my home. Alas, more hacking and slashing will have to wait until Tuesday, October 18th at 8:00pm, when Justin McConnell stitches together the next collection of shorts that will send your mind reeling. I’ve heard murmurs that ‘Axed’, which is a Toronto premiere, is the bloodiest thing since Peter Jackson’s Braindead (Dead Alive) and Bad Taste.

Hope to see you next time at Little Terrors, or eventually, lying face up in one of my holes.

Phil Graves

Seal of Approval Additions from TIFF 2011

About a week ago I surreptitiously put up a new page called ‘Entertainment Maven Seal Approval’. This is the best-of-the-best and the heart of what Entertainment Maven is all about. Post to post, the quality of the products reviewed will vary greatly, but clicking on the seal of approval trims the fat, even very positive reviews are excluded if the product is not GREAT.

Below are my seal of approval additions from TIFF 2011. Also, I realize the irony that the seal of approval does not have an actual visual seal, but I am graphically inept. I will try to change this in the future. Click on the title of the film to be linked to my review.

On to the films!

A Letter to Momo

An enchanting animated film that was seven years in the making and doesn’t disappoint. The characters feel real and Momo’s animated facial expressions have to be some of the best I have ever seen.

Alois Nebel

A haunting tale from the Czech Republic. The combination of black-and-white and rotoscope animation creates a gloomy atmosphere will not be easily forgotten by viewers.

Kill List

One of the most disturbing and shocking films I have ever seen.

The Raid

The use of a little known martial arts style called Silat provides the genre with a breath of fresh air. Sure to go down as one of the greatest action films ever made.

Sleepless Night

Cops and robbers all night long in a Parisian night club.

You’re Next

Scary and funny, always a difficult combination to pull off, but one of the most enjoyable when it is done right. You’re next pushes all the right buttons.

Alois Nebel Review (TIFF 2011)

NEBEL_plakat B1.indd — Alois Nebel Poster

Tomás Lunák’s Alois Nebel was my final screening at TIFF 2011, a whole five days ago. I was maintaining a frantic pace of screening and reviewing, but it caught up with me in the end. I picked this film on a whim, because I am a fan of animation, especially foreign animation, and it looked dark enough to be up my alley. Alois Nebel was not the film noir murder mystery that I thought it would be, in fact it turned out to be something completely different. The film absorbed me from start to finish and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it since. It’s not that the film is disturbing or keeping me awake at night, it’s just a fine example of something different, executed almost flawlessly.

The story is set in 1989 and follows a middle-aged train dispatcher, named Alois Nebel, who works in Czechoslovakia, close to the border of Germany and Poland. Haunted by memories of the end of the cold war, when he was a small child, Alois seems to find little joy in life, however perusing the train schedules seem to keep him distracted. After losing his job and being admitted to a sanitarium for treatment, two chance in encounters, one with a mute man who has a hidden agenda, and the other with a kind widow named Kveta, have given Alois’s life some sort of meaning again.

The film is entirely in black-and-white and uses rotoscope animation, meaning that actual live-action footage was shot and drawn over top of using computer animation (rotoscope animation could also be done by hand). This unique process gives the film the fluidity of a live-action film, while allowing the director the almost limitless degree of artistic freedom that comes with animated projects; the scope of the artistic vision is only limited by the imagination and skill of the director and animators. Check out A Scanner Darkly for another example of rotoscope animation. The combination of black-and-white and rotoscope animation is stunning to watch, and immediately sets the sombre mood of the film.

None of the characters seem to be very joyous in the film, and the setting seems oppressive. These points are hammered home by the barrels of hard liquor and cartons of cigarettes that the characters consume throughout the film, and the numerous interactions with authority figures, such as soldiers, guards, sanitarium orderlies, doctors, etc. One does not immediately identify with Alois, but as we learn about his past, and the nature of his country in 1989, it is hard not to feel for the man.

I don’t feel comfortable commenting too deeply on the quality of the voice acting during the film, as it was in a foreign language, but I can say that the voice acting never detracted from the experience, and seemed convincingly emotional at the right times.

Alois Nebel is certainly a bit of a depressing film, but there are fulfilling moments. I’m having a difficult time explaining why I am still thinking about the film. The characters, story and visuals certainly possess a sort of ‘je ne sais quoi’ that must be experienced rather than discussed. Alois Nebel will inevitably be embraced by fans of art-house and foreign films, but I urge adventurous viewers to check it out when they are feeling like a totally different experience from mainstream North American cinema. I still feel haunted by the pasts of the downtrodden characters in Alois Nebel, but also stunned into silence by the otherworldly beauty of a lonely train, rolling loyally down the track.

Kill List Review (TIFF 2011) – Where the hell am I?

Kill List Poster — Image is not the property of Entertainment Maven

Sitting down for The Raid, during the first night of Midnight Madness, the programmer, Colin Geddes, briefly went through the lineup with us. He told us about the action packed The Raid, the all-night game of cops and robbers in Sleepless Night, the crossbow wielding killers in You’re Next, etc. When he got to the closing night film, Ben Wheatley’s Kill List, he said ‘You are going to walk out of here at 2am and not know where the fuck you are’. That was quite the introduction to a film, and could have been hard for the film to live up to. The Q&A after the film brought me back down to earth, but I have to admit, while the credits were rolling I did experience a mild case of amnesia and wondered why I was sitting in a movie theatre. That is the power of Kill List, unfortunately to enjoy the same experience you need to know next to nothing about the film, a difficult task given how easily information is passed around these days. Also, it kind of makes it hard to write a meaningful review and not ruin the film. Here’s my best shot.

Kill List is about a retired hitman named Jay (Neil Maskell), his wife Shel (MyAnna Buring) and young son. Jay didn’t retire because of old age, rather we are lead to believe that an event eight months ago in Kiev forced him into retirement. As a result, Jay hasn’t brought home any money for nearly a year and the relationship with his wife has become quite unstable. One evening over dinner, Jay’s friend Sam (Harry Simpson) suggests returning to the profession for one job, a total of three hits and a pile of money for their troubles. Jay’s in a bind, and doesn’t take long to agree. However, this is one assignment that the friends will regret for the rest of their lives, that is, if they live through it.

I’ve tried to keep this write-up as spoiler free as possible. There are enough detailed reviews, trailers and just general spoilers out there to ruin Kill List for a large number of people. My advice would be to avoid all information about the film and just wait for a chance to watch it. However, if you need some information about the film, then let me tell you that Kill List is dark, violent, gritty, dark, almost humourless, and dark; an abysmal gulf of hatred lies at the heart of the film. The pace of the film is quite slow for the majority of the runtime, but when Wheatley changes gears, prepare for a unique cinematic experience. I couldn’t be higher on Kill List, and for an estimated budget of £500,000, Wheatley seems like a film guru.

Note: When I write reviews I try to stay clear of other opinions, so that I do not compensate for a film that I feel is being wrongfully dismissed, or conversely, come down too hard on a film that I feel is being overly praised. However, with Kill List it was impossible not to notice the polarizing nature of the film before I wrote the review. Many reviewers loved it, others despised it. I have trouble understanding why some would hate this film, but it is possible that some of these unhappy critics knew too much about Kill List going in, and in turn, were let down in some sense. Just a thought, and another reason to go into this movie completely ignorant of the plot.