Recently in B Movie/Low Budget pg.5 Category

Directed by Robbie Bryan Starring Terri Colombino, Frank Grillo, Gabrielle Anwar, Tony Todd, Billy Dee Williams, William Forsythe, Margaret Colin, Charles Durning, Joanne Baron, Brooke Lewis, Miranda Kwok. Suspense/Mystery. Synopsis: A killer is systematically targeting members of a web chat room who seem to have no other connection to one another.

When you look at the cast in this one, you probably have a hard time believing its a smaller budget production, but it is, and that is not to criticize it in anyway. Frankly, the more I look at film the more I become convinced that a lot of the best stories on film come from the indie (by definition "small budget") film world. And, in terms of acting, you could not ask for more talent on a smaller film and the story is interesting as well.

What keeps iMurders from being the excellent film I feel it could have been is a slightly choppy script, a couple of underdeveloped characters/back story, and a couple of holes in a far fetched plot.

The story begins with a woman who catchers her husband in the middle of adulterous activity and what then seems to be (we hear it but don't see it) a murder. Then we skip forward about one year and the plot centers around a group of people who are either a member or close to someone who is an active member of a chat room on "facespace", an internet social networking group. (Some might think the combination of the names from the two most popular real life social networks is cheesy, but I kind of got a kick out of it).

We've got a cast of characters worthy of a fairly distinguished ensemble cast: the young professional woman who is new in her New Jersey town and kind of vague about her recent past (Terri Colombino); the eligible bachelor in her new complex who is an ex-cop (Frank Grillo); the nosy temporary landlord (Joanne Baron); on the other side of the country in northern CA we have the philandering college professor (William Forsythe The Devil's Rejects) , his wife who does not seem to have any clue (Margaret Colin Independence Day) ; in New York we have the slick talking personal injury lawyer (Billy Dee Williams Undercover Brother)  and his disfigured former model client (Gabriel Anwar) and in Boston an intense woman (Miranda Kwok) looking to avenge the death of her lover who relates her feelings to her shrink (Charles Durning Dog Day Afternoon)

Sound kind of far flung? Well, it is and it makes some of the story kind of hard to follow and when you figure it out, a little hard to buy. Anyway, like I said, these folks are connected by their participation in the chat room and one by one, someone is getting whacked. The problem is, these folks don't really know one another and aren't even sure that their fellow chat buddies are really being killed. Couldn't it all just be a part of the 'game'? Luckily enough, into the breach comes the FBI with two agents hot on the trail (Tony Todd Murder Set Pieces and Brooke Lewis). For a little added spice the female FBI agent is the sister of our ex-cop and, they both have a connection to the attorney who (big surprise!!!) turns out to be a slimeball.

I will say that it will likely be obvious to most who watch this who the killer is fairly early in the story. The problem is that experienced fans of this genre will spot the red herrings early on and, even if not, the red herrings are removed from the equation too soon. I'm not one who says a mystery flick where the mystery is a little obvious necessarily ruins the film, because I'm not sure that it does. However, I do have to say that I thought some of the characters and their back story(ies) were not developed very well. My opinion is that the film bites off more than it can chew with the number of characters we're supposed to get to know. In fairness, I think this was done to give us more suspects but it didn't necessarily work, we know full well the killer is one of a couple of people.

Also, I think most of you who watch would probably agree that a couple of characters and their side stories were unnecessary for the film. Specifically, I think the film would have been stronger without Billy Dee Williams and William Forsythe's characters. They both did well, Billy Dee is as cool as ever and I got a kick out of seeing William Forsythe in a different type of role for him as the pony tailed professor who sees himself as Lothario. I can certainly understand the desire to get these two actors some screen time, but I think it took from the primary story.

The dialogue is kind of choppy and "dorky" at times, plus some of the situations are just hard to buy, especially Brooke Lewis as an FBI agent and the choreography of the gun play near the end.

I think my main shout outs in terms of the acting have to go to Todd and Baron. Todd just nails it as the hulking FBI guy and Baron had the most depth of any character as well as the most interesting dialogue.

Like I said, there is no pretending you're not watching a small film when you see some of the set dressings and locations. The story and cast could have been enough to make this one a home run but it doesn't happen, primarily I think because of the script which was awkward due to all the different layers it tried to deal with.

But, by all means, don't steer clear of this one at all. Its good enough that you will be talking about it when its done no matter what you think of the ending, and when you get right down to it with suspense/mystery, that is all you can expect from the flick.

Directed by Ben Ross. Starring Chantelle Barry, Rob Benedict, Monica Gambee. Gore/Suspense. Synopsis: Two young actresses take an arrogant and womanizing horror director hostage in his own home and torment him in retribution for the way he has tormented others both onscreen and offscreen.

Now, the box cover alone is going to start the heart of any true gore movie fan to fluttering. But, know this going in, this flick, in my humble opinion, is not really a horror film, its a suspense (or psychological thriller, if you will) with enough gore to qualify for the genre but not really all that much gore when you compare it to other pure gorefests like Hostel or The Hills Run Red. So, you gore hounds, you've been fairly warned, the torture and blood you will see here multiplied by two is equal to the first 3 1/2 minutes of a Saw flick.

But, I've got be honest with you, I kind of liked this one though I realize many will not. Its not only a lower budget flick but has that feel, something I like but realize not all people do, especially the type of film fans who believe ever flick they see should blow them away with incredible CGI and/or do something that has never, ever, been done on film before.

The theme in Call Back, good old fashioned revenge, is nothing new (there isn't anything like that under the sun, right?) but it is certainly something we can all relate to at some level. The plot is simple and straightforward, if a tad unbelievable...our antagonist is a self absorbed horror movie director (Rob Benedict State Of Play)  who is looking for his next scream queen. We see from the outset that he is not very politic in his assessment of those actresses who don't fit what he is looking for, telling his assistant that one young actress from Russia (Chantale Berry) "doesn't speak English well" and is probably "a slut".

He thinks he finds what he is looking for in Meadow (Monica Gambee) and he definitely wants to hire her...the only problem being that her "scream test" was easily the worst of the bunch. So, why is he willing to work with her to improve, coincidentally enough for him to invite her to his spacious home for a little practice in a different, more calm enviroment? Well, it seems that this is kind of a habit of his, inviting actresses back to his place and, if I may use the phrase, putting them through their paces.

Now, some of the more cynical among you likely think he has ulterior motives and, believe it or not, you're right. In fact, he wants to partake in a little "celebration of the flesh" (made that term up myself, what do you think?). But, it doesn't get that far, as Meadow has something else in mind...specifically, giving the director a taste of his own medicine.

She's not alone, as it turns out the Russian girl is Meadow's girlfriend, and I mean that in the literal sense of that word. After surprising him with a blow to the head, he is tied up and tortured by these two lovely young ladies.

Why are they doing this, you might be asking yourself Ahhh, that is a question that was racing through my simple mind during the majority of the movie but I will tell you that it is answered definitively in the movie but I can't really tell you without being the proverbial spoiler. I will say this...we learn it is not the first time our illustrious filmmaker has pulled-or attempted to pull-this stunt. It just doesn't work out for him this time, to say the least.

Now you have the basic outline of the movie and you'll probably want me to give you an idea of why I like it. Is it because I like the images of two beautiful women making out with each other hot and heavy in between torturing their victim? I wouldn't say I liked that aspect, though I 've seen worse things on film. Is it because I think torture with a tweezer, playing tic-tac-toe with knives on flesh, or putting a severed finger in a blender is cool? Nah, can't say that, either.

What I can say is that the acting in this flick is surprisngly good. No disrespect to any of the three main characters, but just judging from the box cover, you're not likely to expect Oscar winning performances, and you don't get them here, but you do get good ones. Shockingly enough, this is, in my opinon, the rarest of animals" a lower budget gore flick that is character driven.    

Benedict is good here as the guy we like to dislike, after all we need to feel some level of antipathy towards him, don't we? But, not too much, and for most of the flick you'll probably be thinking "the guy is a turd, be he doesn't deserve this." Well, maybe, maybe not.

But, to me, Gambee really makes this flick work. She is completely believable as a borderline psycho/ tormented past victim of violence and I would pick up another flick just because she's in it based on her performance here.

Like I said, this won't be everybody's cup of tea, but no film is, and I think if you go into without too many preconceived ideas about what is should be, you just might really appreciate what it is.

Directed by Sean Tretta. Starring: Claudia Vargas, Shane Dean, Sharesse Hegna, Noah Todd, Michele Mousel, Kareem McRoy. Horror/Gore Synopsis: A drug addicted woman looks to avenge the death of her sister at the hands of the maker of snuff films and meets up with a group of people who believe they are going to witness a sacrafice of an innocent but who have been lured by a fanatic as bait for his sister, who has turned into a flesh eating mutant by a botched chemical experiment.

Okay, just by reading the somewhat unclear synopsis, you would probably say to yourself, "What the hell?" And, you'd be right, this one is a little far fetched and difficult to talk about intelligently. As a lover of the horror genre and small budget/indie flicks, I will always give flicks that incorporate both (though so much of contemporary horror/gore is by definition small budget) and this one had me at the box cover.

But, I must say, most of you who look at this likely will not like it. Death Factory: Blood Letting is apparently, kind of a sequel but not really, in that it incorporates a character from its forerunner, Death Factory, but is really a totally new story as opposed to a classic sequel.  Learned that is the director's commentary and just thought I'd share it in case some of you had seen the original.

Anyway, the plot is very difficult to follow, folks for several reasons. I'll list them for you, not necessarily in order of importance:

1) The plot is very poorly developed and not clearly presented through the dialogue
2) The plot doesn't make sense even in light of the suspension of disbelief we all have going into a horror movie
3) The constant heavy metal music thumping throughout the flick along with the irritating scraping noises in the ambient soundtrack make the film hard to hear, literally and figuratively. (No offense to metal fans, but if that type of music gives you a headache-like me-you seriously might want to give this one a pass for that reason alone)

Without a doubt, the main point of this flick is to get into scenes of gore and blood splattering and that mission is certainly accomplished, but many of us need some form of build up, character depth to some degree, and a logical progression with the context of the film to really enjoy the movie.

None of that is present here, we get stereotypical characters (e.g., the neo-Nazi, the BDSM couple, etc.) who are there for no other reason than to cut sliced and diced; we get some obligatory skin and a brief girl on girl scene, again standard fare for low budget horror. Our protagonists/psychopathic killers are over the top an unexplained to us: the Manson look-a-like and his flesh eating sister with the razor sharp teeth.

 But, in this movie everything just feels thrown in, what we really have here is a collection of scenes-some unintelligible-more than a story.

Now, you might think I've been hard on this flick, and I have, but you will notice it is not in the "Dud" category. There is one reason for that. After listening to the director's commentary (frankly, the metal soundtrack I mentioned was so loud and distracting I needed to listen to the commentary to even vaguely follow what was going on in many parts), I realized that this flick was the definition of "low budget". I believe that films are graded on a curve because that's how we enjoy them. You don't pop in Schindler's List when you just what to veg out and have a few laughs and you don't pop in 40 Year Old Virgin when you want something deep and meaningful. By the same token, I don't slam a movie made for almost no money in the same way I would a similar movie made with some financial backing.

Now, most of you who are film buffs and/or have listened to director's commentary know that it is standard for them to talk about limited money or no money, even when they have millions of dollars, such as in Murder Set Pieces, in which a 2 million dollar budget still resulted in a poor film. Also, another pretty good film I reviewed recently, Donkey Punch, has the filmmakers on the commentary talking about the limits of making their movie for "less than a million pounds". So, its all relative.

In this flick, most of the actors were not paid, some had never acted before, and Tretta not only directed the flick but actually was his own DP as he shot the movie himself with one camera. That takes some serious "want to" and I take my hat off to anyone with the drive to do it. Plus, when you compare this to some other films that aren't very good, its not even close to the worst low budget flick you could ever see and, despite my own sensibilities, some might actually like their gore completely gratuitous and soundtrack pulsating heavy metal to drown out the dialogue.

I won't insult your intelligence by telling you its a good film or that I think most will like it. But, grading on the low budget curve, its not a dud. If you see it and think I'm wrong, let me know.             

Directed by George Bessudo. Starring Jamie Anne Allman,William Lee Scott, Kelly Hu, Steven Weber, Nick Heyman, Jack Donner. Horror/Supernatural/Occult. Synopsis: A married couple from California leave their home in the midst of heartbreak and huge debt to start a new life in Seattle. Along the way they have a car accident and are taken in for the night by a friendly, but strange couple who turn out to be their ultimate tormentors.

If you have any special appreciation for smaller budget movies, you need to check this one out.Farm House should prove definitively that a smaller budget flick can be compelling without excessive gore or over the top scenarios. Now, one thing I will say is I expect most of you will see this one listed under horror, though I did not include horror as one of the genres of this flick. In order to completely explain why I did not, I would have to spoil it for those of you who have not seen the flick, which I will not do. I think this film goes much more into suspense than horror  and, though there is gore, I don't think it qualifies as a gore flick, either.

Farm House really does an excellent job of telling two parts to one story all at one time, slowly unfolding until the finale, which I predict will surprise most of you. Even if it doesn't, upon looking at the film again I think you will find it very consistent, with plenty of clues. The primary reason I think ity succeeds in this is because it seems to be taking you down one familiar path-familiar at least to fans of horror and gore, then takes you somewhere else entirely. I don't mind telling you I had to watch the flick twice to fully appreciate it. For what that is worth.

Scarlett (Jamie Anne Allman) and Chad (William Lee Scott) are a married couple who are anxious to move from California to Washington, and seemingly desire a complete break from their past life.  Why do they desire such a total change? Well that question is answered throughout the film by use of flashbacks, which I have to say are used as effectively in this flick as I've ever seen them in any flick. For a direct to DVD offering, I thought it was phenomenal, though I will say you have to watch the entirety of the movie to fully appreciate what's being done.

Along the way to Washington, our couple has a single car accident and end up stranded in a desolate place with no other people or signs of civilization except for a-as you might guess-farm house not too far from where they crashed their car. The couple that lives in the house, Samial (Steven Weber) and Lilith (Kelly Hu Devil's Den). They are friendly enough, but a little strange and when circumstances dictate that Scarlett and Chad spend the night in the farm house, those of us who are experienced viewers of a certain sub genre of horror can sense where this is going.

Well, we're right...sort of. There is some of the requisite torture that we would expect from the strange couple who employ a deaf worker, Alal (Nikck Heyman), but the real question is: why? Could it be because of the very thing that Scarlett and Chad are on the run from? Well, not to be difficult, but you'll have to watch to find out.For those of you who consider the phrase "small budget horror" to be a euphemism for naked girls running through the woods or near pornagraphic gore will either be sorely disappointed or pleasantly surprised.This review will be intentionally vague about the intricacies of the plot because its hard to specific without giving up the ending, but I can tell you that the twist at the end is not merely the cherry on top for the flick, but the whole point of the flick. I think, even if you sense what is coming prior to the ending, you will have to admit to yourself that the plot is consistent and intellectually honest throughout. There are clues to what is really going on, which I think is important for any suspense movie.

The acting is very good. Both Allman and Scott are very convincing as a married couple with skeletons in the closest who nevertheless truly love each other. But, you can't have a good flick without compelling antagonists-"bad guys", if you will-and Weber and Hu really answer the bell here, with Weber being the more outwardly evil and Hu being the definition of "sexy psychopath". (Did I just coin a new phrase?) Some might consider this gore after watching it and I will admit that popping out an eyeball with a knife and torturing someone by using a cheese grader on their bare skin (while saying, "Boy, you really have to put your weight into these things") certainly qualify as gore, but I don't think Farm House qualifies as gore because the graphic gore is not at the heart of the plot, but merely an element of it. I also think these scenes were intended to have you think the flick is one thing, when its another.

One huge criticism I have of the film, still trying not to spoil it, is a particular scene near the end. Look, there are certain themes that are often dealt with in film, but almost never shown, one among them being the physical harm of children. Though brief, its shown here and I could have done without that.

On the whole, this is an original, thoughtful film that deals with some pretty big issues. I really liked it, would recomment it, and would love to know what you thought about it. I guess when a film sparks thought and discussion, its done its job, hasn't it?                    

Directed by Howie Askins. Starring Jessica Graham, Joe Wanaji Ross, C.J. Bakers, Vanessa Kay. Action/Fantasy/Supernatural. Synopsis: A young woman, looking to deal with the death of a parent, embarks on a cross country odyssey and ends up stranded in a town that is surreal, to say the least, and crosses paths with a pyschopathic thief who goes around in clown's makeup.

Well, those of you looking for something different and original have found it in Devil Girl, to say the least. I would think the some of you, after reading my poor attempt at a synopsis, might be saying to yourselves, "What the ________(fill in blank)?" I know, I feel you. See, the thing is, I watched this flick...twice, as a matter of fact, and...its very difficult for me to give those of you who have not seen it an intelligent idea of what it is about.

Because I'm not entirely sure.

Now, before you write this one off to the "Dud" category, hold on for a second. I'm not trashing this flick, though I'm not going to highly recommend it either. I keep hoping that someone who has seen it and can figure it out will tell me what the hell was going on. The thing is, I think that is the whole point of the flick. (When you see the DVD, the bonus features interview with the star-Jessica Graham-even pokes fun at the 'true meaning' of the flick)

Does a movie even have to have a 'true meaning', or a 'point', to be good? Hell, I don't know, I'm just a blogger, but I think it sure helps. Here is what I can tell you: The film is, on its face, the story of Fay (Jessica Graham), who has just suffered the loss of someone close to her and is driving across country to L.A. along the famous Routed 66. There is a parallel story going on involving a crazy criminal who goes around in clown makeup (Joe Wanaji Ross) and commits crimes along the same path Fay is traveling. What do they have to do with each other? Couldn't tell 'ya, other than the clown rips off Fay's wallet, which causes her to be stranded in a strange, dusty, and surrealistic town.

And, as luck would have it, Fay's ride is on the fritz and she has to wait a few days for parts to arrive. She doesn't have any money, but she convinces the lecherous looking motel manager to let her stay until she can pay him and gets a job in a strip club called...The Burning Bush. This is also a gregarious preacher in town who seems open to a bit of lechery and lewdness himself, which is apparent when he tries to bring Fay into his congregation.

What of the clown? Well, he's going about his business, with people not reacting as negatively to his inexplicable clown makeup as you might think. He spends is days committing crimes and being psychopathic, his nights sleeping on the floor of a truly nasty bathroom.

Well, what about Devil Girl, you might ask? She's in there, too, not just a reference to Fay's character. Devil Girl (Vanessa Kay) is the epitome of sultriness and desire, and she makes sporadic appearances throughout, picking up the Clown and smoking a little pot with him, meeting up Fay and having a brief girl-girl tryst, tormenting the preacher, hanging out in night clubs. You should know that she appears in the film just as she does on the box cover, horns, tail, reddish hue (which, thankfully, does not detract from Ms. Kay's considerable physical attractiveness, for those interested in that type of thing). What's the point of Devil Girl?

Already told 'ya, not sure. I can tell you, however, that the imageryof the film is worth noting, plenty of dream or surreal sequences, a lot of religious imagery, an incessant amount of heavy metal music pumping at all times. Those of you who enjoy watching flicks after enjoying an adult beverage or two-we've all been there-will likely find this flick appropriate for your choice of leisure.

There is a 'twist' at the end, but the only sense I could make of it would mean the story had more holes than a basketball net. I'll leave it to you to decide what this is all really about.

I'll also leave you with this: Devil Girl is interesting and stimulating to look at; Jessica Graham is an actor with chops and gravitas; Vanessa Kay is so sexy she should be illegal; if you-like me- thought you hated heavy metal music before, wait until you see this flick; and if you watch this movie with anyone else, I guarantee you will have a different take on it than him/her.

That's really all I can tell you.