Horror-ific — Four from OVERLOOK FILM FESTIVAL
by Eric McClanahan
The Overlook Film Festival is based in New Orleans, one of America’s most haunted cities, and takes its name from the hotel in Stephen King’s The Shining. “A celebration of all things horror,” the festival has been the go-to for genre fans since its inception in 2017. While we didn’t get to New Orleans to see these movies, they were kind enough to send screeners our way. From a shortlist of five films, I was able to screen four.
All You Need is Death
All You Need is Death has a very cool premise — a romantic couple is collecting old folk songs, finding more value in antiquity than anything the future holds. The more obscure the better, but they learn that some songs were never recorded or written down for a reason. They find a reclusive old woman who sings them a song with no name, “but if it had one, it would be ‘Love is Knife with a Blade for a Handle,’” Creepy, right? Well, someone does record it and in doing so it weaves a curse on those who hear it.
Again, great premise, but writer/director Paul Duane throws too much at it. There are creepy shadow monsters, a dickless puppeteer, a song that is either succubus or siren but ultimately neither, a miracle pregnancy that rather than come to term just morphs out of the mother into a hermaphroditic creature, and a man who becomes a sloth. There’s a lot for the sake of having a lot, but I think it could’ve been served better with less. It certainly stays with you, though, so there is that.
The film arrives in select cinemas and on VOD nationwide this on Friday, April 12th from XYZ Films.
Arcadian
Any time you put Nicolas Cage in a film, I’m there. Arcadian takes a very tired premise, follows it by the numbers, then pulls the floor out from under you, literally, with some of the most innovative creature design I’ve seen in my entire life. This stuff is pure nightmare fuel. If you filtered the creatures from Attack the Block through the prism of The Dark Crystal you might have the visual aesthetic of these creatures, but you’d still be a far sight from how they move, attack, and terrorize. The person who imagined these creatures has clearly never slept a night of their lives. There are things you’ll see in this film that stay with you for a while, a long while.
Arcadian is a good old boys club, written by Michael Nilon, a producer of several Cage films, and directed by Benjamin Brewer, a director of a previous Cage film and a visual effects artist on Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. It’s no surprise that the film is so visually arresting. I’m sad to report that Cage is horrendously under-utilized in this production, and the real stars are the young Jaeden Martell, of It fame, and Maxwell Jenkins, who has been making a name for himself in bit parts. The pair play twins who couldn’t be more dissimilar and in doing so give the viewer a binaural understanding of the world past the period of human rule, a phenomena that is never empirically explained, allowing us a sense of ownership in the events unfolding.
Arcadian is set to be released on April 12th.
Humanist Vampire Seeking Consenting Suicidal Person
This movie comes from Canada and is mostly in French, with occasional outbursts of English — we’ll call it Franc-lish. A horror comedy with a big heart, Humanist Vampire revolves around young Sasha, a “teenage” vampire who can’t bring herself to kill for her food. Her family supplies her with blood bags which she sips on like CapriSuns, but eventually they realize that they’re only enabling her when tough love is the answer. Her parents send her to live with her cousin Denise, who has no problem killing humans, and Sasha finds a solution in a troubled young man named Paul who has a death wish.
If Nick & Norah’s Infinite Playlist (or maybe I Love You, Beth Cooper) ended in a bloodbath, it’d be this movie. For a film about murder and survival, it’s surprisingly touching, showcasing the bonds of family and the way lonely people can heal one another. When Sasha insists that Paul fulfill his dying wish before she takes his life, he finds himself living for the first time. A beautiful, life-affirming film about small allocations we can make for those around us to truly make living a communal experience.
Things Will Be Different
Things Will Be Different is the feature film debut of writer/director Michael Welker and is one of the most original premises I’ve seen in a while. It asks a lot of its audience, but you’re in for a treat if you choose to take the ride. Essentially, a brother and sister go to an isolated farmhouse to hide out after a robbery, but this safe-house has an extra layer of concealment — by following a strict set of instructions, they are transported to a place outside of time, where they can lay low undiscovered. After a two-week stint in this place outside of their own timeline, they can return to their lives without suspicion.
Of course, things don’t go to plan, and they soon find themselves communicating with the architects of this portal, who ask them to kill an interloper before they can be returned to their timeline. A year goes by before the visitor appears, and there is much speculation as to who this interloper could be. I guessed it before it was revealed, but I obviously won’t tell you. With this vengeful culprit with an agenda, they three fight tooth and nail to get back to their respective lives, in the hopes that this next go ‘round, things will be different.
A haunting, spiraling tale that is oddly self-contained and concise, this movie is one of my favorites of the year so far.
Obviously there is a high degree of quality coming out of this festival, and all the movies I screened have achieved some form of distribution and will be making their way to you shortly. Some daring visions, some big swings, and some nightmares are to be had along the way, but that’s why we swim through this world of film — to find experiences we couldn’t have anywhere else.
Coming soon, Jason Godbey and I will be talking about these films and more on the No Rest for the Weekend podcast, so be sure to follow for more content.
Originally published at http://behindtherabbitproductions.wordpress.com on April 11, 2024.
