Break (Review)

Break

Break (2010)

Directed by Nick and Becky Sayers

Well this is a first for me. One of the horror blogosphere's own Becky Sayers from The Horror Effect, with her husband has directed their first feature horror film. I know a few other bloggers have directed their own shorts or features but this is the first time I'll be reviewing one of my own brethren.

First, it's an accomplishment in itself to go out and go beyond blogging and making your own damn film. It's to be applauded on effort alone. The film was made in 2 weeks and a few thousand dollars. That's extremely low budget for even the lowest budget movies. From script to post production, the Sayers put blood, sweat and more blood into Break. The film is DIY filmmaking at it's most raw. Both Nick and Becky were Jack and Jill of all trades plus a crew and cast that were willing to go the extra mile. Kudos to them all.

But now let's get to the movie. Break is an experimental indie film that has a rawness that is not seen in many horror movies. But where it falls short, it makes up for with ideas. The ideas that flow from Break are interesting to say the least. The obvious comparison is that it is similar to The Signal. I kind of think Break is an indier version of The Signal. Same sort of ideas but set to scale.

I could easily classify this as a "descent to madness and paranoia" movie or "teens gone crazy battle royale" but somehow you can sense the idea of a good/evil paradox coming through. That's not to say it's a perfect film. It suffers from all the markings of a low budget feature film and is a little incoherent at times.

But for a first feature film, it's slickly done and tries to provoke you to think. That's worth something in my book.


Boring Plot-O-Matic

Reunited for the weekend, a group of friends are driven to violence when an unknown force seems to bring out the worst in them. Who will be the first to break?

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Going to breakdown the film by each 1/3 so you know what's the what.

The first 30....

The first half of the film is all set up as we follow a group of friends in Washington (state that is) as they party in a house in the woods. We get to know all of them and discover all their very unique personality traits. Michael is our level headed "hero", Kane our gun toting, beer drinking Stone Cold persona, Danny and Heather our normals so to speak. Running parallel is the story of Angela (Michael's GF, who oddly resembles Sarah Michelle Gellar to a tee) who lives in Cali.

It's your standard meet and greet for all of them. Angela however is soon abducted by Hector and they both begin to play a cat and mouse game of quotey quotables.

The next 30....

Soon, our house guests all start to hallucinate and de-evolves into madness. Flashbacked nightmares get everybody on edge and one by one they all start to go all homicidal. Soon Kane is hunting his prey with a shotgun as our cast dwindles away.

Meanwhile in Cali, Angela is seeing how demented Hector has become and he is the impetus for what the hell is going on.

The final 30....

All hell is breaking loose as the bodies pile up. Prey gets hunted and the hunter becomes prey. We get a thrilling conclusion and an ending that is bittersweet.

All 90.......

Wow I was vague wasn't I? OK, let's start off with the good. The film definitely has a nice look to it. Eerie shadows, a soylent green tint in some scenes and a few choice scenes of unrelenting violence. I'll admit, I could care less about those damn kids in that house. Teens going all crazy has been done before and I felt like I was watching a YouTube short.

What mostly intrigued me in Break was the scenes between Hector and Angela. Hector is a character who speaks in quotes from notable writers and authors. His reasoning for kidnapping Angela is cryptic but becomes clearer as the world is soon gonna go all apocalyptic. We don't know in the beginning why everybody goes all crazy but this gets explained by what I like to call "crazy talk" by Hector.

Angela somehow redefines "victim" with her backtalk. She criticizes his logic, insults him and seemed fearless. Their dialogue is cluttered with extra syllables and scrabbled words that kind of didn't make any sense. Why is Angela ridiculing some mad man who was about to kill her? I had to admit though, I wanted to know what they would do and say next. Their conversation is where the ideas from Break come from.

Good vs evil. Do all people have parts of the devil inside them? And if they do, does it all need to be triggered in some way and then we all"break" into madness? Sadly, we only touched the surface of this subject. I would have liked to have seen how this unknown force was handled by more characters. Our kids in the woods seem to easily become Jason Voorhees-es pretty quickly. Seeing their struggle to overcome or succumb to "the signal"would have been a more interesting thing to see.

On the technical side, Break also suffers from a few nauseous shaky cam moments and a few scenes of pure darkness. I'm not going to overly gripe about production here but it has to be noted. At times, the movie seemed to chug along into random filler moments.

The acting is tolerable but at times a little questionable. Upon seeing the death of one of their friends, the others didn't act so distressed. Umm their is a girl with a shotgun hole in her chest. I think I'd be a little shocked, wouldn't you? Some of the cast give no emotional ooooomph to their performances though the standout has to be Jonathan Bruno as Hector who plays an evil incarnate apprentice pretty well.

The dialogue is a little clunky. I'm not sure why but some lines seemed so out of place situationally. A quick exchange between Hector and Angela as Hector forces her to take a shower has got to be a total WTF moment. But I may be nitpicking at this point. The dialogue clearly pushed an agenda and taken as such, I see it as a necessary evil.

Overall Break earns points on atmosphere and ideology. It's clearly got a few wrinkles in it but it's a solid collared shirt of a movie. Break is a film that takes the conventional and mixes in the experimental. It's a cocktail some people may like and others will hate. But no matter, what you think of this low budget indie horror film, you can't deny that it was made for horror fans and for an audience that likes a little thinking in their horror.

Here's hoping it breaks through.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

Gore-ipedia

Slice and dice

WTF moment

That uncomfortable shower scene dialogue

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The directors have sent Break to the Big Break Movie contest held by Rogue and AMC. If the movie makes it to the finals you can vote here.

Head over to the official site for more info and as always check out one of the best horror blogs out on the intertubes, The Horror Effect.

Rating:


Check out the trailer below!

Brain Dead (Review)

Brain Dead

Brain Dead (2007)

Directed by Kevin Tenney

No its not that Brain Dead.

If you're like me, that title goes with one film and one film only and that's Peter Jackson's zombie classic. But let's not judge the film based on title alone. Because if you know horror, you know who Kevin Tenney is. The man has quite a directorial horror resume which includes Witchboard and the classic Night of the Demons.

So I kinda knew what I'd be in for when I watched Brain Dead. But could Tenney bring back all that was fun about mutant zombie 80s gorefests?

Great cerebral cortexes! Yes he can.

Brain Dead is an assembly line produced throwback 80s splatter flick that hits all on all the cliches that make the genre so great to watch. Gratuitous nudity, gratuitous gore, gratuitous over the top makeup and gratuitous snarky characters spewing curse words a mile a minute. It took a director from the 80s to actually make a good, solid 80s throwback splatterfest.

Sure it's a low budget, been there, done that premise, but sometimes you just gotta go with the ridiculousness and try to shut off your brain like the zombies in this film.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

What do a pair of escaped convicts, a preacher and his assistant, and a pair of pretty hikers have in common? They’re all delicious.

After an extraterrestrial parasite crash-lands in a backwoods American town – landing squarely on the head of a local fisherman – it sparks a fast spreading zombie infestation. As the brain hungry monsters multiply, three pairs of unlucky misfits convene on a fishing lodge for shelter. With zombies pounding at the door, the stranded, mismatched travelers must band together to stop the invasion – or serve themselves up as a main course. The problem is, they may lose their minds to each other before losing their brains to the zombies.

Full of ingenious gore effects, nudity and witty banter, “Brain Dead” is just as much a parody of classic zombie films as it is a clever update to the beloved genre.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Let's review a movie by breaking it out by cliches. It's got em all and I felt like I time traveled and was watching a movie through my VCR. the only thing that was different was I didn't have to fix the tracking....and I have an awesome TV. So let's start off with the most important shit first.

Gratuitous NUDITY!!!!!!

In the first 30 minutes, we get to see not 1, not 2, not 3 but 4...YES! Count em 4 sets of boobs in this movie. And I'm not talking about icky fat-ish actresses. Nope we got some hotties showing off their assets.

Names are not important but grades are. Without a doubt, Cristina Tiberia gets an A, Sarah Grant Brendecke gets a B+, Michelle Tomlinson gets a B- and some other chick gets a C.

Yes you will see boobs and they're real and they're spectacular.

Gratuitous Cliched Plot!!!!!!

Some space creature that looks like black ooze crash lands and it's actually a parasitic organism that when it takes over a human body, craves for brains so it can reproduce. Enter zombie mutant puppets.

You've seen this in Night of the Demons and the movie takes elements of Evil Dead, Slither, Evil Aliens and countless others.

Gratuitous Stereotypical Characters!!!!!!

So who do we get to watch for an hour and a half?

• A smart ass Sawyer like guy named Clarence
• A convicted felon dumb hick named Bob
• A lesbian, man hating hottuie named Claudia
• A vegan, commune with nature med student named Sherry
  
• A hypocritial lusty preacher named Farnsworth
• A God fearing, Tea Party belle named Amy
• A few other locals that make for good death fodder

Gratuitous Gore and Splatter!!!!!!

All these people come together and meet in a cabin in the woods (I did mention were in clicheworld right?) where our zombie aliens are looking for fresh BRAAAAAAAAAAINNNNNS!!

The best part of Brain Dead is the non CGI gore. It's old school here with shotgun head blasts, quick edit watermelon blasts (its suppose to be a human head) and decapitations and arm rippage. It's like they DeLoreaned into the past and made this movie in the 80s.

Tons of blood, tons of gore and tons of black ooze vomiting from our zombies to infect other people. Shit was coming out of every orifice dude. And it was fuckin awesome.

Gratuitous Gripes and Negatives!!!!!!

Brain Dead won't be for everyone. Noobs won't understand why us "old timers" think is a big deal about some boobs and gore. But here's a message to you noobs. Boobs and gore were not as easily accessible back in the day. If you saw boobs in a movie, you couldn't believe your eyes. If you saw somebody's heart gets ripped out, you applauded. So we have a special place in our hearts for these movies. You noobs are lucky with your free porn and YouTube.

Brain Dead kinda gets ZZZZZZZZs with some badly written dialogue and goofy makeup effects. But Clarence's snarky one liners had me laughing a few times. His zingers zinged and I have to admit, I chuckled a few times.

But being low budget, you can smell the cheese and it's extra velveetay. What can ya do right?

Brain Dead ain't the best throwback but it's done with fun and care and Kevin Tenney knows what us gorehounds and breasthounds want. All of this is packaged into Brain Dead and I had fun nostalgia-ing to my VHS days. What more can you ask?

Well more boobs would have been nice.

WTF moment

One of the characters get an untimely demise I didn't see coming. Holey moley.

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

Brain Dead was just released on DVD via Breaking Glass Pictures. You can buy it via Amazon.com.

For more info, head over to Breaking Glass Pictures or the Facebook page.

Rating:


Check out the trailer below!

Death of the Dead (Trailer)

Sometimes I can be a little mean when it comes to low budget horror. I know filmmakers have to make lemonade without even lemons but sometimes it comes out a little laughable and it's an easy target to make fun of. Why do I bring this up?

It's because when I reviewed Gary King's Dismal: Eat or be Eaten, I kinda made a few zingers at the movie's expense. I didn't mean to be harsh but I was just being honest. But at the conclusion of my review, I actually gave the movie 2 out of 4 spinkicks. So bad its good horror I wrote. Shockingly, I got an e-mail from writer Bo Buckley and he appreciated that I reviewed the film even though it wasn't overly positive.

So Mr. Buckley has dropped me another line that he's teamed up with Gary King again for a new feature called Death of the Dead and after watching the trailer, it looks uber funny. It's literally "ball bustin" -gly funny. I'm gonna have to check out this one as it may be not be "bad its funny" but its "funny because its funny".

Here be the plot.

It's Karate Kid meets 28 Days Later in this over-the-top horror / action / comedy from Strange Stuff Productions. Wanda is an uber nerd with the coordination of a seizure victim. Her karate trainer is an aging pervert with a penchant for ball gags and various sex toys. When a bus from a rival karate school accidentally runs over a couple scientists dumping a toxic chemical down the sewer, the entire class is turned into high flying, flesh eating baddies!

As they wreak havoc on the town turning others into zombie ninjas, Wanda and her instructor must save the planet with the help of a magic karate belt. That's right, I said MAGIC KARATE BELT. An epic feature full of brains, boobs and bad ass bitches, Death of the Dead is fun for the whole family!

Check out the trailer below. Let me know what you think!

The Sky Has Fallen (Review)

The Sky Has Fallen

The Sky Has Fallen (2009)

Directed by Doug Roos

Indie horror is where ingenuity and creativity still lives. What filmmakers have to do when they have a limited budget is quite amazing. Think Sam Raimi with Evil Dead.

Doug Roos makes the most out of what he's got with The Sky Has Fallen. A simple wilderness setting, practical makeup and splatter effects, 2 main characters and a boatload of dialogue.

It's a testament to the indie spirit of making YOUR movie the way you want which is what Doug Roos and his team did. As for the movie, it is what it is as well.

The Sky Has Fallen is post apocalyptic, diseased ravaged mutant zombie movie with elements of The Road and Versus thrown in. It reminded me of Ink, a childhood fantasy movie come to life with its HD-ishiness and its dreamy special effects. But at the end of the day, it suffers from the limitations of being low budget. Everything I mentioned from the boring woods to the heavy dialogue makes it at times a yawnfest.

But the back to basics effects are a saving grace and the ambition to make a different kind of zombie movie makes The Sky Has Fallen something interesting to watch.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

Within a couple of hours, a new disease wipes out almost all of mankind. Trying to avoid infection, people flee to remote locations, but they start seeing mysterious black figures, carrying away the dead and experimenting on them. Now, Lance and Rachel, two survivors determined to fight back, must kill the leader of these creatures before the rest of humanity disappears.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

The first thing you'll notice is the movie is shot in tight closeups. As Roos mentions on the special features of the DVD, it's done this way because wider shots didn't come out all too well. But I have to argue we need a few long shots when watching a film because even the casual viewer gets vertigo watching something close up as our eyes are just not use to watching close ups all the time.

Our main protags, Lance and Rachel have suffered horrific hardships as this disease has ravaged mankind. Seems we don't just get no eyes no mouth zombies, we also get mutated, black cloaked demon like creatures as the disease evolves. As Lance and Rachel go all Fellowship of the Ring determined to kill the leader of this new mutation, they encounter other survivors including a priest and a dad and his kids.

However, the encounters all are with the black cloaked figures, zombie creatures and the leader who now invades their dreams. The movie seems like it's more of a horror fantasy rather than a straight "according to Hoyle" zombie film. Evolving demons are the main adversary and they are on a mission to make all of humanity suffer.

Most of the scenes are conversations between Lance and Rachel discussing a variety of their past lives and the budding romance between the 2. The 2 actors do a good job with their performances but the dialogue could have been more interesting. If it had, I'd have praised it for being better than your run of the mill zombie movie. But it's unfortunately not.

But the breakthrough performance here is the effects. The zombie makeup is quite extraordinary as closeups of the horde are so disgustingly awesome. Sure you get your blood splatter on a tree effect, (it's the most reliable camera trick). Top notch makeup and effects here.

The action scenes are all tight shots of gun shot penetration and slice and dice woundage. Splatter and gore are shown sporadically. It's a good effect but I got kind of bored by it. I don't need tons of splatter even in zombie movie. A couple of wide shots I believe could have worked here.

I know this is a big gripe but 70% of the movie is done with tight shots and closeups and it gave me a headache. I'm sure there was a way to shoot it with a few wider shots without it looking cheap.

Overall, the movie has a few interesting moments and does keep you guessing in its 70 minute run time. You sense Doug Roos had a complete vision in his mind but due to the challenge of low budget film making, he had to shoot and compromise with what he needed to do instead of what he wanted to do.

I've seen worse post apocalyptic zombie movies and I've seen better. The Sky Has Fallen is ambition meets reality. Sometimes reality wins.

Gore-ipedia

Close up splatter (inc. sword trauma and gun shots)

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

The makeup effects

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

The Sky Has Fallen has won many awards and needs your help in getting distribution and marketing. You can go to the links below to support the film.

• The Official Site
• Blood Sprayer Support Page

Rating:
Check out the trailer below!