BiTS ’18: Fugue

Malcolm’s life is like 50 First Dates, but with bad guys. Apparently, he wakes up everyday with his memory wiped, but it is only temporary condition his wife assures him. Still, things could get awkward for the both of them if anyone were to show up looking for the valuable item he is holding. As far as he knows, it could be Marsellus Wallace’s soul, because he can’t remember. Yet, matters turn out to be even more complicated in screenwriter-director Tomas Street’s Fugue (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival.

According to Helen’s reassures, everything will be fine eventually, as long as Malcolm keeps taking his pills and listening to her trips down memory lane. Obviously, the situation is not ideal, but people have endured worse. However, he keeps getting weird flashes of Deja vu or something. Of course, his situation really takes a turn for the worse when masked home invaders barge in. At this point, Street pulls a game-changing whammy on the audience, upending most of our assumptions.

Street’s secrets are not revolutionary, but the way he links together the film’s bifurcated structure is very clever. It is hard to go into detail without giving the game away, but several cast members are really terrific as characters who are more or less playing roles in the film. They definitely fool us along with their on-screen audience.

Regardless, on the basis of his star turn as Malcolm and his work in Lifechanger, Jack Foley is poised to become the next genre star to achieve cult popularity (oddly, both roles involved mysterious pill-popping). His distinctive grey locks certainly also help him stand out. Yet, Laura Tremblay goes toe-to-toe with him and nearly steals the show as Helen. The small ensemble of co-stars are key collaborators, helping to sell each twist and reveal, especially Kristen Da Silva and Michael Lipka—as other people.

Street is totally having one over on viewers, but since he shows respect for our intelligence, we don’t mind be played for fools, so to speak. He and co-editor Sean Danby, along with the continuity person deserve enormous credit for hiding all the seams. Highly recommended for fans of dark, twisty psychological thrillers, Fugue screens Monday night (11/26), as part of this year’s BiTS.

BiTS ’18: Deadsight

Imagine there was a zombie apocalypse and the mega-pregnant Marge Gunderson from Fargo and blind Howard Keel from The Day of the Triffids only had each other to rely on. That is basically the premise of this new Canadian zombie-viral outbreak movie. The elements are familiar, but the Spartan intimacy makes them work once again in Jesse Thomas Cook’s Deadsight, which screens as part of this year’s Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival.

When Ben Neilson comes to, he finds he is handcuffed to an ambulance gurney and his mysteriously sightless eyes have been bandaged (always a bad sign). Somehow, he manages to send an SOS from the radio, but only Mara Madigan receives it, in a partial, garbled form. She is just starting what is supposed to be the last day before her pregnancy leave, so she is still unaware of the zombie outbreak underway.

Eventually, Neilson and Madigan will come together in a farm house not so very different from the one we all vividly remember from the original Night of the Living Dead, but she remains justifiably suspicious of Neilson, due to the conspicuous cuffs. It is pretty clear to Madigan staying in the farmhouse is not a sustainable option, but that means she will have to make some pretty hard moral choices.

So yes, zombie fans have been down this road before, but there is something very honest and potent about Cook’s stripped-down approach and Liv Collins & Kevin Revie’s screenplay. Thanks to cinematographer Jeff Maher, it all looks suitably bleak and Canadian. As Madigan and Neilson, screen-writer Collins and Adam Seybold feel like real people, caught in a really, really bad situation. We buy into them, even when Neilson survives through sheer blind luck, so to speak. They are terrific together and Ry Barrett is highly disturbing (in an impressive way), as another survivor Neilson has the questionable fortune to meet.

Cook has been quite the busy bee, not only helming Deadsight, but also co-directing The Hoard with Matt Wiele, who is on-board here as a producer. They are very different films, but together they are quite a one-two-punch to look out for. Enthusiastically recommended, Deadsight screens this Sunday (11/25) during BiTS 2018, in Toronto.

BiTS ’18: The Hoard

The Keno Brothers couldn’t handle Murph Evans and his level of hoarding. Sheila Smythe’s prospective reality show, Extreme Haunted Hoardings should be better equipped, but as Evans often points out, her team of psychologists, contractors, and ghost-hunters are mostly a bunch of idiots. Things will get ugly and maybe even deadly in Jesse Thomas Cook & Matt Wiele’s The Hoard (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival.

There is actually a somewhat intriguing horror premise buried under all of Evans’ clutter. As a compulsive hoarder, he has amassed a vast amount of stuff acquired from dead people at estate sales, thrift stores, and what have you. The mountains of junk also create veritable labyrinths that could entrap Smythe’s cast, once the entity attacks.

Right from the start, they assume some kind of haunting is going on. That is why YouTube channel paranormal investigators Chloe and Caleb Black are part of the team. They will have primary responsibility for one of Evans’ three clutter filled houses with eviction notices pending. Meathead contractor Derek “Duke” Jago and “The Falcon,” his reluctant Maltese assistant take point for the second house, while Smythe and the ridiculously pompous Dr. Lance Ebe quarterback the third property and also do their best to ride herd on Evans. Alas, they immediately fall behind, due to very human reasons, as well as possible supernatural factors.

Frankly, Hoard would be a funny film even if it were only an earthly spoof of reality shows. Barry More might just serve up the comedic performance of the year as the mordantly funny, yet still fundamentally decent Evans. In contrast, Tony Burgess is completely loathsome but still wickedly amusing, in a face-palming kind of way, as Dr. Ebe. Lisa Solberg and Justin Darmanin help round the film as the relatively normal Smythe and the Falcon.

There are probably some people who will object to exploiting a very real compulsive disorder for the sake of some laughs and all kinds of mayhem. Boo-hoo, get over it. Sly and unhinged, The Hoard is one of the best horror comedies in years. Very highly recommended for genre fans, it screens this Sunday (11/25) during BiTS 2018, in Toronto.

BiTS ’18: Altered Skin

There is nothing like a zombie outbreak to overcome resistance to modern medicine. Gone are the days when Pakistani militants targeted vaccinating health workers, as documented in Tom Roberts’ Every Last Child. Now, one of the world’s largest Big Pharma companies is in Pakistan, thanks to the infection slowing patch. Business is booming, but they have a dirty secret an American expat is desperate to uncover in Adnan Ahmed’s Altered Skin (trailer here), which screens as part of this year’s Blood in the Snow Canadian Film Festival.

It is hard to say whether those inflicted with the MN-2 virus are full zombies per se, or just viral outbreak victims. Regardless, these “carriers” will eventually descend into a state of mindless rage. Tragically, Craig Evans wife, Dr. Insiya Zia will soon be one of them. She is currently in a medically induced coma after contracting the virus from a patient, but time is running out for her.

It is already too late for muckraking TV journo Shehzad Amin, but his widow is convinced Evans is the right person to expose her missing husband’s murderers. Evans is rather skeptical, but when he gets a whiff of something funny at the drug company, he starts investigating in earnest. Zia’s life might depend on what he uncovers.

Although mostly in English, Altered was shot entirely in Karachi, by a mostly Pakistani cast and crew. Admittedly, there are some pacing issues, but the film’s professional-grade production values far exceed expectations. Ahmed maintains a gritty vibe of foreboding that is really quite impressive. The entire ensemble is also quite polished, particularly Aamir Qureshi, who is excellent as Amin in flashbacks and taped television reports.

As Evans and Zia, Robin Dunne and Juggan Kazim make a convincing married couple. He is also sufficiently credible as the dogged, bull-in-a-china-shop Westerner. Throughout it all, Ahmed gives viewers a vivid sense of nocturnal back alley Karachi. It is a dangerous environment, precisely because it is so easy to lose oneself in it. All things considered, it is pretty good. Recommended for fans of rage-berserk viral-mutant outbreak thrillers, Altered Skin screens this Friday (11/23) during BiTS 2018, in Toronto.