Nightstream ’20: An Unquiet Grave

Forget Kubler-Ross. Jamie is in the sixth, horror movie stage of grief: resurrection. It is tricky business—more so than he lets on with his late wife Julie’s identical twin sister Ava. These things never proceed according to plan do they? Yet, in this case, his attempts to reincarnate his beloved wife take a decidedly dark turn in Terence Krey’s An Unquiet Grave, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Ava took her sister’s death nearly as hard as her husband did, so she agrees to help his radical esoteric plan to bring her back. It will not be easy though, because it requires them to conduct the ritual at the very spot where she was thrown from Jamie’s car and died. As the blood relative, Ava must also conduct it personally, without Jamie watching, like an occult corporate team-building exercise. However, everything is not as it seems.

The first two thirds of Unquiet Grave serves as a terrific example of character-driver minimalist horror. There are practically no special effects per se, but the vibe is profoundly unsettling and the sense of foreboding keeps viewers on pins-and-needles. Unfortunately, it all dissipates during the third act, wherein the film veers into symbolism, depleting the accrued tension and undermining the narrative drive. It is like the film literally deflates itself.

Still, at least it had all that atmosphere and suspense to fritter away. The overwhelming majority of horror movies end disappointingly. Unquiet Grave just does so earlier than most. Regardless, many genre fans will be impressed with what Krey and company achieve in the first fifty minutes or so.

Nightstream ’20: The Doorman

It is a pre-war building with a battle-tested doorman. Sgt. Ali Orski was decorated for valor, but the ambassador she was protecting was still assassinated during a terrorist attack. It really wasn’t her fault, but she is still tormented by guilt and flashbacks. Fate will give her a chance for redemption, but the stakes will be higher, because her family will be directly in harms way during Ryuhei Kitamura’s Die Hard-style The Doorman, which releases on DVD tomorrow, following its premiere on the opening day of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

After her return, Orski wanted to keep to herself, but she can’t totally ghost her Uncle Pat when he reaches out. Needing a job, she also lets him refer her for doorman gig at a tony Central Park apartment building, but she soon realizes she has been played. That happens to be where her late sister’s husband and children live. It has been a while, but they recognize her—and young Lily Stanton is especially keen to have her for holiday dinner, before the family leaves for an extended stay in England.

It turns out, the Stantons are one of only two tenants still in the building during its scheduled renovations. Frankly, there were not supposed to be there—just the elderly German husband and wife on the ground floor. Victor Dubois certainly was expecting them or a resourceful loose cannon like Orski. He carefully planned to take the old couple hostage to steal the art the now senile old man plundered from the Stasi’s secret archives during the waning days of the GDR. Unfortunately, he stashed the trove of paintings somewhere in their old flat, which is now occupied by the Stantons.

You get the idea, right? Yet somehow, this Die Hard-style movie carries four writing credits: Lior Chefetz and Joe Swanson for the screenplay, as well as Greg Williams Matt McAllester for the story. Regardless, they manage to use old Manhattan in creative ways, devising secret doors, dumb waiters, and a hidden speakeasy for Orski and her surly teen nephew Max to sneak through in their attempts to evade Dubois’s hired guns.

Ruby Rose is no Cynthia Rothrock or Michelle Yeoh, but she is still a pretty solid action lead playing Orski. In fact, she has a convincing “cool aunt” thing going on when protecting Lily and Max. However, Rupert Evans’ charisma-challenged portrayal of their dad, Jon Stanton, makes it dashed hard to believe she could ever have had an illicit affair with her snotty, pasty-white brother-in-law. Not surprisingly, the kids are completely annoying, but Philip Whitchurch has some fine moments as grizzled Uncle Pat.

Nightstream ’20: Bloody Hell

Much to Rex Coen's disappointment, Alia’s rustic Finnish family will not be serving him sauteed reindeer with lingonberry sauce. Instead, they will be serving Coen. However, the Scandinavian cannibals are about to learn the American is unusually hard to kill, thanks to his personified survival instinct. Coen’s snarky interior monologue helped him survive Afghanistan and a violent bank robbery, but they must face a truly monstrous family in Alister Grierson’s Bloody Hell, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Most people think Coen is a hero for giving a gang of armed bank-robbers the Charles Bronson treatment, but some people blamed him for a tragic mishap that will eventually be revealed in flashbacks. Unfortunately, that included the DA, who forced Coen to accept an 8-year plea deal. After his release, the controversial Coen wanted to get away from it all, so he booked a vacation to Finland. As a pariah loner, he looked like perfect prey to Alia’s psycho family, but Coen has skills and his alter-ego projection, who refuses to let him give-up.

Coen might also have an ally in Alia, who has always been horrified by her family’s crimes. Nevertheless, it will be difficult for the long-tormented young woman to decisively turn against her abusive family. Coen will soon discover she has good reason to be so fearful when he comes to, hanging from a hook in their rural basement with one foot amputated. He will have to give himself some serious pep talks to get through this one.

Bloody Hell isn’t just a title Grierson and screenwriter Robert Benjamin picked out of a hat. It is brutally violent, but also often wickedly droll. It is probably the funniest cannibal horror comedy since Danny Mulheron’s Fresh Meat, but the tension is higher, because the stakes are greater and more realistic. There is considerable gore, but we pull for Coen all the way.

Nightstream ’20: Anything for Jackson

Satanists get old and have families just like the rest of us. However, when misfortune befalls their loved ones, they might appeal to their dark lord. You know him, Donald Trump. This is a rather fraught process that entails a considerable downside, but Henry and Audrey Walsh are willing pay any price (risks be damned, since they are already) to bring back their grandson in Justin G. Dyck’s Anything for Jackson, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

As an OB-GYN, Dr. Walsh has an advantage when it comes to finding a single pregnant woman, who might be considered a little unstable. Becker seems to fit the bill perfectly. He and his wife Audrey also procured (at great cost) the ancient demonic text that explains how they are supposed to use her to bring the spirit of their beloved grandson Jackson back from purgatory. At first, they elderly couple are acting totally on their own, with no involvement from their Satanic circle. However, when their initial rituals attract a host of angry ghosts, they reach out to their hardcore circle-mate, Ian, who is dangerously disenfranchised.

Keith Cooper’s wickedly clever script consistently subverts stereotypes and expectations, while constantly springing one literally damned thing after another. It is probably the freshest satanic or demonic horror movie since A Dark Song (which was a doozey).

Nightstream ’20: Shock Value How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror

Everyone associates the USC film school with George Lucas--and that's probably just fine with the admissions officer. The film program played a pivotal role facilitating late 20th Century sf cinema, thanks to THX 1138, which led to Star Wars. However, USC alumni were also instrumental in the development of contemporary horror, particularly John Carpenter and Dan O’Bannon (who wrote Alien and directed the cult classic Return of the Living Dead). Inspired by Jason Zinoman’s book, Dino Everett assembled five short student films helmed by O’Bannon, Carpenter, and their USC colleagues (as well as some tantalizing audio fragments from a lost Carpenter film) in the program Shock Value: How Dan O’Bannon and Some USC Outsiders Helped Invent Modern Horror, which screens on-demand as part of the online genre festival, Nightstream.

Logically, Shock Value starts with O’Bannon, but some might not consider Blood Bath exactly horror per se, even though it definitely has its grisly parts. The crimson-tinged tale of suicide motivated by boredom and accidentally executed through negligence is mostly memorable for O’Bannon’s muttering voice-over dialog. It is easy to see why his classmates would have loved it, but it feels like a one-off joke in retrospect.

However, it is followed by one Shock Value’s major revelations. Charles Adair’s The Demon is most definitely a horror film, but viewers could argue which subgenre. Helen Stone has just moved to an isolated farm house with her husband John, who seems to be gas-lighting her. Yet, there really seems to be an ominous “Demon” watching her. Whether he is a psycho or a zombie or whatever hardly matters.

Maurishka’s performance as the terrified Stone is truly haunting, something like a somewhat more resilient Barbara from Night of the Living Dead. Despite the minimal budget, The Demon is further distinguished by its stylishly surreal look. Frankly, the way Adair masterly instills a sense of evil foreboding suggest he might just be a terribly overlooked horror auteur.

O’Bannon’s Good Morning Dan is an unusually eccentric dystopian film, in which the title character is forced by Big Brother to reminisce over some incredibly awkward moments from his life feels very much like a product of its trippy time. However, the music composed by Ben Model (in 1968) and Frank Meyer (in 2006) is distinctively funky.

Expectations might be high for John Carpenter’s Captain Voyeur (from 1969), but it is really more of a quick and twisted gag film. Yet, there are scenes of skulking through alleys and around houses, from the titular perv-perp’s POV, that foreshadows his classic Halloween. (We can only guess what Lady Madonna could have been, but the religious themes hinted at in the surviving audio extracts make us what to revisit Prince of Darkness.)

However, Shock Value’s second great revelation is considered a direct and formative influence on Carpenter’s breakout slasher. By now, the story of Terence Winkless & Alec Lorimore’s Judson’s Release (produced in 1971) sounds quite familiar. A psycho fresh out of an institution (played by O’Bannon) fixates on Julie, a teenager babysitting alone. Nevertheless, this is a tense film that looks terrifyingly realistic. While it is widely thought to have influenced Halloween, it also predates When a Stranger Calls, both the short film and feature, which “shares” a key twist with Winkless & Lorimore’s film—you know, where the calls are coming from.