DWF ’15: Bad Exorcists

Whether you believe or not, demonic possession is simply no business to trifle with, but kids will be kids. These kids in question are especially inept in social situations. The three high school chums hope to raise their place in the pecking order by taking the grand prize at their local horror film festival with real life exorcism footage. Unfortunately, it all gets more real than they bargained for in Kyle Steinbach’s Bad Exorcists (trailer here), which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

The nebbish Charlie is being led-on by a chick who really isn’t his girlfriend, but she lets him think she is when she wants to exploit his good nature. He also happens to have a crush on the popular and reasonably together Lisa, who has just returned from her junior exchange year abroad. Matt is the Jewish kid at their Catholic school, who often serves as the devil on his friends’ shoulders. As for Dana, he is just a mess.

They have DIY horror movie aspirations, but not a lot of talent. However, Matt is convinced if they steal Sister Helen’s ancient exorcism manual and chant some of the incantations within, the authenticity will take them to the next level. Much to Charlie’s surprise and nervous excitement, Matt even recruits Lisa to star in their film as the victim of possession. Of course, as we can all see coming, by incompletely reciting the powerful texts over Lisa, they actually help facilitate her demonic possession.

There have been no shortage of horror comedies in recent years, but many have been rather darned amusing, by cranking up the energy level and avoiding Friedberg & Seltzer’s painfully stupid level of humor. Happily, Exorcists is one that makes the grade. There is nothing truly jaw-dropping or gut-busting about it, but the film is clearly in touch with both the horror and teen movie traditions, knowingly observing and tweaking their respective conventions. Steinbach keeps it all moving along at a healthy gallop and stage scenes of demonic horror that should satisfy genre diehards (that kid in the barn is pretty darn creepy).

Some cast members look a tad old for high school, but they all exhibit a natural facility for the American Pie-style humor. As Lisa, Claire Berger shows a particularly impressive range, earning laughs with deadpan sarcasm and totally going Regan MacNeil in the third act.

Yes, Bad Exorcists is definitely a bit of a meathead movie and the sexually voracious depiction of Sister Helen is highly problematic and may ultimately lead to a few days in Purgatory for the filmmakers (if demons are real, there is no reason to think it no longer exists). However, for horror fans it is just a fun film to watch, which is more than enough for a Saturday night in June. Recommended for midnight movie regulars, Bad Exorcists screens tomorrow, as part of DWF18.

DWF ’15: SuperBob

He is sort of like a British Ralph Hinkley (The Greatest American Hero), except Robert Kenner has a much better handle on his powers and much less of a life. Maybe, just maybe, he can have a reasonably grown-up date with a bombshell fan on his day off, if politics and international crises do not preempt him in Jon Drever’s SuperBob (trailer here), which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

Kenner (a.k.a. SuperBob) is not really a superhero. He is a civil servant, supervised by a new division of the British defense ministry. Sure, he does superhero stuff, but he has to have everyone he saves fill out annoying paperwork afterward. His handler Theresa Ford keeps poor Kenner on a short leash, but it is not like the Peckham resident has much going on in his life. Just ask Dorris, his dismissive part-time Colombian housekeeper.

The documentary film crew following Kenner will give her plenty of opportunities to dish on her socially awkward boss (but wisely, Drever is not slavishly faithful to the mockumentary format). However, as she helps Kenner prepare for his date with a librarian hottie who would be way out of his league if it were not for his flying and invulnerability, sparks will start to fly between them. Unfortunately, both potential romances will have to be put on hold when Kenner is summoned for a high powered summit with an American senator concerned about unregulated super-heroism.

SuperBob is endearingly amusing when it focuses on Bob’s romantic ineptitude and the things that plague him which we all can relate to, such as reams of government paperwork. However, it falls flat when it tries to score wider satirical points. Everyone knows Americans love superheroes, so the notion of a senator (who oh so coincidentally bears a strong resemblance to Pres. George W. Bush) trying to demonize SuperBob never rings remotely true. At its best, satire takes readily identifiable aspects of reality and twists them for comedic purposes. Arguably, the depiction of Sen. Jackson only really expresses the preconceptions and biases Drever and co-screenwriters William Bridges and Brett Goldstein have tried to project on their straw man.

The clunky political score settling is unfortunate, because it interrupts some rather endearing rom-com chemistry developed between Goldstein and Natlia Tena. After years of Marvel’s more everyman approach to super-heroics and William Katt’s comedic caped-crusading, viewers are well attuned to the private side of superheroes. Nevertheless, there is something decidedly charming about Kenner’s frustrated devotion to his mother, his shyness around girls, and his pride in his Peckham neighborhood. Frankly, it is a shame they didn’t have him around during the 2011 riots.

Featuring Doctor Who’s Catherine Tate as Ford and Laura Haddock from Da Vinci’s Demons as June the librarian, SuperBob should be able to count on heavy geek interest. In fact, it is quite enjoyable when it is not trying to make statements. Recommended for fans of slightly rough-around-the-edges superhero comedies, SuperBob screens tomorrow (6/3) as part DWF18.

DWF ’15: The Man in the Shadows

There must be something stirring in our collective subconscious. For some reason, sleep paralysis and the malevolent figures sometimes reported by those suffering from the condition have recently popped in the popular culture, under at least two very different guises. After blowing the doors off this year’s Sundance, Rodney Ascher’s The Nightmare, perhaps the scariest documentary maybe ever, opens in theaters this Friday. The phenomenon that likely inspired Freddy Kruger also gets another fictional scare treatment in Joshua Fraiman’s The Man in the Shadows (trailer here), which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

Whether it is happening in an ostensibly true sense or not hardly matter for those who experience sleep paralysis. Those even more unfortunate often find themselves trapped between dreams and waking life, while being menaced by the so-called “Hat Man” and the shadow men. Rachel Darwin is one such terrorized soul. Weary from her nightmares, Darwin has been self-medicating with dope and withdrawing from her alarmed husband Scott. Of course, his recent infidelity hasn’t helped their marriage much either. In fact, he rather assumes her dreams are rooted in her sense of injured betrayal. How like a trial attorney to assume it is all about him.

Sadly, she really is seeing the creepy figures. Worse still, they are aware of her awareness and are keeping close tabs on her. As Darwin clings to her last shreds of sanity, her husband hatches a brilliant plan to rekindle their romance in an old, poorly lit cabin somewhere far from town. Remember, he is a trial attorney.

Frankly, sleep paralysis and the nightmarish visions that often accompany it are so creepy, it is almost impossible to make a film about it that is not scary, at least to some extent. Frustratingly, Fraiman also mixes in some violent nightmare imagery that essentially qualify as torture porn. Be warned, the opening credits are tough sledding to get through. Nevertheless, some of the speculations offered by William, a fellow sufferer at Darwin’s group therapy, are rather unsettling and differ significantly from Ascher’s film.

Throughout the film, Sarah Jurgens’s Darwin looks convincingly terrified and sleep-deprived. Conversely, Nick Baillie never finds the right key for the problematically annoying and strangely arrogant husband. However, as wacko William, Adam Tomlinson is appropriately twitchy and skittish, in a horror movie kind of way.

By their very nature, if that is the best term, shadow people are perfectly suited for horror films. It is not simply due to their explicitly threatening behavior. That which is unseen is always far scarier than any bogeyman we can clearly see in all its supposed ferocity. Likewise, Fraiman falters when he shows too much, especially during the hostel-like dreams sequences. What’s the point of having shadow men, when you are forcing the dreaming Darwin to undergo a Hostel-style abortion? Its just unnecessarily ugly stuff. Regardless, Ascher’s The Nightmare is very highly recommended when it opens this Friday, whereas Fraiman’s The Man in the Shadows is best saved for genre junkies in dire need of a fix when it screens tomorrow (6/1) as part of DWF18.

DWF ’15: Ablution (short)

Iran might have an Islamist government, but notwithstanding the revolution, average Iranians have never been generally inclined towards fundamentalist orthodoxy. This disconnect will deeply confuse a young devout Muslim woman in Canadian-Iranian filmmaker Parisa Barani’s short Ablution (trailer here), which screens during the eighteenth Dances With Films, in Hollywood, California.

Neda Enezari’s mother Afsenah makes no secret she was a “mistake,” whereas the pious twenty-something regards Afsenah’s second marriage as a sin. Neda’s brother Omid reluctantly serves as a buffer between them. He is also much more modern in his thinking, but he respects his sister’s religious devotion. Tensions are already high, with the Iran-Iraq War rudely interrupting everyday life on a regular basis. Resenting her unhappiness, particularly since she represents the Islamic Revolutionary ideal better than nearly everyone around her, Enezari will start to make a series of unfortunate decisions.

It should be clearly noted Ablution portrays the fundamentalist Enezari in profoundly respectful terms. It also finds considerable value in religious observance. However, it is hard to think the ruling theocrats would consider the film to be good for business. Rightly or wrongly, Enezari’s ardent faith is isolating and alienating in practice. The symbolic interludes inspired by Sufism probably would not sit well with the Shia powers-that-be either. Although not a primary focus of the film, Barani and her co-writer-co-stars Melissa Recalde and Amin El Gamal also give viewers a sense of the intrusive fear and paranoia begot by the state and its feared Basij morality militia.

Recalde plays Enezari with admirable restraint and sensitivity, but it is Amin El Gamal who probably earns the “breakout” honors as the conflicted Omid Enezari. More than just a nice guy (always a tricky role to play) or an audience entry point, he really embodies the heart of the film’s religious and social anxieties.

Barani’s short offers an intimate look inside a middle class Iranian home, challenging some preconceptions and confirming others. Indeed, it is provocative in ways we can only obliquely hint at here. Highly recommended for those who appreciate Iranian cinema and Persian culture, Ablution screens this Saturday (5/30) as part of Competition Shorts: Group 3, at DWF18.