Man Finds Tape: Found Footage in Texas

In Larkin, Texas, social life largely revolves around the church and the barbecue roadhouse. It is about as red as the meat proprietor Winston Boon serves up, but this film still invites sympathy for the community. Something sinister has been secretly preying on the town for years. A brother and sister struggle to expose the bizarre truth in Paul Gandersman & Peter S. Hall’s Man Finds Tape, which releases this Friday in theaters and on-demand.

Believe it or not, the director-screenwriters breathe new life into the found footage subgenre, precisely by embracing its limitations. Lucas Page is a notorious paranormal influencer, who built a massive following with the mysterious videos of his childhood an unknown someone reportedly delivered to him. The first allegedly depicts a shadowy figure standing over him while he innocently slept. Ominously, it clearly was not his parents.

Page would later admit he faked the subsequent tapes in hopes of drawing out the mysterious party. Consequently, his sister Lynn is skeptical when Lucas video-calls, asking her to watch more of his dubious footage. However, when he passes out mid-call, she reluctantly returns to Larkin, out of concern.

Having left town as a teenager, after the untimely deaths of their parents, Ms. Page seems immune to whatever plagues the locals. Clearly, it is not just her brother. Her former bestie (and Lucas’s on-again-off-again girlfriend) Wendy Parker willing goes on-the-record and on-camera to discusses her experiences. Boon also sits for a few interviews, but he is far less willing to face the creepy phenomenon. However, a strange outsider (conveniently referred to as “The Stranger”) obviously understands what is happening, but he clearly has not come to Larkin with altruistic motives.

Man Finds Tape works so well because it uses our disbelief against us, jujitsu-like. As the primary narrating voice, Lynn Page constantly expresses skepticism. Essentially, she even invites the audience to compare her ostensive film to presumed hoaxes, like the Patterson-Gimlin Big Foot tape. The horror itself is also initially hard to define. While it inspires fear and paranoia, it also takes on subtly Lovecraftian overtones.

Gandersman and Hall create a potent atmosphere of dread, which steadily escalates. Even though Rev. Endicott Carr is unambiguously implicated in the uncanny skullduggery afoot, Man Finds Tape still feels highly sympathetic to its small Texas setting.

Mystery Spot, Starring Graham Skipper

If the lyrics “get your kicks on Route 66” don’t mean anything to you, the idea of roadside attractions will probably be lost on you too. Regardless, there used to be one next to this fleabag motor inn. Since it burned down, the motel has become a vortex of bad karma. Several visitors get caught up in it during director-screenwriter Mel House’s Mystery Spot, which is now available on VOD.

Rachel just checked into the room next to Nathan, who films endless audition videos in his room, for a project that apparently will never be fully cast. It is strongly implied that each hungry thesp disappears after they record their videos, but it is unclear whether he is responsible or if the blame lies with the shadowy production company that hired him. Leon definitely suspects Nathan is guilty of something, which is why he has the motel under constant surveillance. Apparently, the cop is on extended leave, or he might have possibly left the force after his partner was killed in the line of duty, at this very same motel.

Partially to her own surprise, Rachel sort of-kind of befriends Nathan, Leon, and Max, the owner-front desk clerk, who manages to be creepy and kindly simultaneously. Like Rachel, he is also mourning his late husband. Usually, nobody really goes there, unless they are “auditioning” for Nathan. However, she feels an affinity for the “Mystery Spot,” the burned-out shell of the next-door roadside attraction that featured furniture on its walls and ceilings, because the laws of gravity supposedly did not apply there.

Mystery Spot looks cheap, but House’s screenplay is impressively ambitious. It is questionable whether it all becomes clear at the end, but the head games are deeper and more sophisticated than those of the average Christopher Nolan-knock-off. House’s characters and their motivations are so ambiguous and nuanced, it is hard to make snap assumptions.

Fantasia ’17: Sequence Break

There was a time when you had to deal with people if you wanted to play video games. Players would put their quarters up to claim the next game and everyone would patiently wait their turn, through common consent. These days, an arcade is a good place for a technician like Oz (short for Osgood, not Ozzie) to hide from the world. Yet, both a cute but neurotic woman and an evil mother board will find him in Graham Skipper’s Sequence Break (trailer here), which screens during the 2017 Fantasia International Film Festival.

Jerry’s arcade-slash-stand-up arcade game wholesale business is on its last legs, but one of their final customers happens to be Tess, who is really interested in Oz. Much to his surprise, he starts seeing her romantically. They will have a chance to spend a lot of time together while he minds the shop for Jerry. He assumes his good-natured boss has already left to visit family, but he has actually been murdered by a mysterious drifter who intentionally left behind a sinister game board. After Oz installs it in a compatible cabinet, he finds the game exerts a disturbing influence over players, both physically and emotionally.

Sequence Break is a nice example of an emerging loose ensemble of recognizable horror specialists and cult favorites, who almost constitute a throwback to the glory days of the repertory players featured Hammer and Amicus horror films. Skipper himself is better known for starring in nifty retro films like The Mind’s Eye and Beyond the Gates, which also co-starred Chase Williamson, who is terrific as the socially awkward Oz. He also develops some shockingly endearing chemistry with Fabianne Therese, with whom he previously co-starred in John Dies at the End. (She also appeared in Starry Eyes with Noah Segan, who was also in Camera Obscura with Williamson and Mind’s Eye with Skipper. Get the picture?)

Given its retro 1980s arcade aesthetic, Sequence Break’s budget constraints are almost a blessing. The arcade setting and the in-game graphics look absolutely spot-on. The small ensemble really works well together, most definitely also including Lyle Kanouse as old Jerry. The visual effects are basically in keeping with the retro eighties nostalgia, but the practical cables-coming-out-of-throats effects are sufficiently gory and gross.

Basically, Sequence is a lot like Electric Dreams with a strong element of body horror added. However, there is just no getting around how disappointing the ending is. Maybe you can argue it is part of the eighties homage, but it is still lame. Nonetheless, Skipper and the cast press so many nostalgic buttons, it is impossible to stay angry with the film. Recommended for fans of modern horror’s repertory players and the films and video games of the 1980s that inspired Skipper’s screenplay, Sequence Break screens tonight (7/18) and tomorrow (7/19) as part of this year’s Fantasia.

Beyond the Gates: 1980s VHS Horror Love

This retro 1980s horror film just might make you nostalgic for a short-lived category of games you probably never played. Remember VCR board games? Probably only vaguely from seeing them on the shelves. It turns out you were right not to play, but two bickering brothers will have to learn that the hard way in Jackson Stewart’s Beyond the Gates (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

It has been months since the disappearance of Gordon and John Hardesty’s binge-drinking father, so they are finally facing the inevitable and closing down his anachronistic video store. This is a bad time for Gordon to return to his home town, because he is still working out issues that very nearly severed his relationship with the slightly out-of-his-league Margot Jones. In contrast, the couch-surfing John never left—and he sure seems to have plenty of time. While cleaning out the office, they come across a strange looking VCR board game called Beyond the Gates. Naturally, they are going to try playing it. In retrospect, this looks like a bad idea—one their father made before them.

Evelyn, the bossy Elvira-like hostess seems to be talking directly to them, especially when she offers them an opportunity to save the old man’s soul. All they have to do is collect the game’s four keys, but to do so they will have to complete four comically gory tasks. Eventually, they will also to journey through the spooky graveyard-style gates that suddenly sprung up in the basement, because that is literally the name of the game.

Gates is just gleefully entertaining for genre fans, both for its VHS nostalgia and the casting of nearly a dozen contemporary horror movie regulars in featured and supporting roles. Chase Williamson (John Dies at the End, SiREN) does some of his most engaging work yet as the irresponsible Hardesty brother. Likewise, Graham Skipper (Mind’s Eye, Almost Human) finally gets to play it straight and normal (and rather engagingly so) as the Hardesty with a girlfriend. Brea Grant (Best Friends Forever) dos as well as could be expected as the understanding Jones. Justin Welborn (Southbound, V/H/S Viral) and Sara Malakul Lane (Sun Choke) add further color and energy as John Hardesty’s erratic drifter friend Hank and his put-upon girlfriend Dahlia.

However, it is Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond) who really makes the movie as the appropriately vampy Evelyn. She chews the scenery and looks the part—in spades. Even though she has been a genre cult favorite since the eighties, it isn’t so creepy when the younger Hardesty bro starts going on about her hotness. Seriously, its not, right?

Throughout Gates, the effects always look vintage eighties straight-to-video, but in the right way. Far from feeling cheap, the film is really a triumph of cleverly detailed production design. Stewart and co-screenwriter Stephen Scarlata infuse the proceedings with sly attitude, but they never let winks and hat-tips distract from the fundamental genre movie business. Jolly good fun, Beyond the Gates is enthusiastically recommended for horror movie lovers when it opens this Friday (12/9) in New York, at the IFC Center.

The Mind’s Eye: Begos Gets Scannery

New England is a weird place. The same vaguely defined Northeastern region that is home to Lovecraft’s Miskatonic University is probably also served by UHF Channel 83, whose eyewitness news team regularly reports on the bloody aftermath of Joe Begos’s films. They should have enough carnage for a week of leads in Begos’s Cronenbergian nostalgia trip The Mind’s Eye (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Given its enduring cultural significance, it is strange Cronenberg’s Scanners has not been ripped off more. Begos will soon set that right. Zack Connors is a heck of a lot like a Scanner. He was born with potent telekinetic power that he has always struggled to control, especially when dumb cops pester him like he is Bruce Banner. Even though he has largely lived the life of a drifter, he still forged relationships with some of his own kind. Rachel Meadows is a particularly special case. To see her again, Connors reluctantly but willingly agrees to live within the rules and confines of Dr. Michael Slovak’s sketchy research institute. Unfortunately, the mad scientist keeps Connors and Meadows separated to maintain his control over them.

Slovak keeps his research subjects on experimental drugs to inhibit their powers, but Connors quickly starts to build a tolerance. He bides his time, hoping to find Meadows and make a break for it. However, his formidable powers will be exceeded by those of Dr. Slovak, who is siphoning off the mojo of prisoner-patients for his own enhancement. Heads will definitely ‘splode.

While Begos’s Almost Human just felt retro for retro’s sake, Mind’s Eye fully embraces the look, spirit, and conventions of Scanners and its knock-off sequels, as well as Brian De Palma’s The Fury and Carrie. It is gory, pulpy, and deeply skeptical of authority. It also has genre favorite Larry Fessenden appearing as Connors’ father, Mike (yes, that would make him Mike Connors). It is a relatively small but substantial role that even gives Fessenden an opportunity for some real acting.

Graham Skipper’s Connors is appropriately moody and intense. Just looking at him could give you a headache. Emerging genre star Lauren Ashley Carter (Darling, Jug Face) is also impressively twitchy and bedraggled. John Speredakos is just okay chewing the scenery as Dr. Slovak, but it nice to see regular genre repertory players Noah Segan and film editor Josh Ethier doing their thing as henchmen.

Everything about Mind’s Eye screams old school, but it still holds together as a cohesive narrative rather than just stringing together hat-tips to the 1980s masters. Gritty, grimy, and satisfying, The Mind’s Eye is highly recommended for horror fans when it opens this Friday (8/5) in New York, at the Village East.

Almost Human: What Happens in Maine

As an independent station way up in northern Maine, Channel 83 is not exactly the fast track to a network career, but they know how to cover mysterious disappearances. Thanks to an unearthly entity, they can look forward to some salad days in Joe Begos’ throwback 1980’s style sci-fi slasher flick, Almost Human (trailer here), which releases this Friday in Los Angeles and on VOD.

Something in the Maine woods chased Seth Hampton to his buddy Mark Fisher’s cabin. Initially, the outdoorsman dismisses Hampton’s panic, but it turns out the alien force prefers the burly Fisher.  After a flash of blue light and piercing tone, Fisher is sucked out of the house, leaving Fisher’s girlfriend Jen Craven and the guilt-ridden Hampton behind. For a while, the police key in on Hampton as their prime suspect, a development the confused Craven does little to discourage.  However, no evidence can be found to implicate Hampton.

Two years later, Hampton tries to live a quiet life as the town weirdo, but he is plagued by disturbing visions of similar horrors. We soon learn Fisher has returned, or at least the shell of his body under alien control. As he preys on Maine’s backwoodsmen, Hampton and Craven reconcile, hoping to find some answers and a bit of closure. Not so fortunately, the malevolently mutated Fisher soon comes looking for Craven.

Throughout Almost Human, Begos deliberately goes for a low budget retro-eighties look, much like Ti West did with House of the Devil, except even grubbier. Frankly, it seems strange to emulate the look of 1980’s straight-to-video horror, when it is so easy for genre fans to find the genuine article. Still, he shows a flair for inventive gore, but the narrative is defiantly workaday stuff.

Arguably, the work of Graham Skipper and Josh Ethier are also a cut above those typically found in 80’s grind ‘em outs. Skipper (whom some might recognize from the Off-Broadway production of Re-Animator: the Musical) is actually quite engaging as the everyman Hampton trying to hold onto the last shred of his sanity.  Conversely, Ethier (who also doubled as editor and co-producer) is an interesting looking heavy, whom we can sort of buy into as a hardscrabble one-man version of Jack Sholder’s under-appreciated The Hidden.

In a way, the consistency of Begos’ no-frills vision is quite impressive (right down to the old school UHF news reports we see from the fictional Channel 83), but a little goes a long way. Ultimately, Begos just defrosts some red meat leftover from the 1980’s (admittedly a great decade) rather than pulling together a nourishing feast.  Serviceable as a midnight movie, but nothing viewers will carry with them after the show, Almost Human opens this Friday (2/21) in Los Angeles at the Arena Cinema and next Wednesday (2/26) in New York at the IFC Center.