Shudder Saturday: Brooklyn 45 (2023)

Sadly, I have to start this review with a warning, for those who just want to skin. Brooklyn 45 is not a good film, and I'm frankly a bit bewildered by the praise it has received.

Written and directed by Ted Geoghegan, who gave us the excellent We Are Still Here, everything begins with a group made up largely of war veterans all getting together at one house at the end of 1945. The host for the evening is Lt. Col. Clive Hockstatter (Larry Fessenden), and the main attendees are Mjr. Paul DiFranco (Ezra Buzzington), Mjr. Archibald Stanton (Jeremy Holm), Marla Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), and her husband, Bob (Ron E. Rains). Locking the door once everyone is in, Hockstatter eventually convinces everyone that they should try holding a seance. He really misses his recently-deceased wife, and a seance might help him feel a bit less pained and lonely. That doesn't really work out as planned, which leads to a tense situation in which everyone is now effectively trapped in the house, and ready to do a whole lot of bickering.

I guess I can see what Geoghegan was going for here, and the tagline refers to "ghosts of your past", but he ultimately fails to achieve the realisation of his vision. Characters aren't developed enough, the past events never feel as overwhelming and life-altering as they could be, and there are very few proper chills or scares. Everything looks nice enough, which is the least you should expect from a film in which a very small cast is mainly kept in one fairly small room, but the content is lacking.

As for the actors, I wish they had been good enough to help distract me from the failings of the film, but they're often unable to do anything to improve the poor writing. Ramsay is the best, and works well with a sorely-underused Rains, both feeling a bit more nuanced and fleshed-out than anyone else onscreen. Both Holm and Buzzington are disappointing, and neither are helped by the fact that they have to spend most of the movie stubbornly repeating the same sentiments over and over again, because Geoghegan thinks that is enough to define them. Fessenden isn't a main presence for too long, but does okay with what he's given, and Kristina Klebe turns up almost a third of the way into the movie, having to then spend the rest of the screentime repeating herself in a way that's very similar to Holm and Buzzington. 

There are one or two good ideas buried in here, particularly when it comes to the parallels/differences between military life and civilian life, and how some people will always feel inclined to stick with an identifiable chain of command, but they're buried deep by the time the end credits roll. Far too many moments amount to nothing of real substance, with a good majority of the runtime dedicated to the kind of tiresome circular arguments that are reminiscent of the worst conversations I have had on social media.

I like Geoghegan, and he at least deserves props for presenting something that certainly feels different from any other recent horror movies, but this just doesn't work. Not only that, but it pretty much wastes the talent of everyone onscreen. And there were a couple of easy tweaks that could have greatly improved things (Brooklyn 50, with more time elapsed between military life and reintegration into civilian life, for example, would have allowed for more interesting developments and tensions, in my opinion). Maybe Geoghegan the director needs someone helping Geoghegan the writer. Because everything looks good enough, but it's a fancy bit of paper and bow on an empty gift box.

4/10

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Two Witches (2021)

A confident feature debut from director Pierre Tsigaridis, benefiting from an interesting script by actress Kristina Klebe and first-timer Maxime Ransom, Two Witches is a real melting pot of everyday worries and supernatural scares. It is also two seemingly separate story strands that end up connecting and intertwining on the way to a final act that should please anyone who is a fan of, well, I won’t namecheck anything that should spoil the fun of the ending.

We start off by meeting Sarah (Belle Adams) and her partner, Simon (Ian Michaels). Sarah is pregnant, the couple are out enjoying a meal, and it quickly becomes clear that Simon is a bit inconsiderate. It also quickly becomes clear that Sarah is being stared at by an elderly woman in the restaurant. Does the woman have a problem with her, or is there something another reason for her staring so much? Sarah and Simon then go to visit their friends, Melissa (Dina Silva) and Dustin (Tim Fox), and the night goes from bad to worse. It’s then time to meet Rachel (Klebe) and her housemate, Masha (Rebekah Kennedy). Those two seem to get on alright, until Masha starts taking personal stories relayed to her by Rachel and passing them off as her on. And Masha suspects she is about to change, possibly inheriting the power of her witchy grandmother when granny passes away.

I wasn’t fully into Two Witches as the first main section played out. The nightmarish atmosphere, snapshots of random blood and viscera, and general confusion about what was really going on left me a bit removed from the events I was watching. Not that I hated it. I just didn’t invest in things while I wasn’t entirely sure of what was going on, or whether or not the people most affected were supposed to be deserving of their ordeal. The very end of that main segment clears things up a bit though, and the second part of the film has no such ambiguity, which helps make everything more entertaining, and it feels more fresh than a film that could have played coy for every minute of the runtime. Ambiguity isn’t a particularly bad thing, and horror movies have often kept viewers on their toes as they bleed in and out of reality and unreality, but Two Witches really steps up a gear when everything is overt and obvious, letting viewers sit and wait for other characters to catch on to the horror of their situation.

The film also steps up a gear as soon as Kennedy appears onscreen. She is the absolute highlight, giving a performance that is as gleeful as it is twisted and dangerous. Klebe works well alongside her, but she is left with the thankless task of being the rational person who just wants to continue having a peaceful and normal life. Silva and Fox are good, both bringing a bit more energy to their roles than Adams and Michaels, and their journey takes them slowly and believably from being fairly open-minded to starting to fear for their lives.

Tsigaridis also worked on the script with Klebe and Rancon, and the three do an excellent job. Despite my own reservations about the first part of the film, I am already looking forward to rewatching this. It’s smartly constructed, the visual style throughout is often gorgeous, and the score from Gioacchino Marincola is a perfect accompaniment to the modern gothic vibe of the whole thing.

I almost enjoyed this enough to attempt writing this review as a reworked version of the song “Two Princes”, by Spin Doctors. Then I realised that I actually enjoyed it enough to NOT do that. But the temptation was always there.

8/10

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Prime Time: Slay Belles (2018)

I wanted to like Slay Belles, I really did. It had so much to appeal to me, not least of which was the plucky nature of it. This is a film made with very limited resources by people who seem to want to just create something fun. Unfortunately, the fun doesn't really come across that well, and it ends up just being annoying and sloppy.

Three women (Alexi, Dahlia, and Sadie) are heading for a but of urban exploring at a neglected Santa Land venue, to record their antics and put them on the internet, when they cross paths with a dangerous Krampus. It's not looking good for them. On the plus side, however, they also end up crossing paths with Santa Claus. He just doesn't look quite as they imagined him to be.

Directed by Dan Walker, who also co-wrote the movie with Jessica Luhrssen, this is quite the little oddity. There are some fleeting moments of decent gore, and a fairly good Krampus creation, but it's not enough to satisfy those who are seeking a good bit of bloodshed and nastiness. There is humour, I guess, but none of it worked for me, and I cannot imagine many finding things hilarious (although it's all subjective, so who knows). The horror elements are never there for long enough to be effective, sandwiched in between the attempts at comedy, and therefore rendering them completely ineffective.

What you're left with is a film that is happy to be about nothing more than three attractive women in eye-pleasing costumes bickering with someone who doesn't look like Santa, while he proves he actually is Santa. If that sounds like a fun time to you then go for it. It quickly became tiresome for me, and the slim 77-minute runtime dragged.

Kristina Klebe, Susan Slaughter, and Hannah Wagner play the three leads. They're not great, but they do what they're asked to do for the sake of the silly plot. Barry Bostwick is more fun in the role of Santa. Diane Salinger is also fun, playing a bartender named Cherry, and Stephen Ford is amusingly ill-prepared as someone who may be able to help our leads. Richard Moll has a cameo, as does Darren Lynn Bousman, who is also an executive producer.

It seems to me that someone wanted to make a film, and they got just enough people and resources together to get it done, but didn't have enough imagination or wit to create a final product matching whatever was in their head. On the one hand, at least they got their movie made, and fair play to them for that. On the other hand, this is almost painful at times, and I would have much preferred to see something made with an even lower budget by someone with a better vision, approach, and style.

2/10

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