Shudder Saturday: Blood Relatives (2022)

Written and directed by Noah Segan, who also stars in the lead role, Blood Relatives is a comedy/horror/drama with the emphasis much more on the drama than anything else. There are a couple of bloody moments, but the focus is kept on a central father-daughter relationship, two people getting used to one another, and figuring out how best to live their lives together.

Segan is Francis, a wandering vampire who has one constant in his life: his car. He is, in the way of so many other "good" cinematic vampires, fussy about who he drinks blood from, seeming to target those who are, well, let's just say they're not the nicest people in the world. That can cover a wide range though, from criminals to those who close their business 5 minutes early and stop Francis from picking up an essential car part. Things change when Jane (Victoria Moroles) comes along though. Jane claims to be the daughter of Francis. She has the fangs. She has an aversion to bright sunlight. And she likes her meat very rare. She needs guidance though, and Francis doesn't think he is the right person to give that.

Having made his way behind the camera previously with his segment in Scare Package, Segan now seems to have found the right way to make his full feature debut. I think I agree with his choices here. Although far from perfect, Blood Relatives is a good way to use some genre trappings in a way that doesn't constrain him too much. The whole thing generally looks nice, especially when you consider the relative low budget (I assume), and the father-daughter relationship is played beautifully between the two leads, staying away from many of the more obvious gags that must have been up for consideration.

That's what may ultimately disappoint some viewers though. This isn't interested in keeping you laughing, nor is it interested in spraying blood all over the place. The humour tends to come from the family dynamic being given a vampiric twist, and the very occasional moments of gore underline the "growing pains" of Jane. I enjoyed the fact that this was mostly a film about a father and daughter learning how to share the same space.

As an actor, Segan has been someone I have enjoyed onscreen now for almost 20 years (I believe I first took note of him in Brick). He's consistently interesting, a great screen presence, and his performance here is in line with everything else he's done. Moroles isn't someone I have seen in anything else, but she's equally good here, arguably helped by the fact that almost all of her scenes have her alongside Segan while the two bond/fight/live together. The film often feels like a two-hander, but there are also very good supporting turns from Akasha Villalobos, who is involved in an amusingly surprising scene, C. L. Simpson, who gives a bit of exposition and clarification, and both Ammie Masterson and Tracie Thoms appear to offer advice from different perspectives.

There's no major highlight, and nothing here that makes it feel unmissable, but that doesn't mean you should immediately dismiss it. Blood Relatives is well-made, it tries to mix a number of familiar elements into something that feels a bit more original, and it gets in and out in just under 90 minutes. The third act being the weakest part doesn't help, but I still tentatively recommend it, especially to anyone who likes Segan as much as I do.

6/10

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Shudder Saturday: Follow (2015)

The feature film debut from writer-director Owen Egerton (who followed this up with the more enjoyable, but not necessarily better, Blood Fest), Follow is a small-scale thriller that uses that enjoyable trope of someone waking up next to a dead body without remembering how the fatality happened. It definitely won't be for everyone, basically mixing some elements of American Psycho with Les Diaboliques, but it's certainly worth watching. I'd like to think that more people end up enjoying it than not.

Noah Segan plays Quinn, a young man who appears to be very much in love with his girlfriend, Thana (Olivia Grace Applegate). But Quinn is set to move to a big city, something Thana isn’t comfortable with. She gets Quinn a very unusual Christmas gift, strangely trying to illustrate the solidity and trust in their relationship. It’s a gun. And she wants Quinn to put it in his mouth and pull the trigger. Is it loaded? It certainly seems that way when Quinn wakes up alongside Thana’s corpse. Will Quinn remember what happened? Will he sort things out? Will people stop visiting the house?

Although I cannot tell if it is intentional or not, Egerton seems to be having a lot of fun with a literal manifestation of your partner asking a loaded question. The two main characters here seem to have spent some time ignoring cracks that should have been dealt with sooner, particularly when it comes to the upcoming relocation of Quinn. And then there's his close friendship with Viv (Haley Lu Richardson), a young woman who works alongside him at his bar job. Those things don't always lead to the insanity that we see unfold here, but I think that Egerton liked the idea of taking very relatable moments from relationships and using them to take his characters to a place that none of us would want to visit. Setting it at Christmas, although it's not a focus of the film, also underlines a key concept being played with, the couples who plaster a grin on their faces and act as if everything is just fine and dandy while getting through major family events (such as . . . Christmas).

I like Segan as an actor, and he excels at somehow managing to keep you on board even while playing some repugnant characters. He's fantastic here, the role feeling quite tailor-made to play to his strengths and give him a bit of a showcase. Applegate and Richardson are also cast very well, with both given some interesting moments throughout. Although there's a very small cast, most of the main players earn their screentime. And it was a pleasure to see Don Most in a very small role.

Not only does this film do a great job with fairly limited resources, it's one that would reveal more with one or two rewatches. There's a lot to take in here, from the sly humour and metaphors running throughout it to the ambiguous development of scenes that show Segan's character trying desperately to keep a grasp on a reality that is becoming increasingly slippy. I liked this, certainly enough to recommend it to others, but I suspect I could grow to like it even more if I make room in my busy viewing schedule to watch it again.

7/10

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Shudder Saturday: The Pale Door (2020)

The sophomore directorial feature from director Aaron B. Koontz, who has spent some time honing his craft with numerous shorts, including his segments in the mixed bag horror comedy anthology that is Scare Package, The Pale Door has a number of big names attached to draw horror movie fans to it. From producer Joe R. Lansdale to cast members Pat Healy and Noah Segan, there are plenty of names to prick up your ears. But try to ignore your ears.  This is not a terrible film, far from it, but it's nowhere near as good as it could be.

The plot is simple enough. An outlaw gang (headed up by Duncan) are planning a profitable train robbery. But when one of the gang loses out in a shoot-out, Duncan is reluctantly persuaded to use his younger brother, Jake. The robbery doesn't get too messy, but it turns out that the treasure being transported is a young woman named Pearl. Pearl convinces the gang to take her home, where they will receive a warm welcome and a reward. They'll receive a lot more than that, considering her town houses a multitude of dangerous creatures.

The biggest problem with the first half of The Pale Door is that it feels as if it is retreading material we already saw executed so well in Dead Birds. Unfortunately, the problem with the second half is that it becomes so predictable and dull that you wish it would get back to trying to emulate Dead Birds. The problem seems to lie with the script, co-written by Koontz with Cameron Burns and Keith Lansdale. The cast do what they can, but they're weighed down by the obviousness of the plotting, and also the moments that Koontz decides to drag out for what seems an interminably long time (seriously, the final scenes in this movie feel like they add half an hour to the whole bloody thing).

Knighton is good as Duncan, Devin Druid is your typical reluctant kid acting tough, and does well, and Bill Sage is a central part of the outlaw gang, and someone always willing to do whatever needs to be done to save their own skin. Stan Shaw and Pat Healy do solid work, Noah Segan is underused, as is everyone else playing a gang member. Natasha Bassett does well with her wide-eyed innocent character who we know has some dark secret to her character, and Melora Walters is a highlight as Maria, a matriarchal figure in the town who is very open about her true intentions quite early on in the proceedings.

There are some good little touches throughout (figures scrabbling across walls and ceilings to attack the main characters, a sequence involving people being manipulated while they try to stay sheltered in a small church), but not enough to keep things enjoyably varied. Once things go from relative normality to bullets vs. evil denizens then it all turns a bit dull. The editing could have been sharper, and maybe having so much happen in the space of 5-10 minutes in the middle of the film wasn't the best decision. Drawing things out a bit more, in the right ways, would have helped, while other scenes would benefit from being trimmed, or excised completely.

5/10

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Shudder Saturday: Scare Package (2019)

An anthology film that wants to revel in a sense of fun, and layers of meta self-awareness, Scare Package is, much like so many other anthology movies, inconsistent fun throughout. It's full of over the top gore and gloopiness, but it may pile things on a bit too thick for those who tire of it within the opening scenes.

There are two framing narratives, essentially. One involves characters who are a bit tired of having the same thankless roles in horror movie narratives. The other, and the one that continues to thread more throughout each tale, involves Chad (Jeremy King) talking over the genre rules with the newest employee, Hawn (Hawn Tran) in his videostore. I'm not going to detail every individual story, but most of them revolve around general skewering of very familiar tropes.

Despite the fact that it has a decent coating of technical proficiency, and that includes a talented cast all joining in with the fun, Scare Package is a hard one to really love. First of all, it's difficult to really decide whether or not it's being affectionate and knowledgeable, or whether it's concentrating on trying to be too smart for it's own good. Second, the separate tales feel far too close to one another, in terms of the ground they cover. They're all about the established rules, and focus on highlighting the ridiculousness of elements that we all take for granted, especially in slasher movies (which make up the majority of the runtime here).

On the other hand, considering how many different people are involved here, in both the direction and the writing I ended up counting about a dozen names, it's actually impressive that this manages to feel so silly and entertaining throughout, while also not feeling like any of those anthology movies created by making a patchwork of unrelated shorts. Aaron B. Koontz is responsible for the majority of the content, in terms of the framing device and a final tale, and he does a good job, but I'll also single out the sheer insanity of the segment "One Time In The Woods", written and directed by Chris McInroy, as a real highlight.

The biggest name onscreen is Noah Segan, and he seems out of place until you realise that he also co-wrote and directed his segment, which is a good way to get someone on board with an anthology movie. King and Tran are fun in their roles, but there's nobody here standing out for the wrong reasons. Mind you, fans of Joe Bob Briggs will also be delighted to see him appear in a cameo role.

I think, overall, Scare Package just drags itself down by being so unrelenting in the way it keeps insisting on unsubtly pointing out every single horror movie trope being made fun of. I would have liked some of the tales here to perhaps play out in a more straightforward manner, with the punchline then revealing a fun rug pull (a la The Babysitter Murders), but instead it feels like a bit of an assault on the senses from people shouting "it's META, get it?" for the duration of the whole film.

6/10

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Bonus Review: Starry Eyes (2014)

Starry Eyes is a smart, disturbing horror movie that cuts away a layer of plastic coating to show the flesh and bone of wannabe stars. That flesh and bone can be, more often than not, dead and broken, but it's still there. It still makes up part of a business constructed on hopes, chance, exploitation, entitlement, and vanity. Not ALL of it is that way, but most of it is.

Alex Essoe is the young woman who keeps trying to battle her way through her dayjob, while simultaneously looking for that big break into the movie business. She ends up auditioning for a breakthrough role with a couple of people who insist on pushing her way beyond her comfort zone. As the process moves further along, things get stranger and stranger. But it IS a great part.

Playing out like a cross between "Son Of Celluloid" (from the incomparable Books Of Blood, written by Clive Barker), Mulholland Dr. and any number of Cronenberg movies, Starry Eyes is a bold movie that won't be for everyone. Thankfully, those who like it should REALLY like it.

Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer share both the writing and directing duties, which allows them to give each other a pat on the back. There may be moments of surreal madness here and there, especially in the third act, but it's all held together by a sharp script, one that constantly delivers seemingly innocent lines of dialogue all coated in a thing film of venom.

But that script would be nothing without the capable talents of the main performers, who help to clarify the meaning of each sentence, and even each word, uttered. Their body language turns almost every compliment upside down, and makes every innocent question an exploratory probe for anything that can be exploited. Essoe is the centrepiece, of course, and gives the kind of brilliant, brave performance that the film deserves. Pat Healy and Noah Segan both do fine with supporting roles. Both actors probably rank as the most recognisable faces in the cast, and both are given one or two great scenes apiece. Maria Olsen and Marc Senter are suitably off-kilter as the people looking to cast a movie, and Louis Dezseran is slightly creepy and able to make your skin crawl even as he flashes his showbiz grin and attempts to convince Essoe's character that he can help her out if he knows that she's willing to go further than anyone else. Amanda Fuller, Fabianne Therese, Shane Coffey, Natalie Castillo, and Nick Simmons flesh out the cast, all portraying young hopefuls who want to break into the world of movies, but hopefully on their own terms.

Add the moody score by Jonathan Snipes, impressive work on every technical aspect (from cinematography to editing to lighting, etc.), and an ending that manages to leave you thinking about everything without also becoming frustrated, and you have something pretty special. In fact, it's my new favourite horror of the year, and I highly recommend it to all genre fans who are willing to try something a bit different from the norm.

9/10

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