Shudder Saturday: Holy Ghost People (2013)

Holy Ghost People is a film that I really wanted to like more. It's got a lot going for it, yet there's a sense of overfamiliarity that made it all feel a bit stale and unnecessary. Perhaps it will work better for people who haven't seen other movies in a slightly similar vein (from Winter's Bone to White Lightnin' to something like The Sacrament).

Directed by Mitchell Altieri, who is working once again with writer Phil Flores and actor Joe Egender, as well as some others who have had a hand in his previous movies (The Hamiltons and The Violent Kind probably being the best known originals, although the April Fool's Day remake is also on their CV), Holy Ghost People is certainly a further move away from the others movies he has made. It isn't a fun romp a la The Nightwatchmen, nor is it a grim bit of nastiness a la The Hamiltons.

Emma Greenwell plays Charlotte, a young woman who wants to find her missing sister, who seems to have vanished since joining a church community. Charlotte hires an ex-military man, Wayne (Brendan McCarthy), to help her and the two of them quickly get inside the community, attempting to make discreet enquiries while under the watchful eyes of other church members, as well as the charismatic leader, Bill (Egender).

It's a shame to criticise this movie too much, considering that it is generally well made and technically sound. It's not a bad movie, not by any means, but it's hard to figure out exactly what it wants to say. Because there must be something being said, considering that it doesn't work as more simplistic entertainment. Altieri could have chosen a number of roads to go down here, from outright horror to a down 'n' dirty action adventure, but decided to keep things quite grounded and low-key. It feels like a very collaborative final product, with the script being written by Altieri, Flores, Egender, and Kevin Artigue, and that is a good thing for the sense of realism, but doesn't help anything that isn't performance-based.

All three of the main cast members mentioned do excellent work, with Egender particularly effective in a role that requires someone who can mix charm and menace in equal measure. Greenwell and McCarthy are both easy to root for, and believably vulnerable at times, and they are the ones we watch, even in the scenes that push forward a few of the main supporting players (who are few and far between).

Although I usually say this about much stranger movies, Holy Ghost People is a film I just can't quite put my finger on. I am not sure who else will enjoy it, or how anyone else I know will react to it (love, hate, indifference). I am still fully processing it in my own mind. My final rating for the movie increased by the time I got to this final paragraph. Which says it all, I guess. This is a film that at least deserves your time. Whether you end up liking it or not is a different matter entirely.

6/10

You can buy the movie here.
Americans can buy it here.

The Hamiltons (2006)

Ah, The Butcher Brothers. The assumed name (their real names are Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores) clues you into the fact that these guys want to have fun and provide the goods for horror fans. The first movie I saw from them was the very enjoyable The Violent Kind and I then sat through their surprisingly tame remake of April Fool's Day. The Hamiltons is one the movie that, essentially, game them their big break. Directed by the boys, and co-written with Adam Weis, it made quite an impact while doing the rounds at numerous horror festivals and therefore I was expecting something pretty good when I finally got around to sticking the DVD into my player.

It WAS good but it's not something that I'd rave about or quickly recommend to others. The Hamiltons is all about a family unit fending for itself after the parents have passed away. David (Samuel Child) tries to play the father of the group while young Francis (Cory Knauf) does the typical, troubled teenager act. Twins Wendell (Joseph McKelheer) and Darlene (Mackenzie Firgens) don't help to keep things in a state of domestic bliss either, especially when they get carried away and kill people. Oh yeah, The Hamiltons have quite a big secret. They kill people, sometimes quickly and sometimes slowly. Are they a bunch of psychopaths or is there any method in their madness? It would seem to be the former but things aren't always what they seem.

It's hard to see exactly why so many people raved about this movie a few years ago. There is some nastiness shown onscreen, the dysfunctional family provides as much black humour as tension and there is one decent twist that makes everything feel a bit fresher than it actually is but it's not quite enough to make it into a fantastic entry into the horror genre.

First of all, the acting is a real mixed bag. Cory Knauf does well and I also enjoyed the exchanges between McKelheer and Firgens but Samuel Child is a bit of a weak link and one or two of the supporting players, such as Al Liner, stick out due to their inability to act naturally. Brittany Daniel is onscreen for a few minutes so that gets the film a bonus point right there (I'm a fan, so sue me).

Then we've got the script. It's okay, I suppose, but it doesn't really have one line that sticks in the memory after the credits have rolled. Not one.

The direction is competent and the material is well-handled but it's nothing, for the most part, that we haven't seen a hundred times before. A psycho family who have some victims chained up on their premises and are trying to deal with neighbours and visitors in a pleasant and civil manner while cracks are appearing in their thin facades? It makes up at least one scene in every psycho thriller out there and to be really effective nowadays it has to be played out with maximum tension or maximum nastiness. The Hamiltons does neither, which is why it ends up as a film that just rises above average. I almost rated it lower but The Butcher Brothers always seem to have good intentions so I am always willing to give them a little bit of leeway.

6/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Hamiltons-DVD-Cory-Knauf/dp/B000PY51Y6/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1349130831&sr=8-1

April Fool's Day (2008)

If you're going to do a remake then this is the way to go about it. For starters, the original movie wasn't exactly a perfect film and it wasn't exactly universally loved. Getting some bright young things in front of the camera to be put in danger is a given but it's a plus when you get someone behind the camera like Mitchell Altieri and Phil Flores (AKA The Butcher Brothers). The two men have already done some good stuff in the horror genre so I lift my hopes slightly when I see them attached to a project.

Taking the screenplay by Danilo Bach as a loose template (there are easy points of reference for those who have seen the original movie but this is also different enough to feel like quite a different beast), The Butcher Brothers also engage the help of Mikey Wigart in crafting something that's slick and disappointingly bloodless and amusingly ludicrous.

A prank goes horribly wrong and those involved find themselves threatened some time later. That's all you need to know. Yes, it's a mix of I Know What You Did Last Summer and the original April Fool's Day and Valentine. I don't care what you think of me, I LIKED those movies. I didn't love them but I liked them. Despite strong disapproval from almost everyone I know I actually really like Valentine (just such a great mix of old school slasher style and post-90210 teen sheen) so there you have my position on such glossy fare, for what it's worth.

April Fool's Day has some fun moments, and the cast has a couple of decent starlets in the shape of Scout Taylor-Compton and Taylor Cole, but it's all just a bit too bland to be solidly entertaining. The fact that it comes from The Butcher Brothers makes the tame nature of the movie even more of a disappointment and it's not helped by the rest of the cast - Josh Henderson, Joe Egender, Jennifer Siebel Newsom, Samuel Child, etc - looking as if they have wandered in from the set of Cruel Intentions 5 or The Skulls 6 (both of which are sequels that I'm well aware don't exist . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . yet).

I wouldn't go out of my way to see this again, and I certainly wouldn't rush out to buy it, but if it was on I could manage to sit through some of it. And if I see it anywhere at a bargain price I may well just have to buy it to satisfy my DVD-buying addiction.

5/10

http://www.amazon.co.uk/April-Fools-Day-Scout-Taylor-Compton/dp/B0012OTRWA/ref=sr_1_2?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1342638801&sr=1-2