Greetings & Salutations Fellow Movie Fanatics
Over the last 3 years, I’ve seen several attempts at rejuvenating the thriller genre of mystery and horror films which seemed to die down after the late 80s for the most part. A good number of the recent successful examples of this have been independent or low-budget films. Today’s film for your consideration is the 2015 film ‘The Horror’.
Directed by Jerry J White III who co-wrote and produced the film with Raymond Creamer and Sarah Carman, ‘The Horror’ stars Callie Ott, Ellie Cecala, Raymond Creamer, Cory Colman, Schell M. Peterson, Lexi Moeller, Chris Oliver, Gary Crites, Bridget Mulcahy, and Kayla Nocera.
It has been a year since the death of Isabel’s (Ott) parents and and the events surrounding a weekend trip to her family’s vacation house. The previous year Isabel and her twin brother Malcolm (Creamer) had taken a trip with two friends to the Rademacher family home to close it up before the onset of winter. Still coming to terms with the lose of their parents in a horrific car crash, the twin siblings retreat into the surrounding wilderness abandoning their friends only to later come home to an empty house. Their isolation is short-lived however when on their first night in the house, they are attacked by two unknown assailants wearing gas masks. As one of the intruders corners Isabel, Malcolm kills him in self defense leaving the other to slip away into the cold Michigan night. Returning to present day, Isabel is attempting to put her life back on track and repair a strained relationship with her boyfriend who one day wants to marry her. Meanwhile, Malcolm has changed. It’s not just about the death of their parents anymore. He’s become obsessed with the events that happened that night. He now lives at the family vacation home and spends all his time digging holes in the ice of a nearby lake searching for the other assailant or any trace that places the masked individual at the scene. Isabel now fears her own brother despite his claims that he wants to protect her. She senses something dark, something sinister inside him. Something that inspires more fear than perhaps the intruder that got away that night.
There is a definite ‘psychological’ aspect the comes into play throughout the film. Based on the idea of how intense trauma affects an individual. When people endure the lose of a loved one or become the victim of a violation whether it be a physical attack or the intrusion into another person’s home, it obviously has a traumatic effect on the victim. Sometimes they retreat into ‘their own world’. Other times, they’ll commit more time and intensity to relationships they might have neglected or otherwise taken for granted. There are also those rare occasions when a victim will go to extremes to protect their loved ones and in such a state of mind might harm them believing it to actually be in the best interest of those whom they are devoted to. This film touches on some of those aspects over the course of story. The film seemed to drag on a bit especially during the scenes depicting the drive to the vacation house as well as those depicting Malcolm’s actions in the aftermath of the break-in however I do believe this was necessary to show his mindset in the movie and the mood which it was trying to convey to the audience. There were some things I had hoped the movie would explore further like the relationships that each of the twins, Isabel and Malcolm, had with the friends they had invited along on the trip as well as the supposed origin of the assailants and their true intentions. The dialogue between the twins and their friends during the original journey to the Rademacher vacation house wasn’t exactly funny either. I was expecting more ‘well written sarcasm’ to be honest. I thought much was left unresolved at the end as well. I wished they’d gone so far as to depict the ultimate fates of Isabel and Malcolm. The film is NOT without merit though and is indeed worth watching. It’s most definitely a ‘thinking person’s mystery thriller’. Out of 5 stars I’m going to go ahead in give it 3 stars. It’ll be available is a digital download on April 1st. Check it out on a day off and watch it late at night with the lights off.
This is your friendly neighborhood freelance photographer ‘The CameraMan’ and on behalf of my fellows at ‘Skewed & Reviewed’, i’d like to say thanks for reading and we’ll see you at the movies.
