Well,
I’ve been on such a winning streak with low budget shot on video flicks
recently (see the next two reviews) I was bound to run across a
disappointment sooner or later. Sooner, it turns out. Don’t get me
wrong, ‘I’ll Bury You Tomorrow’ isn’t even close to the worst I’ve
seen. It just doesn’t grab me. I think the main reason is the pacing.
This is the kind of movie that should clock in right at 80 or 90
minutes, but at 2 hours there’s an awful lot of padding. It doesn’t
help that the editing is so static, either. I hate the super fast MTV
style cutting in so many modern films, but this is the other extreme. I
appreciate that it was probably due to budgetary constraints that almost
every scene is a master shot without any cutaways to close-ups or other
coverage, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s kind of boring to
watch.
The plot concerns one Dolores Finley (Zoe Daleman
Chlanda) who shows up in a small town looking for a job at a funeral
home. The owners of the home hire Dolores, in part because she bears a
striking resemblance to their dead daughter. Dolores seems to be a good
worker, but she has some skeletons in her closet, not to mention a few
bats in her belfry. There’s also a subplot about body snatching, and a
lot of soap opera type intrigue among the supporting characters. A
little bit of sex and violence livens things up, but this is more of a
story driven film. Unfortunately the story feels a little muddled and,
as mentioned before, the pacing is slow. Not awful, but I can’t really
recommend seeking this one out. (Bob Ignizio)
‘London
Voodoo’ reminds me a bit of the psychological urban horrors of Roman
Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, and doesn’t come off too bad in the
comparison. An American family moves to England for Lincoln’s (Doug Cockle)
job. Lincoln is consumed by his work, and wife Sarah (Sara Stewart) clearly
feels she and the couple’s young daughter are being neglected. While
cleaning out the basement of their new house, Sarah discovers a grave in the
floor. After her discovery, Sarah’s personality begins to change. Is she
possessed by the spirit of the voodoo priestess who was buried there, or is
she simply acting out her repressed feelings?
There isn’t much in the way of exploitation elements,
but ‘London Voodoo’ doesn’t need them. Familiar though the story may be,
writer/director Robert Pratten handles the material well and seems genuinely
invested in it. Characters in this kind of movie can often come across as
cardboard stereotypes, but here they’re fully fleshed human beings. Aside
from the two leads, ‘London Voodoo’ also has a fairly large supporting cast,
and everyone involved delivers an excellent performance. Although shot on
digital video, it doesn’t look like corners were cut anywhere else. If
you’re sick of all the teen horror flicks and have been dying for an
intelligent, adult horror movie with some substance, you should definitely
check this out. (Bob Ignizio)
It
has become sort of a mantra in some circles to say that cheap and easy
access to digital video cameras will enable filmmakers with little money
to realize their visions, and I think that’s true. It’s just that most
of those visions revolve around fart jokes and severed penis gags, and
usually involve horrible acting and even worse writing, editing, and
directing. And then every once in a while I come across a movie like
this, and my hope in the future of independent cinema is renewed.
First of all, ‘Machines of Love and Hate’ is about
as good in the technical aspects as is possible on an ultra low budget.
It’s shot well, the sound is mixed properly, the visual effects are
convincing, the editing professional, and the music effective. On top
of that, the acting is at least good, and in the case of female lead
Tina Krause, downright excellent. A couple actors seem like they’d be
more at home on a stage than in front of a movie camera, but for the
characters they play it kind of works.
As for the substance of the movie, it’s definitely
on the weird side. Erika (Tina Krause) accidentally hits a hitchhiker
(David Runco) suffering from partial amnesia. Erika takes the
hitchhiker home for some medical attention, and it soon becomes clear
that mom (Eileen Daly) and Dad (Roland Johnson) have some twisted
secrets that just might tie in with the hitchhiker’s past. It starts
out as sort of ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’ meets ‘Misery’ as
directed by David Lynch, and then takes a turn into H.P. Lovecraft
horror territory.
There is nudity, sex, and violence in this film,
but it’s not exploitative at all. This is a serious, complex film. At
times it might be a little too ambitious for it’s own good, but overall
I think director Joseph Prada succeeds in telling the story he wanted to
tell and conveying the themes and ideas he wanted to get across. I
wouldn’t say I loved this movie, but for the most part I enjoyed
it. It’s original and it kept my interest from start to finish.
That’s more than I can say for most Hollywood horror movies in the past
few years.
Well,
I’ve been on such a winning streak with low budget shot on video flicks
recently (see the next two reviews) I was bound to run across a
disappointment sooner or later. Sooner, it turns out. Don’t get me
wrong, ‘I’ll Bury You Tomorrow’ isn’t even close to the worst I’ve
seen. It just doesn’t grab me. I think the main reason is the pacing.
This is the kind of movie that should clock in right at 80 or 90
minutes, but at 2 hours there’s an awful lot of padding. It doesn’t
help that the editing is so static, either. I hate the super fast MTV
style cutting in so many modern films, but this is the other extreme. I
appreciate that it was probably due to budgetary constraints that almost
every scene is a master shot without any cutaways to close-ups or other
coverage, but it doesn’t change the fact that it’s kind of boring to
watch. 
‘London
Voodoo’ reminds me a bit of the psychological urban horrors of Roman
Polanski’s ‘Rosemary’s Baby’, and doesn’t come off too bad in the
comparison. An American family moves to England for Lincoln’s (Doug Cockle)
job. Lincoln is consumed by his work, and wife Sarah (Sara Stewart) clearly
feels she and the couple’s young daughter are being neglected. While
cleaning out the basement of their new house, Sarah discovers a grave in the
floor. After her discovery, Sarah’s personality begins to change. Is she
possessed by the spirit of the voodoo priestess who was buried there, or is
she simply acting out her repressed feelings? 
It
has become sort of a mantra in some circles to say that cheap and easy
access to digital video cameras will enable filmmakers with little money
to realize their visions, and I think that’s true. It’s just that most
of those visions revolve around fart jokes and severed penis gags, and
usually involve horrible acting and even worse writing, editing, and
directing. And then every once in a while I come across a movie like
this, and my hope in the future of independent cinema is renewed. 