A young couple travels to Chicago to help out some friends and catsit for ‘em. The opening shots of a woman’s hair blowing in the wind in slow motion and blood dripping in a bathroom as wind chimes blare on the soundtrack and a sinister voice hisses “remember” tells me that this catsitting adventure probably doesn’t end well. Quick flashes of ambulance lights, dialogue about evil houses and spirits and black and white shots of some wiener touching walls and looking around the interior in sunglasses lets me know we’re dealing with film school sensibilities and knowing plenty of Chicagoans who had me sit and watch their class projects… well, I’m not excited for what’s coming. Following that barrage of nothing is some screen text that advises us newlyweds Sam and Isabelle have come to a reportedly haunted house to watch a cat and we’re about to see what happened. It’s not found footage but that just means it’s awful visuals have no fucking excuse. Lake Michigan, ants, familiar streets, focusing issues, NUTS ON CLARK™️… I’m flashing back to nights of PBR and assurances that “this is the best movie I’ve made so far.” This is not reminiscing, this is a reminder of how many pretentious dopes I knew in my younger days. So, the couple arrives to find one of the cats dead. Not a great start. False scares and a bathroom I think I may have thrown up in leads to spooky noises and Isabelle staring at nothing in a kitchen I’ve definitely thrown up in as a thin dude in a plaid shirt pops up in the background to look at her menacingly. The next day this thin dude is seen walking back and forth from outside of the apartment. I think it’s him. He’s thin and wearing plaid so I think it’s him. He knocks on the door, trying to make his way into the house saying he needs to use the phone. Sam doesn’t let him. Intense music plays over Sam and Isabelle having a conversation about marriage during a walk. Why? I don’t fucking know. The text told us they were newlyweds but here Sam is complaining about them always talking about kids but never talking about getting married. Great attention to detail. The thin plaid man watches them. We watch them as they walk and talk. Intense music continues. Hilariously, the plaid man peaks out from behind a tree. I doubt it’s supposed to be as funny as I find it. Pot and booze is partook in and Isabelle has a vision of plaid guy stabbing her husband. Maybe? This leads to an overexposed shot of kids running, Sam walking by a fence, Sam stabbing plaid guy and saying “The monster is dead.”, Sam rambling on about staying alive and then saying the very high-school-angsty line of “Being awake is nightmare enough.”, Sam and Isabelle stuffing dead plaid guy in a bathtub and maybe time is no longer working as it should. Or it could just be a lack of experience complicating things. There’s still forty minutes left in this short film and I’m losing patience. After that batch of nonsensical stupidity ends, the grating Sam has Isabelle grab a camera so they can communicate with the spirit of the dead cat. The dumbest séance follows and if you don’t want to slap Sam right across his face by this point, you’re a better person than me. Isabelle tells a ghost story about a family cabin that rings true with how fucking boring it is. Sam tells a story too about a bus accident and it also bores. They go to bed and are creeped out for some reason and Sam freaks out Isabelle when he doesn’t remember saying that he’s psycho. There’s more flashes of violence. Unsettled by next to nothing at all, the duo of dopes decide to perform a cleansing ceremony… it leads to tragedy. I think. There’s still more that involves a curse and a virgin sacrifice or some bullshit. The cat, a cameo by an N64 console and the familiar architecture of youthful apartment living spaces save this from being the drizzling shits. Usually when some amateur horror flick is only an hour long, I can say “Well, if you cut out twenty or so minutes, you’d have a solid short flick” but here… here, this one just shouldn’t fucking exist. Writer/director/producer James Israel has not made a movie since this one, that was a good call.
No comments:
Post a Comment