FIVE FILMS - THE EDITOR, DARK WAS THE NIGHT, SOME KIND OF HATE, FELT, THE OVERNIGHT

THE EDITOR

This overdone Giallo parody (and I think that word fits better here than homage) is filled with gore, nudity, bad jokes and bad dubbing. It is energetic, highly stylized, and painstakingly aimed for a 70's Italian grindhouse look. The verdict is it's very entertaining (although all logic goes out the window at the end) but might have been more entertaining if they dialed it down a bit. It's almost too much at times. There is such a thing in film making as trying too hard.

                                              

DARK WAS THE NIGHT

Mature, old fashioned creature feature that errs on the side of caution too much by taking very long time to reveal the monster and spending much of the rest of the time on character development. The creature is decent looking, a combination of CGI and a man in a costume. The tension is diluted by too much time spent on human drama. There should have been more attacks by the monster in the beginning. I salute what the filmmaker is doing but the exciting last 20 minutes doesn't make up for the dullness of earlier parts. 

SOME KIND OF HATE

The beginning feels like a student film so by the numbers predictable and poorly shot it is however once the action turns from a bullied teen who is sent to a camp where he finds further bullying to the vengeful spirit of a teenage girl he accidentally summons things improve. The spirit's gross, bloody,creepy look coupled with the truly painful way it kills people (cuts itself with a razor and the wounds appear on the intended target) is the big draw. In that way it reminds me of 80's slasher films with the Freddys and Jasons as big stars although everything else about this film is poor. I would like to see Moira the ghost get a sequel where she kills more kids but hopefully with a higher budget.
 

FELT

Feminist agit-prop that is quirky enough to be interesting but two points 1.) The main character is deeply annoying and weird, so much in fact that any sympathy one might feel for her condition is undercut by this 2.) The viewer might have had a deeper understanding of her final violent act if the script had revealed what exactly had happened to her rather than just general statements complaining about male patriarchy and rape culture. I did like the film's original look and the heroine's artistic self-created environment but a lot of it was just uncomfortable (which was probably the point) and the end violence horror-movie style, what leads to it, as I mentioned before, is not set-up enough in advance.

                                                   

THE OVERNIGHT

Combining hipster affectations with 1970's type swinging couples plot developments and throwing in SNL type humor, this film wanders in and out of interest throwing in the occasional nude scene or gross joke to keep the audience's attention. Not in any way memorable. The ending was a cop-out.