Phil Messerer’s Thicker Than Water: The Vampire Diaries Part 1, is realistic stab at the vampire genre that has become the hot item as of late with TV shows, books, and that Twilight fanaticism that seems to permeate from every junior high in America. Yet, Messerer breaks from the traditional way of looking at vampires and integrates his own lore in creating a neat indie film that is running through festivals at a blazing pace bringing in praise and teasing fans with sequels.

The film firmly establishes vampires as a species, similar in the way Underworld established vampires and lycans as offshoots of the same bloodline, but the core values of vampire lore are firmly in place, no sunlight, need blood, have super strength, etc. Everything a life of watching Whedon-created TV shows and Marvel comic books have established as the way things should be is here.

The story focuses on a small town family, the Baxters, who at one time may have lived the perfect life with three kids, a happy little home in a happy little town. Twin sisters are the film’s focus, Helen (Devon Dionne) is the lovable, likable one with guys clamoring over her and generally making fun at her cemetery loving, Anne Rice stalking sister Lara (Eilis Cahill). One morning Helen wakes up profusely bleeding out the nose, after only a few hours she’s dead, and after a few more she’s back at the front door, complete with a body bag and a host of questions on just what the hell is going on.

There’s a lot going on in this little indie especially in the fresh take on vampires in general. While the genre is nothing new, and was nearly killed as the films got more and more aggressive in the way they changed the mythology, Thicker Than Water has a clear direction on where its going, although that sort of tapers off at the end. When Helen initially returns and the remaining, living, family members are debating what to do, the possibility of abducting townsfolk and tourists comes up surprisingly fast and Mom’s (Jo Jo Hristova) explanation of doing what ever it takes not to lose what she’s already lost before is completely ridiculous. It would have been a lot deeper for everyone, even Helen, to take a look at the moral implications and debate what they were doing; instead the family goes from slightly dysfunctional to homicidal in no time flat, Charlie Manson would be instantly impressed.

Still this is a missed opportunity in the script to really dig deeper into the ethics of the family, you have a hard time believing that a deeply religious mother would suddenly be okay with her son coming out of the closet and dismembering a body, all before dinner. There’s also a certain level of absurdity when other vampires finally seek out Helen and show up in eighteenth century blouses and wigs, something tells me that strolling through a New England town, especially a small one, would turn a few heads. But you could attribute this to the movie’s overarching, Army-of-Darkness-like B-movie feel that oozes campiness from every pore start to finish. It’s the take no prisoners, and make no qualms about it attitude by the director that makes these shortcoming feel like an organic part of the picture, like the film would be worse off without its faults.

Messerer takes on a lot, here editing, writing, directing, et al. While the editing is generally tight, there are some overused shots and wonky camera angles that are almost too, “I have a camera, where can I stick it to give me a kick-ass shot.” The use of time-lapse could have probably been cut in half the shots it was used, it’s a great effect in certain cases but it usually wears out its welcome pretty quickly because its breaking you away from the story in a way. Still, the general cinematic direction is excellent and the inter-spliced story of the first vampire escaping and rampaging Mayan civilization is excellent and just as intriguing as the film, especially when you start to think about how its all connected.

There’s a lot to see and take in with Thicker Than Water, and while there are some growing pains for a first time director, its also a learning process, something that should make the sequel even better and hopefully pick up more awards and more notice from the powers that be in the industry and maybe take Thicker Than Water to the next step. Even if that never happens, anyone with the opportunity to see this independent feature at a festival near you should take up the opportunity and enjoy themselves.

For more information on the film, check out www.bloodjunky.com.

Mark Lewis’ Baystate Blues is subtitled “An Intimate Epic” and however you feel about the christening of an epic, or the definition of the word, unfortunately this full length debut for the director is a disappointment for a number of reasons.

Baystate Blues is the tale of one day in the life of a couple, Mike (Scott Lewis) and Devon (Allyson Sereboff), six months removed from a horrific accident that left Devon mentally and physically scared. Her struggle to regain composure in her relationship and everything else in her life is the primary focus of the film; however ample time is given to her two sisters, Virginia (Sharon Maguire) and Alex (Steffi Kammer) and how they intertwine with the plot. There’s a subplot about Virginia and her attempts to reconcile and rekindle a past relationship with Jason (Joe Tuttle), but at its core the movie is really about the struggles of Mike and Devon.

The main problem is that, with such a small cast of characters, it’s nearly impossible to find one to identify with or really find attractive as a person. Devon, even though suffering Post-Traumatic Stress, comes off as whiny and annoying throughout the entire feature, and while this may be intentional, the film’s ending with her regaining clarity on her life is both open-ended and too little, too late for the audience’s relationship with the character. Her sisters present themselves as the 2D caricatures of the tough-on-the-outside but emotional-on-the-inside female who goes from hating men to accepting marriage by the end of 89 minutes, and the flighty, quirky sibling is involved in one of the movie’s most oft-putting plot twists. It isn’t like you don’t see the adulterous revelations at the end of the film coming, but you almost hoped it didn’t happen as it does no real service to the characters or the film as a whole.

Lewis’ script just doesn’t paint anything new on this canvas as the plot is slow at times and awkward dialog and an extremely long shoot at a stone church during one of Mike’s normal working days just make the film drag on rather than build up the suspense or drama towards a suitable conclusion. As mentioned before, the climax itself is left so open ended that it almost does a disservice to the viewer not knowing how things turn out but by now you’ve lost all hope for the characters.

On the technical side of things Lewis maintains a rather static camera on the action, even during a mid-film and ending musical montage to progress things along. The montages themselves are done well and the chosen scenery, like the aforementioned church, is beautiful to look at and shoot around.

While this “epic” does tighten things up towards the end of the film, with its driveway fight club and the needless will-they-won’t-they questions, the preceding hour just did so much to muddle and drag the audience along that they just might not care anymore. This all comes down to the characters and how hard they are to follow and identify with, with roughly half a dozen interacting there just needs to be something unique, different, and most importantly, likeable, about them for a viewer to show any attachment and emotion as they make some of the biggest choices in their lives.

Hungarian director Attila Szasz’s Now You See Me, Now You Don’t is a harrowing, supernaturally-infused short film that grasps you by the mind and never lets you go through its 30 minute runtime. All aspects of the film come together in such a coherent, cohesive, collective package that you almost need to take a step back and realize that this was a low-budget independent film, these types of films aren’t suppose to be this good, are they?

The most notable aspect of the entire product is Szasz’s flair for the cinematic. The cinematography is excellent throughout with an overhead rain scene rivaling the much-ballyhooed kin in The Matrix Revolutions. The camera work is smooth with lots of close up shots, slightly out of focus long shots, and effective use of lighting and blocking to create something so clean. The signature shot is that of silhouettes being used from a long shot.

The story itself features only three characters, a mother (Dora Letay), a father (Erno Fekete), and a son, Alex (Vitez Abraham), and through the running of the film it becomes more and more obvious that there is something else going on behind what the audience has been shown.

While keeping the review as spoiler free as possible, the final heart-wrenching and powerful revelation at the film’s climax will have you close to tears as you reexamine previous scenes for clues. Even relating it to other films will give away the more exciting portions of this revelation, so let’s leave it as a surprise.

Now You See Me, Now You Don’t is a powerful feature film fitted into the shoe of a low budget indie. While the story as a whole isn’t as developed as you would get from a full length project, it does everything right in getting its point across while simultaneously pulling in and pulling at the audience in its gripping finale.

Crime dramas are big today, so it’s no surprise that we see a lot of independents jump into the fray and produce gritty, seedy films with sex, drugs, guns and violence. The Yuzzi Brother’s attempt with Vegasland is valiant, but unfortunately needs a lot of work in the script and acting.

Vegasland follows bookie and gambler Eddie G., who gets roped into an underworld involving a cop hell bent on killing anything in site in order to get a tape of an underground fight that could spell trouble.

Whenever I review a low budget independent, I always take into account resources when evaluating the final product, to see how much was done with…well, how much. The problem here is that for a film like this that can’t afford a lot of effects, it needs a tight script and great acting talent, both of which are unfortunately weak here. The story itself is fine, but the scenes in the film feel more like a hodgepodge that don’t do anything to really build on the characters that are introduced. It seems almost as if the scenes are simply a means to and end.

Some of the scenes are notable though, including one where Eddie, seeing what amounts to his best chance to escape, trying to get a jammed gun to work. At first I thought he just didn’t know how to operate the gun, and so that humor lent itself to the frustration and sense of tension the scene had built.

The acting in the film lacked, and that is the one thing the movie could have had going for it if enough time was given to a casting search for the more crucial roles (yes even films on no budget can get people that have talent that work for peanuts, or less). Ernell Manabat does a passable job in the lead, having some great sparks of performance here and there, but it’s actually in some of the supporting cast members with almost no screen time that we see the best performances. Most notable are Rusty Meyers as Councilman Lance Eliason and Chuck Prater as Snakes who do outstanding jobs, and are quite believable in their roles.

Other notable plusses to the film are the quality of the cinematography and the sheer length of the film they were able to lay down on a shoe string budget. It’s not often you can find this kind of dedication to a project that transcends the almighty dollar, so it is really nice to see it all come together.

All in all I would say the film is a decent effort, and while it has some flaws that probably mean it won’t be winning any awards, it’s a fun change of pace to see a big budget movie style done independently.

It isn’t often that a film with a title akin to I F*cking Hate You could be described as heart warming or touching, but this strong independent by SABI Pictures manages to fit its way into those categories.

Ron (played painfully well by John T. Woods), in a last ditch effort to get across his feelings to the woman he loved/loves, Carol (Marion Kerr, who is delightful in the role), tries to touch her through the medium of song…albeit one of the strangest and yet catchy original tunes I’ve heard in a film in a long while.

The description of the film is a “radical collaboration” between the actors and crew, with improvisation being the key ingredient.  I must admit when I heard this film was an improv heavy independent, I grimaced.  To me that usually translates into “10 minute mess of artistic projectile vomit”.  Little did I know that this film had REALLY talented folks working on it.

First off, not enough can be said about John T. Woods and Marion Kerr.  They prove that with just a concept of scene and character, the lines that are meant to drive the scene will be there, waiting to get plucked out of the air.  The cinematography was likewise intuitive, and Matt Garrett and Addison Brock III deserve a lot of credit for being able to take a project like this and capture it as well as they did, with a sort of odd mix of detachment and intimacy.  All this coming together like it did means Director Zak Forsman, also deserves a hearty pat on the back.  This cast and crew must have run a tight ship to take a daring concept like full improvisational collaboration and turn it into something that wasn’t just watchable, but enjoyable.

If I had any criticism for the project it would have maybe been to get the action started quicker.  With only 10 minutes to work with, there’s almost a full minute it seems of nothing but establishing, and while I understood why it worked for the character of Ron, the few shots of Carol were a little hazy and confusing. 

This is of course a trivial criticism.  The main points to remember when seeing this film (and I recommend people take a good look at this picture) are great humor balancing touching sentiment, a song with “I fucking hate you” as a lyric, and a Zoltar mug as the story’s lynchpin.  It doesn’t get much better than that.

The appropriately titled horror compilation, The Horror Vault, is a collection of nine short stories all relating to, in some way or another, the depravity of human nature and the psyche. This independent film, the first volume in a three volume series, really tries to enter the upper echelon of indie films with a focus on the tried and true stories that have worked in horror for nearly the last 100 years, but the film ends up tripping over itself with an overly ambitious reach, clunky dialog, and very inconsistent stories that range from mediocre to not-quite-there.

To be fair, one must realize the budget and technical availability of tools to create movies; this is considered in this review as one doesn’t expect Academy Award winning quality from a movie shot on a person’s free time and extra cash. Still after a quality year of independent cinema, The Horror Vault just isn’t able to grab your attention like it should.

When John Met Julia
A contemporary retelling of the Romeo and Juliet story, the short film almost tries too hard to tell the audience, this isn’t your normal film, and this isn’t your normal adaptation of a classic work. As the film progresses you’re left wondering what exactly is going on (a common theme throughout all nine films) until it ultimately ends with a final reveal that, in the spirit of the story makes some sense, but you’re more likely to be confused rather than awed. Wild inconsistencies and technical goofs (such as a car being turned off, then magically on again in the next scene) certainly break the audience away. While admirable camera placement and movement along with some stylized scene transitions give this piece a technical achievement missing from most of the other segments, the awkward, and sometimes just plain bad dialog really hampers any momentum this story has going for it.

Delusion
From the start this Hitchcockian throwback has a lot going for it visually speaking. The black & white noir style is a sharp contrast to the first film in the anthology and its costume and set pieces also work out well. The cinematography is probably the strongest of any of the nine segments, however, again, the story makes little to no sense, and while you can extrapolate the general gist of it from the characters’ dialog, the ending aims for a twist and really just leaves the audience throwing up their arms in frustration.

Alone
From the onset Alone is nearly unwatchable with the main character’s inner voice present for all to hear. Again, it isn’t the device, but the writing that hampers this aspect of the film. This extends into the generic, color by numbers story that has its ending seen from a mile away. Anyone who has seen the last generation of who-done-its like Scream and The Faculty will recognize the wolf in sheep’s clothing conclusion. Although one must wonder how a knife wound near no vital organs can instantly kill a man?

Dead to the World
A retelling of Ted Bundy’s exploits as told from an interview with a police officer inter-spliced with footage of Bundy committing his crimes. The streak of bad dialog continues here, and Bundy’s laughable monologue at the end to justify his actions is the culmination of this. The segment is filmed in what appears to be 4×3 and compressed and stretched to fit into a letterbox ratio giving the film a troubling perspective.

Mental Distortion
In the grand scheme of things Mental Distortion may not be intended to make much sense. The copious amounts of gratuitous nudity may be covering up for the lack of any cohesive story, but after a man finds his wife drowned in the bathtub he meets up with an old friend from grade school, hooks up, and, well the ending is left so ambiguous it’s up to you to decide. There is some nice camera work here, and the solemn lighting brings the audience into the story only so far, but the problems that plague most of the stories come up again here, bad dialog and an incoherent story, but the technical achievements again are negated by these

Disconnected
Probably the best of the bunch, Disconnected plays off its dark humor and Eli Roth’s Hostel series of needless, unrelenting violence for laughs and shock at the same time. A man is tortured because of money owed by his significant other. While I won’t reveal the ending for the sake of preserving one of the few surprises in the collection, it did garner a chuckle and high marks for its set design. Still, the writing could be a lot better, and the limited budget comes to light here where a man who has his hand disfigured merely hides it when the camera is on full body shots.

The Demon
A completely forgettable, dialog-less tale of a religious man meeting up with a relentless demon bent on destroying him. The film is all over the place, at one point making light of the man’s glasses breaking (perhaps attempting to channel a bit of The Twilight Zone?) yet it never plays into the story at all. The subtext of him picking up and later killing a hitchhiker is completely lost on the audience as he simply ends up in a mental institution with a set of crazy eyes to show for it. Again, the set pieces and some nice camera work are completely negated by lazy writing that isn’t able to intrigue or surprise the audience when they simply can’t figure out what’s going on.

Echoes
I had high hopes for this one as it first appears to be a man seeing the ghostly images of a war campaign, atrocities he had committed with the dead returning to haunt him, however, as the film progresses it turns out into be nothing more than a man in a mental home seeing things. While this, in of itself, is enough for the horror billing the story here doesn’t necessarily suffer from the same dialog problems as the other parts of the encompassing film, its simply too short to further develop the character. As it plays out now, it’s a man tied to a bed who is hallucinating, with a few more minutes and some back-story this could have easily been one of the better inclusions in this anthology.

Retina
There’s just no way to describe the ending of the anthology with this bookend. After viewing it I just simply stared at the TV, hoping, pleading that something would come up explaining what had just happened. It’s almost as if the most confusing parts of a Nine Inch Nails video, Silent Hill, and nihilistic crazy person had some unholy lovechild explode on to the screen. I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not, nor do I know anything that happened in this segment.

The love of filmmaking is obvious throughout The Horror Vault; however, whether it is from budgetary concerns, technical limitations, or some other problem, the end product falls short of expectations. While some will see the open-ended stories as a way for the viewer to make their own conclusions, there’s only so much our minds can do with the limited information available. Each story seems to sputter due to a mix of bad writing and inconsistency, something no amount of acting chops and technical achievement is going to be able to negate.

Judging independent movies so harshly is never easy because you can see the love of the craft hidden within each scene, however one can only hope these criticisms are taken into account to help better the writers, producers, actors, and directors in their next endeavors.

If you wish to experience the film for yourself and disagree with our review, it can be purchased right here, or find more information about the film at the official site.

What can be said about the independent short, Bookie?  Quite a bit, though some of it isn’t necessarily too kind.  When one watches a short film, usually a little leeway is due to the cast and crew because the breadth and depth of a feature film has to be captured in a relatively small time frame, and usually on a shorter budget.  Unfortunately in this case, that task seemed to be at least a bit of a challenge.

The story, a period piece, centers on Bookie (Ken Quitugua) who, as the bookie for Mr. Jackson (Lester Purry) is tasked with collecting up all the bets for the big championship bout between the reigning king and the long-shot challenger.  In the end, while trying to help secure the freedom of down on her luck waitress, and sometime plaything of Mr. Jackson, Billie (Angela Adto), Bookie makes a tragic misstep that lands him in the doghouse with his employer, and almost in the morgue at the hands of heavies “Shorty” and “Roughneck” (played by Sam Looc and Aaron Toney respectively).  Finding the strength to fight the attackers, he defends himself and gets the girl, albeit a little worse for wear.

To take it point by point, the fatal flaw of the film was the script.  It seemed to lack any depth or substance in the writing itself, seeming to resign itself to the fact that it was a short film and needed to fit in as many platitudes and stereotypes for characters as possible.  This didn’t give the actors themselves a lot to work with, and some of them tried very hard to deliver (such as the Rogers, who wins it big on the fight, played very competently by J.T. Jackson of “Bacardi and Cola” fame).  The leads, Ken and Angela, were able to play what they were given, which wasn’t much, but never really break out and do anything for the audience.  Lester Purry, who plays Mr. Jackson, has his moments, and you definitely see his extensive theatre work/training come through in his performance, and it does pay off.

It is on its technical merits that this film comes back from the brink with a beautiful blend of music and cinematography.  The smoky jazz tunes coupled with black and white filming and wonderful scene transitions make it at the very least a beautiful thing to judge simply on aesthetics. 

All that said, an Oscar worthy masterpiece it may not be, but as a short film to showcase some potential talent, or to show musical and camera skill, this film has pieces that you can definitely appreciate and enjoy.

It’s largely known that the modern music industry is manufactured to sell records. As one of the characters states in the closing line of Nemesis, “Hip-hop is no longer black or white, its green,” and no truer words are spoken in the tale of childhood friends pitted against each other to create the Miami’s equivalent of the 1990’s east vs. west Coast rap feud. The affect of gangster rap or music in general, is a debate of politicians, but this film throws it into the forefront of conversation as Nate (Sheaun Mckinney) and Rick (Marlon Taylor) become rap stars in the 305 area code of Florida and subsequently are pitted against each other by greedy record executives who know how acts like 50 Cent succeed in selling records and making money.

The independent film from director Lee Cipolla and written by Jeremy Mitchell, Nicanson Guerrier, and Cipolla creates the manifestation of Nemesis, Nate’s manufactured gangsta rap persona who’s blowing up on the underground scene and looking to be the meal ticket for Renaissance Records, but to push him to the next level he has to take on a back story forgetting his father and subverting his childhood friendship to Rick to the point of near gunplay for the sake of public image.

While it can be argued that the events portrayed in the film only seem to solidify the negative stereotypes of hip-hop with weapons, needless feuds, and an encouraging of violence against each other for the sake of street cred, the audience is fully aware of the character’s true personalities and they can see the feigned images for what they are, fake.

The film is wonderfully shot with director of photography Justin Marx relaying some truly beautiful cinematography and the use of handheld cameras really brings the audience into the picture. There are, however, some short comings with some strange, hard cuts making particular scenes awkward and seem disjointed. Also, during the rapping scenes for Nate, its very obvious that he isn’t providing the vocals himself with most of the shots from the back, or obstructed only adding to this minor distraction.

As wonderful as the script is, there are a few moments of cheesy dialog and some of the lines that feel very forced. The banter between the record executives (one even played by Mitchell) are usually the source of these problems, luckily they are far and between, and for the most part the story is written in an easy to follow manner, employing great use of flashbacks as it builds up the story of a younger Nate and his dad and the hardship they faced together. This makes his shunning of his father all the more poignant and emotional when it looks like things are coming to a dramatic head.

Nemesis strives to touch on something different and greatly excels as a wonderfully acted, smartly written, and entertaining look behind the scenes of the fakeness of the music industry and the overall greed that corrupts the true artists just trying to make it.