Vacancy at the No Tell Motel

Vacancy at the No Tell Motel

Everybody’s got a secret.

No Tell Motel (2012) is a glorious little B movie gem with little to no redeeming qualities, and only a tiny dose of undiscovered potential. A fragment, even.

Director Brett Donawho’s secret? He must be afraid of the dark, because the only scare he seems to offer are dark rooms full of dust.

No Tell Motel, filmed ‘in’ Vernon, BC (though, clearly outside, maybe near Barriere? I recognized the dry hills full of charred trees in the opening scene), begins with a grainy, sepia toned scene depicting a sad little blonde girl on a swing, ma and pa lounge about in front of their motel, the Round the Bend Motel, ignoring their little lady, who promptly follows a bunny into the road and SPLAT.  Mom and Pop fall to their knees, weeping in over acted agony.

Cut to the future, a group of edgy teens are heading out to ‘rough it’ in the backcountry. Kyle, played by someone who’s name I’ve forgotten and will probably never need to remember again, reveals to the audience at a gas station that he’s a pill popping junkie, as he scoops mushy spilled pills from the toilet. His girlfriend, Maggie/Megan, buys a pregnancy test. Everyone’s got a secret.

Kyle, in his pill fueled rage manages to flip the vehicle and suddenly the gang is stranded. Nearby they find a crusty, abandoned motel. It’ll do for the night. Maggie takes her test in the bathroom, comes out, shaking and teary eyed, only to be whisked away from the room by her brunette friend who is not Lacy Chabert. I don’t know these actors names, give me a break. ‘Not Lacy’ tells her that she was once involved in a tragic hit and run and has kept the secret until now. Next thing we know, Not Lacy is out on the road in the night alone. She sees a little pasty blonde girl with a cliche ribbon in her hair. She tries to coax her off the road. Blondie turns her heavily made up head towards the screen to reveal a bloody skidmark on her cheek. Gasp. Lacy gets splattered on the highway.

Thus begins the saga of poorly acted secret spilling and a complete lack of terror. Occasionally we see an apparition of the ghostly little girl, sometimes we get snippets of her ma and pa, doing rather odd things in the basement. There is a lack of cohesion in this one, and no one to connect to. The acting is bad, but not as bad as it could be. Not as bad, by far, as the acting in The Fugue (aka Dead Soon, 2012) that I also watched this week. Yikes. But it’s not great, nothing to write home about, and even I was beginning to think Megan’s performance would be improved if she’d just take her top off.

It had potential, it could’ve been just a little more than your average teen slasher flick, ghostly little girl kills off a flock of coeds. It had the aspect of continuous secret reveals, but the script is weak, and the way in which these folks react to said reveals tends to be laughable and in-genuine. There is nothing scary about this film, the little girl roaming the halls is blatantly exposed right from the beginning, she doesn’t hide in the corners and sneak about, but rather sits in the room with you staring back at you, like she’s ready to ask if she can have some juice and a cookie. There’s an underlying story regarding the previous owners of the motel and some dark child rearing activities, but they are weakly portrayed and from time to time I got distracted, would look back and say, what in the hell is going on here?

Good effort, guy, but no such luck. This is no classic. Very forgettable. It feels like a script Donawho wrote in college and finally got the money to make, but maybe only got a c plus on.

 

Red Blood and a Yellow Raincoat

So, picture this, it’s a dark and stormy night (no, really it was), and thunder grumbled in the distance, the skies darkening, cloaking the house in shadow. Wind whipped past the open windows and flashes of lightning seemed to penetrate the yard from both sides. The thunder escalated to huge, booming cracks and bolts of electricity shatter the skies, striking down in the fields.

Can you believe it only took me eight thousand tries to get this shot?

What more is there to be done than to turn off the lights and watch something scary?

Last night I decided to foray into some retro slasher horror with Alice, Sweet Alice (1976) aka Communion aka Holy Terror.

The film begins centered around a family, a mother and two daughters, Karen and Alice, estranged father (they use this word, not me, I’d’ve used divorced parents, but, hey, times have changed), and family friend Father Tom.  Karen is preparing for her first communion, and Alice, in all her wide eyed, sissy-spacek-esque glory, seems to be nothing but in the way. Where Karen, played by Brooke Shields in her first film role, before she became a spokeswoman for La-z-boy, is a whiny keener, Alice is often dazed, vindictive, and downright creepy. A little whiny, yeah, sure, but I guess it runs in the family.

On the day of the communion, Karen is murdered by someone in a creepy plastic mask and technicolor yellow raincoat. Aunt Anne suspects 12 year old Alice. Never trusted that little weirdo anyway. Morbidly obese neighbour Mr. Alphonse suspects Alice. ‘God always takes the pretty ones.’ he hisses at her, despite his later attempts to get all up in her business.

More attacks occur, and Alice is constantly suspect. her irrational outbursts and whiny emotional instability really can’t be helping. Alice insists her dead sister Karen is the culprit, Alice’s mother and father suspect Alice’s chubby cousin Angela. Mystery abounds.

Alice, Sweet Alice sounds like a pretty typical slasher movie, but the focus on children as prime suspects is a little unfamiliar, not to mention the religious aspects, a lot of weight on the idea of Catholic guilt, an idea that wasn’t exactly popular at the time. (The Exorcist ought to have smashed those ideas right out of the water, but religion is a tough nut to crack. Whew, cliche overload). Our killer seems to be seeking out some specific kills, reflecting some of the 7 deadly sins: envy, adultery, sloth (anyone up for Seven right about now?). Alice touches on topics such as divorce, adultery, pedophilia, and even a fun little nod about menstruation. This movie has got some meat on it’s bones and as often as I thought I knew who the killer was, the film laughed in my face and changed it up on me. I’ll admit, I didn’t see it coming.

Alice, Sweet Alice has intriguing characters and good acting, though I have to admit, Karen? I would’ve strangled her too, yikes, that kid was driving me nuts and she was only in the first 20 minutes. Paula E. Sheppard as Alice steals every scene she’s in with her dead eyes and cold as ice glances. Parents, played by Linda Miller and Niles McMaster, get the job done, selling tension and emotion well. The whole cast tends to overact, but in what seems to be a clearly intentional way, a matter of style.

Direction on this one stands out from the rest with a number of unusual shots and angles (a lot of good use of stairwells, evoking Italian horror greats). Director Alfred Sole has a good grasp on image, shots of knives falling through the air, religious items cloaked in shadow, bright red blood pouring over a yellow raincoat all add to the tone and suspense of the film.

Booming music with what now feels like a dated sound of out of tune piano notes fits perfectly in this one, giving it that gritty feel only accomplished by low budget 70s horror.

Terrifying? No, probably not. Not even while watching in the dark in a thunderstorm. There are some shots of blood and carnage, a bit of bludgeoning for good measure. A little fire damage. Some fun spurts here and there, but not gorey by any stretch. SO, bottom line, is this film truly scary anymore? No. Is it compelling and interesting? Yes.

Alice is worth a watch if you can appreciate all that 70’s horror has to offer, and if you’re not expecting found footage or Evil Dead (2013) blood rain from the sky. I’ll admit I was torn away from my screen by the light show outside, and found myself staring out the window at lightning for hours. I finished this movie this morning in bed, the sun shining outside, cup of Earl grey at the ready, and wrapped up in the husband’s Jedi robe (yeah, we’re pretty cool). But, even in the light of day, Alice has a lot to offer in the way of story and tone. Check it out.

 

Tales from the Underneath

Absentia (2011)

seems like a fun place to hang out

This low budget film from director Mike Flanagan has flown largely under the radar of the public eye.  Despite financial restraints, this film is shot well, the direction is effective and the acting is committed. All of the main actors in this small film are clearly invested in the script, they seem genuine and honest, and there is true depth and meaning in the themes presented.

The story centers around Tricia, seven months pregnant, a woman who is in the process of declaring her husband dead by absentia. Tricia’s husband, Daniel, disappeared seven years ago and she hasn’t heard from him since (Tricia is also six months pregnant, let’s do the math…). With the help and support of therapists, her younger sister Callie (who has something of an implied sordid back story involving drugs) and the lead detective on her husband’s case, Detective Mallory (a man who has come to care deeply for Tricia, wink wink pregnancy?), Tricia is trying to move on. Despite her noble attempts, Trica keeps seeing ghostly apparitions of her husband in the shadows, watching her , mumbling malevolently to her, staring at her from the darkness with a twisted ghoulish face. Once she finally commits to moving on, Tricia and Mallory head out for an evening together. Outside her home, Tricia sees another vision of Daniel, gazing at her from the street. She shakes it off, but Mallory can see him too. Daniel has come back.

A great deal of mystery surrounds Daniel’s whereabouts, he is largely incoherent, disoriented and paranoid. He begins to connect with Tricia’s sister and reveals some of his fears about where he has been, mumbling about tunnels….creatures…..trades…..and ‘the underneath’.

I won’t give away any spoilers. This story has the bones needed to make a compelling tale, but does sort of feel slightly uninflated by the end, leaving us wondering, is that all we get? That being said, director Mike Flanagan knows the value of scares we can’t see. He offers up deeply shadowed scenes, suspense filled moments of cringe worthy tension that had me holding my breath, waiting for something to attack. He preys on our fears of the unknown, the way we deal with loss and with guilt, with unanswered questions and perception. I thought one of the clever details Flanagan inserted into this tale were moments in which the characters considered alternate possibilities, where the images take us on a brief alternate route from reality. And just what, exactly, is the reality here? A subdued film, Absentia has solid acting, highly effective mood and tone, an emotional human aspect to the story, and perhaps a lightly padded supernatural aspect, one that felt a little like it needed more fleshing out. It moves slowly from time to time, but feels solid and honest, and it delves into how grief and trauma alter us all, a tall order for a ‘horror’ film.

There is one chilling scene nears the film’s finale, in which Callie desperately pleads with…something…..to return the missing, to trade. The shock value of this moment is quiet and subtle and ultimately out of focus, blurred, but if you were on the ball, you could catch the implications. A memorable and eerie scene. Check this one out, it is worth the watch.