FILMBRATS - REVIEWS

Mya is married to Lewis, an exterminator that just isn’t that great of a husband. Mya is sleeping with Ben, the guy she wishes her husband would be. Ben wants her to leave Lewis and their hometown of Terminus behind to start a new life together. Mya’s not quite sure she can pick up and leave just like that, so she goes back home to her husband. But, as if a love triangle wasn’t complex enough, they all also have to contend with a mysterious force that’s penetrating the airwaves. Television, radio, cell phones and other tech devices are emitting strange noises and, when applicable, showing unusual images. This may sound like a mere annoyance, but it’s driving everyone mad. People are going blood-thirsty-ravenous-killer crazy because of it. People like Mya’s husband. It looks like Mya’s going to try to make her escape, if she can get out of town alive.

I went into the film knowing virtually nothing about it, so I was pretty worried when the first sequence I saw on screen was this horrible handheld digital video horror movie. Luckily the campy slasher-in-the-woods flick is bad on purpose and was just something that’s on TV when the signal starts to interrupt. Although, once I got into the actual movie it wasn’t that great either to start. You have the basic movie plot material and very mundane script. The acting is one step away from being good – instead it’s just okay. Then, once the horror element kicked in (you don’t have to wait too long), it began to win me over.

In fact, it’s that continual progression and mutation of the story and presentation that makes this movie so fun. The hokey love story quickly morphs into a paranoid thriller which runs face first into homicidal killing spree, and it just goes from there. Three directors took on the three segments you’ll see (David Bruckner, Dan Bush and Jacob Gentry – they also wrote and edited their corresponding parts). Each treats a different character from the love triangle as the main character. There’s some overlap in the timeline, but overall the story continues to move along towards the unusual, but good resolution. I don’t know if they really had to divide the film in three parts like that, and they certainly didn’t need to use flashbacks. We’re smart. We can figure out that we’re now following someone else from a few minutes ago, especially when you get to a part that happened already. But what you sacrifice in editing and technique, you gain in good craziness.

Around the second act, the film diverts from its animalistic murderous scares to a more subdued form of affliction (they call it “The Crazy”) that allows for some pretty funny moments. You may think that going from essentially straight horror to something of a spoof would be off-putting, but it’s really not. It means the movie is now more unpredictable, the cast of characters is expanded, and the violence actually gets more graphic. The three sections flow together nicely. It would be nicer if they didn’t divide it up in that way, but hey.

After the rough start, I really came to enjoy this movie. The three filmmakers never go for the cheap scare. There’s a very cool makeshift mace made out of knives and duct tape. Some of the later dialogue is witty and fun (and there’s a great movie moment where they “jump start” a decapitated head so it can give them advice). I also appreciate that it’s never explained what causes the troublemaking noise and static. There are a couple of BS theories that are meant to be BS and, to me, for this movie, that works perfectly. I would have liked to see better overall direction and cinematography, but the film is still a hell of a lot of fun to watch.

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