#12. Perkins' 14 [2009]

Perkins' 14 is a 2009 horror film originated by Jeremy Donaldson, written by Lane Shadgett, and directed by Craig Singer. The film is produced by Jeremy Donaldson, Matthew Kuipers, and Christopher Milburn. The film was released theatrically nationwide January 9-15, 2009. The DVD which includes the 10 making-of webisodes from the Massify Ghosts in the Machine Competition was released on Tuesday March 31, 2009.

Synopsis
Robert Perkins was just six years old when his parents were brutally slaughtered right before his very eyes. Unable to overcome the incredible trauma of witnessing such a diabolical event, Perkins becomes convinced that the killers who murdered his parents will eventually return to finish the job they started years ago - and he plans to be fully prepared to fight back when they do. Years later, when Perkins turns thirty-four, he kidnaps fourteen people from his hometown of Stone Cove, and sets about reprogramming them to become relentless killing machines. Now, if the killers ever do return, they'll have to get through Perkins' 14 in order to reach their intended target. Trouble is, now that Perkins' 14 are ready for battle, they've become increasingly difficult to contain.



Dark Ride director Craig Singer returns to the helm with this shocking horror film about a delusional psychopath who creates a unified team of fourteen maniacal killers. Produced entirely over the internet, where writers uploaded story details and actors submitted audition tapes, Perkins' 14 was released into theaters as part of the third After Dark Horror Fest. Usually anything branded with the 8 Films to Die For moniker is a watch-at-your-own-risk affair, but I'm pleased to say that this movie is original enough and possesses enough strong performances to elevate it above the usual mess. And it's weird. So damn weird, in fact, that the movie's main shortcomings arise from the fact that it tried to get a little too-out there, and I think the writers wrote themselves into a corner, but more on that in a bit.

The stronger of the two halves of Perkins' 14 is definitely the first half, which is more of a creepy homicide drama than the latter half's zombie-esque horror stuff. O'Kane turns in a fine dramatic performance as Dwayne Hopper, perfectly emoting the characters' pain at the loss of his son all those years ago. The problem is that he keeps the audience from instantly connecting with him. He's ... well, he's scary! Like I said, he does a tremendous job at his role, but his tough, brooding appearance doesn't lend well to the father-figure type. I don't blame him for the miscast though, as much of the film's strength comes from him.

By far the biggest show stealer though, is Richard Brake and his snakey, frightening and downright crazy portrayal of kidnapper-murderer-mad-scientist Ronald Perkins. Brake is fast becoming one of my favorite character actors, never shying away from any role, no matter how creepy or reprehensible it makes him out to be. Here, he's only in the movie for maybe 20 minutes, but his role is pivotal to the plot and makes for the most memorable scenes.

Speaking of plot, be warned -- there isn't much of one. After the child-kidnapping thread is dealt with and the creatures are unleashed, the rest of the movie is a frantic fight for Hopper's family's survival. Whatever science was involved in the transformation of the children into these -- Spoiler alert!! Oh, who cares? -- zombie-like ghouls is never explained beyond a few tables worth of different colored liquids in test tubes. Perkins' motivation for his diabolical experiments is touched on, but I guess because my parents were never killed in the same way his were when he was a boy, I can't see making my revenge scheme against the world revolve around turning kids into cannibalistic monsters. But what do I know?

This is thankfully one of those movies where you won't spend too much time worrying about the hows or whys. This brings us now to the ending. I mentioned earlier that the writers had painted themselves into a corner, and really, there isn't any other way to phrase it. The film just ... stops, kind of. Viewers looking for any real resolution, or answers, or anything will be left holding the ball. The final scene is so strange that no amount of repeated viewings will really clarify why the characters onscreen do what they do, when for the previous hour, they'd preached against such an act. Anyway, this is a decent little low-budget horror film. With its use (maybe overuse) of lots of strobe lighting, extremely solid performances and some really good gore effects, it's a good way to pass an hour and a half.

Source :
Wikipedia,IGN, After Dark HorrorFest [2009]

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#10. The Butterfly Effect 3 : Revelations [2009]

" Death Repeats Itself "



USA[90m] Directed by : Seth Grossman Written by : Holly Brix Music : Adam Balazs Cinematography : Dan Stoloff Starring : Chris Carmack, Rachel Miner, Sonya A. Avakian, Melissa Jones Release Date : January 09, 2009

Butterfly Effect: Revelation is a 2009 science fiction/horror film directed by Seth Grossman that is the third film in the Butterfly Effect franchise.The movie was filmed in Michigan and concluded filming in October 2008. It debuted as part of the lineup for After Dark Horrorfest III, a horror film festival held in January 2009. The film will be released on DVD on March 31, 2009.

Synopsis
Sam Reide (Chris Carmack) witnesses a woman killed, then wakes up in an ice-filled bathtub, his vitals being monitored by his sister Jenna (Rachel Miner). Sam can travel back to any time and location during his lifetime, needing only to concentrate on where and when he wishes to arrive. He has helped the local police capture criminals under the guise of being a psychic. We learn that Sam pays his sister's rent and buys her groceries, and that she rarely leaves the apartment and lives in squalor. That night, Elizabeth (Sarah Habel), the sister of Sam's murdered girlfriend Rebecca (Mia Serifino), arrives at Sam's apartment. She believes that the man about to be executed for her sister's murder, Lonnie Flennonds (Richard Wilkinson), is innocent, and she offers to pay Sam to find the real murderer. Sam turns her down, but goes to speak with the man who tutored him on time travel, Goldburg (Kevin Yon), who reminds him of the cardinal rules: he's not to alter his own personal past, nor travel in time with his body left unsupervised.

We learn that a fire that claimed the lives of Sam and Jenna's parents had claimed Jenna's life, but Sam altered time so that their parents died instead. After Goldburg's departure their bartender, Vicki (Melissa Jones), seductively offers Sam a buttery nipple; he and Vicki have sex, but upon seeing Rebecca's photo, he cannot continue. Sam changes his mind and agrees to help Elizabeth. He tries to help Lonnie without time-traveling, but Lonnie refuses, believing Sam to be the culprit. Frustrated, Sam travels back to June 1998. He first runs into a drunk Elizabeth, telling her to stay in her locked car. He goes into Rebecca's bedroom to find her already dead; while there, Elizabeth is attacked from her backseat. Sam returns to the present, to learn he no longer owns a car, is renting his couch to a roommate named Paco (Ulysses Hernandez), and no longer works for the police, instead being a discarded suspect for Rebecca's murder who has repeatedly asked for the case file.

In 1998 Lonnie had seen Rebecca and Sam talking, and didn't stop this time: as he was not at the murder scene, in this new present he is a wheelchair-bound lawyer. Sam visits Goldburg, who suggests he go back to the scene of the third murder and this time only observe. Sam also visits Jenna, who is significantly better off and living more cleanly; she refuses to help him. Sam travels back to September 2000 and witnesses the third victim, Anita Barnes (Chantel Giacalone), being attacked, only to learn it is her boyfriend attempting to cater to her rape fetish. He is discovered and her boyfriend's punch sends him back to the present, where now Sam is renting a couch from Paco, who is about to evict him for non-payment. Goldburg is missing, and Lonnie is now the third victim while Anita remains alive. Present-day Anita pepper-sprays him; escaping to Jenna's, she tells him that Goldburg was about to implicate him in the murders, and furthermore tells him she fears a future Sam is the murderer. Sam complains he is now "too stupid" to fix things; Jenna pinky-swears him to not time-travel anymore.

Drunk at the bar, he propositions Vicki, who is engaged in this timeline. After Sam leaves, the killer shows up and murders Vicki near an auto plant; her body is found by the police. As Sam left his receipt behind at the bar, he is hauled in by the police. Jenna extricates him; the police put a tail on him as he leaves. As he leaves, he takes Det. Glenn's (Lynch Travis) evidence notebook, which he uses to look at the scene of the crime and travel back to September 2004, before the bodies were found by the police. He returns to the present to find himself on Jenna's couch as she leaves for work, reminding him to clean up after himself and have dinner ready for her — their positions now effectively reversed from the beginning of the film. Sam returns to the auto plant, where the police lie in wait to arrest him. Sam convinces Det. Glenn to release him by telling him how his wife mistook him for M.C. Hammer on their first meeting. Visiting home, Sam accidentally inhales some burundanga flowers from Goldburg's greenhouse, and barely can haul himself into the bathtub before time-traveling back to the abandoned auto plant, where he finds a severely injured Goldburg, and, running for help, is felled by a foothold trap.

The killer approaches the trapped Sam, removing the mask as they approach to reveal ... Jenna, who can also time travel. She has an incestuous love for her brother, having killed the women either because she perceived them as rivals for Sam's affections or because they were new witnesses introduced by Sam's rescue attempts. Sam travels back in time to the day of the fire that killed his parents; instead of saving Jenna, he traps her in her room. He awakes in a new timeline where he had fallen in love with Elizabeth (not Rebecca), and he, Elizabeth, and their daughter Jenna (named after his now-dead sister) (Alexis Sturr) are pulling up to a family barbecue, where he is greeted by his now-living parents and a perfectly healthy Goldburg. The film closes as Sam's daughter puts her Barbie doll on the grill and smiles as it begins to melt.

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#8. The Broken [2009]

" Face Your Fears "



UK [88m] Directed by : Sean Ellis Written by : Sean Ellis Music : Guy Farley Cinematography : Angus Hudson Starring : Lena Headey, Richard Jenkins, Asier Newman, Michelle Duncan, Melvil Poupaud

The Broken is a horror/thriller written and directed by Sean Ellis and starring Lena Headey, which premiered at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Synopsis
On a typically gloomy day in London, Gina, a young and beautiful radiologist, is sure she just saw herself driving by--in her own car. When she follows her mysterious doppelganger into an unfamiliar apartment, she isn’t quite sure she can trust her own eyes until she spots a photo of herself and her father on the entryway table. Understandably spooked, she dashes back down to her car. Soon she finds herself in the hospital, unable to remember what has put her there or much about the strange woman. What Gina does know is her boyfriend seems different, the ceiling above the bathtub leaks blood in her dreams, and broken mirrors are becoming a recurring theme in her life. Increasingly paranoid, Gina is experiencing a bizarre and horrific version of her former life, and as things spiral out of control, she must escape from, or come to grips with, her new reality.



Cashback, Sean Ellis’ first film, gained the director many fans, many of whom should be more than excited to see his follow-up. Maybe it’s because The Broken is very different in style, maybe it’s because Mirrors has a superficially similar theme or maybe it’s just because this film could be quite difficult to market. While Cashback was quite light, humorous and even poetic in tone, The Broken is simply dark and menacing. Something Ellis’ claims to be closer to his home territory, and who can contradict him after seeing his newest film? Every part of the film is tweaked to inject some sense of real dread into the audience.

So far, this is the best of the “8 Films to Die For” in the 2009 After Dark Horrorfest. Rather than filling the screen with gore, violence, and cannibalism, THE BROKEN works from an intriguing premise to create an enigmatic mystery-thriller with overtones of paranoid horror. Shot in cool colors with slick production values and solid performances, it is consistently engaging until the mystery wears thin for lack of an adequate explanation. Is it supernatural, science fiction, or fantasy - or is it all in the character’s head? Writer-director Sean Ellis is not saying, and much as we admire his courage for going the David Lynch route and leaving it up to the audience, one wishes for a few clues that would at least point us in the right direction. Without these, the film is ultimately unsatisfying, squandering its better qualities with a lackluster ending. In this regards, it parallels the 2007 After Dark Horrofest entry THE DEATHS OF IAN STONE, another British film that was more speculative fiction thriller than horor movie, and which also frittered away its premise on a weak third act. (Which leaves us wondering: Are the Brits the only ones making modestly budgeted genre films that rely more on good ideas than gore? And if so, why can’t they bring those good ideas to a satisfying resolution?)

The story has radiologist Gina McVey (Lena Headey) haunted by her doppleganger - literally, her reflection - after it breaks out of a mirror (off screen). While making a phone call, she sees her double driving away, and then follows her home. Driving away after a confrontation that we do not see, she collides with a cab and ends up in a hospital with only fragmentary memories of what happened earlier that day. As more mirrors break, Gina finds herself growing paranoid, believing that her boyfriend and family are being replaced by duplicates. Eventually, a trail of clues lead her back home to unravel the mystery hiding behind her lost memories…

THE BROKEN plays the gambit that plauges films of this type: in order to “play fair” with the audience and make all the pieces fit together, the “surprise” ending is predictable to anyone paying attention; the only way to concela it is by withholding vital information. Unfortunately, once you notice what is being withheld, the solution becomes that much more predictable. Why does Gina move in with her boyfriend after the accident, instead of going back home? Could it be that the filmmakers do not want us to see something in her apartment? And are we to believe that her friends and family never went to her apartment to fetch her clothes and toiletries while she was recovering in the hospital? (Ironically, the biggest unanswered question - what happened to the driver of the other car - does not figure into the mystery at all - you keep expecting some surprise in this regard, but the film never bothers addressing the subject at all.)

Ellis started out his career as a fashion photographer and it shows in his films. He is very keen on eye candy and he likes to show off. Even though the photography of The Broken has little in common with the flashy and glamorous look of fashion photography, Ellis’ attention to detail and almost perfect use of color owes more than a little to his former line of work. The film looks dark and gloomy from start to finish, with no bright or strong colors ever penetrating the darkened haze lying over the film. The editing is timid and the camera work often slow and even a little off-key. Intentionally so, as one strong scene with a mirror breaking off screen just after the camera has had it in frame for a good 30 seconds demonstrates. It’s scenes like this that add a lot to the mystery and uneasy atmosphere in the film.

Ultimately, the story would work better if it sustained the interpretation that what we are seeing really is the paranoid result of Gina’s post-traumatic stress from the accident. Unfortunately, too many objective scenes (in which her character does not appear) confirm that the doubles are real, robbing us of the best way to rationalize the logical shortcomings in the scenario.Worse, the film never bothers to offer any explanation for what is happening; the phenomena is simply presented without hint or rational. This would be acceptable if it viewers were given a few clues and invited to fill in the blanks, but there is no mention of parallel worlds of the folklore of mirrors or anything else; the doppelgangers remain an elusive plot device, their motives and behavior a complete mystery. They seem to be mirror images of the originals (down to their hearts being on the right side of the chest), but we never even know to what extent their memories duplicate the originals or even whether they can recognize each other. At times they manage to impersonate the people they have replaced; at others, they act like cliched pod people from INVASION OF THE BODY SNATCHERS.

Visceral horror is, thankfully, kept to a minimum. Its one obvious outburst is a tad ridiculous, when a double kills its original by shoving a hand into her mouth - a method that looks at least as painful to the perpetrator as to the victim.The score is nice and atmospheric, though could’ve contributed a little more to the film. While it definitely adds to the atmosphere, it’s only in the last minute (and during the end credits) that Ellis shows how much more should have been done with it. The broken electronica of that last track fits so well with the film, but it’s the only time such an effect is applied. A missed opportunity, even though the rest of the score remains more than decent enough.

It’s not the visuals or music that will keep audiences away from The Broken though. The film is only 90 minutes long, but even in that small time frame Ellis keeps things vague and slow. Even though the uneasy atmosphere is ever present, there is not much happening on screen. There are two or three pretty effective scare scenes, but that doesn’t draw an audience to the theater anymore. The biggest problem with The Broken is that it never reveals much about what is going on. We follow the main character while stuff happens to her. Weird stuff that is never explained, not even hinted at. We see the “what”, but never understand the “who” or “why”. While this will definitely kill the movie for many, to me it was Ellis’ most brilliant move. It elevates The Broken above all those horror flicks trying to explain the unexplainable with some weak or badly thought up story twists. None of that here. And even though there is some kind of twist at the end of the film, it is hinted at a lot earlier so it shouldn’t really come as a big surprise. Ellis confirmed himself he didn’t set the film up to have a twist ending and by letting the audience in on it bit by bit he simply increased the mysterious feel as the film progressed.

Fortunately, Sean Ellis manages to sustain a creepy sense of paranoid dread thanks to the fear of being replaced by these mysterious usurpers. Visually, the film is very assured. The crucial car accident is spectacular, echoing the bullet-time slow-motion of Dario Argento’s climactic crash in FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET. In the grand tradition of modestly budgeted features, the editing contrives to show us this footage over and over (gotta get your money’s worth out of such a big piece of the budget), but the great thing is that the script justifies the repetition, because Gina frequently flashes back to the scene while trying to reconstruct her shattered memories. In a way these strong points makes THE BROKEN more frustrating than a film that is bad from beginning to end; it grips your attention throughout, only to leave you unsatisfied at the end. Nevertheless, the journey is worth taking even if the destination is disappointing.

Whether you can stomach being left behind in the dark is up to you, but if you think you can handle the lack of information on what the hell is happening, there is a little masterpiece hidden in The Broken. Ellis’ style is refreshing in between all the horror flicks fighting to be the goriest. Ellis’ focus is an uneasy atmosphere by leaving the audience in the dark and simply showing the facts from one point of view. By far one of the most stylish horror films to come out of England in quite a while. Ellis proves himself a great director, who can handle more than one style.

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#1. After Dark Horror Fest [2009]

After Dark Horrorfest [a.k.a. "8 Films to Die For"] is an annual horror film festival featuring eight independent horror movies, sometimes with "secret" bonus films, all distributed by After Dark Films in the USA. The first HorrorFest was held in 2006. After Dark's HorrorFest for 2008 was scheduled for January 9th through January 15th 2009.

8 Films To Die For
1. The Brøken
A young woman is surprised to see what looks like herself, drive by one day. She follows the woman, which sets off a chain of events which leads her into a haunting, nightmare reality.

2. Faithless (aka Slaughter)
A young woman returns to her family farm in the hope of escaping an abusive situation. Unfortunately, this safe place ends up being much more abusive than her previous one.

3. Perkins' 14
Robert Perkins brainwashes 14 people, in order to create an army that will defend him from his parents' killers.

4. Butterfly Effect: Revelation
A young man with the power of time-travel attempts to solve the mystery of his girlfriend's death. In doing this, however, he frees a vindictive serial killer.

5. From Within
The residents of a small town in the USA begin to die off, supposedly of suicides.

6. Autopsy
A young woman attempts to find her injured boyfriend in a bizarre hospital.

7. Dying Breed
Zoology student Nina and her friends go into the Tasmanian Forest in search of the Tasmanian Tiger. What they discover, however, is a cannibalistic clan who are the descendants of a famous escaped serial killer known as The Pieman.

8. Voices
Overnight, brutal murders become everyday occurrences as friends turn on friends, brothers turn on sisters, and husbands turn on wives. Originally released in Korea as 'Du saram yi-da' ("2 people"), based on the best selling Korean comic book series of the same name.

After Dark Films will produce and distribute both Faithless and Perkins' 14, making these the first films that the company has produced and then released as part of the 8 Films to Die For.

Horrorfest III DVDs are to be released On March 31, 2009.

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