With all of the internet hype and the TV ads that followed it, I was definitely looking forward to HORRORFEST, and from the number of sold-out shows I saw when I went to the theater, I wasn't alone.
UNREST is the first entry I saw in the festival, and all I can say is - it's about DAMN TIME! Too many horror films these days go straight to the gross-out, gory material and skimp on the important things like plot, atmosphere and character development. And although there are a few goof-ups here, the finished product is mostly a fun, ghastly ride, the way horror films USED to be.
Alison Blanchard (Corri English) arrives at an old VA hospital for her first week in medical school. The initial class is Gross Anatomy. With no campus housing yet available, she has to stay in a spare room on the basement level of the creepy place...the same level as the lab that holds the cadavers for her class.
Alison is not a religious person by any means - in fact, she's pretty much an atheist. But from the moment she first walks into class, she already senses that there's something not quite right; especially when she joins her lab group to assist in dissecting their first cadaver.
The body is that of a young woman, her skin marked with various cuts and lacerations that appear to be self-inflicted. And from the moment Alison sees her, nothing in her world - or that of anyone she knows - will be right or safe again.
No one takes her seriously at first: not the guys in her study group which includes Brian Cross (Scot Davis), a guy whose belief in a higher power runs completely counter to her own; Rick O'Connor (Jay Jablonski), the group prankster, who thinks that even death could use a little 'lightening up', and Carlos (Joshua Alba, brother of Jessica), whose own beliefs about spirits border on the superstitious. And the professor leading the class, Dr. Walter Blackwell (Derrick O'Connor) is certainly no help, with his rigidly scientific and practical view of how things are.
So when people start dying right off the bat, and more bodies fall as Alison begins to delve into the identity of the corpse she and her group have been assigned to, what appears to be a "Friday The 13th"-style slasher/whodunit takes a sharp left turn into something a lot more otherworldly. Think of THE EXORCIST-meets-THE CHANGELING by way of the excellent German-made horror thriller ANATOMY.
Director Jason Todd Ipson, who co-wrote the script with Chris Billett, has fashioned a nice little shocker that takes full advantage of its creepy locations and gives us an attractive cast of characters, who are a lot better established than the usual teen victims galleries we're subjected to.
As well-written as it is, some of the dialogue gets a little clunky at times, especially an exchange between Alison and the campus shrink, Dr. Carolyn Saltz (Reb Fleming). And though one character makes a sharply realistic comment about Alison's detective work at one point, showing the intelligence and attention to detail of the authors, one glaring gaffe about the Aztecs threatens to send the whole conceit tumbling down (Note: I'm no student of ancient civilizations, but weren't the Aztecs and the Mayans living in what is now Mexico, and not Brazil?)
And the score by Michael Cohen, which mostly serves as a fittingly spooky complement to DP Michael Fimognari's darkly ethereal, bleached-out visuals, gets a little overpowering in some places - kind of like Jerry Goldsmith's OMEN score on steroids.
Having said that, Ipson and Billett have created several set-pieces of suspense that will have you doing everything from jumping out of your chair to gagging prodigiously at the horrific and disgusting things the leads have to do to find answers and save themselves from certain death.
Though it's hardly the great horror film that the HORRORFEST ads would have you believe ("Too Shocking For The General Public?" Not really!), it's still a decent time at the movies, and will probably make a great 'date flick' if and when it comes out in wide release.
UNREST is the first entry I saw in the festival, and all I can say is - it's about DAMN TIME! Too many horror films these days go straight to the gross-out, gory material and skimp on the important things like plot, atmosphere and character development. And although there are a few goof-ups here, the finished product is mostly a fun, ghastly ride, the way horror films USED to be.
Alison Blanchard (Corri English) arrives at an old VA hospital for her first week in medical school. The initial class is Gross Anatomy. With no campus housing yet available, she has to stay in a spare room on the basement level of the creepy place...the same level as the lab that holds the cadavers for her class.
Alison is not a religious person by any means - in fact, she's pretty much an atheist. But from the moment she first walks into class, she already senses that there's something not quite right; especially when she joins her lab group to assist in dissecting their first cadaver.
The body is that of a young woman, her skin marked with various cuts and lacerations that appear to be self-inflicted. And from the moment Alison sees her, nothing in her world - or that of anyone she knows - will be right or safe again.
No one takes her seriously at first: not the guys in her study group which includes Brian Cross (Scot Davis), a guy whose belief in a higher power runs completely counter to her own; Rick O'Connor (Jay Jablonski), the group prankster, who thinks that even death could use a little 'lightening up', and Carlos (Joshua Alba, brother of Jessica), whose own beliefs about spirits border on the superstitious. And the professor leading the class, Dr. Walter Blackwell (Derrick O'Connor) is certainly no help, with his rigidly scientific and practical view of how things are.
So when people start dying right off the bat, and more bodies fall as Alison begins to delve into the identity of the corpse she and her group have been assigned to, what appears to be a "Friday The 13th"-style slasher/whodunit takes a sharp left turn into something a lot more otherworldly. Think of THE EXORCIST-meets-THE CHANGELING by way of the excellent German-made horror thriller ANATOMY.
Director Jason Todd Ipson, who co-wrote the script with Chris Billett, has fashioned a nice little shocker that takes full advantage of its creepy locations and gives us an attractive cast of characters, who are a lot better established than the usual teen victims galleries we're subjected to.
As well-written as it is, some of the dialogue gets a little clunky at times, especially an exchange between Alison and the campus shrink, Dr. Carolyn Saltz (Reb Fleming). And though one character makes a sharply realistic comment about Alison's detective work at one point, showing the intelligence and attention to detail of the authors, one glaring gaffe about the Aztecs threatens to send the whole conceit tumbling down (Note: I'm no student of ancient civilizations, but weren't the Aztecs and the Mayans living in what is now Mexico, and not Brazil?)
And the score by Michael Cohen, which mostly serves as a fittingly spooky complement to DP Michael Fimognari's darkly ethereal, bleached-out visuals, gets a little overpowering in some places - kind of like Jerry Goldsmith's OMEN score on steroids.
Having said that, Ipson and Billett have created several set-pieces of suspense that will have you doing everything from jumping out of your chair to gagging prodigiously at the horrific and disgusting things the leads have to do to find answers and save themselves from certain death.
Though it's hardly the great horror film that the HORRORFEST ads would have you believe ("Too Shocking For The General Public?" Not really!), it's still a decent time at the movies, and will probably make a great 'date flick' if and when it comes out in wide release.