Decay

 Science nerds, this text should ring a bell. Image from http://www.decayfilm.com/2012/lhc-sign.html

Decay (2012)
Directed by Luke Thompson

Wow.
The film is acceptable, but the curcumstances surrounding it make it great.

 Image from http://www.decayfilm.com/2012/keep-calm-and-baryon.html

So what happens when living tissue is exposed to the 'God Particle'? This film gives one possible answer.
A problem underground in the LHC is detected. Four students, Amy, Connor, James, and Matt, are sent underground to the Large Hadron Collider's control room to monitor things while a tech team investigates the LHC.
While in the control room something goes horribly wrong and the group has to restart the power by leaving the room, all the while Amy is trying to run simulations on her computer of what will happen to live organisms around the Higgs Boson. Once in the tunnels they begin to hear strange sounds. Something attacks the group. James is bitten. They run for their lives.
The group finds refuge in the server room where they hope to get a message to the outside. They cannot contact the outside, however they do receive the simulation results from Amy's computer in the other room. Radiation from the Higgs Boson is deadly. It kills the brain except for the stem, leaving the affected organism only with primal functions. Kill, and eat. Unfortunately someone with security access on the outside is wiping all the data, erasing his tracks. This couldn't have happened by accident. Someone was willing to send innocent people down just to see what the Higgs Boson woul do. The only good news--Connor found a map.
James becomes exhuasted and 'falls asleep'. When he awakens he's just like the other creatures and attacks Connor. Matt flees, leaving Amy to kill her own brother to save her crush, Connor.
After James is killed, Amy helps a wounded Connor hobble away. In another tunnel they're hunted again and Connor is eaten. Grief-stricken and alone Amy continues. Meanwhile Matt gets attacked by a  bunch of ladies and eaten.
Amy eventually makes it out only to find someone infected got out before her and everyone in sight is infected. Amy seeks shelter inside a professor's office. She knows he has a backup copy of all the data on the 'God Particle', so Amy has to send it out to let the world know.
Behind her a man, the director general of CERN, enters the room aiming a gun at her. He had to let this happen, the research was too important he tells her. Her professor wanted to shut down the LHC, but he couldn't have that. And he can't let her go blabbing. He shoots Amy. Unfortunately for him she's been recording a voicemail to another physicist the whole time, and may or may not have already emailed the data.

Matt following Connor down a tunnel. Image from http://www.decayfilm.com/2012/tunnel-flashlight-2.html

So this is a film you can watch and download for free, as it is made under a Creative Commons license. Pretty cool. It's offered in many different qualities from SD to theatre screening.

Also interesting to mention is the film was made by students and physicists. It's not something made by film students. With that in mind, I'm understanding of the editing decisions. However, as an editor, some of the audio issues and pacing issues could have easily been resolved XP There lots of shot where a character walks past a camera looking down a corridor. If only the shot hung on that empty corridor for a couple extra seconds the tension could have been hugly increased just by giving the audience a chance to think 'Oh noes, something's gonna cast a shadow or start walking down the hall!'

The audio is atrocious. Again if my rocket science peeps showed me a film of this caliber I'd be amazed, but just to be critical from a film person's POV I'm mentioning it. A lot of the audio problems could have been resolved with L cuts in the non-linear editing software. Even running the audio through something like Audacity could have cleaned up a bunch of that white noise which is not consistent from one scene to the next. In some cases the audio was too loud and seemed to peak, in some cases it was too quiet (mostly with dialogue).

There was a lot of nice mood lighting though. I'm not sure if it was just how the tunnels were regularly lit, or if the crew had to do anything special, but that was great. The amount of darkness versus what was visible in each scene was a great balance.

This film was made with an incredibly small budget, making it all the more amazing. These are just some of the circumstances that make this movie great, in spite of technical flaws.

If you enjoy science, if you enjoy b-movies, if you want to see what physicists do for fun, watch this film.

Hypothermia

Hypothermia (2010)
Directed by James Felix McKenney

Holy moly the monster makeup is horrific in this.

Image from http://turntherightcorner.com/2012/10/16/hypothermia-movie-review/

Husband, wife, son, and girlfriend are on a remote family vaca to go ice fishing. Things start to go wrong when he father, ice fishing vet, somehow breaks through the ice and nearly dies of hypothermia. Luckily his wife and son leave their cabin in the night looking for him.
Though he recovers fine and blames the accident on carelessness, things are much worse.
The next morning s douche bag and his son drive onto, music blaring, the ice with their trailer for some fishing. Immediately the two families don't see eye to eye. However something large passes them under the ice and douche dad wants to team up to catch the thing.
Douche's son drills open a massive hole in the ice anticipating the catch, but the createure ends up nearly catching him.
After pulling his body out from the freezing water, the young ma says it's no fish. In fact the thing has legs. Additionally the creature has cut open the boy's arm deeply and before long the wound looks infected. The family tries to convince douche to take his son to a hispital but he won't consider it until the boy passes out next to the hole in the ice, just in time to get dragged away for good. Douche dad tries to get his son back, but is wounded himself.
When he comes to, douche dad finds his son is gone and the girlfriend has treated his wounds best she can. He however is intent on not resting until he gets the monster that took his son. He leaves the trailer and starts up some machinery, hypothesizing that the vibrations on the ice are how it targets people. His plan is to shoot it dead as soon as it pops out. Unfortunately douche is apparently a horrible shot in the night. He misses all his shots when the thing attacks, and foolishly continues to chase after it in the dark which leads to his demise.
The father and son, unable to help douche, seek shelter back in the trailer after the son has taken a cut to the face. Mom, fearing the creature has venom, tries to suck the possible toxins from his wounds.
Agreeing that the vibrations are attracting the thing, the four decide they will silently hole up in the trailer for the night. As things calm down, the son lays down on the floor. Unfortunately the trailer has built in small holes for ice fishing, and the creature reaches through slashing the boy's throat and killing him.
In the morning the remaining group leaves and the girlfriend confesses how they were going to be married and planned in making the announcement yesterday but things went south. Though they are all grieving the first focus is making it off of the ice. They keep their eyes out for weak spots in the ice as that's the most likely attack spot.
Sure enough the creature breaks through, taking the husband. Not wanting his sacrifice to be in vain the wife pushes the girl and herself on. They're almost to the cabin when the creature appears right at the edge of the lake. The wife, quivering in the snow with the girlfriend, apologizes to the creature for infringing on its territory and tells it it's already taken the most important parts of her life away from her. Something clicks and the creatures leaves them.

 
 
Images from http://www.dreadcentral.com/news/6035/exclusive-clawful-still-hypothermia and http://www.aintitcool.com/node/58875

So above are the various covers. One is really retro B movie looking, while the other is more contemporary. The one to the right obviously plays to the horrible monster costume more, while if you look at the right one then see the film you're probably pretty disappointed.
Now you don't see full stationary shots of the creature much (it's mostly a lot of shaky night shots), but when you do... boy, it's bad. When I saw the creature out of water running on the ice first I kind of didn't believe it was that bad. But sure enough next shot on the surface it was. It basically looks like a dude in a wetsuit.
Aside from that the movie was okay, better than the last film with Michael Rooker, Merle Dixon in The Walking Dead, that I'd seen named Pennhust.
Douche, played by Don Wood, is a really abrasive character and Wood did a heck of a job portraying him. In the beginning the douche is so inconsiderate it's almost comical, but after a while the viewer just accepts the character.
For a movie with a seemingly microscopic budget the talent was good and gore makeup was good. Lighting was almost non existent a few times so that could've used improvement. Audio was pretty clean and clear the whole time. I wonder how quickly the film was shot now that I think about it...
Like Pennhust unless you're a big fan of Michael Rooker or someone else involved in the film, it's not really worth it because of the monster.

The Barrens

The Barrens (2012)
Directed by Darren Lynn Bousman

Unexpectedly good.
When I head this was a movie about the Jersey Devil, I figured it was going to be a campy B movie about supposed folklore, ya know?
Wrong! Like The Lost Coast Tapes, this film manages to take a topic that's often laughable in films and make it something sinister and entertaining.
Like Alien and The Lost Coast Tapes, this film holds out on showing the 'monster' fully pretty much until the final showdown at the end.
So if you were hoping for a hoaky movie with the monster on screen constantly chasing the characters and mutilating them, this won't fill the void.


In the same fashion as many other films, The Barrens is centered around a group of people going camping. Richard, father of 2, his second wife, and the kids are going camping. The only one who actually wants to go is dad, but the rest of the family is dragged along. Richard is driven to get out into the wilderness to spread his dad's ashes.
On their way to the campgrounds a dying deer wanders in front of their car and collapses, almost causing an accident. Chalking it up to hunters, the family drives on to their site.

 Richard inspects the deer before the family drives off, noting that some weird stuff has happened to its body and antlers. Image from http://violetrepulsion.blogspot.com/2012/10/jersey-horrors.html

Once their Richard is incredibly disappointed to find the camp site littered with young adults and their electronics. Teenage daughter Sadie of course loves it, and quickly latches on to one of the boys.
The whole campsite gathers in the night for ghost stories, and someone brings up the tale of the Jersey Devil, 13th daughter of a whore, given to the devil, and said to roam these parts. One of the campers goes to relieve himself and never comes back.
After a few days of being uncharacteristically odd and oversensitive, Richard decides the family needs to find a new camp ground. The family packs up and presses on into the forests. As clouds roll in the family finds a dead dog near a tent, bringing thoughts of their own down that had gone 'missing' a little while before. Richard cuts the body loose from the tree it was leashed to and dumps it elsewhere.
As he is doing so, lover-boy from the camp pops up because Sadie has called him to hang out. Furious that his daughter was using a phone on a camping trip Richard sends the boy away and flips out on his family. He's getting worse...
In the night, Richard reveals that something is wrong with his arm to his wife, a nurse. Turns out their dog didn't go missing. Richard had killed him after he attached Richard. The dog's behavior had changed until eventually he bit Richard, spreading rabies to Richard rabies. His wife insists they leave as soon as possible.
After some scares from the darkness in the woods and what may be the cause, wife Cynthia tries to call for help on another phone, saying her husband is sick and they're in trouble. Authorities are on their way. Unfortunately the madness has set into Richard further and he attacks Cynthia. Sadie knocks him out long enough to tie him up. Unfortunately Cynthia is busted up from the assault, and instructs her kids to try to get back to the first campsite or someone for help and to hurry back if they don't make it before nightfall. The kids eventually wind up back with their mom, but Richard seems to have lost it completely--he holds up a gun to his family. Authorities appear, and just as Richard is about to shoot, they shoot him. Sadly, he was not aiming at his family, but the Jersey Devil behind them. Finally seeing the creature, everyone is attacked and killed.

Mom Cynthia and her kids try to escape. Image from http://www.allmovie.com/movie/the-barrens-v569405

For big horror fans out there, Darren Lynn Bousman's name might sound very familiar. He's also the director of Saw II, Saw III, and Saw IV.
The Barrens' main character, Richard played by Stephen Moyer, is also a familiar to many people as Bill Compton from True Blood. His portfolio shows he's also acted in Walking Dead, not to be confused with The Walking Dead, and 2011's Priest.

All in all, this film is not your typical American Hollywood face-paced constant action movie. It's got more structure, more subtle drama that builds into the climax of the piece. It's also got pretty okay character development for some characters like Sadie.
Since today's movies have such a fast pace with tons of quick cuts, people with tiny attention spans probably couldn't stand watching this. Otherwise, give it a go.

Pennhurst

Pennhurst (2012)
Directed by Michael Rooker

Um... Terrible.
If you've watched it and agree with me in this film being poopy, look at it like this: at least the short runtime (little over an hour) means you haven't wasted as much time as you could have watching something like Thankskilling...

For those of you who do not know, Pennhurst was a real Asylum that was ordered closed in the 80's after reports of patients being mistreated (mistreatment varied in severity).
This movie is about a group of kids (maybe about 16) who bust into the asylum to check it out before it gets converted into an 'amusement park'.
As a side note, Pennhurst really has become a sort of amusement park. It's now a haunted house (http://www.pennhurstasylum.com/). Tickets as of late 2012 start at $15.
Anyway,
so kids in the asylum, yup. Their nerdy hipster leader is taking them for a tour and giving a history lesson on the way. As he tells the story about some paranormal investigators that went missing there, the movie delves into that story. For a while you pretty much forget that this is a story (similarly to Are You Afraid of the Dark?) within the story. The story the kid tells is the majority of the movie too, and more interesting then the kids.
So nearly everyone ends up dying in the end of the story, and after the tale is done the kids, still walking around the place, are attacked by the malicious spirits who killed the investigators prior.
Then, another tv paranormal investigative team heads into the asylum. They spot blood on the floor and follow the trail, only to find the bodies of all the kids. They freak out and are then confronted with the same spirit to got the kids. Cut. That's a wrap.

Above, the paranormal crew from the kid's story. Image from http://ia.media-imdb.com/images/M/MV5BOTg3OTE1NzIzMF5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjMyNjc1Ng@@._V1._SX640_SY480_.jpg

This film is very low budget. However, in my opinion, the ambient sounds/music is pretty sweet. It's eerie and kind of reminds me of Silent Hill's industrial little loops.

If you like to know stuff about the actors in films too, here's your interesting tidbit about the group above; the woman on the left in the blue is Haylie Duff, older sister of, you guessed it, Hilary Duff, one of Disney's former teen stars. She was also in Napoleon Dynamite.

Also, does the name of the director ring a bell for anyone? It's The Walking Dead's Merle Dixon! Though I did not enjoy the movie, I appreciate that this acting talent also does some producing and directing. I also dig that he was into another part of the horror genre (is in a realm other than zombies). Yes, he's in a horror TV series, but talent doesn't necessarily have to enjoy the pieces they're in. Seems like if he's in a horror show, and makes a horror movie as well, that he probably likes horror.

If you're a Michael Rooker fan than why not? It's only about an hour and 15 minutes.
If you're not, then I don't really think you need watch this film. There's more compelling stuff out there.

***Here's another interesting piece of trivia: Firstly, anyone else remember why Pennsylvania is kinda weirder and creepier than other states?
For those of you who are big Silent Hill buffs, then you know Centralia, the real life Silent Hill. Centralia is an abandoned town in PA with an underground toxic fire still burning... You can do more research too to see more parallels between Silent Hill and Centralia.
Oh, PA, you are an interesting state for some of the wrong reasons...