Category Archives: horror

A Quiet, Methodical Horror

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BRIGHT HILL ROAD – directed by Robert Cuffley, written by Susie Moloney – SPOILERS

Siobhan Williams and Agam Darshi

Marci (Siobhan Williams) contemplates advice from Mrs. Inman (Agam Darshi).

It’s quickly established that Marci (Siobhan Williams) is an alcoholic. She drives drunk, works drunk (she is in charge of HR for an unspecified company), and does everything else that way. Shortly after the story begins, some dude she fired (probably unjustifiably) turns up at the office with a handgun and starts shooting people. Marci has good survival instincts, so he hides quietly in a bathroom stall while the rest of the staff is decimated. She is given some time off work to sort herself out. Continue reading →

Still A Few Bugs In The System

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THE SWARM (La Nuée)- directed by Just Philippot
– written by Franck Victor and Jérôme Genevray – SPOILERS

Marie Narbonne, Raphael Romand, and Suliane Brahim

The Hébrard family – Laura, Gaston, and Virginie at the dinner table

On a farm somewhere in the French countryside, Virginie Hébrard (Suliane Brahim) decides to raise locusts as a last ditch effort to survive. She has a mildly asthmatic, soccer-playing son named Gaston (Raphael Romand), and a daughter Laura (Marie Narbonne), who is in high school and is somewhat stigmatized socially for being the daughter of the bug lady. The notion of farming insects for food is a good one (if one must farm animals for food at all). Locusts are a much more efficient source of protein than larger food animals and less land is used in the process of raising them. Alas, her bugs do not lay enough eggs, and she is forced to sell the small quantities of locust flour she produces as feed for the raising of geese and the like. Continue reading →

Counter-Evolution: The Demon In The Dream

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DEMONIC – written and directed by Neill Blomkamp – SPOILERS

Carly Pope

Carly on the phone to Sam

It begins in a dream in which Carly (Carly Pope) wanders through the dry grass surrounding a disused institutional-appearing building, calling out to her mother (who does not answer). She finds her mother (Angela, played by Nathalie Boltt) in one of the rooms inside. “Don’t you see what you’re standing in?” her mother says, then tosses a lit match toward her, and the room is set alight. Carly wakes, and her alarm is going off with a steady, rapid beeping. (I will always remember Carly Pope as travel agent Sonia Brauer in the MOTIVE episode “Ruthless”. Like that episode, DEMONIC is a story in which much is left unsaid, and again Pope delivers an exceptional performance.) Continue reading →