They Might Be Werewolves

Amazon Prime time! Which usually means a horror movie that no one has ever heard of and never will again.

My favorites. 

Quick Plot: Rich girl Sarah and her friends are partying at her dad's secluded home on a Chumash reservation. 

Yes, they're white.

Ex-boyfriend Alex brings along a card game variation on Werewolf, the perfect campfire-and-hot-sauce-spiked-tequila activity. Also on board are Sarah's older half-siblings Jacey and Tala (thankfully not white), party girls Connie and Liz, and the band "Potheads" (no, really) who respectfully do not subject us to their music. 

A few hours later, everyone wakes up with massive hangovers and lost time. 

Also, lost people. Band member Nick's little Instagram-obsessed sister Julie is missing, most likely from their trip into town for drinks and bars (and no, I don't mean "drinks at a bar"; it's 2023, OBVIOUSLY I'm talking about cell phone reception). Is it a coincidence that she was also the first victim during the gang's game? What can we make out of the pair of glowing eyes just over her shoulder spotted in that fateful last selfie? 

It doesn't take long for a few players to disappear, though it takes a whole lot longer for those remaining to stop drinking (these kids are VERY SMART). Eventually, they piece together some messy facts: the game is real, which means Nick and Connie might be morphing into their werewolf card counterparts when no one is looking.

Written by Chloe Bellande and directed by Terry Spears, As the Village Sleeps has an interesting idea at its core, and calls to mind a few other similarly low budget parlor game-based horrors, including Dead Body and Witch-Hunt (a movie I'm still begging SOMEONE else to see that wasn't me or the director's immediate family). It's a good idea for a horror film, especially when resources are clearly strained. Spears keeps virtually all of the violence offscreen, building the entire threat through situation and dialogue alone. It's admirable.

I just wish it were also entertaining. 

My biggest problem with As the Village Sleeps is that it's centered on aggressively dull to awful people. Nobody seems to actually like each other, let alone care much when they vanish. There's a kernel of an interesting relationship between Sarah and Tala, but it ends as quickly as it's introduced. It also took me a good half hour to figure out whether Tala and Jacey were siblings or lovers. I know I've read my share of VC Andrews and am therefore always looking for both, but still.

High Points

I almost didn't realize just how little action is actually onscreen until I started to think back to the film's details. It takes a bit of a leap of faith to make a horror movie knowing you can't really show any of it, and it's a credit to the filmmakers that it the concept works

Low Points

When your apparent heroine is introduced as the kind of spoiled rich girl who calls her best friend a whore (who of course responds with "bitch!"), it's an uphill battle to ever get us on her side (or any of the fairly unpleasant characters here)

Lessons Learned

The only strangers you'll encounter on a dark road in the middle of the night will be hot chicks or old dudes

You won't find street names on a tribal reservation

Pushing a fully clothed woman into a hot tub is only acceptable if rain is in the forecast

Chekov's Bear Trap

Thank goodness this sign comes into play. As I've said time and time again, if you introduce a bear trap at any point in your film, you damn well better have it go off

Rent/Bury/Buy

As the Village Sleeps is interesting in how it manages to give a fairly creative twist to the standard slasher setup. I just wish it was also interesting to watch. I think some horror fans with an appreciation for low budget potential will get something out of this. I don't regret watching it, but I just have a hard time telling anyone else to. 

Nerd Alert! Books to Buy With Your Gift Cards!

 

As tentatively promised, it's time for another dive into some of the genre (and adjacent) books that I've been enjoying in recent weeks. Clean those glasses and dive in!

In the Heart of the Sea by Nathanial Philbrick

Nonfiction is a bit of an uphill climb for me, but there's one particular history subject that I can always read about: exploration/nautical hell. Chalk it up to having a passionate fifth grade teacher, but give me a biography of James Cook that details his brutal dismemberment or the horrors of scurvy as it knocked out his crew's teeth and yes, I'm fully there. In the Heart of the Sea is sort of the historical prequel to Moby Dick, an intimidating classic that I've circled like Pee-Wee Herman around the snake tank, knowing I SHOULD read it for its place in literary history, but terrified at the amount of likely dull whaling details I'm going to encounter. In the Heart of the Sea is thankfully a brisker but deeply informative look at the same era and industry, told well by Nathaniel Philbrick as he sorts pieces together the various accounts of the infamous Essex's voyage in 1820. Phlbrick's voice is engagingly entertaining, keeping the history lesson moving with great narrative skill. I certainly didn't expect to encounter 19th century dildos in chapter 2, if that tells you something.

TV/Movie Pairing:

The fascination of In the Heart of the Sea is wonderfully reminiscent of another property based on a nautical failure of the same era. If you loved Dan Simmons' The Terror, this ticks many of the same boxes. And more importantly, if you haven't checked out the wonderful (and vastly underrated) AMC miniseries adaptation, amend that today. Jarred Harris and Ciaran Hinds lead the cast through brutally stark art direction. Yes, the CGI monster is the least effective part (same goes for the presumably non-CGI monster in the book) but the human aspects and nature's wonder are beautifully done. Just promise me you'll skip the completely unrelated second season of the series, which assembled a completely new creative team to tell an unrelated story...very badly.

We Believe the Children: A Moral Panic In the 1980s by Richard Beck

TWO nonfiction on ONE list? What is HAPPENING? Well, hopefully not whatever went wrong with the world in the 1980s, when the system began to prosecute/persecute random citizens for corrupting the youth of America with witchcraft. The Satanic Panic is a dark chapter in this country's history, but not nearly enough is known about why and how it came to destroy so many lives. Author Richard Beck does a thorough dive into a few of the more prominent cases and effectively grounds the action so we the reader can better understand how 1988 California could so easily mimic 1692 Salem. It's all too familiar. 

TV/Movie Pairing

I'm still waiting for the world to find this Philip Schaeffer's Witch-Hunt, a made-for-pennies oddity that manages to develop a fascinating little story on dialog alone. Witch-Hunt is very much about how being part of the Satanic Panic might fester in someone decades later, and while you have to power through its early low budget strained rhythm, once you give in, there's a lot there. 

When No One Is Watching by Alyssa Cole

The horrors of gentrification take on a literal form in this contemporary tale of a Brooklyn neighborhood. The narrative is effectively split between Sydney, our hometown heroine ready to defend her territory from the invading wealthy whites, and Theo, a nice enough guy discovering his part in the problem. It's a fast-paced mystery with a solid payoff.

TV/Movie Pairing

I found When No One Is Watching by the tagline "the literary Get Out," and that really does fit. If you enjoyed one, you'll likely feel the same way about the other.

God Shot by Chelsea Bieker

Don't you kind of hate yourself for being so damn fascinated by cults? The details are always so strangely enthralling that you end up sucked into a story that almost always involves victimization, often of the marginalized or young. Chelsea Bieker's God Shot doesn't necessarily give us a story we haven't seen before, but she solidly places it from the point of view that we should most be listening to in these scenarios: a teenage girl who is thoroughly enamored by her faith's charismatic sham of a leader, but slowly discovers entirely for herself that there's something very wrong. It doesn't necessarily fall into the horror categorization, but it's deeply affecting in pulling you into a very dark place.

TV/Movie Pairing:

There are plenty of films and documentaries about cult victims, but one the best remains Sean Durkin's Martha Marcy May Marlene. Like God Shot, it steadies itself in the perspective of a young woman taken in by the promises of an appealing man quickly proven to be horrible abuser. Now don't ever make me write out and remember the order of names in that title again.

Blood Autumn by Kathryn Ptacek

Is there anything more wonderful than discovering a used bookstore that has both cats AND a huge stretch of horror paperbacks? I stumbled upon such a gem on a recent vacation (the Book Corner in Niagara Falls, New York) and left with a literal boxful of random treasures, including this sexy vampire romp. I'd never heard of the author or title, but for $1, that juicy cover art couldn't be denied. And what a find! August Hamilton (amongst her many names) is a gorgeously drawn villain, a deeply carnal succubus who tears through men every which way. It's hard not to root for her.

TV/Movie Pairing

August makes you thirsty for the kind of glamourous lady vampire that sashayed through castles in the Hammer years. I confess that's a bit of a blind spot for me so at the lack of recommending the wrong one, I'll say you can never go wrong with Catherine Deneuve's otherworldly performance in The Hunger. If you're looking for something newer and woefully underrated, the divine Gemma Arterton shines in Neil Jordan's underappreciated Byzantium. 

Anything here strike your fancy? I'm always on the hunt for more reading, so if you've found adjacent picks to some of these, share them in the comments! And as always...

Nail Gun Massacre (but not that one)

 

You know how you never really outgrow your childhood vices? For some it's nail biting, others, party bowls of cheese puffs, and most of us horror fans, cheaply made slashers set in wooded areas. 

Yup. Who says you have to grow up?

Quick Plot: Graduating high school senior Dominic is using his father's remote cabin for a fun weekend with his crush Ilsa, Japanese exchange student Mariko, and her boyfriend Kenji. His charcuterie plans are thrown asunder when Ilsa shows up with a batch of uninvited guests: her new older bro squeeze Dwane, unrequited crush Marcus, odd pal Rumor, stoner Eli, and smoker Sara.

With the PlayStation broken and radio non-iPod ready, the group decides to kill time the old-fashioned way: a parlor game of Dead Body. Naturally (since the film's title is "Dead Body") things get quite real: Mariko, Kenji, and Dominic are quickly found slain, and with doors locking from the inside, it's clear that the murderer is one of their own.

Dead Body is directed by newcomer Bobbin Ramsey from a script by Ian Bell and Ramon Isao, and clearly, this was made for less than the catering budget of a Marvel film (or even the cast payout for a BlumHouse one). We're pretty much restricted to one house and some woods, with actors you might have seen as character witnesses on Law & Order. Most of the violence occurs under so much darkness that there clearly wasn't too much of a need to go broke on fake blood.

And yet, much like the similarly tiny and game-themed Witch-Hunt, Dead Body manages to be far more entertaining than you might fear for a title you've never heard of streaming on Amazon Prime. It's under 90 minutes and moves exactly how you'd want this kind of dead "teenager" movie to move.

Some of the early arguments about what is actually going down feel repetitive (not ideal in such a short film), but one could argue that there's something of a point to that. I haven't played Dead Body in years, but the film makes it feel like an oral version of Clue, which adds an interesting spin to a fast mass murder mystery.

The characters are idiots, and most on the mild scale of likability, but the young(ish) actors (seriously, I did a few double takes when I realized they were supposed to be 18-year-old graduates and not celebrating a 10-year reunion) are good enough to help the material along. This isn't a hidden gem or new classic, but if you're looking for an old-fashioned slasher on cheap hypderdrive, Dead Body more than satisfies.

High Points
There really is a lot to admire in terms of how Ramsey made such efficient use of what had to be a teeny budget

Low Points
I'm not fully sure what to make of the film's treatment of its two Japanese characters, who exist solely to have a lot of sex while their very white friends discuss how they're always having sex because that's what Japanese people do. It's actually less racist than I'm making it sound, but still...it just sits weird

A Note of Exemption
Time and time again, I've expressed rage at the new trend of opening a movie on a flash of violence that occurs 2/3rds of the way through the running time before flashing a "24 Hours Earlier" note to start proper. It feels cheap and sometimes genuinely spoils certain plot elements and usually, accomplishes nothing but presumably assures an impatient audience that yes, there will be violence in what might be a slow-burn. That being said, Dead Body does indeed open on such a scene, but this is the rare case where it doesn't hurt the storytelling. Instead, it just lets us know from the beginning that this is a whodunit, something the movie doesn't really hide.

Lessons Learned
You apparently don't have to be that smart to get into Harvard

Never underestimate the user-friendly quickfire power of a nail gun (as if we didn't already know)

It never hurts to bring a shovel for a weekend trip, even if you won't have to use it to dig poop holes

Rent/Bury/Buy
Dead Body sits very nicely in the "this was a good elliptical machine watch" at the gym. Find it on Amazon Prime when you're working out.

I Saw Goody Good With the Chardonnay!

Witches are having a moment, and it's something every feminist I know is loving. A movie about a modern witch hunt using names from the Salem witch trials made by a man doesn't quite seem like the next step in a movement, but let's take a closer look at the super low budget Amazon Prime offering of Witch-Hunt. We might find something. 

Quick Plot: Four lifelong gal pals get together to celebrate the birthday of Bridget, their ambitious blogger friend with bigger dreams of getting a book deal. Party planner Suzannah organizes the soiree, using her new acquaintance Rebecca's home. Conveniently enough, Rebecca runs a successful publishing company and immediately causes drool to roll out of the birthday girl's mouth.

After the wine is poured, the ladies decide to honor Bridget with her favorite activity: gaming! 

If you've ever played Werewolf or Mafia, you'll get Witch-Hunt. Using a retro cassette tape, the game requires to players to draw a card and use strategy to figure out which one has been assigned the role of the witch. Easy enough, but with just a few tweaks, it becomes psychological torture meant to divide the group. 

Rebecca, you see, has an ulterior motive for hosting someone she barely knows friend's party: back when the women were in preschool, they accused their teacher of ritually abusing them. Satanic panic was in full swing, and the ladies have seemingly buried the scandal for 20+ years. Rebecca smells a successful book, and has even assembled a pair of researchers to dig into the women's psychological profiles to help make the evening reach the deal she needs.

Witch-Hunt is the debut of writer/director Philip Schaeffer, made on what I assume was a shoestring budget for tennis shoes with very short laces. For its opening ten minutes or so, I really thought I was watching someone's audition video for a job as a production assistant on a Lifetime movie. There's some dialog stumbling that makes you wonder if scenes were done in one take, with conversations between women that feel very much written by a man (sample line of a character discussing her friend: "Isn't she pretty? But I always thought she was more talented than she was pretty" -- WHAT?!).

At a certain point though, Witch-Hunt clicked. Many successful low budget films tend to do that: it simply takes a little easing into the movie's limitations to accept what you're getting. Over the course of its 90 minutes, Witch-Hunt turns into a thriller purely based on dialog and character. I can't say that it fully works, but I was genuinely involved in seeing how it ended. 

I don't know much about Philip Schaeffer or the genesis of Witch-Hunt, but I'll certainly keep my ears open for more. I'd love to see this same film remade on a larger budget or with added time to smooth out some of the inevitable first-time kinks. There's something here, and while you have to sift through some messiness to find it, it might be worth the work.

High Points

It's hard not to admire a filmmaker who clearly wanted to tell a story about women, going so far as to limit his 7-person cast to all females. While there is some creakiness to the dialog, Schaeffer gives his core five characters plenty of depth and individuality, avoiding stock stereotypes within the confines of his brief story

Low Points

Look, I understand that a low budget and quick shoot can limit your possibilities, but that's no excuse to have your party planning experts keep the white wine sitting on a room temperature counter all night

Lessons Learned

A book deal is the holy grail for a blogger

Who needs event planners when there are candles and party store decorations?

You can't just not ice someone because they have a noose around their neck

It's not a birthday until the birthday girl has a meltdown

Rent/Bury/Buy

Most traditional horror fans are not going to get much out of Witch-Hunt, and will probably give me a sharp head tilt if they watch it upon my recommendation. But those who want something different and have the ability to see beyond its (lack of) window dressing might find something here. Have at it on Amazon Prime.