Horror Film Review: Look Away (dir by Assaf Bernstein)

Posted on October 31, 2023 by Lisa Marie Bowman

Poor Maria (India Eisley)!

Maria is a 17 year-old high school student in Canada. She goes to a school where everyone wears a uniform, everyone plays hockey, and everyone is looking forward to a prom that is going to be held on an ice skating rink! (Personal injury attorneys love this school!) Everyone is obsessed with living on the ice but Maria can’t even skate. Popular hockey player Mark (John C. MacDonald) taunts Maria for not being able to maintain her balance. Her best friend, Lily (Penelope Mitchell) offers to teach Maria how to skate but Lily turns out to be a cruel and taunting teacher, probably because she knows that Maria has a crush on her boyfriend, Sean (Harrison Gilbertson).

Maria’s life at home isn’t any better. Her mother, Amy (Mira Sorvino), is suffering from crippling depression and often can’t even be bothered to get out of bed or off the couch. Her father, Dan (Jason Isaacs), is a plastic surgeon who is obsessed with the idea that he can fix any flaw through surgery. He’s the type who cruelly critiques his daughter’s looks, despite the fact that Maria is actually a very pretty girl whenever she can find the courage to actually look up from the floor. Dan is also cheating on his wife. Perhaps the only good thing that Dan does is that he encourages Maria to stay home from school, though his reasoning is that she doesn’t look good on that particular day and she needs to get her “beauty sleep.”

Seriously, watching this movie, your heart truly breaks for Maria. It’s as if the whole world has been against her since the day she was born. Everyone gives Maria a hard time for not having more confidence but how can someone be confident when all they hear is about how much of a disappointment they are? Maria’s only friend is her reflection in the mirror.

At first, Maria freaks out when her reflection starts talking back to her. Airam, as Maria’s reflection calls herself, may look like Maria but she initially seems to have a totally different personality. Airam is confident in both her appearance and her sexuality. Airam is willing to strike back at the people that have hurt her. Airam is confident where Maria is insecure. When Maria talks to Airam, she ends up laughing so loudly that Amy actually comes into the bathroom and asks if Maria is smoking weed. After Maria is cruelly humiliated at prom, Maria agrees to switch places with Airam by kissing the mirror. Suddenly, Maria is the one in the mirror and Airam is the one who is in the real world, looking for revenge against everyone who has hurt Maria.

Or is she? Watching the film, I found myself wondering if Maria was just imagining talking to her reflection and perhaps “the switch” was all in Maria’s mind. Perhaps Airam isn’t some malevolent force that’s brought into the world as much as she’s just Maria having been pushed too far by the cruel taunts of her classmates and her father’s refusal to show her the consideration that he shows to his mistress. Airam is soon doing everything that Maria wishes she could do but when people start dying, Maria begs Airam to stop. Is Maria really trapped in the mirror and begging Airam to stop or is she just imagining a conversation with her own conscience? India Eisley’s performance keeps you guessing.

This is an intriguing film, even if is sometimes a bit too ambiguous for its own good. (The final shot is artfully done but it still made me want to throw something at the TV.) The film’s greatest asset is India Eisley, who is convincing whether she’s the mousy Maria or the bold Airam. Jason Isaacs, as well, gives a strong performance, turning his plastic surgeon into one of the all-time bad fathers. Watching Isaacs’s performance as Dan, it’s hard not to understand why Dan’s daughter would want to hide in a mirror.

Lifetime Film Review: Cheerleader Abduction (dir by Michelle Oullet)

Posted on November 26, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

So, here you are.

You’re 17 years old. You’ve got your entire future ahead of you. You’re popular. You’re a cheerleader. In fact, you’re not just a cheerleader but you’re also the team captain! Your mother is the mayor of the town in which you live and she’s thinking of running for governor! You’re looking forward to going to Michigan River University and spending your summers reading a book on the beach.

Except….

Well, you’ve been throwing up a lot. Could it have something to do with what happened at that party a few weekends ago?

Yep! You are pregnant! But you can’t tell your mom, because she’s got so much going on right now. And you can’t tell your friends because they’ll spread it all over the school. They still haven’t forgiven you for missing the last cheerleading competition. However, there’s a nice woman who claims that she’s been through the same thing that you’re going through. And, she just happens to run an underground adoption agency!

That’s pretty much the plot of Cheerleader Abduction. According to the imdb, this film was originally entitled A Secret To Keep, which is actually a far more appropriate title. The entire film is about Olivia (Jerni Stewart) trying to keep her mother, Trish (Kristen Harris), for discovering that she’s pregnant. While Trish is busy running for governor, Olivia is secretly quitting the cheer squad and hanging out with Pam (Sarah Constible). Pam seems to be friendly but, whenever Olivia turns her back to her, Pam’s smile quickly disappears. In a Lifetime film, that’s all the evidence that you need to know that someone is up to no good.

To be honest, the fact that Olivia’s a cheerleader really isn’t that important to the plot. She could just as easily have been a theater student who missed her cue because she was getting an ultrasound in the middle of a performance. I guess her being a cheerleader is meant to establish her as being one of the popular kids at school but still, it’s not really enough of a plot point to justify changing the film’s title. As far as the abduction is concerned …. well, nothing that could really be considered an abduction occurs until pretty late in the film. Instead, the majority of the film is taken up by Olivia attempting to prevent Trish from picking up on the fact that she’s pregnant. (“I hope she’s not sick. She just got over that stomach flu.”) It’s all about Olivia trying to keep her secret. A Secret To Keep is a far more appropriate title, though it doesn’t quite have the same melodramatic snap to it as Cheerleader Abduction.

Anyway, this one was okay. As everyone should know by now, I like Lifetime movies in general and Cheerleader Abduction featured all of the things that I tend to look for when watching a Lifetime film. There were enough lies and melodrama to hold my attention and I thought Sarah Constible did a good job playing the outwardly friendly Pam. That said, I had a hard time taking the idea of Trish being a candidate for governor seriously. It may be because I’ve just lived through an election but there was nothing about Trish’s political career that rang true. Not that it really matters, of course. You don’t watch Lifetime movies for a realistic portrait of American politics. You watch them for the secrets and the lies and Cheerleader Abduction featured enough of both to be entertaining.

Channel Zero: Candle Cove Season 1, Episode 1, ALT Title – The Tooth Fairy is Real … Real Hungry!

Posted on October 12, 2016 by casewright

Gentle Readers, it’s time to take a break from my stand alone film reviews and get something we can all sink our Teeth Into (you’ll get the pun later). It’s the Syfy Channel’s return to their awesomely dramatic roots. I will begin by writing that they delivered! If you dig suspense, good writing, and intricate plots, this show is not a bad bet.

Cold Open: A nightmare. Mike Painter, America’s Child Psychologist, is being interviewed by an asshole. The host pries deep into Mike’s private life and how his twin brother disappeared, several children were murdered in 1988, his blood type, and pictures of his colon – ok the last two were false, but the interviewer is a jerk. The host gives Mike water that has a dying fly in it. He puts Mike on the spot to talk to a creepy kid on the phone… who says “Why are you afraid to go home?” Then, the cameraman is a mannequin. What we got here is an unreliable narrator. We smash to the first of many odd smash cuts: a scarecrow on fire.

Mike heads home and briefly talks to his mom. She’s concerned that he is looking into the murders. He lies and says no. Mike goes to the Sheriff’s office and it’s a bit of exposition time, but not too bad. We learn that Mike’s buddy has become Sheriff and that the Sheriff’s son is a bit of a misfit. Mike wants the files on the murders. Mike dissembles that he’s writing a book about the murders. Sheriff wants to makes sure the book will be respectful and mentions that the victims were missing their teeth. YEECH! Sheriff is worried that his son is a weirdo and offers to trade files for some free psychoanalysis…. as you do. We also get a clue as to weirdness: there are reports of a person breaking into homes, but not stealing anything. Yikes!

Dinner Party: They discuss how the kids are watching too much tv. Mike checks in on Katie – the Sheriff’s daughter – who is watching a creepy puppet show. Mike mentions this when he returns to the dinner table. The show was called Candle Cove. The same show that they watched as children in 1988. It has a super creepy host called Jawbone – a puppet skeleton. The adults discuss the show some more and Mike leaves abruptly.

Mike has a flashback to bullies messing with his brother and he does nothing. They go home and the tv turns on and it’s the creepy puppet show Candle Cove. This show really ratchets up the creep factor. Seriously, you will be scared. We flashback back to Mike’s childhood room. He wakes and sees Jawbone in his room and Mike approaches him. When he touches Jawbone, he wakes in a field looking out at the woods. He notices a man in the woods as well.

Diner: Mike runs into his old English teacher and she quizzes him on grammar. We cut away to Katie’s room. She’s vanished. This show’s creep factor really goes up and up and up. A search party forms to look for Katie. Katie’s mom Jessica confronts Mike because she’s learned that he was not home for five hours the previous night. We learn that he was in psych ward a week ago. He begins to rave that it’s the show that somehow took Katie away. She rationally calls for help and he disappears. Mike is convinced that he can find Katie.

Mike goes to the Sheriff’s house and sees Dane the Sheriff’s son. Dane says, “She said you would ask” Taking a moment. This is becoming The Ring, Ju-on, When a Stranger Calls levels of creepy. Mike is convinced that he knows where Katie is. He flees into the woods towards a place called “Crow’s Nest”. We see a number of cutaways of burying bodies and hooks to the chest. Yep, hooks to the chest.

Mike sees Jawbone and reaches to touch it. Jawbone flees and leads him to Katie. Mike rescues Katie and when they leave, we see the MONSTER: a Thing Covered in Teeth. The Tooth Monster reaches out where Katie was sitting and takes away two bloody teeth. You wanna be scared, watch this series!

They have thrown Mike in jail because he rescued Katie…come again? Well, he’s in jail and gets released. When he gets home, he mentions Candle Cove to his mom. She responds that show was just static. We cut to all of the children of the town watching Candle Cove.

This show is absolute gooseflesh inducing. Where Stranger Things was dripping with nostalgia and gothic horror, Channel Zero taps into sheer Hitchcock suspense and Rod Serling terror. It’s a great show for October and just a great Thriller!