The TSL Horror Grindhouse: Do Not Reply (dir by Daniel Woltosz and Walter Woltosz)

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Lisa Marie Bowman

What a disturbing movie!

2019’s Do Not Reply is about Chelsea (Amanda Arcui, who previously played Lola during the final seasons of Degrassi), a high school student who is super-excited to have found an online boyfriend. Brad (Jackson Rathbone) seems like he’s funny, handsome, and charming and he’s even got a semi-tragic life story! Now, it should be mentioned that there are some immediate red flags about Brad. Brad seems to be just a bit too perfect and the story of his life — being adopted and having parents who won’t even spend the money necessary to get him a new phone — seems to be a little bit too on-the-nose as far as getting Chelsea to feel sorry for him is concerned.

Brad and Chelsea agree to go to the Halloween dance together. Brad says that he’ll show up as a zombie football player and he requests that Chelsea show up dressed a cheerleader. (RED FLAG! RED FLAG!) To the surprise of no one, Chelsea meets up with Brad at the dance and is promptly kidnapped.

Brad, it turns out, is not a teenager with parents who refuse to buy him a new phone. Instead, he’s a man in his 20s who lives in a surprisingly nice house. He’s been meeting and kidnapping teenager girls for a while. He holds them prisoner in his house, requiring that they wear cheerleader uniforms while cleaning the place. Brad wants the house to be spotless. He wants his prisoners to adore him. He wants them to be very polite and well-mannered whenever they eat the dinners that he prepares for them. One girl who tried to escape was several beaten by Brad and locked in her room, where she suffers as a warning to the others. Meagan (Kerri Medders) and Heather (Elisa Luthman) both seem to be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome and they not only go out of their way to keep Brad happy but also to keep Chelsea from trying to escape.

If he’s in a good mood, Brad rewards his prisoners with “outdoor time,” which means that he allows them to wear a VR headset and visit an imaginary park. Brad spends most of his day wearing his headset, not only searching for new realities but also reliving all of the terrible things he did in the past. Brad is one sick man, his madness apparently inspired by his incestuous feelings towards his deceased sister who was — wait for it — a cheerleader!

The premise is a disturbing one, precisely because it is based on reality. There are internet stalkers out there and there have been internet murderers as well. Most of them aren’t as wealthy or handsome as Brad but they’re still out there, preying on those who are too naive to question their intentions. While there’s definitely more than a small element of exploitation to the film (with the camera tending to linger over the cheerleader uniforms almost as intensely as Brad does), the film is ultimately on the side of Brad’s prisoners. As opposed to the hyperarticulate madmen who tend to populate films like this, Brad is a loser from the start and the moment when his victims finally start to get the upper hand on him is a cheer-worthy moment. Though the film gets off to a rather slow start, Amanda Arcuri, Kerri Medders, and Elisa Luthman all give good performances. It’s a flawed film but it gets the job done.

Spring Breakdown: The Sand (dir by Isaac Gabaef)

Posted on March 3, 2020 by Lisa Marie Bowman

The 2015 horror film, The Sand, is the movie that asks, “What would you do if the beach was literally eating you?”

The answer, to judge from this film, is “Die.”

I mean, seriously, think about it. If you’re on the beach and you’re still hungover from the night before and your friend is like literally trapped inside of a trash can (and yes, that does happen in this movie), then you’re pretty much screwed if the sand suddenly decides to start ripping apart your body. I mean, that’s one thing about the beach. There’s a lot of sand. The sand has the advantage.

Of course, despite the title of this movie, it’s not really the beach that’s eating people. Instead, it turns out that some sort of previously unknown sea serpent hatched out of an egg in the middle of the night and burrowed under the sand. We don’t learn much about the serpent, other than it has tentacles and it apparently injects a numbing poison into your body before killing you. That leads to a lot of scenes of people sinking into the sand while screaming, “I’ve gone numb! I can’t feel anything!” I can’t remember if anyone in the film actually yells, “The sand’s got me!” It seems like a missed opportunity if they didn’t.

This is one of those movies that opens with a big spring break party, which means booze, lost bikini tops, and drunken hook-ups in the lifeguard tower. As I mentioned before, it also means that one unfortunate fellow ends up getting tossed into a trash can, where he promptly gets stuck. Making things even worse is that his friends use a felt tip marker to draw a penis on his face. He’s definitely not going to die a dignified death. That’s just the way things go when the beach turns on you.

The next morning, a few people wake up and discover that almost everyone else from the party has disappeared. That probably has something do with the fact that only a few people were smart enough to fall asleep somewhere other than on the sand. So, you’ve got one couple in a lifeguard station. And then you’ve got four people in a car. And then you’ve got the poor guy in the trashcan. They’ve got to figure out how to get to safety without getting eaten by the beach.

They also have to work out their own personal issues. For instance, one of the girls in the car cheated with the girl in the station’s boyfriend and the boyfriend happens to be in the car so there’s a lot of scenes of people apparently forgetting that they’re on the verge of dying so that they can argue about who cheated first. It gets kind of annoying. I would put all that personal stuff to the side if I was trying to figure out how not to get eaten on the beach.

(Actually, I probably wouldn’t. Sometimes, personal drama just can’t wait. But then again, I’d never survive a horror film….)

On the plus side, The Sand doesn’t take itself seriously at all. It knows that it’s a ludicrous, low-budget horror film and it doesn’t pretend to be anything other than what it is. Jamie Kennedy shows up as a fascist beach patrol guy. When he’s told that his shoes are the only thing that’s dissuading the beach from eating him, he promptly takes his shoes off. He’s an idiot. Everyone in the movie is an idiot. But the movie understand that they’re all idiots and it plays up the fact because it understands that everyone watching is going to be on the side of the monster under the sand. GO, MONSTER, GO!

So, I guess my point is that The Sand is what it is. It knows its audience and it goes out of its way fulfill their expectations and you always have to give credit to a film that understands both its strengths and its limitations. If you want to watch a bunch of unlikable college students get eaten by the beach, have had it. This film has what you’re looking for.

Cleaning Out The DVR: Open Marriage (dir by Sam Irvin)

Posted on October 23, 2017 by Lisa Marie Bowman

(Lisa is not just watching horror movies! She is also trying to clean out her DVR! She has got over 200 movies that she needs to watch before January 1st! Will she make it? Keep checking here to find out! She recorded Open Marriage off of Lifetime on February 4th!)

Sometimes, cleaning out the DVR really does make you feel as if you’ve stepped into a time machine.

Take Open Marriage, for instance. I recorded this film on February 4th and, as soon as I watched it, I was transported back to those romantic days leading up to Valentine’s Day. Suddenly, I once again found myself in a time when every other commercial was either for Fifty Shades Darker or Adore Me lingerie. I was reminded of how, from the beginning of January to the end of March, not a single day went by that I didn’t say to my boyfriend, “You like it too. Right, babe?”

(If you’ve seen the commercial, you know what I’m talking about. If not, don’t worry about it.)

Anyway, it’s appropriate that Open Marriage aired in between all of those commercials for Fifty Shades Darker. Much like the Fifty Shades movies, Open Marriage is one of those films that pretends to be all decadent but which is actually kind of silly. Ron (Tilky Jones) and Becca (Nikki Leigh) are young, pretty, and married but they’ve got some problems. Ron recently hurt his back and he’s been out of work for a year. They’ve got a huge house but they’re struggling financially. Despite Ron’s big sexy tattoo, there’s no more spark to their marriage.

However, things change when they visit their friends, Mindy (Kelly Dowdle) and Max (Jason Tobias). Mindy and Max are young, pretty, and married but they don’t spend all of their time fighting. How is this possible!? Could it be because they’re rich and have an even bigger house than Ron and Becca? Or could it be the fact that they have an open marriage? Ron and Becca may say that they’re skeptical about the whole open marriage thing but they get so turned on by the idea that they have very passionate Lifetime-approved sex right before the first commercial break.

Naturally, all of this leads to the two couples experimenting with each other. This means going to a secret club and getting a private room in back. One of the rules is that the two couples always have to be together but, instead, Becca and Max go off on their own. Ron gets upset and demands an end to all the swinging. Becca agrees but soon finds herself tempted to return to the club. The club, by the way, is named Caligula. I assume that Nero was already taken.

Anyway, I liked Open Marriage because it offered up three of my favorite things: trashy sex, trashy lingerie, and trashy melodrama. On the one hand, the movie is totally ludicrous and kind of silly. On the other hand, it’s so totally over the top that it’s impossible not to be amused and entertained by it all. If nothing else, Open Marriage was better than Fifty Shades Darker so let’s give credit where credit is due.