Horror-101

RIIHFF Reviews: Feature Films

The tenth annual Rhode Island International Horror Film Festival recently took place, and H101 was on hand to cover the great independent films that were screened. What follows is our reviews of the feature films that were screened. Also be sure to read our reviews of the short films here and here. A full review of another feature screened, Circuit, can be found here.

Dawning (2009)
written by Gregg Holtgrewe and Matthew Wilkins
directed by Gregg Holtgrewe

As Albert Einstein once said, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” This concept rings especially true to the horror genre. Sure, anyone can make a gross-out movie with over-the-top gore, but it takes a true master of filmmaking to create suspense based on the unknown. Gregg Holtgrewe accomplished just that with Dawning, a reworking of a film he made back in 2005 on a shoestring budget. The film begins with a shot that pays homage to the opening The Shining. We are introduced to Chris (Jonas Goslow) and Aurora (Najarra Townsend), a brother a sister who are on their way to visit their father (David Coral) and step-mother (Christine Kellogg-Darrin) at their cabin nestled deep in the woods of northern Minnesota. Things are uncomfortable between Chris and his father, while Aurora refuses to accept that their father has a new wife. The mood of the night quickly turns from awkward to terrifying when the family dog is found wounded and has to be shot. Shortly after, a frantic stranger (Danny Salmen) makes his way to the cabin, professing that he has come to save the family from the presence that lurks in the woods, but he proves to do more harm than good.

The film runs for 70 minutes, but it’s a slow-moving picture. A creepy mood is quickly established, and the film could have copped out with the usual jump scares, but instead it relies solely on atmosphere made taut by the mystery of the unknown. The presence that lurks outside of the cabin is never revealed, and therefore the tension is never relieved, proving to be quite effect. With an unseen adversary, one major location, a small cast, almost no score, and no answers, Dawning proves that you can accomplish a lot with a little.

Bikini Girls on Ice (2009)
written by Geoff Klein and Jeff Ross
directed by Geoff Klein

The slasher formula is hard to screw up. Bikini Girls on Ice, a Canadian production from first time director Geoff Klein, hits it dead-on. Take some hot, scantily-clad chicks (in this case, a bus-load of college soccer players), throw them in a remote location (an abandoned gas station), and put a killer on the loose (Moe, played by William Jarand, a maniacal mechanic). The problem is that we’ve seen this type of film done so many times since the 80’s that something more needs to be offered to make it stand out from the pack, and this film just doesn’t have it.

You’d think, given the facetious title, that it’d be a fun flick, but instead it does nothing more than play into the typical cliches of the genre. There is some campy fun to be had and plenty of eye candy (such as the gratuitous montage of girls in bikinis washing cars and each other), but ultimately it’s just another forgettable slasher. The movie runs a fairly short 82 minutes but still manages to be tedious. One by one, the characters go off by themselves, yell for another person, and then get killed. Even the death scenes are substandard; most are stabs or hits that occur off screen, and all the viewer gets is some lousy blood splatter. It’s not a disgruntled mechanic; it’s redundancy and predictability that kill Bikini Girls on Ice.

Cornered! (2008)
written by Darrin Grimwood
directed by Daniel Maze

In Daniel Maze’s Cornered, a serial killer is on the loose in Los Angeles. The masked murderer targets convenience stores, torturing and killing his victims and then stealing the surveillance tapes as a keepsake. While Steve (Eduardo Garcia), the owner of a downtown liquor store, and his buddies settle in for a game of poker, the players begin to disappear. After watching one of their own get brutally murdered on the security camera, the friends discover that they’re the serial killer’s latest prey.

On paper, the concept sounds like a standard slasher, but the movie is much more than that. It’s a slow burner, refreshingly focused on the plot and its characters rather the killer. Thankfully, the characters are developed and portrayed by a good cast, including Steve Guttenberg (Police Academy) and James Duval (Donnie Darko). The story provides a whodunit twist with some dark humor pepper throughout, making Cornered an interesting little horror film.

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