Willy's Wonderland

 "Willy's Wonderland" (2021, Kevin Lewis, Landmark Studio Group, Baffin Media Ltd., Saturn Films, JD Entertainment, Landafar Entertainment).

A man of few, or actually no, words (Nicolas Cage) takes a job as a janitor at an abandoned family entertainment restaurant called "Willy's Wonderland" in order to pay for repairs to his car which have left him otherwise stranded in a small American town. 

The restaurant hosts some dilapidated animatronics including Willy the Weasel, Arty Alligator, Cammy Chameleon, Ozzie Ostrich, Tito Turtle, Knighty Knight, Gus Gorilla, and Siren Sara. The Janitor begins his long night shift taking short breaks to play a pinball machine and drink some energy drinks as well as occasionally change shirt. But it isn't long before he comes to learn that the animatronic animals are alive and blood thirsty.

After doing battle with one of the animatronics, the Janitor goes dutifully back to his chores, but is soon interrupted by a group of teens lead by Liv (Emily Tosta) who is hellbent on ending Willy's Wonderland's blight on the small town after her own ill-fated experience at the restaurant. 

Extremely reminiscent of the "Five Nights at Freddy's" games (which, if you're unfamiliar, are definitely worth seeking out), "Willy's Wonderland" couples an industrious protagonist just trying to do his job in spite of a menagerie of killer animatronics, with perhaps, understandably, a little less intrigue than the games. 

The premise is fun and Cage delivers an entertaining performance as the silent, straight faced Janitor, just dealing with things as they come up. 

The action does become a little samey and perhaps 8 animatronics was a little many, however, the film doesn't outstay its welcome at 88 minutes of run time and certainly delivers a fun and innovative collection of kills. 

Definitely worth checking out. 

[Image: Saturn Films, et al]

Hani

Deliver Us From Evil

"Deliver Us From Evil" (2014, Scott Derrickson, Screen Gems, Jerry Bruckheimer Films, LStar Capital) is a possession/crime movie.


Based on the book by Ralph Sarchie himself, the film follows NYC cop, Ralph Sarchie (Eric Bana), as he joins forces with a young, troubled priest (Edgar Ramirez) on a quest to exorcise a group of ex-marines inflicted with a violent demonic entity.


While not quite matching up in quality or content to the likes of "Se7en", the film delivers a familiar crime plot with some nicely achieved horror elements. Sarchie and his partner, Butler (Joel McHale), come across as violent and flawed characters (what with their apparent thirst for a fight, even if they do only want to fight abusers and murderers). Sarchie is also portrayed as a disinterested family man and a man doubting his faith. So when he is called upon to battle the supernatural threat he seizes his opportunity to jump back onto the faith train and save the day.


The horror aspects are okay. We've got possessed people chucking babies into ravines, bricking people up into walls and doing a bit of parkour, all with an obsession with The Doors. Not to mention some fun scenes in the zoo where our protagonist finds himself a little too close for comfort with some of the residents and, of course, his daughter's haunted-ass owl toy. It sounds silly, and it is, but it's also incidentally humorous which I didn't hate. And the makeup/effects are good.


The film's message is a little sledgehammer-y, sloppy and ineffective. But I'm not a religious person so maybe it's just me. There's also some muddiness on whether Sarchie is the good guy or not. Bana's accent isn't stellar either, but if you can look past the film's flaws it is overall entertaining enough to spend a bit of time on. Even if it's mostly for this sodding owl...

[Image: Screen Gems, et al]

Hani

They Look Like People

"They Look Like People" (2015, Perry Blackshear, Signature Entertainment) is an independent psychological thriller about a man who is convinced that people are turning into evil creatures. He travels to stay with a friend in a bid to protect him.

Wyatt (MacLeod Andrews) travels to New York City to stay with his old friend, Christian (Evan Dumouchel). Both men have recently become single and Christian is tentatively seeing his boss, Mara (Margaret Ying Drake).

Wyatt is a withdrawn guy and it's slowly revealed that he believes that people are becoming possessed by some evil entity. He is seen to be stockpiling weapons in Christian's basement. Christian seems like a well adjusted guy, but he suffers from some insecurities and seems to be looking to find a purpose in life.

An arty film with a very slow pace and somewhat rudderless plot. It feels like it has a lot to say about mental health but the message, for me at least, was not particularly clear, and overall I found myself pretty bored throughout and have to admit that the film just isn't for me. The film likes to keep things unexplained, which can work in some ways, but in this case it just made the purposefully slow run time feel even longer.

The cast do a great job and the characters feel very human, but overall the styling of the film made my interest ebb after the first 30 minute mark and it felt like it was spending too much energy trying to be clever and not enough energy on actually being engaging.

For an early film from new film makers it's a good accomplishment and doesn't feel amateurish or badly made. Despite a low budget, the film uses the characters alone to build tension and does a good job of creating believable relationships between the characters; particularly between Wyatt and Christian.

If you're into slow paced, character-driven films this might be right up your street, but for me it missed the mark.

Hani

The Black Room

"The Black Room" (2017, Rolfe Kanefsky, Cleopatra Entertainment) is about demonic possession.

We're introduced to Miss Black (Lin Shaye) and her niece, Stacy (Dominique Swain) who meet their demise in their home thanks to some pervy invisible demons. Later, the house is purchased by a couple, Paul (Luka Hassel) and Jennifer (Natasha Henstridge), who seem happy despite learning about the house having a 'dark past'. Their marriage is put through the wringer, however, when they discover that all their repairmen and Jennifer's gothy sister Karen (Augie Duke) are being picked off and that Paul has become possessed (you can tell by the guyliner and a change in accent) by the horny demonic entity dwelling in their basement.

Sounding more fun than it is, the film misses the mark for me by being overly trashy past the point of funny and essentially culminating the worst of the B-movie catalogue into a 'shock' fest of nudity that loses its shock factor after the first scene.

We are treated to some excellent scoring by Savant that is reminiscent of Charles Bernstein's classic theme for "A Nightmare on Elm Street" and some cheap but psychedelic opening credits, but overall the film felt less like a nod to the trashtastic horrors of the past and more like a bad joke at the audience's expense.

Lin Shaye's character's job seems to be limited to speaking sternly to demons while being overall ineffectual and our other main characters are generally unlikeable.

While some of the kill scenes are entertaining, the film's odd atmosphere was distracting and it felt kind of shallow. Better B-movies, and probably pornos,  have done this stuff before already, and with more success.

With nipple twisting, wandering giant red hands, killer demonic penises, body fluids galore and a flashback scene that felt like something found on the cutting room floor of The Mighty Boosh, this trashy film felt a bit lacklustre and left me feeling more grimy than entertained.

It did leave me wondering, however, if it would still be classed as cheating if you both think you're having relations with your other half but it's actually a pervy invisible demon?

[Image: Cleopatra Entertainment]

Hani