VOD Review: Pyewacket (2018)

"Family drama with a supernatural bent."

(aka I Hate My Mom!.)
Release Date: March 23.
Country: Canada.
Rating: NR.
Written by: Adam MacDonald.
Directed by: Adam MacDonald.
Starring: Nicole Munoz, Laurie Holden, Chloe Rose, and Missy Peregrym as the voice of Pyewacket.

A few years back, writer/director Adam MacDonald gave us the really enjoyable killer bear flick, Backcountry, and you can read our review of that little gem, right HERE. Now, he's returned to the Horror fold with a little tale of grief and a goth kid gone matricidal, which only serves to further our belief that they guy knows how to make an effective genre flick.

FYI: According to real-life English lore, Pyewacket is the spirit of a familiar that was bound to serve a witch back in the 1600's, and is described as an imp. Now, going into this movie we thought that Pyewacket was supposed to be a witch, and some reviews out there call the titular character a witch, while others use the word demon to describe the otherworldly spirit, but it's really a familiar, which I guess is neither here nor there, but for some reason I felt the need to clarify.

Don't ask why. Just go with it.

Ever since the death of her father, Leah has gone goth and turned to Death Metal and the occult as a coping method. Conversely, her mother just drinks a lot of wine and cries. Feeling that they need a new start, Mom decides to move them both to a new home way out in the boonies, because the wilderness life will do them both some good.

"OMG MOM, YOU'RE DESTROYING MY LIFE!"

Leah is not happy about this at all, and so her relationship with her mother grows more and more contentious, to the point where she feels that summoning the vengeful spirit Pyewacket to kill the bitch is the only reasonable course of action.

NOTHING ABOUT WHAT YOU'RE DOING IS REASONABLE.

Of course it takes Leah about 10 minutes to realize that she's done something horribly stupid, and when odd and creepy things start to happen around their new home, she has to figure out a way to undo what she's done, before Pyewacket takes her mother her too.

MOM IS OBVIOUSLY DRUNK AGAIN.

Pyewacket is a slow-burn of a movie which offers plenty of moody dread throughout, but doles it out in a very subtle way. To me personally, it plays a lot like the excellent The Blackcoat's Daughter (review HERE) did in that regard; they both have mood and atmosphere to spare, and they both pack a pretty good punch at the end. I really like the way that MacDonald avoids the use of cheap jump scares here.

Teen angst plays a large part in the movie and its plot developments, and whereas that trope usually tends to annoy us, it's done very well here thanks to a truly great performance by Nicole Munoz. Sure she's moody, and yeah she's so unreasonable that she goes through an elaborate ritual to summon an otherworldly spirit to kill her mother after an argument, but she never plays it over-the-top or never gets too annoying with things. And Laurie Holden does a killer job as the aforementioned mother, especially towards the end when her character gets downright unsettling.

OH MAN, SOMEONE'S GROUNDED.

There's a bit of ritualistic bloodshed in this one, but it's the horrifying ending that might just make you hurl. Not that it's bloody, but it's... well, you'll see.

THE BLOODSHED.

Not that kind of flick.

WHY COULDN'T THEY HAVE HAD A ROMANTIC SUBPLOT?!?

Teenage girls are moody. Also, messing with the occult is never a good idea, especially for moody teenage girls.

LOOK WHAT YOU DID!

Pyewacket is a movie that creeped us out and kept us involved in its human story at the same time, and gave us an ending that was truly disturbing to behold. A nice little surprise, all told, and one that should be seen by anyone who loves the term "Slow burn."

B+

Pyewacket is available on VOD now.

Nicole, Chloe, and Laurie: the bewitching women of Pyewacket.

VOD Review: Don't Knock Twice (2017)

"The Monster did it better."

Much like the excellent 2016 flick, The Monster (Review HERE), Don't Knock Twice is more of an emotional story about the relationship between an estranged mother and daughter than it is a Horror flick.

Now, this IS a Horror movie, and it's got all kinds of supernatural hi-jinks going on throughout, but the real strength (or weakness, depending on your point of view) of the movie lies in the dynamic of that troubled relationship.

For us, it was a good thing, and actually, given the fact that the supernatural story that is at play here felt uninspiring, it was the saving grace of the movie.

There's a house by the freeway that used to belong to an old lady named Mary Aminov, who people thought was a witch. If you knocked twice on her door, you'd summon her pet Demon, and then probably die. Mary Aminov was also suspected of abducting and murdering some local kids, which makes the whole knocking twice thing even more terrifying. The poor woman ended up killing herself because kids wouldn't stop knocking on her door at all hours.

MURDERERS!

Jess is an artist and former crackwhore who gave her baby up to foster care many year ago so she could party. That baby, Chloe, is all grown up now, and she's understandably pissed off at the world, and especially the mom who abandoned her. So when Jess decides that she finally wants to have a relationship with Chloe, the reunion isn't very happy at all.

THE LOOK OF LOVE.

After telling her estranged mother to piss off, Chloe and her childhood friend (maybe boyfriend) decide to head to Mary Aminov's old house and knock twice on the door in the middle of the night (why would you do that?), because why not. Shortly thereafter, some Baba Yaga-looking crone comes along and kills her pal, and comes after Chloe, her terrified for her life. Naturally, because it's in the script, this drives Chloe into the arms of her estranged mother, and both of them have to figure out a way to end the curse and survive the vengeful spirit of Mary Aminov... or the Demon Baba Yaga... or whatever the hell it is that's trying to eat their souls.

"HADOKEN!"

As uneven as the movie is, Don't Knock Twice gets enough right to make it a decent watch.

First off, it's a visually impressive movie, with director Caradog W. James making the most out of the mundane script by at least giving us some shadowy figures, creepy locales, and impressive shots to feast our eyes on.... which were greatly needed to make us forget about how much of what we were seeing was not only overly-familiar, but confusing.

The real strength of the movie, and what keeps it from being a totally unwatchable bore fest, is the performances by its two leading ladies. Any geek worth their salt knows and loves Katee Sackhoff. From Battlestar Galactica to Longmire; Oculus to Riddick, the sassy blonde has been ass-kicking her way into our hearts for years now. She plays the troubled mother here with conviction, and she always makes whatever she's starring in, more watchable.

As for Lucy Boynton, her character was a bit too angsty for our liking, but she delivered a fine performance despite the fact. The interaction between her character and her mom basically carried the film and gave it some weight, if not depth. She's also delivers a great performance in The Blackcoat's Daughter (Review HERE), which you should check out when it finally hits VOD in a few weeks.

THERE'S NOTHING QUITE LIKE A MOTHER-DAUGHTER BONFIRE TO WARM THE SOUL.

Why would you knock on the door of a creepy old house that was rumored to belong to a witch? And in the middle of the night, no less? You deserve what you get, dummies!

OH, SOMETHING TERRIFYING DWELLS THERE? WHAT A SURPRISE.

There are some twists and turns in the movie that aren't very exciting and don't make a ton of sense; mainly because we don't get a lot of backstory on certain secondary characters, and so the impact of those "Holy shit!" moments isn't all that great. The Demon, the old woman who may or may not be evil, the child murders... there were too many little threads that could have lead to some great horrific moments, but none of them was explored fully enough.

Without spoiling anything, how is it that someone is "chosen" by the Demon in the first place? We were kind of scratching our heads at the end wondering why they were so special, and for what reason. Did this person know that they would be chosen, and just decide to interject themselves into the lives of others for the chance?

And as far as the child murders go, that whole reveal was easy to spot, and it just didn't work. That whole plotline should have been given some more depth. 

DON'T GIVE US THAT LOOK, KATEE. YOU READ THE SCRIPT BEFORE YOU SIGNED ON.

Not much blood or gore in this one.

BUT THERE IS A WHOLE LOT OF BONDING.

Nope. Nary a boob or a butt cheek is on display here.

BUT THERE ARE MANNEQUINS. CREEPY, POTENTIALLY DEADLY MANNEQUINS.

Don't Knock Twice is a decent movie that could have been much better dad its script been stronger, and focused most of its energy on one of the dangling plotlines that it never managed to succinctly weave together. If you're a fan of the cast, especially of Katee Sackhoff, then knocking once on this one won't be a bad move. Just temper your expectations.

C

Don't Knock Twice is available now on VOD.

Katee and Lucy.

VOD Review: The Autopsy of Jane Doe (2016)

"One of the best movies of 2016."

(aka The Naked Whore)
Release Date: December 21st.
Country: UK.
Rating: R.
Written by: Ian B. Goldberg and Richard Niang.
Directed by: André Øvredal.
Starring: Brian Cox, Emile Hirsch, Olwen Catherine Kelly, Ophelia Lovibond, and Michael McElhatton.

Back in 2010, director André Øvredal gave us the brilliant Trollhunter (review HERE), and if you haven't checked that one out yet, you really need to. It's one of the best Found Footage flicks ever made, and it's just enjoyable as hell. It's streaming on Netflix, FYI.

Six years later, we finally get a follow-up film from the Norwegian director, and I daresay that The Autopsy of Jane Doe is every bit as good as Trollhunter was, albeit in a completely different sort of way.

At the scene of a bloody, multiple-homicide, the naked body of an attractive young woman is found half unearthed in the basement. Our guess? The guy who lived there killed a hooker or something, his wife found her buried in the floor, and then shit popped off. Maybe she went nuts and killed everyone, or maybe she threatened to go to the cops, and hubby killed everyone, because screw going to jail. Who knows.

EVEN ROOSE BOLTON IS PERPLEXED BY THIS CASE.

The Sheriff brings the body of the Jane Doe to the local morgue (which for some reason is underground) where a father and son team work together, performing autopsies, and just enjoying life in general. Jane Doe's body in in perfect shape; no physical trauma, no scars, no anything that would point to murder... which is odd because her ankles and wrists are broken; her eyes are cloudy, which is something that only occurs in bodies that have been dead for a while; and she doesn't have a tongue.

AND SHE HAS STUFF IN HER BODY AS WELL...

When they begin the autopsy on Jane Doe, weird things begin to happen: they hear noises in the vents; the body bleeds, even though it's not freshly dead; the radio beings to change channels by itself, playing odd broadcasts; they see shadowy figures in the hallway... and all kinds of other crazy shit happens, but to reveal anything else would only spoil the good stuff that comes next.

Needless to say, something ain't right with this corpse, and father and son are about to find out just what that something is.

SHE DOESN'T HAVE A FEVER. SHE'S DEAD!

The Autopsy of Jane Doe creeped very quietly into theaters right before Christmas, and somehow managed to be more satisfying than most other offerings at the local multiplex. Disturbing and nuanced, this is a movie that actually manages to pack some genuine chills into its runtime, and it baffles me how there wasn't more fanfare surrounding such a great flick.

The script is clever, and the story flows in a very natural way. Nothing is forced here, and I really liked how the characters quickly came to accept the craziness of what was happening as real, instead of spending 80-minutes in denial, until they're suddenly slapped in the face with one thing that makes them say "Oh shit, this is real!" I hate when movies do that.

Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch carry the movie, and do so admirably. Cox is one of the best actors alive, and he brings his usual brand of likable intensity to his role here. Emile Hirsch is a solid actor in his own right, and he holds his own with his older, and much more seasoned on-screen partner. And we have to give credit to the gorgeous Olwen Catherine Kelly, who had the unenviable task of spending the entire movie naked on a cold slab. Sounds like an easy gig -just lay there and don't move- but man that must have been tough, both physically and mentally.

BAD IDEA.

Why in the world is your morgue underground? That doesn't seem practical, nor safe at all, not to mention it makes the whole "I work in a morgue" thing way creepier.

AND WHAT IN THE HELL IS THAT?!?

As great as this movie is, it sure could have used a stronger ending. Don't get me wrong, the ending was cool, but it could have used a bit more... excitement? It's hard to explain without spoiling things, and I don't wanna do that with this movie, but more of a climax would have been good.

THAT DAMNED BELL!

There's no shortage of realistic, graphic autopsy footage in this movie. Also, some axe violence, some broken bones, a gruesome murder scene, and a fire...

THAT'S RIGHT, KILL IT WITH FIRE!

Olwen Catherine Kelly, the movie's titular Jane Doe, spent the entire movie laying naked on a slab, being manhandled by Brian Cox and Emile Hirsch. Now that's dedication.

THAT'S ONE GOOD LOOKING CORPSE.

Being a mortician will eventually kill you. Also, André Øvredal is a force to be reckoned with, and he needs to keep making excellent genre movies. Because we say so.

ALSO, POOR OPHELIA SHOULD HAVE HAD MORE SCREENTIME IN THIS ONE.

An insular, creepy, disturbing, and overall clever movie, The Autopsy of Jane Doe is one hell of a Supernatural Thriller that boasts two excellent leading men, plenty of disturbing imagery, and a hot-as-sin leading lady who spends the entire movie naked. What more could you ask for?

Give it a rent, you won't regret it.

A

The Autopsy of Jane Doe is available now on VOD.

Even though she wasn't in the moviie much, Ophelia Lovibond is a lovely creature to behold. And the movie's sexy namesake, Olwen Catherine Kelly, is so lovely that we had to give her her own Horror Hottie post, right over HERE.