2023 in Film – Missile Test

From writer/director Demián Rugna comes When Evil Lurks, a kind of dystopian tale, wherein the suffocating threat to humanity is not its own devices, but rather demonic possession.

One night, brothers Pedro and Jimi (Ezequiel Rodríguez and Demián Salomón), hear gunshots in the woods near the family farm in rural Argentina. When they investigate the next morning, they find the mutilated remains of a ‘cleaner,’ a person employed by the government to carry out occult executions of ‘rottens,’ or individuals possessed by demons.

Rottens are an ever-present problem in this film’s universe. Apparently, the charlatanism of organized religion was finally too much for the lord, and churches lost their power to battle evil. Now possession is something of an infectious disease that can spread through a community. The cleaner that Pedro and Jimi found in the woods was on the way to kill a rotten in a neighboring farm. Continue reading “October Horrorshow: When Evil Lurks, aka Cuando acecha la maldad”

Science fiction movies in the 21st century don’t get much more bargain basement than Colonials, from writer (with Cyrus Cheek), director (with Andrew Balek), and producer (with far too many people to name) Joe Bland. That’s Bland as in, I shit you not, Bland Productions. That’s the name of his company. Lean into it, Joe.

Using techniques pioneered by George Lucas, Bland didn’t need any fancy sets, or even a full complement of actors. Like the worst sequences in the Star Wars prequel trilogy, Colonials uses CGI for just about everything. Spaceships and their interiors. Space stations and their interiors. Ground level in a destroyed megalopolis. A moon base. An earth base. Random hallways and rooms. Even the movie’s bad guy. It takes a full twenty-two minutes of running time before any member of the cast is shown in real surroundings, and that’s just a small location somewhere in the hills of Los Angeles. Continue reading “Shitty Movie Sundays: Colonials”