FILM REVIEWS:
CALL OF THE VOID (USA 2024) **
Directed by James B. Cox
CALL OF THE VOID is set in the Appalachian Mountain range in the United States. The recent drama APPALACHIAN DOG, by coincidence, is another film set in the same area. The Appalachian Mountain range is a bleak and deserted area. The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, are the mountain range in eastern to northeastern North America. The term "Appalachian" refers to several different regions associated with the mountain range and its surrounding terrain. CALL OF THE VOID features Appalachian folk songs, which are performed by the cast of the film. It is doubtful if the film was actually shot there as the credits list the filming locations as Big Bear Lake, Big Bear Valley, San Bernardino National Forest, California, USA.
CALL OF THE VOID stars Caitlin Carver (Chicago Fire, I Tonya, Netflix’s Dear White People), Mina Sundwall (Netflix’s Lost In Space, Jesus Revolution), Christian Antidormi (Starz’s Spartacus, Netflix’s The Lincoln Lawyer), and Ethan Herisse (Nickel Boys, When They See Us). It was written and directed by James B. Cox (Hacked, Grey Matter, based on a short story by Stephen King).
After the tragic death of her brother (not seen on screen), Moray (Caitlin Carver) retreats to a remote mountain cabin to try and escape her work, her family, and her old life. However, her quiet retreat is quickly diverted by a college band of 4, comprising Lucy (Mina Sundial), Sterling (Richard Ellis). Cole (Christian Amtidormi) and Darryl (Ethan Herisse) move into the unit next door and a suspicious professor is studying a local phenomenon involving a mysterious hum. She discovers that the Hum is a gateway to something otherworldly, unnameable, and once heard--there is no return. The Hum is a sonic experience that asks the question: How can you escape your own senses? The hum feels like the ringing one often hears that comes and goes in one’s ears.
The film works best when Moray meets the band and interacts with them. The members appear weird, and indeed they are. There seems to be no main leader of the group, which the script should have identified. The bully of the group is clearly Sterling, and the black member Darryl is the one who not only bullied but also seems out of place and not wanting to be there. Things take a head when all decide to go hiking with each left on an isolated spot to meditate.
But as things develop, the story also becomes more difficult to follow and the lines between the good and bad members of the band begin to blur. And the mystery of the old professor presumed dead, by the name of Professor Blackwood (Ted Barton) also comes across as strange, not to mention the monster from the void.
The blend of psychological horror and actual horror comes across as a weird mix in a film that ends up with a muddled ending.
Gravitas Ventures will release CALL OF THE VOID on digital platforms on April 15, 2025.
DEAD MAIL (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Joe DeBoer and Kyle McConagh
When an ominous cry for help on a blood-stained scrap of mail is clocked by the staff of a country post office in the American Midwest, it spurs an investigation that circuitously reveals the sordid story of a struggling synthesizer engineer (Sterling Macer Jr.) and his possessive benefactor (John Fleck). Shrewdly set at the precipice of the digital age — that nebulous twilight between the late 1970s and the early 1980s — this analog-textured thriller borders its central psychodrama within an idiosyncratic community of amateur gumshoes who all keenly contribute to cracking the case. The most immediately prominent sleuth is Jasper (Tomas Boykin), a diligent mailroom clerk with a knack for rectifying “dead letters,” to use the parlance of the postal service. Aided by his two plucky colleagues (Micki Jackson and Susan Priver) and a Scandinavian hacker (Nick Heyman), this ensues a genre-bending caper. The lack of blood, gore and violence is compensated by the weird way in which lost items and dead mail can be traced - all of which could be either true or made up. The ambiguity of the situation is heightened at the end with notes of what has happened to each of the story’s characters - which are too odd to be believed. The setting and cinematography on scratchy, deliberately scratched and blurred film mark this film above others in the genre. No big-name stars in this low-budget horror, if one wants to call it that.
DEAD MAIL premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival's Midnight Madness Section and opens for streaming on Shudder on April the 18th, 2025
iHOSTAGE (Amsterdam 2025) ***
Directed by Bobby Boermans
Full Review to be posted weekend)
Trailer:
SECRET MALL APARTMENT (USA 2024) ***
Directed by Jeremy Workman
In 2003, eight Rhode Islanders created a secret apartment inside the busy Providence Place Mall and kept it going for four years, filming everything along the way. Far more than just a wild prank, the secret mall apartment became an incredibly meaningful act for all the participants, at once an act of defiance against local gentrification, a boundary-pushing work of public/private art, and a 750 square foot space that sticks it to the man.
The film tells the true story (which documentary is not?) of eight Rhode Islanders who built and lived in a secret apartment inside a busy local mall from 2003 to 2007. As implied by this premise, the target audience is limited and those outside the target audience might just watch the doc out of curiosity at best. The doc is more than aptly made, with details and history, with sufficient research done for that matter. The doc has garnered rave reviews, including that of critic Peter Keough called the film one of the best documentaries of the year, stating in The Arts Fuse that "the secret apartment also symbolized a Borgesian kind of subversiveness, a meta-mirror of the culture that the artists inhabited and subverted.” Vogue also included the film as one of the best documentaries of 2024, stating that "the film is both an elaborate archaeological excavation and a creative re-enchantment of urban corporate space.
The doc’s main subject is Michael Townsend, who after the story broke in 2007, several Hollywood production companies approached him about making a film. For nearly 15 years, he and his fellow artists turned down "north of 30 directors" who wanted to make a documentary on the story. It is therefore not surprising to see that more than half of the doc’s running time is devoted to Townsend and his artwork, which has little to do with the secret mall apartment. There is a lot of praise for Townsend, who also teaches art and how he selflessly devotes his work and time to the hospital
SECRET MALL APARTMENT premiered at the 2024 SXSW Film Festival, the documentary later screened at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival, Melbourne International Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Hamptons International Film Festival, and the closing night film of the Newport Film Outdoor Festival. The film opens in Toronto at the TIFF Lightbox on April 18th.
Trailer:
THE WEDDING BANQUET (USA 2025) ***
Directed by Andrew Ahn
Written by director Andrew Ahn and James Schamus (a frequent collaborator with Taiwanese director Ange Lee), the new gay comedy THE WEDDING BANQUET, the title might sound familiar. The reason is that THE WEDDING BANQUET is a remake of the 1993 gay iconic classic of the same name, which was one of the films that put director Ang Lee on the international map of filmmaking. The new film has several variations, including a Korean setting. The gay male couple is Korean and Asian American, while the original features a Taiwanese and an American caucasian. Though this version is not bad for the reason outlined below in the review, nothing beats the original.
The new version has a veteran cast of SNL regulars and favourite, Bowen Yang in the title role. It also features two Asian heavyweight stars as the grandmother of one of the grooms and the mother of one lesbian. Joan Chen plays May Chen, introduced at the start of the film wearing a flattering glittery cheongsam, while Academy Award Winner from MINARU Youn Yuh-jung plays one of the groom’s grandmother who stole the Oscar from Glenn Close, who should have won the Oscar after being nominated numerous times. Youn plays the more subdued relative while Chen is the loud and more outlandish one, and one that supports gay rights and the gay movement. Her character is not amused that the wedding banquet to be organized is to be for a straight and not a gay couple, one of the film’s best jokes. Also in the cast is an Academy Award nominee for KILLERS OF A FLOWER MOON, Lily Gladstone, who is playing Lee.
The updated story is a joyful comedy of errors about a chosen family navigating cultural identity, queerness, and family expectations. Frustrated with his commitment-phobic boyfriend Chris (Bowen Yang) and running out of time, Min (Han Gi-chan) makes a proposal: a green-card marriage with their friend Angela (Kelly Marie Tran) in exchange for her partner Lee's (Gladstone) expensive IVF. Elopement plans are upended, however, when Min's grandmother (Youn) surprises them with an extravagant Korean wedding banquet.
` As expected and implied by the film title, much happens during the wedding banquet and in the ceremony itself. The story is quite different from Lee’s original and with the fact that that film was released way back in 1993, many would not recall what had happened in the original story. As such, the new version can be enjoyed as if it is fresh and new.
The film is pleasant and humorous and hits all the right notes being politically and racially correct without being offensive to any race, culture or orientation. The film contains few laugh-out-loud humour though one cannot complain that it is not amusing enough. Likeable characters and their likeable relatives who control them all add to the pleasantness. Likeable characters and their likeable relatives who control them all add to the pleasantness. The film also celebrates the Korean culture, though the cast is varied and not largely Korean. As they say, Asians look mostly alike.
THE WEDDING BANQUET opens in theatres on April 18th.
Trailer:
