GLOBAL VIEW PRODUCTIONS
I'll slash thru the rest to get to the best!
by Mike Haberfelner - 2013
A couple (Lonnie Abbleby, Becky Scholtec) and their baby daughter travel the countryside when one of their tires blows. The husband goes to fix the tire - but is viciously attacked by someone or something and gravely injured. His wife manages to drag him back to the car, but when she wants to go for help, he wouldn't allow her to leave the car, even if he's dying, because of whatever's out there, and the situation gets creepier by the minute. Ultimately, the wife decides to ignore her husband's wishes, leave the car and ... next day, their two bodies are found, the baby's missing.
There was a witness to the whole scene though, Jacob (James Lukenbill jr) - who has since fallen into a catatonic state though, too shocked by what he has seen. Still, the local sheriff (Ben Rollins) and deputy (Shawn McAninch) manage to get Jacob to lead them to a house that seems to have to do with the incident - and where they are joined by psychic Wendy (Annette Duffy) and writer Abby (Catherine Arabella) plus cameraman (Zack Williams).
Things start to get out of hand when the sheriff wants to force Jacob to lead them into the house, but Jacob is scared shitless to a degree that he grabs the deputy's gun and shoots himself dead. That's bad enough, but even worse that inside the house it looks as if a Satanic ritual has been taking place, using the blood of the two homeowners, whose corpses are found in the kitchen. Now's the time to get reinforcements of course, but neither cellphones nor the police car's radio work, and none of the cars will start. What's worse though is there is something in the house that makes people want to kill themselves or kill others ... and suddenly our heroes drop like flies - and the last one left standing is in for a particularly gruesome surprise ...
by Kris Theckston
Helpless, an independent film from Thor Moreno was an intriguing film that drew me in effortlessly and had me
engrossed in the film the entire time. I really liked how it was done in parts, or sections like chapters within a novel
you would lovingly read.
The plot is thoroughly planned and the acting is strategically on point. A frustrated couple are driving along engaging in a serious discussion of this much dreaded visit to Ned's dying Mother's house for her to see the baby. A flat renders them helpless stuck on the side of the road so naturally Ned gets out to flip on a new one. Strange sounds start to creepily undulate from within the deep dark woods warning him of the impending danger .Morning arrives and the Sheriff pulls up to an alarming crime scene and the baby girl is missing. A man accused of an occult type of foul play leads him to the house of his crime scene and the frantic search for the baby begins. A proclaimed psychic Wendy eventually convinces the law to allow her to help them while a true crime novelist Abby Fulton weasels her way into it all- not smart!
Helpless is a hell of a twister that will smack you quite spitefully in the face while crudely laughing because you never even saw it coming- not even a clue!
Thor Moreno seems to be a very promising writer and director who just might gift us with many more exciting titles for all of us to ingest hungrily.
I'll slash thru the rest to get to the best!
Helpless is one scary little film, basically because it focuses on being just that - so there are no long explanations what's going on, subplots or parallel narratives, just one main narrative thread conceived to freak out the audience. That's not to say Helpless is simplistic in its storytelling though or sloppy when it comes to explanations, it's just really focused on delivering the goods - and in a subtle way too, there is little in terms of graphic gore. Now add to that characters with some depth played by a very competent ensemble cast, and nice and atmospheric camerawork, and you've got yourself a pretty great horror movie. Recommended!
Reviews
by Carly Street
Claire and Ned are driving at night on their way to see family and show off the new addition to their family - a child. But while changing a flat tire, Ned is severely injured. The more time that passes, the more paranoid Ned becomes, convinced that something sinister lurks outside.
Street Scribe
This short is claustrophobic. It’s intense and it’s genuinely more unsettling than most full length features I have seen in recent years. The opening scenes provide us with some nice, neat back story. It’s nothing too complicated or exaggerated so we can immediately relate to the characters. It grounds them in reality and helps the threat seem more real. Even the ‘Good Samaritan’ character displays a sturdy humanity in his defense of the family during his brief time.
The direction is fantastic. There’s no blood, guts and gore. There doesn’t need to be. The absence of any of the above affords us the opportunity and freedom to do something as a viewer that we are rarely permitted – use our own imagination. We are never shown the menace stalking the family. We are left unsure until the credits as to whether it is all in Ned’s mind. The menace is whatever we imagine it to be. Shot in black and white, the film is very reminiscent of a good Hitchcock thriller. The fact that we only ever really see the ultimate target - the baby through the eyes of the threat in the woods is chilling and the whole experience leaves a sinister chill in the air. This film is truly subjective. To each viewer, a new conclusion is imagined. That is why it is so creative and only one of the reasons it is so watchable.
The two leads carry the intensity with distinction and really tap into the sudden turmoil their characters face whilst desperately trying to stay strong as a family. Even the credits are not allowed to roll without further intrigue as the scene is discovered by a patrol car. Only giving us the voices as we watch a black screen treats us to one final fright. My only real disappointment is that it is a short and not a feature. I would love to the see the menace unleashed and the mystery unraveled.
One of the fun things about reviewing movies is that every so often I’ll get a knock on my Internet door from a filmmaker who invites me to look at their work and maybe, if I like it, give a review. Sometimes I don’t like it. I wouldn’t care to tell you how many short films I’ve been invited to see the past couple of years where I simply couldn’t finish them. But thankfully I am invited by filmmakers such as Chris Regan and Parker Stanfield whose work I’ve enjoyed and that makes it all worth it for me. I’m happy to add Thor Moreno on that list.
The Ferguson Theater
REVENGE: A LOVE STORY is a short film, a crime thriller. It’s a tough, vicious little film about tough, vicious people. Undercover narcotics cop Brad Miller (Adam Meirick) is tired of the game. He wants out and he wants out now. He wants the promotion he was promised and he wants to enjoy life with his long suffering wife (Katie Goebel) who wants to start a family with a husband who keeps regular hours. Unfortunately Brad has a 48K gold-plated prick for a supervisor who tell him flat out the only way Brad is going to get out and get his promotion is if Brad brings him a conviction. Brad’s target is Willie Caesar (Zack Williams) the local crime kingpin.
Brad maneuvers himself into an invitation with Willie Caesar and moves up in his organization fast. A little too fast if you ask me but considering the short running time of the movie, I’m willing to go with it. Brad’s rapid rise in Caesar’s trust earns him the suspicion of Caesar’s right hand man Nicky (Shawn McAninch) who makes it his business to find out who Brad really is. He does. And that’s when the mayhem begins.We’re talking about a short film with a 45 minute running time so there’s absolutely no fat on this meat. But despite the short running time, there’s a surprising amount of plot twists and characterization that made me feel as if I’d gotten a full-length movie. Thor Moreno is my kind of filmmaker. He puts the camera in place, puts his actors in front of the camera and lets them do their job. I appreciate any filmmaker who can show me he knows how to use his camera and his actors to tell me a story and that’s exactly what Thor Moreno does here.
He manages to get a lot of mileage out of a story that may not be wildly inventive or original by virtue of letting the plot take a couple of lefts turns I really didn’t see coming and it’s backed up by an able cast, led by Adam Meirick who is really good. He’s got a Jake Gyllenhaal-ish type of vibe going on here that I really liked. But Shawn McAninch comes awfully close to stealing a couple of scenes right out from under him. Zack Williams brings an old school, 1970’s blaxplotation gusto to his Willie Caesar that’s really fun to watch, especially in a confrontation scene he has with Meirick’s character near the end. Dave Dalton plays one of Nick’s henchmen and he stood out for me because of a scene where he’s creeping through his house with a Samurai sword, looking for an intruder. We see that his house is full of books so maybe he’s not a dumb as he makes out to be. And he pauses to fistbump a picture of Ralph Macchio as The Karate Kid. Don’t ask me why but it’s little touches like that that bring a minor character to life for me. I enjoyed the setting greatly as well. It’s not in an urban ghetto but set in Des Moines, Iowa in an almost rural location and for me that added greatly to the realism of the movie. Crime doesn’t only flourish in big cities but in small towns as well and sometimes it’s worse there is part of the theme of this movie, I think and it’s a theme that gets it’s point across well.
As I said earlier on, this is a vicious and violent film with a torture scene that had me cringing and was well able to convey the horror of the situation with very little blood and I believe that was because the director and his cast did such a good job of investing me in these characters so that I truly was interested and cared about what happened to them by the time we got to that point. REVENGE: A LOVE STORY is going to premier is at the historic Varsity Theater in Des Moines, Iowa next week. It goes to DVD right after that. It will be on sale athttp://www.globalviewproductions.com next month when the site relaunches. Enjoy.