Beneath Us All is the latest horror film from director Harley Wallen (Ash and Bone, Agramon's Gate), and as usual, the director also plays an integral character within the movie. Things started out well, with an intriguing prologue sequence, but once the past is left behind this became something that was a little light on excitement, and that had a cast of characters that on the whole I didn't care about.
During the viking-era, a group of Norse men capture an apparent unkillable madman, Frey (Yan Birch - Agramon's Gate) and seal him within a coffin. Determined his evil would never be free, they transport him across the sea to far off Vineland (what would become to be known as a coastal area of North America), and bury the coffin in remote woodland. Fast forward to the present, and Julie (Angelina Danielle Cama - Ash and Bone, An Intrusion), a foster child approaching her eighteenth birthday discovers the resting place of Frey after a falling out with her harsh foster parents. Intending to do good, she decides she will nurse the man back to health, unaware that he is a draugr, an undead creature that must feed on blood to thrive.
I did enjoy the prologue, I thought it was something a little bit different. It is a shame then that Frey spends the majority of the movie laying around in an old barn. He does of course leave to kill, but these sequences aren't really shown in much detail. There are two protagonists, characters who occasionally meet, but who have their own separate stories going on. It is inferred that Julie has become corrupted by Frey, but again, this isn't something that is really shown on screen. Before she was sweet and caring of her foster brothers and sisters, but upon meeting the man she becomes withdrawn and sullen.
The other protagonist is Rebecca (Kaiti Wallen - Ash and Bone, Agramon's Gate), a social worker who deeply cares about the cases she handles. Having been given the opportunity of promotion of a kind by her friend, Detective Donovan Booker (Wallen), she is torn between her duties to her case files, and doing what is best for her. I never felt like she really got enough screen time to become a character to care about. It felt like either the story needed to be devoted to Julie or to Rebecca, as neither had very satisfying paths. Of course, Wallen was great as Donovan, he is great at playing the role of a good guy, so was someone I liked probably more than anyone else.
Beneath Us All is a literally dark film, with a good chunk of it taking place in dimly lit night scenes. This gave the film a bit of a samey feel to it. The horror was in the background a bit despite it being a key part of the plot. It would have been nice to get a less generic bad guy performance from the character of Frey, and for it to show more on screen of Julie's corruption. The best parts of the film didn't really involve horror, the stand out actors being Sean Wallen (3 From Hell, Ugly Sweater Party) as Todd Gibbs and Maria Olsen (By Day's End, Ghost in the Graveyard) as Janelle Gibbs. This pair were interesting as they are shown to straddle the line between liking their foster children, and using them to get an additional income. For movie 'bad' foster parents there have been far worse examples, comparatively, in the real world of course they would be seen as monsters. Most the special effects are used for the kill scenes involving Frey, they seemed fine, but being set at night it was often hard to make much out.
There is a real ability to flesh out characters, to make them seem more than one dimensional stereotypes, and that is perhaps the best part of this horror. For that to happen it was required for the actual horror to take a backseat, I wish more had been dedicated to Julie and Frey, as despite being a very important part of the story it does take place in the background somewhat. Beneath Us All wasn't a bad film by any means, but on a personal level I had wanted more from the undead antagonist.
SCORE:
No comments:
Post a Comment