Really Awful Movies

It’s easy to fall into the trap of lauding a film like I Can See You because it’s something you’ve never seen before. As a reviewer, it’s important to remember that this isn’t a criterion that’s important to a lot of casual horror fans, especially if many things you might have never seen before can still fall into the category of crap.

That being said, if you really want to see something you’ve never seen before, the polarizing I Can See You, the brainchild of Graham Reznick (Aphasia Films), is well worth a look.

This is Art House with a capital A. The first third is an exercise in artifice-filled frustration, with endless swirling cigarette smoke and quiet contemplation. You’d be forgiven for bailing.

Then something happens.

A Brooklyn boutique ad agency is scrambling to develop a campaign for one of those household cleaning products you might see hawked on QVC. Frustrated by the crappy public domain images of The Great Outdoors and looking to tie their wagon to the green consumer movement, the boss organizes a camping trip to get the creative juices flowing and to take some photos for their Claractix campaign.

The photographer is Ben, a mustachioed myopic artist who’s nearly blind without his specs, a hugely ironic character on whom a successful ad campaign about a glass-cleaning solvent depends.

In the woods over a blazing campfire and beers, he spies an old childhood friend at a neighboring campsite, a hippie blonde named Sunny Day, and boss Doug urges him to put the moves on her when metaphorical sparks fly.

When the twosome hit it off and disappear into the brush to get hot and heavy, I Can See You hops aboard the Weird Train.

The warmth and protean flickering of the fire is a frequent backdrop for the woody weirdness here. There are disorienting shots of the middle of the forest in which a phantasmagorical product pitchman in an ill-fitting suit appears. (He also materializes in a dream sequence, seemingly straight from the mind of David Lynch.)

The “psychedelic campfire tale,” has much more in common with say, Picnic at Hanging Rock than Don’t Go in the Woods and will reward the patient viewer.

Odd, baffling and at times frustrating, Fangoria called it “one of the most intriguing and well-crafted horrors in recent memory.” See for yourself.

*** (out of 5)

Bed of the Dead (which premiered to a packed house at Fantasia Fest last week) features the most malevolent piece of furniture since the one seen in George Barry’s unfairly derided surreal masterpiece, Death Bed: The Bed that Eats. (Behold, a new subgenre!)

Where Death Bed was rather indiscriminate, ingesting whomever was unlucky enough to lay on it, Bed of the Dead is a little more judicious. This sleeper determines whether its occupant will live or die based on events past. The virtuous just may leave to sleep another night while the guilty will be horrifically punished. In many respects, it’s the furniture version of John Ostrander’s incredible take on DC Comic’s The Spectre, the physical earthly embodiment of God’s vengeance who punishes the guilty in deliciously sadistic yet poetically just ways.

The good folks at Black Fawn Films have been on an absolute tear as of late. The highly successful, Chad Archibald directed Bite premiered at last year’s Fantasia Fest, and revealed itself as a new peak for the Guelph, Ontario based filmmaking collective. Bed of the Dead, co-written by Jeff Maher and Cody Calahan and directed by Maher, continues that upward trajectory.

The film begins at the end, so to speak, with cops investigating a fire which leveled the Anarchist Sex Club. One of the cops, Virgil (Colin Price), is a flask-guzzling, pill-popping veteran of the force who, along with his shield and firearm, carries a heck of a lot of emotional baggage too.

We learn via flashback that two couples checked into the club and we’re given Room 18, unaware that the room had previously been the site of both a murder and a suicide. Two couples, one bed: The Bed of the Dead. Any plans for a night of swinging and debauchery are quickly dashed when one of the quartet hallucinates his old dog, then is pulled under the bed and dispatched in a gloriously bloody setpiece.

It’s not long before the others realize that they’re trapped, both in the room and on the bed, and the bed bears a serious grudge to go along with its mattress and pillows. They manage to get the attention of a fellow patron of the club, hoping for some assistance, but he too is dispatched horrifically.

As the investigation into the fire continues, the two story arcs converge: Those who are trying to survive the bed and the cop who is trying to piece together the cause of the fire. To reveal how they intersect would be unfair, as the intertwining plots is but one of the many pleasures to be found in Room 18.

The performances are uniformly strong. Price is a standout, but it’s the formidable Alysa King (Berkshire County) who steals the show. The film boasts a striking visual palette, evocative set design, and outstanding grue effects rendered effectively and messily by the always excellent The Butcher Shop.

Black Fawn aren’t reinventing horror with Bed of the Dead. Instead, they’re continuing to create effective, gruesome genre offerings that give horror fans just what they want. Go ahead and test the box springs on this one: You won’t be disappointed.

***1/2 (out of 5)