During the week I started a re-watch of From Beyond the second H.P. Lovecraft adaptation from Stuart Gordon following his version of Reanimator with returning cast member Barbara Crampton and Jeffrey Combs.

While the script is far from stellar it was perfectly serviceable, at least at the start before it veered into distinctly non-Lovecraftian area of BDSM and sexuality but right from the start the film is undercut and severely damaged by its cinematography.

The scenes are well lit, and everything is clear and shop from the foreground to the background and that is the trouble. Now I do not know if this was because of some budget restraints, directorial edict or simply a stylistic choice by DOP Mac Ahlberg but it doesn’t work.

Even when the characters are supposedly in a darkened space and using flashlights the scenes are well-lit and everything is perfectly visible. There is no use of shadow and darkness of create danger and mystery in the character’s space a serious failing for any horror film. There is nice work when the ‘resonator’ is engaged and the scenes become bathed in lavender and purple as the other-worldly dimension intrudes into our own, but had the other scenes been lit more realistically, with more care to the light and shadow then the drastic change during the inter-dimensional events would have been more effective.

Because of the way the online nature of this year’s Horrible Imaginings Film Festival worked once you started a feature or a block of shorts the user then had six days to complete viewing the material before the access closed. That means though I had been unable to complete all the blocks during the official run of the festival I still have several days to finish up blocks of short films before I lose the capability.

Last night after my sweetie-wife retired for the evening I watched the block of short films centered on the theme ‘We’re All in This Together.”

Perhaps the weakest block thematically as nearly every film could easily be placed into blocks such as ‘Blood is Thicker Than Water’ or “People Behaving Badly,’ this selection of film still managed to produce a few standouts.

Hammer follows a man, played by Eric Roberts, who comes home to find his wife engaged physically with another man. While a hammer seems to provide a solution, the final reveal is quite a commentary of jumping to conclusions.

House Hunting explored a possible internet craze that lay just beyond possible but not so far that it could be safely ignored.

But perhaps my favorite of this block is Make A Wish centered on a wife’s surprising and frighteningly violent but loving gift to her husband on his birthday.

I missed yesterday so this will be a double review but not doubled sized.

Sunday, we kicked off with the feature Diablo Rojo from Panama. The story concerns an owner/operator of a transit bus, his young co-worker, and witched and demons that pursue them over a dark secret from years earlier. Lost in the jungle area of the countryside with the addition of a pair of traffic cops and a priest they must unravel the mystery and put things right. Competently made Diablo Rojo was perfectly serviceable but did not manage to elevate itself above that. Too many elements were crammed into the same plot and convenient exposition fell from characters that had no justification for that information just because the story required. However, these are issues common to horror and non-horror film and this one was still fun to watch and possessed the most badass priest in a long time.

The blocks for Sunday were on the themes of Isolation and People Behaving Badly. Isolation in general did not work as well as the other block, perhaps because with often only a single character it’s more difficult to craft a good story. People Behaving Badly offered up killers and slasher and gave us more shorts that exceeded our expectations. The standouts from this block were Overkill a farce of the slasher genre, and Waffle and its disturbing take on when the gig economy invades the real of friendship.

Monday my sweetie-wife and I enjoyed the feature documentary Hail to the Deadites about the growth and power of the fandom community surrounding the Evil Dead film series.

I closed out Monday evening with the feature Repossession from Singapore. Jim is a 50-year-old engineer suddenly laid off from his employment and too proud to admit it to his family or to lose his status symbols descends into deceit and desperation to maintain his lifestyle as an evil from his past creeps back into his life bringing horror and helplessness. Repossession is an excellent example of slow burn horror. The first hour of the feature plays as a drama with only hints at something unnatural afoot and the last 30 spirals into deep supernatural terror. Hands down of the feature films this year Repossessionperfectly blending character and monsters is my favorite.

The on-line at home edition of the Horrible Imaginings Film Festival continued yesterday. We kicked off the day completing the monsters are everywhere block of short films the two standouts from the completion of the block were Suspension about a fighter pilot trapped after ejecting in a tree where a monster stalks him and Malakout a haunting stop motion piece from Iran.

We then moved on to the feature film Survival Skills, presented as a narrated training movie for rookie police officers set in 1988. This filmmaker nailed the look and the tone of the 80s perfectly managing to make a satire with loads to say and plenty of entertainment.

Our house then broke for pizza and gaming before my friend and I returned to dark cinema.

Our second feature was The Return a passable tale of a young man facing the demons of his past following the mysterious death of his father. A competent Canadian entry The Return didn’t break any novel or interesting ground but managed to any critical failures.

We closed out the evening with another block of shorts the theme this time ‘Twisted Innocence.’ For me the standouts from this grouping of shorts were Bakemono where a Japanese’s girl encounters a traditional demon from folklore, My Brother Juan told entirely with a young girl being interviewed by an official of the state about her older and sick brother, and winning the award for most disturbing was Milk Teeth set in an orphanage where children pay a terrible price in hopes of being adapted.

Special mention goes to the stop motion short Kim, a charming and witty piece about a siren and her place in the grander ecology.

The festival continues.

Yesterday was my first full day of streaming features and shorts form Horrible Imaginings Film Festival 11.

We started with the Feature Darkness in Tenement 45, a period pieces set in 1953 with New York City being evacuated before a suspected biological attack by the USSR. The film is set in one tenement as the residents deal with dwindling supplies and food and rising tension and paranoia. Sadly, this feature did not work for me. I think the filmmaker’s objective lay just beyond their abilities with a scrip that was functional but not quite there, talent that couldn’t quite carry the subject matter, and cinematography that capture the sense of the time.

We followed that up with a block of short films the theme being ‘Blood is thicker than water.’ This had a number of really good entries with standouts being Smiles from Spain, Separation, and Hammurabi.

At this point in my household we broke for dinner and evening board and card games.

After gaming and with my sweetie-wife retiring for the evening we resumed the festival with the feature Luz: Flower of Evil from Columbia. This feature sported fantastic production values with extensive color grading that recreated the feel on Kodachrome film that helped enhance the feature’s setting in the 1970s. It concerned an isolated community with its charismatic religious leader and their search for absolution in his repeated attempt to identify the reborn Christ. Ultimately though this feature also did not work for me. In the end the film’s conclusion failed to provide a satisfying resolution to theme or character.

We concluded with the short film block “Monster are Everywhere.” Though the evening wore too late and we shall view the final films in the block today. However, the standouts so far are Night Crawl where prisoner tunneling to escape make gruesome discoveries, Spiritual Practice, that centers on a military style training academy for exorcists, and Face your Fears where a young woman frightened of the dark engages in a terrifying game hoping to lose her phobia.

Today the terror continues.