The Secret Village

IMDb
Two strangers research a mysterious outbreak of mass hysteria in a small village.


Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

Two strangers research a mysterious outbreak of mass hysteria in a small village.

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Soul Survivors

IMDb
A co-ed is caught between the world of the living and the dead.


Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

College freshman Cassandra, also known as "Cassie", steps into a nightmare of otherworldly visitations after surviving a devastating car accident. Haunted by a grim reaper of a far different kind, her only hope is to cling to chance encounters with her lost love Sean and the aid of a mysterious young priest named Father Jude. It is the spirit of Sean, her soul mate, who guides her to love, but it is her friends Matt, Annabel and Annabel's morose friend Raven who try to draw her to the dark side.

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Bad Behavior

IMDb
Trapped overnight by an unknown assailant, a babysitter struggles to stay safe. As the hours tick by, she realizes that the greatest threat might be from the very children she's trying to protect.


Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

An unsuspecting babysitter fights to protect her two young charges from their psychotic older brother over the course of one harrowing night in this tense independent thriller. At first Zoe thought she had landed a job with the perfect family. But that all changes when she awakens confused and barricaded in the household bathroom with the two youngest children. The older brother is experiencing a psychotic episode, and now their only hope for survival is to remain safely locked up until the parents return home. Later, in desperation, Zoe attempts a daring escape. Only then does she realize that this house is a virtual death trap, and that this outwardly-normal family has a decidedly terrifying dark side.

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INSENSIBLES

IMDb

• Set in Catalonia, Painless weaves two stories: in one, starting during the Spanish Civil War and running through to the '60s, an asylum attempts to rehabilitate children who feel no pain, by teaching them physical suffering. In the second, in the present time, a brilliant neurosurgeon who needs a bone marrow transplant, discovers this dark past when he searches for his biological parents.
  - Written by Authors

Dread Central

Directed by Juan Carlos Medina

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Opening in Catalonia in the 1930s, director Juan Carlos Medina’sPainless offers a startling first scene featuring a young girl playfully setting fire to her own arm before encouraging another child to do the same. Tragically, it would appear that the second youngster is not as bereft of pain receptors as her companion, and is quickly overcome by roaring flame and screaming agony. Moving on to the present day, Medina turns his focus to David (Brendemühl), a successful neurosurgeon who after an inexplicable minor blackout behind the wheel of his car finds himself waking up in hospital to multiple pieces of seriously bad news. First, his pregnant wife has died in the crash (however, the child has been saved and is currently held in the incubator ward), and second, routine scans taken to probe the extent of his injuries have discovered the presence of advanced Lymphoma – leaving David with only months to live. His only salvation is in a bone marrow transplant, but the donor must come from his immediate family. David’s problems are merely compounded, however, when his parents reveal the tearful news that they aren’t his biological parents, and therefore cannot offer to donate. As his father refuses to go into any more detail regarding David’s origins, his search for answers lead him to the asylum turned orphanage in which Painless‘ alternate timeline predominantly takes place.

This alternate timeline is also the most interesting part of Medina’s film, focusing on the group of children from a nearby village all suffering from the same affliction – a total inability to feel, or understand, pain. Locked away for the good of both themselves and the ‘normal’ children of the village, the kids are observed and taught by German absconder/refugee Dr. Holzmann (Lint) alongside the more ruthless, and less understanding, Dr. Carcedo. As the years move on and the Spanish Civil War and World War II carve their marks into the local history, this thread focuses on young boy Benigno – one who demonstrates particular intelligence and medical talent, but is frequently let down by his own flopping attention span and propensity for violent reaction in the face of overbearing authority. While David’s modern-day search continues to lead down the road to personal ruin, so too does Benigno’s time in the orphanage as malignant external forces soon assume control of the facility, adopting the (now) young man – rechristened ‘Berkano’ by his new commandants – as a talented torturer whose self-scarred visage is enough in itself to strike fear into the hearts of those captives upon whom he is set.

As you can probably tell, Painless is no light-hearted fare. Determinedly grim, it’s also a beautiful looking piece of work filled with gorgeous vistas, semi-gothic imagery and some fantastic period costume design. The opening car crash, too, is visually striking. Unfortunately, it’s frequently let down by some sluggish pacing when it comes to the less-than-enthralling modern day element, which feels uncomfortably drawn-out as the end of David’s search (slowly) approaches. There’s a decided lack of empathy in David’s story, which leaves most of the twists, turns and shocking revelations and occurrences found within deficient in the impact they truly require. Far more interesting and involving, though, is the tale of the afflicted children which weaves a consistently gripping mixture of grim fantasy with the even more grim historical reality of a country tearing itself apart and the civilians caught in the middle. Brutality and abuse abound, as the children and their friendlier wards try desperately to hold onto their own humanity amidst the growing chaos.

Unfortunately for many, such a feat seems beyond reach as Medina sombrely reflects on the personal effects of times of war – yet even in its most heartbreaking moments, Painless never succeeds in making a complete connection with the audience, but most certainly not through lack of trying.

This lack of complete engagement leaves a number of perplexing plot choices all the harder to ignore (most glaringly Berkano’s ability to survive for such an extended time either locked up, or quite literally walled up, in his cell), and plays a major role in the failure of the film’s denouement, wherein Medina is obviously shooting for the stars in terms of poignancy and emotional resonance, but lacks the fuel to get there and comes crashing down, hard, leaving a finale that feels little more than misguidedly self-assured and indulgent.

Painless looks stunning and spins a capable yarn but it frequently hits wide of its lofty goals, grasping for the heart strings but more often tugging on patience instead. The production design is more than admirable, as are the excellent performances from adults and children alike (Brendemühl in particular does a sterling job as the sympathetic physician), and many will find much to love in Medina’s presentation but the disjointed and ultimately unfulfilling narrative leaves it a regretfully hollow experience by the time the end credits roll.

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Dracula UnTold

Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

Luke Evans (Fast & Furious 6, Immortals) stars in Dracula Untold, the origin story of the man who became Dracula. Gary Shore directs and Michael De Luca produces the epic action-adventure that co-stars Sarah Gadon, Dominic Cooper, and Diarmaid Murtagh. (c) Universal

RogerEbert

First, some good news: "Dracula Untold," a sort of "Batman Begins" prequel, isn't as tacky as it sounds. There are glimmers of a brooding and icky horror epic scattered throughout the film, particularly in its surprisingly romantic, matte-painting-esque backdrops and impressionistic vampire's-point-of-view shots. But that leads me to the bad news: if you step away from "Dracula Untold" long enough to describe it, you'll realize how soul-crushingly unimaginative it is. This is, after all, a "Maleficent"-style anti-fable that relies on your instant recognition of Dracula while trying to rehabilitate and recast Bram Stoker's bloodsucker as a Byronic hero. Still, the good news barely outweighs the bad in "Dracula Untold," a lightweight war-adventure that is ultimately stranger and more enticing when it remembers it's also a horror film.

In the beginning, a boring narrator natters on about how Vlad "Dracula" Tepes (Luke Evans) was a former Transylvanian child soldier who was abducted by Turks, trained to fight, blah blah blah...he's a killing machine. Then, we actually meet the guy: a soldier kneeling in prayer before a forest of pikes bearing his impaled foes. It's a creepy image, and one that should be held for at least twice as long as it is. Unfortunately, the makers of "Dracula Untold" typically hit the fast-forward button, and rush to the next chain of events. Vlad is given an ultimatum from Turkish Sultan Mehmed (Dominic Cooper) while feasting with angelic wife Mirena (Sarah Gadon), she of the blue eyes, and generous cleavage: give Mehmed 1000 Transylvanian child soldiers, or take on Mehmed's overwhelming forces.

Herein enters the homo-eroticism that the film sometimes cannot suppress: Vlad and Mehmed are childhood rivals, trained together in the army of Mehmed's father. But Mehmed's threat is a visceral reminder of events that are only alluded to in the aforementioned voiceover-reliant introduction. Vlad strikes a deal with a vampire (Charles Dance) that offers him an alternative deal: stay human and die, or temporarily become a vampire and destroy Mehmed's army. This would be a simple choice were it not for a ridiculous convolution: if Vlad drinks human blood, he will permanently become a vampire, and wind up sucking forever. Yes, that was a pun, and no, you don't get an apology.

Nor should you expect one in a review of "Dracula Untold," a bizarrely ambitious popcorn cash-in that's also half-baked in all the expected ways. The film's battle scenes are over-edited, Cooper's villain is a snooze, and there's simply not enough sex and death in an origin story about the archetypal sexual predator. Instead, there's a predictable attempted-rape scene, and a lot of paradoxically plodding hints that Mehmed and the Turks weren't that into women. There are also several scenes where Dracula turns into a cloud of bats, and even one scene where he scales a black cliff bare-handed while wearing a red cape, as if he were Wagner's Siegfried.

If you can selectively ignore this litany of inanity, you may find some substantial earthy pleasures in "Dracula Untold." Despite its PG-13 rating, the film does periodically erupt into surprisingly gruesome violence, like when a vampire is gored, then reduced into an emaciated corpse. And cinematographer John Schwartzman ("The Rock," "Armageddon") reminds you why Michael Bay used to love working with him in every day-for-night landscape shot. Evans is surprisingly good at smoldering, and special-effects-reliant shots of Vlad turning into a monster are usually pretty enticing. These small, moody charms add up, and give a film that sounds so very dumb some much-needed atmosphere. There's not much more to "Dracula Untold," but it does periodically throb with surface-deep tension.

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Best of me

IMDb
A pair of former high school sweethearts reunite after many years when they return to visit their small hometown.


Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

Based on the bestselling novel by acclaimed author Nicholas Sparks, The Best of Me tells the story of Dawson and Amanda, two former high school sweethearts who find themselves reunited after 20 years apart, when they return to their small town for the funeral of a beloved friend. Their bittersweet reunion reignites the love they've never forgotten, but soon they discover the forces that drove them apart twenty years ago live on, posing even more serious threats today. Spanning decades, this epic love story captures the enduring power of our first true love, and the wrenching choices we face when confronted with elusive second chances. . (c) Relativity

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Ghost Story

This ones For My new Follower

IMDb

• When his brother David dies on the eve of his wedding, Don travels back to his hometown in New England for the funeral services. He meets his grieving father Edward Charles Wanderley, who has a weekly meeting with his old friends Ricky Hawthorne, Dr. John Jaffrey and Sears James to tell tales of horror, and together they form The Chowder Society. When Edward and John die in mysterious circumstances, Don sees the picture of Eva Galli from the 20's and he joins Rick and Sears to tell a ghost story about his romance with Alma Mobley.
  - Written by Claudio Carvalho, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Rotten Tomatoes

MOVIE INFO

A simplification of Peter Straub's complicated, imaginative fantasy/horror novel, centring on a group of elderly men who tell each other ghost stories. But their tall tales hold more truth than it at first appears and a dark secret from their past is resurrected which puts their very lives at risk.

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