Review: Totem

(imdb.com)

Is teen horror making a comeback? It certainly seems like it. For quite some time, this subgenre has burned out slowly; most notably with the crash and burning of the glossy, mediocre and boring Ouija. But, with films like Wish Upon and Amityville: The Awakening, it looks as if were in a renaissance. But, while film makers turn back toward these films, the question remains: will audiences be willing to stick around and watch? Totem would suggest that the answer is no.


Released by Cinemax and already in the peripheral of 2017's more impressive releases, Totem follows a teenager with a creepy relationship with her father, who in turn must protect them from a supernatural force that invades the house when the father's new girlfriend moves in. If the premise sounds unoriginal, it's because it mostly is. But if only to exasperate the film's flaws, the movie's eventual reveal and overall execution are equally as poor and unoriginal as the premise.


Totem stars Kerris Dorsey (Ray Donovan) as daughter/sister-turner-caretaker, Kellie, Ahna O'Reilly (The Help) as the dismantling newcomer, Robin, James Tupper (Revenge) as the father and Lia McHugh (Hot Summer Nights) as Kellie's sister. Across the board, each is equally tepid in their role. McHugh is somewhat more acceptable as the oddball youngster with little understanding, but outside of that, this cast sloppily fills the roles in a way that makes them seem tacked onto the project. Dorsey looks to be having fun in her chaotic role but her relationships between the other characters are unanimously cringe and Tupper, while making a valiant effort to create a dad whose try his best, never seems to have any real empathy or depth.


Narratively, Totem is a sloppy. Whether it’s the lack of commitment to character development or the lack of a consistent villain, there are just too many inconsistencies. What begins as a supernatural flick diverges into a crazed slasher far too late, Kellie's sister is odd but no one quite ever figures out how or why exactly. Instead it’s mentioned frequently, but only in passing, and Robin is maybe younger than the father but it’s never laid out fully how big the age difference is or what exactly the problem is.


The biggest flaw of all is how plainly boring Totem is. There isn't a single moment of tension, a single half-heartedly thrown in laugh or even a character that's worth rooting for. Totem has a lot of things working against it and does little to push forward. It's difficult to say Totem deserves to go unseen but, in a landscape with far better movies, the small release of it is completely warranted. 3 out 10.

Review: Be Afraid



(imdb.com)

This review will be short - the worthwhileness in writing it is simply to acknowledge the fact that I sat through it in its entirety. And, while this review takes on a more candid tone and leaves behind the typical standards of review writing, Be Afraid is an insult to horror and deserves nothing more. Equally bad as it is boring, confusing and ultimately dumb (there's not an elegant way to say it), Be Afraid is weaker than any horror movie out this year- indie or otherwise. Where one could typically toss its failures to a lower budget or an indie release, the fact of the matter is, this film is absolute nothingness.

Be Afraid is about a family that moves into an older house where something happened to the previous tenants. There's a ghoul that spearheads the scares, seemingly plucked from the documentary The Nightmare, and at various points a young love story featuring a girl who feels trapped in the hometown she grew up in and a returning stepson with a past, seems to bud. To be honest, that's my synopsis takeaway and I'm not entirely sure it's all right, but it doesn't look like the filmmakers cared to make it clear in the first place. The film stars an ensemble of actors who I won't name as not to mar their careers.

It's the type of film made without care, without passion and most certainly, without the intent to interest its audience. There's nothing scary, thoughtful or comical about Be Afraid. It's never funny-bad so that it could at least hope to end up in a movie pack in Wal-Mart or good enough to even find some sort of middle ground, instead it's simply an unfortunate film without any redeemable qualities, for B-fans, indie fans or horror fans in general.

While it'd probably be argued that this film was loved and cared for; that someone somewhere out there held it near and dear to their heart, but the simple fact of the matter is that if someone did care, it got entirely lost in translation. Be Afraid is a confusing, muddled mess with stereotypical roles and problems. The transitions between scenes, conversations and scares are disjointed and out-of-place and scenes seem directly plucked from far superior films. 1 out 10.