[WE ARE STILL HERE
screens Friday May 22nd and Saturday May 23rd at midnight at the
Capitol Theatre. Writer/director Ted Geogegan will be present for a Q & A after the film both nights.]
Review
by Bob Ignizio
A couple movies in to an old farm house
only to find it isn't just a fixer-upper, it's haunted, in WE ARE
STILL HERE. Paul
and Anne Sacchetti (Andrew Sensenig and Barbara Crampton) hope that a
change of scenery will help them get over the grief of losing their
teenage son, Bobby. But almost immediately, Anne senses a presence in
the home that she's certain is the spirit of her son. There are other
strange phenomenon as well, like the unnaturally hot basement. Paul
is skeptical, but after the contractor he hires to check out the
basement suffers mysterious injuries, he isn't so sure. Then one
night the Sachetti's neighbors Dave (Monte Markham) and Maddie (Susan
Gibney) stop by to cheerfully inform them about their new home's
history as a funeral parlor where the bodies didn't always make it
into the ground. He goes on to explain that the owners at the time,
the Dagmar family, were run out of town on a rail.
Or were they? By this point, it's
beginning to look as if the Dagmars are still present in the house in
one form or another, and they aren't particularly happy to be sharing
it. So Anne calls up her old friend May (Lisa Marie), a psychic, to
ask if she could come visit and do whatever mumbo jumbo it is
psychics do in a case like this. May brings along her husband Jacob
(Larry Fessenden), and their son Harry (Michael Patrick) drives up
separately with his girlfriend Daniella (Kelsea Dakota) so that there
will be a few more potential victims on hand when the supernatural
violence kicks into high gear.
It's good to see
Ms. Crampton, star of 80s horror classics HERBERT WEST:
RE-ANIMATOR and FROM BEYOND, in a leading role once again.
Her Anne is brittle but also resilient, recovering from the tragic
loss of her son but still capable of asserting herself. Larry
Fessenden is also no stranger to horror fans, having produced,
written and directed some of the most interesting independent horror
films of the last eighteen years (HABIT, WENDIGO, THE
LAST WINTER). He also does a lot of small acting jobs for like-minded filmmakers, but here he gets a chance to tackle a meatier
role, creating a memorable stoner who avoids most of the usual
pothead cliches. The rest of the cast are fine as well, notably
Markham who is the kind of constantly working character actor (over
100 credits on imdb since 1966) who makes an impression no matter how
big or small the part. He has a slightly old school approach to
acting which works well with the tone of the film.
WE ARE STILL
HERE draws a fair amount of influence from late seventies/early
eighties horror films, notably Lucio Fulci's HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY
which features a similar “undead menace in the basement”. Further
showing Fulci's influence, writer/director Ted Geoghegan does a good
job creating an atmosphere of supernatural dread and small town
terror. I do wish the film had been a little more visually stylish,
though, particularly in its scenes of violence. There's one nicely
staged kill in a moving car, but even that feels as though it's shot
a bit too straight forward, and cuts away too soon. I'm not saying
Geoghegan should have lovingly lingered on the gore like Fulci would
have, but I'm not saying that would have been a bad idea, either. And
while I appreciate that the film takes time to build tension, the
climax falls just a bit short of fully satisfying.
Still, I always
appreciate a horror film that isn't embarrassed about trying to be
creepy. There's no tongue in cheek, self-deprecating humor here, nor
any concessions to action movie tropes ala pseudo horror films like
UNDERWORLD; WE ARE STILL HERE is just a good old
fashioned spook show, and horror fans can always use more of those. 3
out of 4 stars.
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