Thursday, February 22, 2018

Hot for Everybody: THE BLACK ROOM (2017) review

February 17-22, 2018


The Netflix Connection #2: THE BLACK ROOM

Last month I mentioned that I was hoping to write some more reviews and blog posts and as part of that effort, I tried something out with the help of my friend, horror movie reviewer Mermaid Heather. Since we both are subscribed to Netflix, we decided to pick a movie available from the service, watch it and then each of us write and post a review of said film to our respective blogs and, on top of that, also have a discussion about the movie (SPOILER ALERT!). To start us off last month, Heather picked the South Korean historical mystery thriller, THE SILENCED (2015), and to our delight, we both liked it a lot.
So, with our maiden voyage having gone so well, we’re embarking on our second cinemaphilic excursion. We also welcome a third passenger, reviewer Zombie Dawn, who has a blog at Top Horror Movies Club!
This month, it was my turn to choose our diabolical entertainment and I selected THE BLACK ROOM. In my review for THE SILENCED, I took forever getting around to the movie and what I thought of it. This time out, screw that! Let’s just jump in, shall we?

THE BLACK ROOM (2017, written and directed by Rolfe Kanefsky; with Natasha Henstridge, Lukas Hassel, Lin Shaye, Augie Duke, Caleb Scott, and Dominique Swain)

Paul and Jennifer Hemdale (played by Lukas Hassel and Natasha Henstridge) buy a new house and it seems perfect, even already furnished. As the realtor (Tiffany Shepis) explains, the previous owner suffered a family tragedy - someone was severely burned by the furnace in the basement - and the bad memories associated with the house compelled the family to move out as quickly as possible. Paul tells the realtor that they plan to replace the furnace immediately as a precaution. As the couple step into their new abode, romance is immediately on their mind, and they look forward to consummating their status as new home owners in the imagined love nest. Of course, being a horror film, there are complications… like the mysterious, locked black room in the basement that hides a presence with its own agenda for the couple, although its objective is surprisingly, equally intimate, just less romantic in spirit…

Since it was my turn to pick a film for our monthly review/chat, I was going back and forth about what film to pick from the various choices on Netflix… until I saw Rolfe Kanefsky’s name as writer/director on this film. There are a handful of directors whose stuff I like and I look forward to checking out their filmography because they’re not quite as famous in the mainstream but still manage to put out inventive and creative work. A couple of these directors are Fred Olen Ray (HOLLYWOOD CHAINSAW HOOKERS from the good ol’ 80s VHS days, A PRINCE FOR CHRISTMAS, A MOTHER’S REVENGE) and Mike Mendez (BIG ASS SPIDER!, CONVENT, GRAVEDANCERS, and DON’T KILL IT, which happens to be available on Netflix and what I almost picked instead). I became aware of Ray’s output during the VHS boom and I started following Mendez after seeing THE CONVENT because the then girlfriend (now wife) of a friend of mine had a scene as a demonic nun. But Rolfe Kanefsky is someone I came to know because of Mermaid Heather. She really enjoyed his films, THE HAZING (now called DEAD SCARED) and NIGHTMARE MAN, and specifically mentioned him by name, so I watched THE HAZING and also filed away Kanefsky's name as someone to watch for. Seeing that THE BLACK ROOM was another “Rolfe Kanefsky Flick,” it seemed a perfect choice for our little film club. So, it was with some added anticipation that I sat down to watch this film.

The film actually starts off not with Paul and Jennifer buying the house but the night of the family tragedy two years previous. An old woman (Lin Shaye) is asleep in bed and, in a separate room, so is her adult granddaughter, Dawn (Alex Rinehart). Meanwhile, something is restless in the basement: there’s a boarded up door and on the planks sealing up the door is a strange symbol painted in red. And someone (or something) is hammering away from inside to get out. Soon strange events transpire. An apparent supernatural presence represented by smoke appears to break free from the ductwork and also remove the symbol from the imprisoning wood. The old woman suddenly wakes up and senses that this presence is in the house; in fact, she seems to have some sort of association with it and she’s not happy that it’s roaming about. As the woman argues with the presence from her bed, simultaneously we see that it’s also visiting with the granddaughter. Reminiscent of the sexually predatory spirit of THE ENTITY, the presence begins to have its way with the young woman while she sleeps. Soon, the grandmother realizes to her horror what’s happening and rushes off to intervene, interrupting the sexual assault and then, with some sort of talisman she has, she chases the thing out of the room and back into the basement.
Ultimately, the sequence builds to a fiery climax as the granddaughter follows after “Nana” and stumbles into the sinister, unbelievable mysteries of the black room in the basement.
When Paul and Jennifer buy the house two years later, the literally inhuman prisoner that’s been trapped downstairs has a new opportunity to escape.

Aroused by their new surroundings, the couple’s ambitions for romance are stymied by either bad timing - like, the furnace inspector’s appearance - or inconvenient interruptions - like, Jennifer’s younger sister, Karen (Augie Duke), who’s not the biggest fan of Paul and who happens to be visiting them, just earlier then expected. Further complicating things is the release of the imprisoned demon who then possesses Paul. I know! All Paul and Jennifer wanna do is get laid! WTF!

Let me say straight off, because of my anticipation in watching the film I was disappointed by parts of it. I found the film curiously uneven for my tastes, right from the start. In the same way that Paul and Jennifer seem to have no luck in getting it on in the house, although they both are definitely in the mood, I felt the film had similar ambitions to achieve certain pleasures for the genre movie fan - horror, sex, gore, humor - but for this occasionally moody film fan (uh, me), little things would break the mood. Speaking broadly, the movie seemed like a string of things that I thought worked and things that I thought didn’t. And some of the things that didn’t work for me were so small and picky that if I were to describe them (oh, don’t worry, I will, or at least one or two of those things) I think I’d come off as a fussy jerk, and that may be true, but speaking for myself, I found these elements distracting enough that it affected my enjoyment of the film.

For instance, right from the start, that prologue with the grandmother, Margaret Black (listed in the credits as Miss Black), and her granddaughter, Dawn. During the argument with demon, we only hear Miss Black’s side of the “conversation.” At first she seems to be only addressing a presence that she senses is awake in the house, but later it almost seems she’s talking to the demon. Either she senses what it wants or it’s talking to her in her head and we can’t hear it. I had no problem with this, but either way the conversation had enough specific details in it that it seemed a bit Basil Exposition-y.
Still, as Dawn is kissed by and fondled by an invisible assailant while she's sleeps, and some of the special effects were impressively and believably done, like when her lips are kissed and her nipples are played with. Dawn clearly responds favorably, as if she were giving in to an erotic dream of her own invention. As a fan of some sexploitation films and horror films that have nudity in them (sometimes because they have nudity in them, like director Jean Rollins’ entire oeuvre), this sexual aspect of the prologue wasn’t a problem with me. But it took me a while to accept that the demon was in both rooms at the same time, which seemed inconsistent with Miss Black’s argument with the demon. So, there was momentary confusion on my part.
Reading that last paragraph over, this “criticism” seems lame. But, there were a number of weird things - perhaps even trivial things - that just took me out of the film, even briefly, that I found distracting.

Having said that, while writing this review, I was revisiting parts of the film, and conversely, there were parts that I definitely enjoyed.
For instance, I liked tall, good-looking Lukas Hassel’s performance as Paul, especially when he’s inhabited by the demon, well, more accurately, an incubus, and he starts looking at all the women around him as things to be played with and interacted with sexually. Speaking of which, I actually learned an incubus is a male version of a succubus (I know, I’m slow!), and by definition, both are demons that have sexual intercourse with sleeping members of the opposite sex; although in this case, our incubus is horny 24/7), There’s also a nice moment when the incubus admires himself (Paul) appreciatively in a cool wall mirror, as he sees the body he’s inhabiting for the first time.
Also, the cast had a nice mix of actors, with Natasha Henstridge (of SPECIES, another sexually themed horror movie), Lin Shaye (most recently seen in the INSIDIOUS films), Tiffany Shepis (popular veteran of a number of low-budget horror films), Dominique Swain (who I mostly remembered being in Adrian Lyne’s version of LOLITA), and Robert Donovan (who is in the EMMANUELLE series of soft core cable films). Despite some comments about Henstridge’s past acting abilities, I’ve liked her in the few things I’ve seen her in (okay, in SPECIES her best attributes were visual but even so, I thought her acting consistent with an alien visitor, and I don’t mean that as a back-handed compliment) and I liked her in this.
There was some cool gore make-up effects, even a pretty cool one, like the one applied to Karen in a frisky scene between her and Paul.
There’s a fun and bizarre flashback sequence of a party set in the 70s in the basement of the house.
The end climax in the black room is also imaginatively realized. And, speaking of which, its great seeing the various members of the cast happily subjecting themselves to some strange, low-budget genre circumstances, like Lin Shaye covered in goo and trapped in an alien-looking set, along with almost everybody else.
The whole scene in the restaurant offers some more outrageous moments and also gets to reference, in spirit, one of Kanefsky’s other credits, CLICK, a soft-core cable series based on the erotic Milo Manara comics.
Or, in another scene, Hassel enthusiastically having an extended make-out scene with a wall and groping hands (a la Roman Polanksi’s REPULSION) while he’s covered in goo.

On the other hand, there were times I was less enamored with THE BLACK ROOM.
Like, Karen in her first scene. They establish that there’s no love lost between Paul and Karen, but when Karen gets there, obviously made up (for extreme comic effect, I’m assuming) as a Goth girl, she seems so antagonistic towards Paul, she just comes across as a bitch, so I’m wondering why she was even invited to the house. Although, once we get through the first confrontational scene, I found her character’s scenes more tolerable. So, I’m chalking that up to the writing, not Augie Duke’s performance, who I found interesting. It was just an off-putting introduction to Karen.
When Jennifer’s trying to use the washing machine and it turns into a moment when the incubus is arousing her via the furnace man (but not really, uh…), that juxtaposition between what is actually happening and what Jennifer can actually see (and not see) was a cool idea but didn’t work for me. Part of it was because Oscar, the furnace man (Robert Donovan), looked like he’s touching Jennifer all over but he really wasn’t, his hands are just really close to her body. I found that weird and thought his hands should be on her, and then through editing, you can see that its actually his presence touching her, but she can’t see him. They still do that with the editing, but I thought the way Kanefsky chose to show how Oscar interacts with her distracting.
Also, there were times when some of the scenes in the black room itself fell kind of flat for me. Like, the room itself was merely a device (at times) to have weird shit happen, and to a certain degree, I understand (even embrace) that way of creating a scene or moving the plot along in a low-budget horror movie. But, sometimes, I just didn’t buy what was happening or didn’t think it was that compelling. And I was disappointed that the room never really developed an aura of foreboding whenever we came to it, like, Regan’s bedroom in THE EXORCIST. Okay, that’s probably an unfair apples and oranges comparison, but, still, I still felt that as a viewer I should have more dread whenever we entered this room.
As the incubus’ physical conduit, Paul’s bit of exposition via the basement party flashback also seems very convenient. True, it allows Kanefsky a chance to have fun with the incubus’ origin story, but some elements of the party are nonsensical. For instance, why would the incubus be conjured in the first place at a party, especially (if I understood this correctly) which would seem like an elaborately impulsive act by uninvited strangers. Although, perhaps it was intended to be absurd and funny for its incongruity, which is quite possible, but if so, it didn’t come across that way for me. In the same way that the furnace man’s inappropriate comments to Jennifer in the basement when the couple first encounter him may have been meant to be taken more humorously, but they came across genuinely creepy. So, these both might be issues of directorial tone.
Also, I wondered why the incubus felt compelled to reveal this whole origin story in the first place with Jennifer and Karen. Part of me thinks he was coming on to Karen because of her "Goth-y knowledge" of the occult and so, was almost bragging about his origins to her as a way to impress and seduce her..? I think the way the conversation begins at the table, there’s some evidence of the writer/director’s intention. And I think that idea works, but then it wasn’t really developed and it just comes across as exposition. And if that wasn’t the idea, then it really just comes across as expostiion.
Re: special effects make-up, there’s also a scene where we get to see burn make-up and that looks pretty good, too. Although, I’ll be honest, part of me also felt the degree of the disfigurement also seemed too tame, but that’s probably just me being a pain-in-the-ass. Although, I also thought we shouldn’t have seen the victim’s long hair, as if the fire only affected her face. True, we see the results of the accident two years later, still... Howvere, the way the victim dresses all enshrouded in black adds a nice mysterious touch.
Finally, occasional plot inconsistencies. For instance, if there’s only one incubus, how was he in two rooms simultaneously in the opening prologue? 

Most viewers probably won’t be having second helpings of the film like I did, and when I first watched this film, I wasn’t as forgiving over-all. So if I were to rate this film in some way, I’d give it a straight up 50/50, a sadly wishy-washy rating on my part.
Still, after watching this, I’m re-invigorated to track down some of Kanefsky’s other horror films, especially his first film, THERE’S NOTHING OUT THERE and also NIGHTMARE MAN. Because Kanefsky seems attracted to genre elements I like as well, namely, sex, horror, gore and nudity and mixing them up.
Also, check out what Mermaid Heather and Zombie Dawn had to say about THE BLACK ROOM.

Holy crap, it took me forever to write this review (and I missed my deadline by three days!), but, better late than never, by god!


2 comments:

  1. Congrats! You doubled your post count from last year! ;)

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    1. Thanks! A fact that’s both awesome and embarrassing!
      - Cattleworks

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