DARK REEL
Josh Eisenstadt’s 2008 slasher-horror/ghost story/comedy Dark Reel is a film of many surprises. This tale of a haunted film shoot, in which scantily-clad actresses are picked off one by one by a masked killer (or is it a ghost?), is smarter than your average straight-to-DVD horror flick, and twice as much fun. It is also presents many surprising revelations, smashing a few preconceptions one may have had about films of the genre, and perhaps most interestingly, about some of the genre’s most popular players. To name but a few eye-openers…
Tony Todd and Lance Henriksen can do comedy! Todd, perhaps best known as the haunted, terrifying Candyman, and Henriksen, the monotone, heroic cyborg Bishop in Aliens, are quite hilarious in this film. These seasoned actors have of course been in quite a number of memorable film and television roles, but neither of them has necessarily ever been known for their comedy - here each takes a role that has been done to death (Henriksen as eccentric and controlling movie studio head, Todd as wisecracking, perpetually agitated homicide detective) and elevate them to levels of effortless scene-stealing. Eventually Todd and Henriksen are alone in one room, dropping some of their characters’ droll formalities to officially square off against each other - it’s a fantastic scene that really showcases the (perhaps underappreciated) skill of these two performers.
Rena Riffel can play a character who’s in full wardrobe! We always knew we had it in her, and apparently Eisenstadt did as well - in a film chock full of scantily clad B-movie Scream Queens, here Riffel gets the role of Detective LaRue, a cheery horror-movie-obsessed detective who’s a great foil to Todd’s stern, serious Detective Shields. Riffel, best known as dancer Penny/Hope in Showgirls (and subject of our latest celebrity interview), seems to have been relegated to playing strippers and bombshells, but here she is given a chance to showcase some great comic timing, and an ability to hold her own against stage veterans like Todd. If rumors of a Dark Reel sequel are true, I sincerely hope for more of Detective LaRue.
Edward Furlong is back! Yes, he never really left - Furlong has been acting consistently since his 1991 debut in Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in films such as American History X and Detroit Rock City - but with his role in this film, as well as his upcoming starring role in the highly anticipated Night of the Demons remake, Furlong, like Riffel, may have found his new niche in horror cinema. In Dark Reel, Furlong plays Adam Waltz, a horror film geek who wins a contest for a walk-on role in a film produced by Henriksen’s character Connor Pritchett. Furlong’s take on Waltz is very refreshing: credit the actor, the director, the writers, or all of the above, but Waltz manages to be a kind of geek we never see in film, yet closer to a few we all know - a geek who isn’t a nerd. He may have horror posters plastered around his apartment, and he may gush like a fanboy when running into the Scream Queens he admires, but Waltz can also party with the Big Boys, making his way around a wrap party like he belongs there, chugging beers and cannonballing into swimming pools without the slightest bit of irony or awkwardness. When Waltz manages to “get the girl” early on in the film, he doesn’t seem the slightly bit surprised; in other films such a coupling (geek and hot chick) would have been played for laughs, but here the attraction is totally believable, and the young protagonists in love emerge as a rare commodity in horror cinema: a couple to root for.
Speaking of “the girl,” Tiffany Shepis is one hell of a Scream Queen! Move over Linnea Quigley! As damsel in distress Cassie Blue, Tiffany Shepis exudes a fantastic mix of vulnerability and sensuality you’d be hard-pressed to find in actresses of this genre (did anyone every really believe or root for Odette Yustman’s Casey in The Unborn?). Shepis is emerging as a staple of the indie horror genre - having won the Chicago Horror Film Festival Jury Award for Best Actress for Dark Reel, a look at her IMDB page shows no less than eighteen horror films in post-production. Not bad for a girl who got her start with Troma!
Quirky characters in horror films can be amusing! Let’s face it - most of today’s indie horror filmmakers - as well as studio horror filmmakers, for that matter - can’t do quirky. It either feels forced, feels misplaced, or just isn’t funny. But try - try - not to chuckle when Rhett Johnson consumes onions at a poolside party as if he were literally having an orgasm. Played with bravado by actor Jake Grace, Johnson is the lone character in the film that borders on the surreal - he is completely absurd, an exaggeration of off-beat Eurotrash actors like Julian Sands who, talented as they may be, always strike you as being somewhat not of this Earth. Johnson’s insane passions could have been head-scratchers - or worse, eye-rollers - but Grace somehow manages to make it work, despite the fact - and perhaps, because of the fact - that all the characters around him, at their most quirky, seem otherwise grounded in reality.
As I celebrate all these factors that clicked so well in Dark Reel, I find myself ultimately crediting director Eisenstadt a great deal - it takes great craft and clarity of vision to put together such a fun puzzle, especially when the pieces are sometimes quite idiosyncratic. Moreover, my hat’s off to any director of independent horror who still insists on shooting in 35mm - Dark Reel , particularity in its sultry, Film Noir opening scene, looks fantastic. Though Dark Reel definitely revels more in its comedy than its horror, at its heart is a great whodunit that I had fun trying to figure out; ultimately, despite my best efforts, I couldn’t name the killer. In retrospect, I’m not really sure why - maybe I was having too much fun.
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