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Blindsided
Darker Than Night
Canada 2018
produced by Francis Mitchell, David Mitchell, Jason Stone (executive), Jon Chu (executive), Franco Chu (executive), Rick Bergman (executive) for Riverbank Pictures
directed by Johnny Mitchell
starring Bea Santos, Atticus Mitchell, Erik Knudsen, Melinda Shankar, Paul Popowich, Carlyn Burchell, Alexa Hazael, Johnny Mitchell, Nykeem Provo, Mitchell Pahad, Jesse Keast
written by Brandon Tataryn, Brad Wetherly, Johnny Mitchell, music by Norman Orenstein, special maekup effects by Carlos Henriques/The Butcher Shop
review by Mike Haberfelner
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Sloan (Bea Santos) has been blinded only recently, and as she's still
coming to terms with her condition, her psychology teacher dad (Paul
Popowich) has to go away for the weekend, but leaves her in the hands of
her best friends Toby (Erik Knudsen) and Mika (Melinda Shankar) to keep
her company in his house that's pretty much in the middle of nowhere.
Enter Tom (Atticus Mitchell), a student of Sloan's dad who claims her dad
has invited him for the weekend, and he seems nice enough so they let him
stay - after all, Toby and Mika want to take Sloan to a high school
reunion anyway, so they won't really have to deal with Tom much. However,
the high school reunion doesn't go as great as planned as everybody seems
to feel the urge to mention Sloan's blindness, so they're back sooner than
expected - to have a few shots with Tom ... and then Sloan finds a dead
body hanging on the porch. Of course, the four of them panic, lock
themselves in, then Toby tries to get the car for a hasty getaway - and
once outside steps into a bear trap to then be attacked by a cute yet
deadly girl (Carlyn Burchell), and he only makes it back to safety only
just. But once locked inside again, our heroes are anything but safe from
the psycho girl, who makes another vicious attack on Toby, chases Mika up
to the roof then has her fall to her death - and ultimately she's brutally
stabbed by Tom. And this is when shit only starts to hit the fan ... Blindsided
is a really cool piece of genre cinema that might not be too original in
basic story, but it's really good in narrative build-up as well as build
up of tension and sets all the shocks and suspense scenes right to have
the viewers on the edges of their seats throughout. And the extended
finale really manages to one-up the rest of the film in terms of
excitement and makes perfect use of its lead character's handicap without
being too in-your-face about it. And of course, likeable or at least
relateable characters embodied by a truly capable ensemble totally help in
bringing the story to life.
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review © by Mike Haberfelner
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Robots and rats,
demons and potholes, cuddly toys and shopping mall Santas,
love and death and everything in between,
Tales to Chill Your Bones to is all of that.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to -
a collection of short stories and mini-plays ranging from the horrific to the darkly humourous,
from the post-apocalyptic to the weirdly romantic,
tales that will give you a chill and maybe a chuckle,
all thought up by the twisted mind of screenwriter and film reviewer Michael Haberfelner.
Tales to Chill Your Bones to
the new anthology by Michael Haberfelner
Out now from Amazon!!! |
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