The Void (2016): written and directed by Jeremy Gillespie and Steven Kostanski; starring Aaron Poole (Officer Carter), Kenneth Welsh (Dr. Powell), Daniel Fathers (The Father), Kathleen Munroe (Allison), Ellen Wong (Kim), Mik Byskov (The Son), Art Hindle (Mitchell), and Grace Munro (Maggie):
Delightful Lovecraftian horror made in Canada -- specifically in and around Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario. There are gooshy bits, but they're in service to a story about an invasion from OUTSIDE. Co-writers and co-directors Gillespie and Kostanski have done a nice job of melding the Lovecraftian body horror of "Herbert West - Reanimator" with the more cosmic concerns of H.P. Lovecraft-penned stories that include "The Call of Cthulhu" and "The Colour Out of Space."
Canadian acting stalwarts Art Hindle and Kenneth Welsh (probably best known outside Canada as Agent Cooper's nemesis Wyndham Earle in Twin Peaks) rub shoulders with relative unknowns in this tale of a stripped-down, soon-to-be-closed rural hospital assaulted from within and without by cult members, monsters, and a terrible FORCE FROM OUTSIDE. Dread and fun combine in productive ways, and the movie even seems to offer a visual quote from that cult sf classic The Quiet Earth.
There's a lot of metamorphic body horror for fans of John Carpenter's The Thing and Clive Barker's Hellraiser, complete with a pretty gruesome monster at the end (and monsters throughout). But the focus remains throughout on the idea of an invasion of our world from somewhere outside -- Outside, really. And the filmmakers wisely leave the motivations of whatever is behind this completely unknown. We may understand why the cult followers of the Abyss (as it is called) do the things they do. The Abyss itself remains silent. Fittingly. Highly recommended.
Pyewacket (2017): written and directed by Adam MacDonald; starring Nicole Munoz (Leah Reyes), Laurie Holden (Mrs. Reyes), Chloe Rose (Janice), and Eric Osborne (Aaron): Enjoyable horror movie filmed in Canada's new horror hotbed, demon-haunted Sault Ste. Marie pretending to be New England (see also The Void).
Once you get over the fact that mother and daughter (played by Laurie Holden and Nicole Munoz) look nothing alike, the movie works for the most part. The daughter is clearly meant to look more like her deceased father than her mother so as to be a constant reminder of the mother's dead husband -- there is dialogue to that effect. But this is a bit too much, so much too much that I half-expected the mother to yell "You're not my daughter!" at some point.
Nicole Munoz plays Leah as the most wholesome-looking Goth ever, as are her three high-school friends. They're all into a Providence horror writer who apparently puts working spells in his novels. Say what you will about Stephen King, but he never did that!
So in a fit of adolescent angst (or possibly sociopathic behaviour), Leah calls upon the demon Pyewacket to kill her mother. Then she regrets it and tries to send the demon back before it kills her mother. Oops.
Pyewacket is a 'real' demon name, by the way. I'd previously run across it in the Kim Novak witch-romantic comedy Bell, Book and Candle (1958), also starring Jimmy Stewart. There, Pyewacket is Novak's cat/familiar.
The acting from the principals (there aren't many principals) is solid throughout. And there are some genuine scares, not all of them jump-scares. The film-makers keep most of the horror off-screen, and there's very little overt violence. The movie seems to make it clear that the supernatural is 'really' happening, but it does leave some room for doubt in the old Turn of the Screw manner. How much doubt depends on whether a viewer believes certain shots to be objective camerawork or subjective visions by Munoz's character.
Not a great movie, but the second half makes up a lot for the slowness of the first half, with the last ten minutes really singing. The filmmakers seem to me to have a lot of promise. And Pyewacket barely clocks in at 90 minutes, so it doesn't wear out its welcome. Lightly recommended.
