HAUNTING STORM

HAUNTING STORM

This was certainly a bizarre one. I'm still trying to fathom what it was all about, or indeed what its purpose was...

It opens with a tattooed young woman enters her new home one evening, ascends the stairs and strips off for a soak in the bathtub. A video call comes through her as she languishes in the soapy water - her friend is on the other end of the call. Here, we learn it's her first night in the place, and that she bought it for a steal due to its "dark history".

This leads to her telling her pal a story as an example of the house's chequered history. Cue a flashback to 1964 where an attractive couple arrive in town and visit the house, then owned by the guy's sinister Uncle Harry.

Harry's a cad who murdered his wife and betrayed his brother - the young man's father - all to protect some treasure the three of them had stumbled upon. When the young couple come close to locating the booty for themselves, Harry decides a terrible fate for them too.

Fast-forward to the present day. Pretty blonde Johnna hosts a TV show that aims to contact spirits of the dead. It's here that she meets Selina, a talented medium who not only correctly recalls the details of Johnna's father's death, but also predicts that her sister will soon move closer to home.

Sure enough, younger sister Kristen soon moves into a nearby lakeside house ... Harry's house, in fact. All seems well for a short while - Kristen meets and flirts with hunky neighbour Michael while revealing how she plans "to buy a big boat and charter out to St Augustine" - but before long she's plagued by ghostly voices and visions. Naturally, Johhna moves in to help investigate the nature of these events.

Blood pours from taps, elderly neighbours turn out to be ghouls, screams pierce the night...

Will Kristen and Johnna manage to fend off Harry's vengeful spirit when it returns to protect the treasures hidden beneath his old house?

Written and directed by Kerry Knight, who also co-produces alongside his brother Alan, HAUNTING STORM is the second feature they've made since starting up their own filmmaking company - Knight Brothers Productions - in 2009.

It's competently shot, benefitting from a clean and vibrant HD sheen. Colours are warm; detail is sharp and fine enough to accentuate the contours of the pretty female cast to an impressive extent. Nicely lit interiors lend visual style, as do forays into aesthetically varied passages - a monochrome flashback to Harry murdering his wife in her bath; the gialloesque blue hues afforded to Kristen's nightmare episodes.

Alongside the above attributes, HAUNTING STORM also scores points for its efforts to recall spookier horror films rather than go for the more obvious gore-for-gore's-sake route. The Knights are blighted by the usual no-budget restrictions which dictate that their attempts at atmosphere rarely hit the mark (Kristen's screamed reaction to a face that appears in water is badly timed; a mysterious old lady who appears and proceeds to stare into the camera for an inordinate amount of time provokes titters over shivers), but at least they tried.

On the down side, the film is pretty crappy in every other aspect. The plot's a mess of half-baked ideas and inconsistent characterisation. The acting is uniformly appalling: yes I know not to expect Oscar-worthy performances in a micro-budget horror film, but even so - this is woefully bad acting, through and through. Digital effects are almost entertainingly poor, from the film's title sinking into sand on a beach onwards. Cheryl Mayo's score is clichéd and overwrought.

It's also far too long at 93 minutes in length.

But these guys are making a bid to churn out horror films on their own terms, making them available for digital download while seeking out more concrete distribution deals. It's a family affair, offering more enthusiasm than budget while evidencing a love for traditional horror values and classic B-movie thrills (their other title so far is SWAMP WITCH) over tedious torture porn. So perhaps I'm being a little harsh?

There are, in the film's favour, a clutch of attractive ladies in the cast. Oh, and we do get some nudity. But, really, unless that's all you require as a recommendation to see a film, you will need to adjust your expectation barometer to fairly low if you're considering this one.

The screener disc sent for review purposes presented the film as an mp4 file, without menus or extras. The 16x9 picture was very good, although the English 2.0 audio was often muffled to the point where I had to strain - or occasionally rewind - to hear dialogue.

If you're interested, HAUNTING STORM can be downloaded from www.knightbrothersproductions.com.

Review by Stuart Willis


 
Released by Knight Brothers Productions
Region All
Not Rated
Extras :
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