There are stories that are familiar, some that keep you guessing – Bereavement falls into the rare category where the familiarity is used to cushion the chaos. Bereavement is the deranged story of two people: Martin Bristol (Spencer List) and Allison Miller (Alexandra Daddario).
Living in a destitute Pennsylvania town, Martin possesses the rare condition called congenital analgesia – he is insensitive to pain. He can feel a touch, but his pain receptors are completely useless. At the age of six, Martin is kidnapped by a stranger and over the next five years, while living in an abandoned slaughterhouse, Martin is forced to watch this madman torture and butcher women.
One day, Allison moves in to town shortly after the death of her parents to live with her uncle Jonathan (Micahel Biehn) and his wife and daughter. She takes no thrill in living with them and finds solace in training for the track team, running down long lifeless roads day after day. While running, she passes by the slaughterhouse and sees a young boy standing behind a broken window, staring out at the world not knowing that her world is about to take yet another devastating turn.
Bereavement is written, directed, and scored by Stevan Mena, writer and director of Malevolence. He does a good job of depicting the isolation felt by the two main characters with the cinematography capturing the vast emptiness of the small, out of the way town.
The beginning is rough, slow paced as the piece is as psychological as it is bloody. He draws from such films as the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre to emphasize the presence of gore rather than act of it, but for all the gore hounds out there, there is plenty to be witnessed. Bereavement also seems like a love letter to John Carpenter’s Halloween, and after watching this film, personally speaking, I think I would have chosen Mena to direct the remake instead of Rob Zombie. And judging only by the story, it seems Mena likes to study serial killers.
The plot holes are apparent but not damaging, even laughable. At times you start wondering if Uncle Jonathan has a day job since all he seems to do day and night is continue building the new additions to his family’s quaint home. Plus, the shedding of Allison’s remaining innocence is parallel with the shedding of her running gear and the enlarging of her breasts capped off by a short, eye opening stay in a meat locker.
The musical score captures the atmosphere of a lonesome dirt town while the thriller sequences are standard striking melodies. The acting ranges from bad to believable, but sometimes the bad acting is what makes some scenes believable.
Even with its faults, Bereavement is a well made film that makes you squirm and even though you have seen these storytelling techniques in dozens of horror movies, the pacing and execution (heh heh) are well played.
I wonder if Michael Biehn ever walked up to Edward Furlong and asked "Who's your daddy?"
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