Debut filmmaker Michael Gabriele augurs the holiday season with Unholy Night, which is having its World Premiere at the Fantasia International Film Festival. Perhaps it’s serendipity, maybe an opportunity, since Gabriele’s feature is interestingly aligned with Sebastian Vanicék’s Evil Dead Burn, which was released earlier this month. Despite the push, few showed up for Vanicék’s French Extremity take on the Necronomicon mythos, though here’s hoping Unholy Night avoids a similar fate. While its DNA is trés Evil Dead, Gabriele’s deft, earnest touch deserves a look.
After a cold open that calls to mind Vanicék’s climactic long take of Deadite chaos, we’re introduced to Gino (Marc Bendavid), the black sheep of his Canadian-Italian family, as they prepare for Christmas dinner. Gino wants to cube the fruit, everyone yells at him, and he endures an evening of jabs and slights about his aspirations, his appearance, his interests, onward and onward. The familial horror starts before the dead even arrive.
They do arrive, however, in the form of the family’s long-deceased matriarch (Jacqueline Robbins). The family encounters her in the kitchen mid-dinner, and immediately the evening spirals into chaos. She starts battering those around her with saucepans, and in a gnarly kill, jams a wooden spoon down a poor sap’s throat. The dead are back, and they’re ready to kill.
Aligned with Sam Raimi’s horror/comedy ethos, Gabriele manages frequent laughs without undercutting the severity of the threat. In effect, when the dead feel they haven’t been sufficiently honored, they return from the grave to seek vengeance. Gino, his family, and his past flame, Rene (Shailene Garnett), endeavor to survive the night while seeking the means to stop Gino’s family from rising and then rising once again.
The gore is never as painful as the newer Evil Dead movies, or even the Indonesian riffs May the Devil Take You or The Queen of Black Magic, and that hesitance to go full Grand Guignol parallels Gabriele’s intentions. This is a deeply felt horror movie, right down to an admittedly shocking (and tear-jerking) finale. There’s still plenty of fun, namely in Gino and Rene’s efforts to placate the dead with Nonna stereotypes (they can avoid death by simply remarking how hungry they are, and even the dead can’t stop themselves from prepping a plate), but Gabrielle resists the post-irony of modern horror for a movie whose heart is firmly beating on its sleeve.
As Unholy Night progresses, the scale expands, and Gabriele manages some impressive set pieces that belie the budget. This isn’t the exploitation gore fest the synopsis might suggest, however, and that’s where the film risks losing its core audience. Much like Big Baby earlier this year, however, I’d concede it’s Unholy Night’s greatest strength. Lull the audience in with the promise of familiar savagery, then zag just as it risks tipping into straight homage. Unholy Night doesn’t quite have the same level of polish as the former, with adjacent technical elements, while serviceable, doing little to stand out.
Unholy Night isn’t a sack of coal, however. The festive trappings add visual flourish, and Gabriele’s commitment to sincerity elevates what could otherwise have been another reading of familiar material. The night might be unholy, but Gabriele’s debut is anything but. Unwrap it – you’ll like what you find.
https://ift.tt/ZJVF9mX https://ift.tt/q4Qf3g2
No comments:
Post a Comment