From Venezuela, amidst the chaos, comes a based-on-life police procedural/bloodsucker movie, Carl Zitelmann's THE LAKE VAMPIRE

Back in the mid-1970s, in a healthier (compared only to the past few years) Venezuela, a serial killer by the name of Zacarías Ortega was narrowing down the population, body by body.

Ortega may be little more than a footnote in Venezuelan history today, but an industrious  filmmaker, Carl Zitelmann, in his full-length debut, has brought Ortega's tale -- sort of -- to the screen in the new film titled THE LAKE VAMPIRE (El vampiro del lago).

As director and writer, who adapted his screenplay from a novel by Norberto José Olivar, Señor Zitelmann (shown at right) has no doubt added some of his own "liberties" to those already taken by Olivar in telling this true-life tale via his novel, A Vampire in Maracaibo.

The result, TrustMovies opines, is a film that quickly engulfs us by offering up the news (but fortunately not the views) of decapitated corpses and severed heads -- often those of children -- and the simultaneous introduction of a novelist named Ernesto (Sócrates Serrano, below) trying awfully hard to find a subject for his second book. Oh-oh: Could he be on to something here?

Indeed, yes, and so Ernesto tracks down the police investigator, Jeremias (Miguel Ángel Landa, below), who handled that initial case back in the 70s -- one that these new killings would seem to imitate -- and together the two men begin to bond and then to investigate.

As Jeremias tells Ernesto the story of how he tracked down the earlier killer, we are given a number of scenes devoted to those distant days (Jeremias' younger self is played by Abilio Torres, below), even as we are also learning about the current spate of killings.

The filmmaker competently juggles his police procedural, serial killer and vampire genres, as well as his past and present time frames, though we do grow a little weary of things by the point the movie has reached its pretty-much foregone conclusion. The identity of one or two characters, past and present, may carry a surprise, though for fans for either the serial killer or vampire genres, the bigger "reveals" will have probably revealed themselves awhile back.

What saves the film is its visual style -- atmospheric and almost always compelling --  along with it's mostly excellent pacing, and the fine performances from its entire cast.

As good as everyone is, the top acting honors actually go to the actor who plays the three "vampire" roles in distant past, not-so-distant past and present day: Eduardo Gulino (shown above and below), who is by turns crazy scary, sublimely creepy, and quite classy.

One of the more interesting things about this film is how male-centric it consistently is. The single female character of any note (other than one of  the killer's victims, below) exists simply for the most prominent male to use for work and sex purposes; otherwise, it's all men all the time. And not particularly nice men, at that. By the time of the very downbeat finale, you may feel, well, fuck 'em all: They got what they deserved. (Even if the people of Venezuela, then and now, certainly have not.)

From Uncork’d Entertainment and Dark Star Pictures, The Lake Vampire will have its U.S. theatrical premiere tomorrow, Friday, September 27, in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Glendale -- with a VOD release to follow later this fall.

A slasher art-film? Tamae Garateguy's bizarre SHE WOLF attempts this offbeat melding

What to make of SHE WOLF? This 2013 movie from Argentina is finally being released (on DVD and digital) this week via Omnibus Entertainment, the genre arm of Film Movement, so fans of would-be horror/slasher movies and/or very oddball art films will have the chance to view it and weigh in.

As directed by Tamae Garateguy (shown below), with a screenplay by Diego Fleischer

(from a story by Ms Garateguy) and shot in appealing black-and-white by cinematographer Pigu Gómez, She Wolf is a very uneasy mixture of the arty and the sleazy, with plenty of voracious sex, enough slashing to make blood-and-guts fans relatively happy, and just enough of a germ of a genuinely interesting idea to keep art-film aficionados on their toes.

Ms Garateguy's most interesting touch is to have three very different appearing actresses essay the leading role of the "she wolf," a woman who, from the first scene onwards, seems to enjoy killing men, particularly the kind who like to abuse women.

Fair enough (well, sort of) for these me2 times, I suppose, and the three actresses who play the leading lady are talented and attractive. Initially, it will seem as though there are three different characters here, but no, eventually you'll realize that they are differing aspects of the same woman. The first we see is played by Mónica Lairana, above, who appears to be the victim in a bondage sexual encounter. But not for long.

Then we get the blond version (above and below), played by Luján Ariza, and finally what is called in the end credits, the "young" version, the pretty and innocent-looking Guadalupe Docampo. The male roles are mostly throw-away, during which we see just enough to know that these guys like to hit on women and parade their macho credentials -- with two exceptions.

The first of these is a guy (Egardo Castro, below) who has "come on" to our mujer lobo on one of her subway rides (her favored pick-up spot) and annoyingly interrupted her flirting with another man. "He'll get his," we think, but back in his apartment he pulls a gun on our gal and she barely gets away. Turns out, he's a cop, to boot (making a point, I suppose, about Argentina's law enforcement and the kind of police/military control that goes back decades and decades in the history of this South American country).

The second, more-nuanced male character is the young man who helps our "heroine" escape from her gun-toting captor. As nicely played with charm and sex appeal by Nicolás Gold (aka Goldschmidt), this fellow gets a whole lot more than he bargained for -- especially when he enjoys a sexual rondelay with all three of these women at once. (Most often we see them only individually, but here, as below, they seem to appear in the flesh together.)

What does all this mean? Aside from the usual pro-feminist slant, along with perhaps a look at the appeal and danger of sex and men, it is difficult to say. At 92 minutes, the movie still outlasts its welcome by a few, at least. So sit back, enjoy the black-and-white cinematography, the decent performances, the usual genre tropes, and then try putting it all together into some meaningful whole. I wish you better luck than I had.

From Film Movement/Omnibus Entertainment, She Wolf hits DVD and digital tomorrow, Tuesday, March 19 -- for purchase and/or rental.

Michael O'Shea's THE TRANSFIGURATION offers a new twist to vampire tales

The vampire movie, even more than most genres, can always benefit from new blood. Unfortunately, the red stuff provided by a film opening this week and titled THE TRANSFIGURATION, written and directed by Michael O'Shea, is mostly anemic. What we have here isn't merely low-budget film-making. it is also low-end and very low-energy. 

The movie begins in a public rest-room stall where something that sounds (and then looks, to the fellow taking a piss nearby who hears what's going on and so kneels way down to take a peek under the stall door) like sex. It's something else, however, but already this movie is coming up sloppy and unbelievable.

Would a rest-room occupant go to that much trouble for a view unless he were also interested in the sex? Doubtful. If he were worried about the health of the stall's occupant, wouldn't he instead call out, "Are you OK in there?" Yet our guy goes to all that trouble to get a view and then simply leaves, once he sees what he thinks he sees. OK: We'll let that one pass. 

Mr. O'Shea, pictured at right, whose first full-length film this is, has certainly cast his movie well. The performers look their part and, as actors, are also quite believable and real. 

The tale told is one of a young man named Milo (played by Eric Ruffin, above) with a vampire fixation. Or obsession. For some very odd and never adequately explained or even properly imagined reason, he has decided that he can become a vampire by killing folk and drinking their blood. Otherwise, he's a sweet kid who is, of course, bullied by the neighborhood toughs and who meets an equally sweet young girl named Sophie (Chloe Levine, below) who lives in his building in a housing project in the city, who is herself also bullied into sex by the local boys.  

Are you getting flashes of Let the Right One In, with the genders reversed? No surprise, as that excellent vampire film is mentioned a few times in the course of this one -- along with a number of other landmarks of the genre -- both good and bad. Milo is a fan of Near Dark, while Chloe prefers Twilight. Can this relationship last? More important: Can this would-be vampire tale make any kind of logical sense so that we have a reason to keep watching.

The answer unfortunately is no because this isn't a vampire tale at all. Instead it's the story of what might be the sweetest nutty-serial-killer of all time, one whose exploits repel without fascinating and whose story finally makes too little psychological sense to be at all convincing. The most believable character in the movie turns out to be Milo's brother, Lewis, played very well by Aaron Moten, who becomes more interesting (and sad) the more we learn about him.

Chloe and Milo are paper-cut-out characters, and even though both actors give it their all, there's too little detail in their conception and characterization from which they can create much. In the supporting cast we find the likes of Larry Fessenden, wasted and barely seen facially, as one of Milo's victims.

Movie-making skills are at a minimum here, too, with the visuals noticeably low-budget without being at all interesting (there are a couple of OK compositions now and again, as above and below), but O'Shea is so lax at times that we can too easily miss a would-be important moment, as when our hero checks to see if his girl has absconded with his loot. Was it there or not? We had to go back, via rewind, to make certain. Finally, the energy level is so low that we had to keep pinching ourselves to stay alert and on board. This is no way to make a vampire movie, certainly, nor for that matter a serial killer film.

From Strand Releasing and running a too-long 97 minutes, the movie opens this Friday in New York City at the Angelika Film Center and on Friday, April 21 in Los Angeles at Landmark's NuArt. To view all currently scheduled playdates, with cities and theaters listed, click here.

Kiyoshi Kurosawa's CREEPY: The Japanese master of quiet fright returns -- with a jolt

If you've seen a film by Kiyoshi Kurosawa -- say, Pulse, Cure, Tokyo Sonata or the beautifully oddball Bright Future -- you'll know how remarkably quiet, riveting, beautifully-if-unshowily composed and surprisingly diverse this filmmaker's work can be. Kurosawa (shown below) is noted mostly for his films that fit somewhere into the thriller/ mystery/other-worldly realm. His latest, the perfectly titled CREEPY, is a terrific addition to that realm.

TrustMovies would call this very creepy movie one of Kurosawa's best, except that I say this about each of the man's films. I've never seen a bad one. He's too subtle and too interested in character and motivation to ever hand us anything so typically "frightening" as those Ringu/TheRing movies. Kurosawa frightens us in an entirely different manner. There is always something beyond our understanding in his films, but he gives this to us in such as way that we buy into it and finally accept that it indeed goes beyond what we can fully comprehend. Somehow he even makes us grateful.

His movies may thrill, frighten, shock and startle us. But they also approach art. Creepy begins with a detective questioning a serial killer and trying to get at the man's motivation and morality. This does not end well.

Soon after, our "hero" (a particularly fine, strong and taciturn performance from one of the best-looking men to grace current cinema, Hidetoshi Nishijima, above, and below, center) is living with his wife and big, shaggy dog in another part of town and attempting to get on with his new life as a teacher, and, along with his wife, to get to know his new neighbors. This does not go well, either, and it leads us, the family, and some of our hero's former co-workers into very dark waters.

To go much further into plot points would spoil things. Suffice it to say that the cast includes the great Teruyuki Kagawa (above, left, and below, from Devils on the Doorstep and Key of Life) as the family's most unusual neighbor, and Yûko Takeuchi , who brings beauty, pathos and finally something very strange and frightening to her role of the detective/teacher's long-suffering (and then simply suffering) wife.

The beyond-our-understanding element here is some kind of strange liquid injected into the various characters that appears to allow them to be controlled utterly. Or maybe only somewhat. The degree is important, and it is central to the theme and mystery here, which deals with responsibility, morality and motivation. By the end of Creepy, you will not only have been creeped-out but left, as are certain family members, to wrestle, perhaps forever, with the results of what they did -- or didn't -- do.
And why.

The movie -- from KimStim Films and running a long but never-for-a-moment dull 130 minutes -- opens this Friday, October 21, in New York City (at the Metrograph), Los Angeles (at Laemmle's Ahrya Fine Arts) and San Francisco (Roxie Theater), with a further rollout across the country coming in November. To see all currently scheduled playdates, cities and theaters, click here and scroll down.

A unique knockout: Olivia Colman leads a stellar ensemble in the Rufus Norris/Adam Cork/Alecky Blythe "verbatim musical," LONDON ROAD

Wow. This is something else. LONDON ROAD, according to its press release, is a "verbatim musical" -- one in which its writer, Alecky Blythe, uses the transcript of her interviews with the of residents of that titular street in Ipswich, England, to create the lyrics for all the dialog we hear in this new musical film, which has then been set to a rhythmic, pulsating score by Adam Cork, said to be inspired by the dialects and intonations of the residents interviewed. The result is a knockout of a movie that compares to little else that TrustMovies has ever seen.

As directed by Rufus Norris (shown at right), from an award-winning British theater piece of the same name (which Norris also directed), the movie version has been "opened out" so perfectly that it never betrays its "theater" roots. The subject? Well, that's an interesting question.

Initially, it would seem to be the murder of five prostitutes in the Ipswich area who worked along London Road. Yet we never see the murders, nor do we find out anything about the dead women, other than their line of work. We also -- and this is key, I think -- never meet, see nor hear their killer, who, during the course of this film, we learn is caught and then convicted of the crime.

Instead, we meet the denizens of London Road -- the folk who live around the murder site -- and we are soon made privy to their thoughts and fears, as initial shock, then paranoia, followed by reassurance and even some hope spring to life. We also see and hear the TV reporters covering all this for the media (their reports, I should think, are also given us verbatim).

So what we have here, finally, is a look at how the British bourgeoisie reacts to something this horrible. And the reaction, while pretty predictable, is also pretty disgusting. In the eyes of these people, the victims don't count for much. Only the fear and shock and worry that the inhabitants feel for themselves seems to matter. (The character played by Olivia Colman, above, at one point even insinuates that the killer may have done the community am actual favor by "offing" the hookers.)

Now, the fact that all the dialog/song is verbatim is one thing. But the choice of what to include, and how often to repeat it, is an artistic one. And in this way, I think, the movie makes its main point: the pettiness of these reactions, compared to what has happened, grows almost staggering.  As I watched I began to wonder if and when the creators would allow us to hear from some of the local prostitutes who remain alive. They wait a good while, but at last, we do hear. And then, of course, class and economics and culture and a lot more rear their heads. To their credit, the moviemakers do not push this: They simply offer it up for us to make of it what what we will. (Shown at left is Nick Holder, playing one of the inhabitants of the titular road.)

In the end, our good citizens unite to make their London Road a better, tidier, more beautiful place -- there's a contest for the best local garden, doncha know, with the media covering all this. So, out of horror and pain can come renewal and life. Yeah, right. My spouse, who prefers to see the happy side of things, took this part away from the film. I, who tend to draw darker conclusions, saw something else. The movie allows us to both have our views enabled but leans, I think, toward my darker one.

It is as a piece of art that London Road shines brightest. The dialog/song, even with/because of all its repetition, grows ever more wonderful and strange, and the music does indeed capture the feel of the dialects and the character intonations here. The choreography by Javier de Frutos, in tandem with the direction by Mr. Norris, is often brilliant in its use of simple facial or neck movement to underscore points. Note the scene in which the townspeople await in the street the arrival of the killer in a police van. The movement here makes for brilliant, subtle cinema experienced as a kind of stationary dance. And the energy level? It's staggering. The film is alive and moving at every moment, (That's Anita Dobson, playing one of the elderly neighbors, shown above.)

The finale, too, in which one of the younger prostitutes (Kate Fleetwood, above) looks quietly at all these goings-on, allows us again to be made aware of the other side of the coin. I was not a particular fan of Norris' earlier film, Broken, but I shall remember and treasure this one for a long time. I can't imagine any caring, intelligent film/theater-goer not rushing headlong to the cinema to see the kind of surprising, encompassing art that can be made from the most unexpected of sources.

Also in the estimable cast, by the way, is one, Tom Hardy, shown above and below, who has but a small role as a taxi driver and fills it to perfection. So he can sing, too? Is there anything this actor cannot do?

London Road, via BBC Worldwide North America, opens this coming Friday, September 9, in New York City at the Village East Cinema and the following Friday, September 16, in Los Angeles at The Sundance Sunset Cinema and Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena. Elsewhere?  Perhaps, if word-of-mouth takes off as it should. Otherwise, we'll have to wait for it on digital or DVD -- at which time, I hope, it will come complete with English subtitles. I could have used them while watching the screening link supplied. Still, what a pleasure it will be to see this film again, with those subtitles at the ready.

Frédéric Tellier's SERIAL KILLER 1: a humane shocker about the French justice system

Serial killer movies come and go with alarming regularity, and most of them are worth shit. Which makes this new one from France -- SERIAL KILLER 1 (L'affaire SK1) -- directed by Frédéric Tellier and co-written by Tellier, David Oelhoffen and Patricia Tourancheau (from her book on the same subject, the infamous Beast of the Bastille) -- something special indeed. This case is said to have resulted in the largest manhunt in French history.

M. Tellier (shown at right), whose resume includes work as actor, writer and now director, comes at his subject full throttle and all-encompassing. His movie tracks back and forth between the early beginnings of the case -- which lasted a decade of more and involved the killings of many young women -- and its ending in court. The filmmaker covers his subject surprisingly deeply from the viewpoints of the police investigating the crimes (with emphasis on the newbie officer played by Raphaël Personnaz, below), the victims and their families (who are themselves sometimes suspects), the prosecuting and particularly the defense attorneys (Nathalie Baye center, two photos below, portrays one of these), and the man accused of the crimes, Guy Georges (a phenomenally rich, frightening and finally moving performance by Adama Niane, at left, two photos below, whose impressive work alone makes the film a must-see).

It has been a long, long while since I've seen a police procedural (which this movie certainly is, in part) that offered up so well the trying, difficult road that investigators must tread, while making us feel and understand the horror and fear of the victims with such specificity (yet without forcing us to watch the killings themselves and thus become somehow partners-in-crime with the killer).

Instead we see the results of the crime, as do the police, as they view and deal with the corpses and their own pain and shame at being unable to prevent more of the killings. Tellier forces us to deal with all this yet never rubs it in. Even during the killer's confession, because we already know what has happened, the filmmaker discreetly blocks out the voice of the killer as he describes the details of the murder.

The French judicial system, it has longed seemed to me, bends over backward to protect the rights of the accused -- far more so than does our own here in the USA. This movie helps us understand why and what this achieves. The film's conclusion -- full of surprise and emotion, catharsis and revelation -- allows us to see that the monster, as the Baye character maintains, is also a man. Granted he is a man who must be locked up forever, but we are the better for having experienced this movie about his story.

By turns exciting, taut, suspenseful, frightening, horrible and yet enriching, Serial Killer 1 is a welcome addition to the genre, immediately taking its place near the top of the heap.

From Kino Lorber -- in French with English subtitles and running two hours -- the movie opens today in Los Angeles at Laemmle's Music Hall 3 and then here in South Florida at the Coral Gables Art Cinema on June 17. Elsewhere? I should hope so -- for a movie this different and important. It lifts its genre to new, and newly humane, heights.