Enough films — mostly horror, but inclusive of all sorts of reunion movies — unfold in and around secluded cabins in the woods that it would probably not at all be a stretch to program a festival comprised entirely of said offerings. A lot of times this setting is the result of writing to a single, accessible, low-budget location, and there isn’t a whole lot of imagination or quality of performance that then raises the material, and argues for either the talent or continued professional opportunity of those involved. Every once in a while, however, there’s a movie that completely punches through the clutter and any sighing downmarket expectations attached to said backdrop. That’s the case with The Corridor, a delightfully unnerving mind-fuck that satisfyingly blends character-rooted fraternal jockeying with elements of psychological horror. A gripping work from start to finish, the movie just enjoyed its west coast premiere as an in-competition title at the just-wrapped Dances With Films festival, and could easily find wider distribution in its future.

Written by Josh MacDonald and directed by Evan Kelly, The Corridor opens with a tense scene in which a rattled, nonsensical Tyler (Stephen Chambers, above) is found by his friends with the body of his mother, Pauline (Mary-Colin Chisholm). When they try to persuade him to drop a knife in his possession, he charges, wounding a couple of them before being subdued. Several months later, after some psychiatric treatment, Tyler and his friends have seemingly reached an uneasy peace, and they decide to accompany him out into the snowy Nova Scotian woods for a guys’ weekend, during which they will dispose of Pauline’s ashes.

The rest of the gang consists of Chris (David Patrick Flemming), who took a knife through the hand in Tyler’s attack; his lumbering cousin Bobcat (Matthew Amyotte, sporting a not entirely convincing skull cap to approximate pattern baldness), who is already married and with kids; book-smart Jim (Glen Matthews), struggling to conceive a baby with his wife; and Ev (James Gilbert, who could easily pass as Bradley Cooper’s younger brother), a would-be musician stuck in a dead-end job where he bangs his boss almost as a favor. The first act unfolds deliberately, with most of the guys keeping a cautious eye on Tyler — who’s still taking medication to suppress any mild schizophrenic tendencies — and old grudges being passively-aggressively raised, under the guise of kidding around.

When Tyler — certain that he’s seen some strange force-field — asks Chris to accompany him into the woods, things take a turn. The rest of the gang trails Chris, concerned for his safety, and everyone is more than a little surprised to discover that Tyler’s tale isn’t merely the product of a splintered mind or troubled imagination. The guys find an odd, shimmering patch of land seemingly in the middle of nowhere, and inside its permeable, barely visible walls a strange calm descends upon each of them. Certain that they can somehow financially exploit this finding, Ev wants to stay and “guard” the mysterious rectangular area. The others return to the cabin, with loose plans to eventually come back and spell Ev. Needless to say, things do not proceed in a smooth and orderly fashion.

Its snowy, holed-up setting and slow-spreading, almost viral madness recalls Dreamcatcher and any number of other movies in which mental unraveling slowly brings about bloodletting, and the exceedingly well stitched-together The Corridor is a movie that is very much about mental illness and the fallibility of moral certitude, whatever its supernatural trappings. Working with cinematographer Christopher Ball, director Kelly creates a compelling film whose smart framing choices and moderate, to-scale special effects work do a fantastic job of conveying its premise, but not tipping overboard into manic silliness. Gore can be great fun, but this is a little movie with an almost perfect balance of violence, tonal creepiness and more naturalized drama. The budgetary limitations obviously constrained certain choices on the part of filmmakers, and the result is bracing and fresh.

Aiding their cause is the fact that the performances here are uniformly superb. In something of a sad but true rarity for an independent work of this nature, each cast member evidences a discrete character with their own special and identifiable interests and motivations while also exhibiting a great and unforced ensemble rapport. The friendships in The Corridor are entirely believable, as are the uneasy reservations that linger in especially the movie’s early scenes. Only a bit, toward the end, does the film overreach, making a mannered play for a visual impression. Still, this a fabulously effective feature debut for Kelly, and a work that bodes well for all of the talent involved, both on screen and behind the camera. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Chronicle Pictures/Last Call Productions/Egg Films, unrated, 100
minutes)

Given the expansive size of the United States, road movies are of course a staple of American independent cinema. One supposes that at a certain time (in the days of Easy Rider, maybe, and certainly before) they were a great way to showcase the sprawling natural beauty of this country, and the wonderful, weird diversity of its citizenry. Now it seems they’re mainly a substitute for the comparative heavy lift of actual dramatic or comedic writing, or an excuse for shoddy, catch-as-catch-can production values. Both of the latter are certainly true of Here’s the Kicker, a messy and roundly unengaging dramedy that recently played as part of the 14th annual Dances With Films festival.

Written by and starring Ian Michaels, the movie centers on Simon Matthews, a one-time football placekicker who’s now stuck working a series of dead-end jobs in Los Angeles. His girlfriend, Brittany Berry (Sarah Smick), is equally adrift, working as a make-up artist in the adult film industry. With little left tying them to the area, Simon and Brittany set out for Texas, with loose plans of visiting both Simon’s pal Teddy (Matthew Linhardt) and Brittany’s dad (Dan Lauria), and eventually opening up a combination saloon-and-salon, in which guys can drink and watch sports while their ladies get their hair done.

Teddy turns out to be a mess, and leaves his wife and daughter, hooking a ride out of town with Simon and Brittany. The trio then stops off at Simon’s parents, where his sister Lacey (Daniella Monet, displaying a bit of sly jailbait sass) is under house arrest and his father Al (Luce Rains) has fallen off the wagon, leaving mother Jeanette (Andrea Helene) frazzled and checked out. Unbeknownst to Brittany, however, Simon has finally gotten a football-related job offer as a college scout. The problem is that would put them back in L.A., so as Simon struggles with how to break this news to the girl whom he wants to wed, what might be charitably described as hijinks ensue.

Here’s the Kicker has so many problems that it’s hard to know where to begin. Simon is presented as an ex-NFL placekicker waylaid by a knee injury, but Michaels evinces neither the physique nor, more crucially, the mindset, countenance and presentation of an athlete. Michaels conveys his legacy in awkward ways, having some people ask Simon for an autograph but also making his alma mater a super-small school that still apparently has all of their games televised. Problematic production design and costume work don’t help, certainly, but that everything about the grander mooring of Simon’s past feels so immediately and viscerally false undercuts the movie right out of the gate, and makes entire sequences laughable for all the wrong reasons.

There are a small handful of amusing ideas or one-liners (Simon proposes “Hair and Balls” as a name for the establishment he and Brittany wish to open), and Michaels, a subpar performer, at least shares a nice chemistry with Smick. But the film’s screenplay is fairly uninspired, leaning heavily on wacky contrivance, and forcing its characters to do stupid things (stopped by a police officer for skipping out on a diner check, the van’s inhabitants decide to eat the contents of a bag of Al’s weed) that make no real sense.

Director Chris Harris, also taking cinematography and editing credits, doesn’t have a lot with which to work, but he doesn’t help matters by staging flat scenes that play out in awkward fashion. Nothing about Here’s the Kicker ever really connects, either comedically or certainly emotionally. Portions of the movie seem to augur a madcap farce, but that tone is never sustained for too long. Football kickers may get no respect as athletes, but watching this film it’s hard to argue that they, or those who portray them, should get any respect at all. For the full, original review, from ShockYa, click here. (Padded Room Pictures, unrated, 84 minutes)