Compound Fracture: written by Renae Geerlings & Tyler Mane, directed by A.J. Rickert-Epstein, and starring Tyler Mane, Muse Watson, Derek Mears, Leslie Easterbrook, Alex Saxon, and Renae Geerlings. Todd Farmer and Daniel Roebuck also make a special appearance (which was pretty awesome).
This supernatural thriller of a horror flick deals with rituals, old family bloodlines, & modern day family drama twisted up with a great story about ghosts. It reminded me of something you'd see on the show Supernatural, but if the Winchesters never showed up. What starts out as a simple visit to Michael's family home to take care of his aging father, quickly turns into a nightmare, visiting old sins of the father back on the whole family.
The most notable thing is the great chemistry between the actors. They all did a phenomenal job, but I have to say my favorites were Renae Geerling and Muse Watson. Derek Mears was extremely intimidating and scary, though his character didn't have much scope. His story was a very integral one being he is the main baddie in this flick. Tyler Mane did a great job achieving a very father figure/head of the house/normal guy yet heroic role. It was almost, but not quite, weird seeing him as the hero when he's sitting on my DVD shelves as a bad guy in everything. Bottom line, everyone did a fantastic job.
The story was really good, mostly because of its originality. It not the same old ghost story and it's got a lot of great details in it about certain lore and history of the supernatural. When you're done watching the movie you can tell two big things... 1. They did a lot of research. 2. They had a blast making this film. Their story translated very well to the audience and at points I was thinking "well played" because they totally got me on several occasions. They are really good at the "show them left, but then they go right" kind of thing. Much of the story is unexpected, including the extremely fun ending.
I'll be honest and say it did take a while to get to the parts I was waiting for. All the scares leading up to the main course was fun, but I was really pushed off my seat for the last third of the flick. Tension is well presented in this movie and builds to palpable levels, so much so that I noticed I was uncomfortable sitting in my seat at one point and even wanted to cover my eyes because of some of the disturbing violence that took place. They don't call it "Compound Fracture" for nothing. That's not all though, every great horror story needs a bit of humor and this has it for sure. It's not comical, but it's got some great moments that will make you laugh.
My hope is that this movie goes on to propel the group at Mane Entertainment to making some even better flicks for us fans to eat up. I mean, simply getting this specific group of people together is an inspiration in itself, but seeing what they did together gives me great hope for the future of horror entertainment. There are still people out there with new stories, new ideas, and the ability to put something together with little money that will still scare your pants off while keeping you entertained the whole time. I want more of that! As a filmmaker myself there was a lot of me thinking "how'd they do that" when it came to so many of their effects. I should know better, "hollywood magic" and all, but still, they left me curious because they did it so well and it was very cool to see.
Director A.J. Epstein was great too. He put together a very fun horror experience with a comprehensive story. Getting to meet the guy was pretty cool too as he can relate to many of the people I used to work with as a filmmaker. He mentioned having made several short films and that this was one of the first he'd be known by. I'm sure it's something he'll be proud to be known for because it's pretty awesome! The entire group who showed up, Tyler, Renae, A.J., they all were very humble and very friendly and it was so much fun to hang out with them and talk with them. They were very welcoming to every individual who came out and did a fun Q&A after the flick. I won't say much about it because I don't want to ruin anything for anyone, but like I said before, you knew they had a blast putting this together.
The one thing I never got to ask (because I thought it'd be a dumb question) was to see if this was at all a commentary about what it would be like for Jason and Michael to throw down. ;) - Mr. Frights
