By Terry Sherwood
The horrors of the home and I don’t mean mortgage payments, upkeep and renovations. Epic Pictures’ new horror film Beezel is about moving into a place with a dreadful secret that spans ages. The story spans sixty years of spiritually demonic mayhem involving a bloodthirsty, blind New England witch who unleashes forces within the basement and cellar of a home.
The Aaron Fradkin & Victoria Fratz Fradkin script ranges from practical gore to homages perhaps unknowingly to Amicus’s films portmanteau film series and Mario Bava’s Black Sabbath is a story of secrets hiding beneath the floors of a cursed New England home. The picture combines elements of found footage meaning pro-camera work, video feedback, and green screens as tapes begin to play along with present-day action.
In the opening prologue of sorts, a young child is murdered off-screen by a thing in a basement after the youngster finds what appears to be his mother imprisoned in a small room below the washroom sink the film then moves to an accused murderer played by Bob Gallagher who hired a documentary filmmaker Apollo (LeJon Woods) to make a film showing his is innocent. The Bob Gallagher characterization and the fact of an accused person taking part in a celluloid vindication of themselves remind me of Clint Eastwood’s film Richard Jewell. In that film, Jewell, who was a security guard, stopped a bomb attack at the 1996 Olympics only to be later implicated as a suspect, sending his life into chaos. Eastwood was trying to tell his story and change the perception of him and his family. Of course, this goes wrong in some understated yet effective moments when Apollo loses his head about the events.
In the best sequences, Nurse Naomi (Caroline Quigley) nurses the old woman who is the crux of all the terror. The reminiscent of sequence from Black Sabbath of an old woman leering at the nurse when they first meet is particularly unsettling. Naomi goes places she wouldn’t normally go of course because it is a film that does much to her surprise and horror all after trying to feed the old woman her cream of chicken soup that was, I hinted at in the first story.
Each occupant discovers the horror to themselves including a young amorous couple who end up facing a severe case of possession, demonic sex, and troubled screams all because they want to get rid of the home and move on.
Beezel as a whole film tries to do a lot often with isolated moments of terror such as when the amorous bride is looking under the bed she sees a creature’s feet, yet when she sits up over the bed there is nothing there. The belief is that the home is haunted by a Witch as the neighbourhood kids sing songs to that effect. The appearance of the blind witch that I wish had been exploited more like in Tombs of the Blind Dead series seems to get lots. The effects are gory yes and practical with the giant demons eating whatever is given to them including snack apples.
The drawback for me is the dependence on technology in the film, the found footage bits, the use of video cameras, the blogging of events, and the superficial attitudes of the married couple to forgive spousal verbal mistreatment because he is cute all aim this at a certain market. The evil also has no purpose except to those that move into the home.
Beezel tries to do too much in a short time with people within the film being somewhat related to creature fodder which makes it a wonderful throwback to those Amicus anthology films. The point with those is that they had a certain style that became derivative. This film had good moments just not as a whole however those that enjoy large demons will enjoy it.
Bloody Flicks 