paranormal | Lorelei By Starlight

I recently watched the movie Winter’s Tale and was pleasantly surprised by how much I liked it. The storyline centers on the romance of two star-crossed lovers, but there is a dark side to the story, as well. The movie stars Colin Farrell as Peter Lake, a mechanic/thief, and Jessica Brown Findlay as Beverly Penn, a young woman who is entering the last stages of consumption. Peter meets Beverly while attempting to rob her house, and they quickly fall in love. Unbeknownst to Peter, he has a magical gift – that of saving a life. The demonic Pearly Soames (played by Russell Crowe) acts as both the chief underworld thug of the city and the right-hand man of the Judge (who also appears to be Lucifer – an interesting role for Will Smith). Soames makes it his mission to stop Peter from enacting his miracle, something that seems to be able to have a somewhat profound effect in the scorekeeping going on between the powers of good and evil. Peter’s romance with Beverly does not quite turn out as hoped, and he somehow lives on without aging until he meets another young woman and finds out that his gift may have been meant for something greater all along.

While this movie relied mostly on story and character development, I liked the subtle use of special effects. Lighting plays a big part, and beams of light are often used – sunlight as well as starlight. The demon, Pearly Soames, shows his true face a few times, and he has an interesting tray full of jewels that he can pull light through in order to show him maps and information. Best of all, there is a guardian angel in the form of a flying white horse, whose wings are a beautiful transparent rainbow.

There is quite a bit of romance in the movie. If you like things like Colin Farrell riding a white horse to the rescue of a damsel in distress, then you are in luck here because that happens a few times. Overall, the movie has a wholesome, yet tragic, feel to it. There are a couple of parts played exceptionally well by children, and the love of children is another important part of the story. I think that in contrasting these elements with the darker, demonic parts of the story the movie creates an interesting balance.

The cinematography for this movie is beautiful, and the storyline is an original twist on some old ideas. Overall, I would recommend it as worth watching!

I have to say that over the years low-budget horror has definitely improved. I have found that most of the good ones rely less on special effects and work hard to make the most of the effects that they do employ. I think this is a challenging task in a world where special effects seem to be the rule (and here I’m thinking about the continually growing 3-D market). So, I am always excited when I find films that manage to deliver with minimal effects and a low price tag.

Banshee Chapter is one of those movies. I was hesitant to watch this one at first because the market has become so saturated with found footage type movies, but this one takes a little bit different approach. The movie starts by combining a selection of real life footage from news stories and press conferences with similarly filmed footage of psychological experiments done by the military. The gist of the storyline is that a young reporter, Anne (Katia Winter), is looking for answers to what happened to her friend James (Michael McMillan) who ingested an experimental drug, DMT, and then mysteriously went missing. Found footage from the experiment at his home prompts her investigation and along the way she teams up with a gonzo type 60s rabble rouser, Thomas Blackburn (Michael Levine). I will admit that the insertion of this “wild and crazy” character kind of put me off at first, but the character is actually played well by Levine and it was easy for me to get past my initial reaction.

The movie combines several conspiracy theories: numbers stations, military testing of psychedelic drugs, etc. There are spooky, dark desert settings, abandoned housing sub-divisions, dark underground bunkers, and, of course, a truly creepy basement scene. The best part about this movie, though, was that it was actually scary! I watch a lot of horror, and so it’s not very often that I am actually kind of spooked, but this movie managed it. It made me jump several times, and some of those times were even when I was almost expecting to jump – and it still made me jump anyway. It was great fun!