MicroCinema Scene

Storytelling within a story: great idea. The ever-satisfying tale or urban legend that ends up becoming a nightmarish reality has not been overdone, no matter what anybody says. Just look at a great film like Gotta Make Them Angels and you’ll see that I’m right.

Allen Hooper and Gregory Cover wrote a script that demanded a depth of character as well as a penchant for the traditional cat-scares of slasher flicks. Depicting both the harsh truth of sexuality, going from family drama to brutal murder scenes in an instant, and creating very intense feelings for a trite genre of film (teen horror urban legend), Angels is a packed 24 minutes of intensity and fun.

Playing on an urban legend, four young twenty-somethings get involved in a frightening tale in a modest suburban home. A story about a mother who murdered her children in a fit of madness when she came home and found out what they were doing behind her backs sets the background for the film. Mixing subtle humor with frightening happenings in a very Rolfe Kanefsky way (Think There’s Nothing Out There), Greg Cover directs a storyline filled with both styles. Telling a terrifying urban legend, then moments later having one of the characters point out the holes in the story, is a great example of the nature of this mixed anecdote.

For a low-budget film Angels makes great use of the sets and the cinematography (by Greg Cover). Greg shows scenes from the best and most interesting points of view available. The excellent framing of shots helps lessen the impact that a low budget can have on an independent film, as it does in this one. Using that witty, ironic bullshit dialogue that is so popular and thereby poking fun at independent films, Angels is not just a dumb horror movie. It actually has interesting and intelligent characters. Good acting carries the entire story and basically saves it from falling into the abyss of backyard micro cinema. Traditional horror motifs do prevail, however: the wisecracking asshole, the slutty girl….

I liken this film unto a wittier, albeit shorter, Scream. It makes fun of horror while still remaining suspenseful. It’s not homage to horror films past; it’s just a traditional updated urban legend. With a healthy dose of sex. And also people eating McDonalds while drinking champagne. Excellent indeed.

Three stars.

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