Late Phases Dir. Adrián García Bogliano

[MPI Media Group; 2014]

Styles: horror
Others: Bubba Ho-Tep, Silver Bullet, Scent of a Woman, Cocoon, The Howling

What if the main character from Scent Of A Woman was stripped of all redeeming qualities, played by Charles Bronson, forced to live in retirement community, and had to fight a werewolf? If that premise alone doesn’t intrigue you or at least make you go, “Huh,” then Late Phases is not for you. This is a throwback horror film, but not just because it uses the John Carpenter Albertus font or mostly practical special effects: it’s also a throwback in spirit. Director Adrián García Bogliano never does the dumb horror trope of questioning, “What’s the threat here?” The lead character, Ambrose, is exposed to the werewolf early on and basically just goes, “Yup, that’s a werewolf and now I’m going to deal with it.” Bogliano’s film is bloody, fun, clever, and features enough unique spins on the genre to makes it a constantly surprising film.

Ambrose (Nick Damici in old man face) is a retired veteran who went blind due to his many tours in Vietnam, and who has just moved into a retirement community. He is an ornery asshole who is basically really only nice to his guide dog and to his new neighbor lady. When the werewolf eviscerates her, Ambrose takes it upon himself to figure out who the werewolf is when not in lycanthrope mode and prepare himself for battle when the next full moon comes. His son (Ethan Embry) worries about Ambrose, but also has spent a lifetime of receiving nothing but icy cold misanthropy over the years. The cops have to deal with too many false calls from overly worried senior citizens and dementia patients to really care about all of these “animal attacks” that happen once a month. A priest (Tom Noonan, doing great work as always) seems interested, in both the retirement community and Ambrose’s soul in particular, but also appears cagey and unsure of how to deal with a man as full of hate as Ambrose.

Bogliano and writer Eric Stolze deliver a movie with lots of twists and misdirections — many roads lead viewers to believe it’s going to be this person or that who is the werewolf before the final reveal. But the red herrings feel like they could be full of potential as well, and the reveal of the culprit’s identity never feels like a cheat either. I’m sure many could figure out who the werewolf is in Late Phases, but then there’s another twist in terms of the culprit’s plans for taking on the military man. It’s all very clever and focuses on a demographic that is far too often overlooked for potential in horror movies: the elderly. Part of what makes films like this and Bubba Ho-Tep work so well is that it takes the world weariness of Carpenter anti-heroes and pairs it with the helplessness of the children protagonists in many Amblin-esque horror films (The Monster Squad, Silver Bullet).

Robert Kurtzman (of famed KNB EFX group) is the creature effects producer and again, most of the effects are practical and pretty great. This is one of the better transformation scenes for werewolves since the hallmark, An American Werewolf in London; although it shares a lot of similarities to the transformations of the other fairly good (but not nearly as good as Late Phases) werewolf movie this year, Wolfcop. Some will find that the werewolves appear goofy, but their old school man-in-suit approach is far preferable to the giant CGI dogs of far too many recent horror films. Also, the werewolves are most reminiscent of Rob Bottin’s work on The Howling — that is, if they were crossed with any picture of Krampus floating around the web. It’s all made more impressive by the sense that there was very little in the way of a budget for this film, and yet it proves what can be accomplished with a strong script, good actors, and a director with a precise vision (no pun intended).

Horror has had a mixed year in 2014, but there have been a lot of great moments throughout, and almost all of them hearken back to the glorious heyday of the 80s. But this shouldn’t be confused with simple nostalgia. It’s the fact that these filmmakers are using what made so many of those films work to this day. It’s taking simple characters, but not making them flat. Using conventional story beats, but inserting clever tweaks and twists that place them in a different perspective and thus leaves the audience unsure of where everything will go. It’s not being afraid of having corn syrup and KY jelly splattered all over the screen so that the audience can have a visceral reaction to the violence. Bogliano’s Late Phasese plays like a cross between Scent Of A Woman, Cocoon, and Silver Bullet. Those are three incredibly flawed, mediocre films. And yet, in the hands of this talented filmmaker, the whole is so much greater than its crappy parts; it’s a Voltron made up of these various fragments that come together to produce one of the most entertaining horror films of the year.

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