DVD Review: TO JENNIFER (2013)

TO JENNIFER (2013) 

Label: Psykik Junky Pictures
Region Code: 1 NTSC 

MPAA Rating: Unrated 

Duration: 76 Minutes 

Audio: English Dolby Digital 2.0
Director: James Cullen Bressack
Cast: Chuck Pappas, Jody Barton, James Cullen Bressack, Jessica Cameron, Maria Olsen, Tristan Risk

James Cullen Bressack the director of My Pure Joy (2011) returns with To Jennifer (2013), a new thriller shot on the iPhone 5, which is pretty awesome when you think about it, especially considering the quality of the end product in context of the narrative.

It's a rather simple idea, we have the rather sad, sort of pathetic, young man named Joey (Chick Pappas) who suspects his long distance girlfriend of two years, Jennifer, may be cheating on him. While most normal guys would just end the relationship Joey seems to wanna wallow in the sadness of it. To that end he enlists the help of his cousin Steven (Bressack) to film a video diary of sorts while he pursues the truth of her possible infidelity. Soon after they hop a plane and head towards wherever it is Jennifer lives. No sooner are the duo airborne when Joey's fear of flying causes a panic attack which gets them slapped onto the no-fly list, they're grounded. It's a fun scene, Steven just loves pushing Joey's buttons to illicit a reaction, his friend is already a bundle of nerves about the cheating girlfriend, Steven's a bit of jackass.

Grounded and without a car of their own they enlist the help of their dopes smoking friend Martin (Jody Barton) who has a car to drive them to Jennifer's. As things progress Steve and Matt come to the conclusion that Joey just needs to get laid, and they're probably right, but when his friends try to delay his sad pursuit he gets rather angry, you see him steadily lose his temper. At the start of the film he's a heart-broken sad sack, as his plan starts to waiver a bit he becomes super-annoyed and then you start to realize there's more to the story than just this girl cheating on him, perhaps he's not as sympathetic a character as you might have thought,  slowly you start to see the darkness creeping in and you just know something weird is about to happen.

The three make for believable friends, pretty sure these guys are buds outside of the film so it makes sense. Joey's pals in an attempt to get him laid stop off at a fleabag motel en route to Jennifer's, Martin leaves and returns with two whores, one of them packing a johnson underneath her skirt, this is when poor Joey completely loses his shit and snaps, resulting in Matt dropping out of sight. Driving Matt's car Joey eventually does make Jennifer's in person to confront her about hear cheating ways and unable to contain himself Joey does the unthinkable. 

To Jennifer (2013) was shot on no-budget on an iPhone 5 with a small cast of friends and what was probably a pretty thin script with a lot of ad-lib dialogue, and I gotta say it's pretty successful. The friendships feel authentic, as does the annoyance you feel towards friends, particularly with the obsessed Joey, whose determination to confront Jennifer troubles Martin and Steven but they just keep going with it for their friend. Pappas range as Joey who goes from sad to manic completely sells it. His pal Steven played by director Bressac is the comic relief offering a running commentary on the events as they unfold. As a character Matt the drug buddy is perhaps less successful in his role but he wins my heart for bringing a tranny whore to the party, gotta love it.

It's a bit of a slow-burn and seems padded for running time with stretches of not much happening but the fun dialogue exchanges, a tranny whore and jackassery keep things pushing forward until the duo reach Jennifer's, once there things go wrong pretty quick, I just think it stumbles a bit finding it's way towards that satisfying finale. Watching this I was reminded of the documentary Catfish (2010) and this sorta of goes where I thought that film would end, a fun ride that's part road trip, part mind trip. 3 Outta 5

THEATER OF DERANGE PRESS RELEASE

From Executive Producers James Cullen Bressack and Jarret Cohen at Psykik Junky Pictures comes the newest horror anthology starring horror film icon Shawn C. Phillips and adult-film sensations Sophie Dee and Veronica Ricci: THEATRE OF THE DERANGED! (Theater of Derange)

Join Andy the Arsonist as he shares five of his favorite short horror films in all their demented glory. The collection features never-before seen films by popular indie horror writer/directors James Cullen Bressack, Shawn C. Phillips, Liz Gilbert, Brian Dorton, and Creep Creepersin.

The Film was Just Picked up for WORLD WIDE distribution by the company WORLD WIDE MULTI MEDIA and comes out on DVD in 2012.


Here is a little teaser trailer to keep you tided over until the release:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7sQMEuOBp0

Here is the IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2064980/

TREASURE CHEST OF HORRORS DVD Art Unearthed!

Another gold nugget of info about the no-budget horror anthology TREASURE CHEST OF HORRORS from directors Shawn C. Phillips and Doug Waugh has emerged by way of the DVD art, check it out...

DVD Cover art has been released for the upcoming TREASURE CHEST OF HORRORS anthology!

This NO BUDGET ANTHOLOGY, from Executive Producers James Cullen Bressack and Jarret Cohen at Psykik Junky Pictures and directors Doug Waugh and Shawn C. Phillips, will soon be available for pre-orders on Amazon and other leading retailers nationwide.

Join us on this wild horror anthology filled with zombies, vampires, serial killers, killer mannequins and pirates - starring cult film legend Lloyd Kaufman (Toxic Avenger) and Shawn C. Phillips (Don and Murph)!

Here is a little teaser trailer to keep you tided over until the release:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRcnlWgKwC0


Here is the IMDB:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2084984/

DVD Review: MY PURE JOY (2011)

MY PURE JOY (2011)

LABEL: Psykik Junky Pictures

VIDEO: 16x9 Widescreen

AUDIO: English Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0

DIRECTOR: James Cullen Bressack
CAST: Alexie Ryan, Cory Jacob, Lisa Frantz, JD Fairman, Christopher Chandler

MY PURE JOY opens with a dysfunctional family dinner scenario as mother, father, adolescent son and a young man sit down for an delicious angst ridden dinner. The young man causes quite a ruckus at supper and dismisses himself from the table after an outburst that nearly ends in a physical confrontation with his father. A short time later the adolescent son lies in bed as a killer wearing a hoodie and an eerie porcelain mask enters the room and  dispatches the youngling in a most bloody manner, as a father I found the death of the child deeply disturbing, gets me every time. The masked killer stuffs the boy's blood-soaked body into a sack and moves onto the next room to continue the slaughter. At this point I'm thinking these are the actions of the angry young man from the dinner scene, he's obviously gone nutso, but in the next room we find that the angry teen is angrily beating-off to internet porn on his laptop, wow, angry and pathetic, this makes sense. He's dispatched in quick order, followed by the father who comes to check on the teen, perhaps to reconcile, who knows? Entering the room he's overcome by the grisly discovery of the teen and his young son's corpse stuffed in a sack. Our masked killer strikes from behind strangling him with rope, there's a brief scuffle on the floor, his legs spasm as his dying breath is exhaled. Up next is the mother, a woman whom I though bore a similarity to 70's genre familiar Karen Black. She's dispatched in a shower scene that fades to black and white, a sweet homage to Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO, it's here that we get our first taste of the coveted slasher cinema nudity. Our killer, having extinguished an entire family, sets off for home where he plops down in bed and scribbles into a journal his thoughts on the killings.

That's the introduction to MY PURE JOY, the first feature length film from 19 year old director James Cullen Bressack. The film stars Alexei Ryan as our psychotic masked killer Adam, a young man living in the suburbs with his widowed mother. On the outside he looks the part of your typical slackerish suburban stoner but on the inside he's a seething tangle of repressed anger and dark murderous impulses. Through flashback we see Adam watching horror films with his bed-ridden father in the months leading up to his death, his dad's a real fright flick enthusiast and he instills a love of the genre into the boy who doesn't take to it right away. It's after his father's death that this exposure to violent cinema seems to awaken latent murderous tendencies within him as he sets about venting his anger by replicating kills from his favorite horror shows on unsuspecting victims. His mother does her best to raise the young man right but Adam doesn't make it easy for her, he's a total douche to the kind but frustrated woman. When he floods the bathroom he threatens to slash her throat after she suggest he clean it up, so yeah he has some serious anger issues. This tense and uneasy situation is made even worse when his estranged older brothers shows up and confronts Adam straight-on about his violent tendencies 

His two best (and only) friends are Chris and Steve, suburban stoners with whom he talks about horror films A LOT. These cats are the only people Adam seems to be able to carry-on a normal conversation with, and even then it's nearly entirely about smokin' weed and foreign horror films like Takashi Miike's ICHI THE KILLER and AUDITION as well as MARTYRS and INSIDE, can't bash their tastes, that's good stuff. Adam's also obsessed with his ex-girlfriend Cindy which leads to a confrontation with her douche-nozzle white-rapper gorilla of a new boyfriend at a party, but it's never a good idea to anger someone as psychotic as Adam, now is it?

The films starts off strong with the massacre of an entire family, it's potent stuff with some good gore effects. There's some decent dialogue, a tense pulsing filmscore, plus the coveted slasher cinema nudity, and the violence is fairly shocking and includes a rather painful stab to the groin which actually made me flinch. A particular strength of the films is Alexie Ryan's portrayal of Adam, you could feel his repressed anger, bursting at the seams with hostility and it really carried the film for me, his expressive face going from disconnected psychosis to over-the-top insanity at the drop of a pin good stuff.

For a first-time feature film from a director on a very limited budget I have to give it up to Bressack, this is a good watch. While the film looks good for a low-budget production there's some technical aspects that could've been handled better; editing and sound recording in particular come to mind and the effects aren't consistently good throughout, there's a few iffy moments that draw attention to themselves but not ruinous, just not great. Something else I didn't care for was the scapegoating of violent cinema as a cause for his murderous rage but as the film roles on there are revelations that might also explain his actions, so again, didn't care for it but I didn't hate it.    

VERDICT: A decent slasher with some interesting psychological horror elements, a definite recommend for those inclined to enjoy low-budget indie slashers and don't mind a few rough edges. I'll look forward to Bressack's next film, there's certainly bigger and better things on the way from this promising young director.

http://mypurejoyfilm.com/

http://psykikjunkypictures.com/