31 Days of Halloween: I Am Lisa

2020, Patrick Rea (Conspiracy World) -- Amazon

Remind me next year, horror fans (myself included, I guess) are the worst judge of what is considered "good" in the genre. This flick showed up on a small handful of "best werewolf movies", and either there were just not any "good" werewolf movies or their judgement is impaired. Probably a bit of both.

This was a terrible movie. Bad plot, bad acting, bad directing, even fucking terrible photography. Jaysus dude, either get a better camera or don't shoot those types of night scenes. There was so much snow/grain on that shot we thought it was actually snowing for a second. Also, solid colour filters do not make mood.

And yet, we gave it the full run. It seemed like an indie flick, a low budget dear, that would rise through story and performance. Don't get me wrong, this was not so low in the barrel, so low-budget, that it felt like the student flicks Amazon is littered with. In fact, you could see by their pretty decent cast size and different sets that they had some money to play with. AND you would think that the director, with so many shorts and other features under his belt would have ... learned something? Alas... 

How is it, that we can watch so many horror movies where the director is getting his first feature, after a few critically acclaimed shorts, and whether its The Best New Thing or not, at least you can see the skill played out. They have potential. This guy is pretty much like me writing this blog -- still doing the same terrible stuff after a looooong time doing it. The 10,000 hours to expertise thing doesn't always apply.

OK, what was the movie about? Lisa has come back to her small town to run her grandmother's used book store, after getting a "fancy degree" in records management in Spain (?!?!). The town skanks/bullies show up and drive all her customers away and steal a first edition. Maybe not have the first editions lying around in random stacks? But nobody will do anything about it because Head Skank is the daughter of the town Sheriff. And the Sheriff is corrupt. Also, we got a preamble where a girl in bad pseudo-werewolf makeup (y'know, plastic teeth, contact lenses) is killed by said Sheriff.

The bullying escalates where Sheriff decides to let Head Skank beat her up, pull out fingernails, let her son rape Lisa (crass; not needed, another sign of a bad director to let that choice stand) and leave her in the woods to die, eaten by wolves. But instead she is bitten by a werewolf who can be driven away by a thunk to the head with a rock. But Lisa is bitten!

So, typically indie plot where girl bitten by werewolf begins to change slowly and takes revenge on those who wanted her dead. We can take those kind of plots as long as they do some fun things. But nope; they don't. They also continually hint at some darker story going on behind the Sheriff's rise to power and why she seems to make werewolves. BUT THEY NEVER EXPLAIN ANYTHING ! There is literally no reason, no motivation, nothing behind what the Sheriff and her horrible family does other than corruption. Werewolves? Meh, just something they play with. Sheriff's sister is all knowledgeable on the supernatural and at odds with her sister. Why? No fucking reason. This is one of those situations where someone says "let's have the evil sheriff make werewolves!!" and then not actually come up with a reason why. Many of the decisions in this movie were in the same tone. This movie was just bad.