Sargent had clearly been taking notes from Rob Savage's 2020 Zoom horror flick Host when considering From the Shadows, and four years on from the filming strictures of COVID, his multi screen approach looks rather quaint now that the movie has finally got a UK release. But hold off lest ye dismiss this one; there's some good stuff to come.
In the aftermath of a massive explosion at the mansion base of the mysterious Hidden Wisdom cult - a group of people purportedly involved with ancient worship, witchcraft and Satanism - only five of the cult members manage to escape, with their leader Dr Joseph Cawl (Bruce Davison, Suitable Flesh) apparently perishing in the flames. Cawl's sidekick, Dr Leonard Bertram (Keith David, The Thing, They Live) had previously disappeared under mysterious circumstances.
Along comes celebrity sceptic and debunker Dr Amara Rowan (Selena Anduze, Doctor Sleep) whose many books have established her as an expert on demystifying the supernatural. Rowan has decided to group the cult survivors together online to try to get to the bottom of Hidden Wisdom and find out how and why they managed to make it out alive, while the Dr's appointed sidekick, Peter (Jim Thalman) provides tech support and visual documentation services.
The five all had a history of some form of anxiety which Cawl successfully treated: there's Tina (Claire Mack), 'comedian' Keith (Max MacKenzie); gothy Denise (Ester Jiron); Henry (Ian Whitt); and star pupil Zoe (Briana Femia) who was Cawl's research coordinator. As the interviews progress they provide more information about the work of the cult and how Cawl, who formerly ran an 'Alternative Archeology' course, discovered ancient symbols on old artefacts, their application being the key to unlocking powerful alpha waves that, in isolation, could alter reality.
Doubtful as ever, Dr Rowan gets a powerful little online demonstration from the five, still in tune with their developed powers, which effectively re-arranges her bookshelves; it also more worryingly, projects something into her world, a force that Peter recognises, courtesy of his Choctaw grandmother, as the 'soul eater' of legend.
On the face of it, From the Shadows is a by the numbers tech supernatural feature which shouldn't have much going for it, the majority of the movie comprising Rowan and the Hidden Wisdom five all appearing on separate screens...talking. But, there's a kind of Nigel Kneale thing going on here, with the gradual amassing of knowledge making things stranger and stranger, as the incredulous Dr's scepticism is increasingly tested.
Sargent's movie doesn't stint on the bloodshed - and practical FX - but is wise enough to build up some tension before those scenes are unleashed, and (again like Savage's movie) each of the five has enough time to build their story so you get to care about them more than most films of this ilk. Add to this a brooding electronic score by Alan Howarth and you have a movie which, on the surface, looks like a Syfy channel programmer, but is in reality a well scripted and tense movie with some ingenious twists and turns.
Madison tags along, not knowing that the group have a purpose for their jaunt; to track down a missing house in the Barren Lands (an actual Canadian location). Said house vanished in 1963 and has only re-appeared, Brigadoon like, on a handful of occasions. People entering the house have emerged unrecognisable; and crazy.
The girls arrive at the site matching the co-ordinates provided by witnesses, but no house. They decide to camp overnight; a bad idea as a massive storm rips up their tents and causes untold human damage. Seemingly the only survivor, and with her leg badly injured, Madison makes it to a nearby abandoned house. The following day she finds the head of the party Alice (Ameerah Briggs) lying almost dead, her limbs at unnatural angles. Frightened and starving, there's relief when another of the girls, Talia (Kaitlyn Lunardi) also turns up, unscathed. But if Madison thought her troubles were over, they're just beginning.
Most of the rest of the movie becomes a series or self-harm/torture sequences where the viewer becomes increasingly unsure as to what's real and what's in Madison's head. They're disturbing to watch (Wemple goes in for that trick of building noise in a scene and cutting to silence - a lot) but there's a law of diminishing returns when you realise that the whole thing goes nowhere fast and starts to become, well, a bit silly, despite some very committed performances from Shields and Lunardi.
There's an end coda where the filmmakers issue come kind of written apology that anything which has appeared out of focus or glitchy was due to forces unknown, which seems like a rather feeble cover up if you ask me. Ultimately a rather pointless and unnecessarily nasty exercise.
Set in a Scottish nunnery, St Augustine's, in 1944, a small group of novices, presided over by the eccentric Mother Superior (Maryam d’Abo), quietly go about their business (apart from the threat of a local wolf). They comprise sisters Valerie (Elle O’Hara), prone to the bottle, Eleanor (Michaela Longden), Lucy (Lisa Riesner) and Agnes (Amber Doig-Thorne). Their practical needs are supported by two caretakers, war scarred Amos (Paul Barber) and lusty Daniel (co-director and writer Shepka), a young man for whom employment among a group of young women yields constant temptation.
Their devotions are disturbed by the arrival of, as the title explains, a baby left at the door of the nunnery in a basket. But this is no innocent foundling; rather it's the devil himself in childlike form. The Mother Superior forms a protective bond around the infant, while Agnes divines its demonic nature and is incarcerated for her beliefs. As the evil one casts its net within the nunnery, no-one is safe.
TBitB takes a little time to get going, but when at full steam it's a great low budget exploitation movie, with a cast giving it their all. There's naked nuns dancing in the moonlight (ok just one, but still...), a rather fetching demonic baby rendered, pleasingly, without CGI, and a superb location in which to film the devilish shenanigans (St. Conan's Kirk in Loch Awe, Scotland). I could have done without the relentless soundtrack - honestly sometimes silence is equally effective - but this is very entertaining stuff. Also interesting to know that both 'Flickering Myth' and 'Nerdly' film sites were involved in the production.
A visit to a local abandoned building seems to be the start of the bad things, when they discover what looks like a mass of human bones and a box containing skulls, which they rather unwisely bring back home. This is tied in with the Greek legend of Mormo, who exacts revenge on the family for stealing the artifacts (something not explained in the film).
Both parents start to feel watched around the home, to the extent that they fit a series of cameras around the villa to record anything that happens. Marcela's paranoia increases in line with the changing feel of their gaff, particularly in that little Mia seems to be a focus for all the weirdness.
Of course we know that the whole thing doesn't end well as the footage we're seeing has been obtained following the family's disappearance. And on the face of it, ITWM is found footage by the numbers, a sub genre that many thought had bitten the dust years ago. But Bowers' movie, featuring his own family, as opposed to a party of annoying twenty somethings, adds a frisson of terror that most examples of this sort of thing just don't have. All the usual FF WTF moments are present and correct, but the terrorised family kind of make you forget that.
Bowers has dressed this one up with a whole backstory, perhaps in homage to the movie that started it all in 1999, and which you can read about here. There's even a book. Well a guy's got to eat.
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