“BAD APPLES” is a horror film from Uncork’d Entertainment that will be released on VOD this February. The story follows two young girls on Halloween night that unleash their evil onto innocent people who do not leave their porch lights on to celebrate the holiday for trick-or-treater’s.
There is no denying that the creepy mask trend is (to some) overused in the horror genre. But I feel when done properly the technique can still work effectively in building suspense. I had fun watching this one and felt it delivered more than enough entertainment for an at-home indie horror film. If you like horror films with a small budget, then you will appreciate the raw tone the movie conveys throughout.
The opening scene gives a small backdrop for the two main characters and while it doesn’t develop the personality of the sisters much at all, you can still gleam enough to know their tastes are within in the macabre. I actually enjoyed the lack of substance for the characters. With their reasoning not being laid out for the viewer, it helps generate a strong sense of mystery to what their true motives or intentions are. Or if they are simply insane and have no real driving force being their murderous actions. So for me these elements of the unknown were a positive.
There isn’t any dialogue between the two sisters, but they have a strong sense of communication. It was a nice touch having the expressionless faces on their masks virtually matching their movements and mannerisms. When they killed it was violent, controlled, and emotionless, which I felt added such an appealing element of horror to the story. So, for two actresses that had to carry a film with zero dialogue, I felt they did a great job of adding the needed sinister vibe to their portrayals through their physical acting alone.
The budget was clearly not large so there isn’t a lot of gory make-up effects. But it was still a violent genre film with appealing amounts of killing and enough blood and effects to convey key moments. The creativity in the camera-work and editing techniques did a great job of setting up frightening situations. This is something I love about small indie horror films. That being the reliance on film-techniques, and nicely chosen angles, over a lazy set-up with over-the-top gory visuals to close out. This film was able to frame up shots very well to capture the violence of these two innocent looking sisters with a pleasantly grim result.
Bryan Coyne’s direction was subtle but extremely well-tailored to this story. It was intimate and puts the viewer into the story with the characters. The lighting was well used to add an ominous, and at times tense feeling that was effective in maintaining enjoyable tension. The film relies on building frightening situations instead of jump-scares and it results in some fun unpredictability. If you like horror films, specifically small-budget genre films, then I recommend checking this film out. It does use some borrowed tropes but works them into an entertaining story with a couple of mysteriously malevolent characters and plenty of gratuitous violence.
