An inordinate number of peppers

The title is all wrong and goes for something cheaper than what the movie itself does. It seems like a needless trapping for what is essentially a psychological thriller more in line with Memento or A Knife in the Water or Vertigo.I don't think of any of those other movies as a horror one. 

I realize that expectations can be a little lower for independant horror movies. Something in the grainy quality of 16mm or digital keeps us on edge. Scares can be cheap, especially with some clever editing. The editing suites available to any of us are more than the resources of many a capable Hollywood production of the past.

What had to be done in many laborious takes once upon a time, can be patched up along the way without jeapordizing a tight budget and even tighter schedule. 

Given all that, I think Lance Weiler is an extremely accomplished filmmaker and based on the reviews I see here, I think this movie deserves another look. The viral marketing and internet buzz for this have all but died down. New projects dominate, but now is the chance to look clearly at what this film accomplishes.

I'd say there is a great deal of ingenuity to this film. It uses it's devices well and not a single moment felt superfluous to the story, however weak the acting was at times.

I'd say that George was not a sympathetic character. He was pitiful. And yet the script quite wonderfully places us in the position of rooting for him against what seems like a catastrophic wrong. George is a drunk presumably because of his head trauma. He must quiet the halucinations. His neglected home has been invaded and vandalized and is slated for destruction. 

None of the metaphoric possibilities are overlooked. This is movie making in the tradition of Hitchcock, but informed as well by Japanese Horror. There lies a temptation to cover whatever failings with some jarring flashes that our eye is unprepared for. This sort of violence to the viewer has become all too common in horror movies these days. As a result, their effect is diminsihed by repetition. 

With all the technical challenges of making an independent film, this succeeds far more than it fails. The actor who plays George is well directed and as a result gives a far better performance than he would have likely been capable of in other hands. Certain racial undertones were also cheap effects and generally the secondary characters were underdeveloped. They stood as cardboard cut-outs for what accomplished actors could have breathed life into. 

I thought the woman from the bar did a convincing job of ejecting George and his apple pie, she effectively conveys what the audience has likely felt all along about George. He's a messed up dude and hardly worth the trouble.

All connections to George are obligatory. Nobody wants to deal with George. Everyone wants him gone in a way. Even the neighbor boy who laughs with him, drinking his whisky, understands better than others that George is cursed. His stereotypical role as hero of the piece gives him no insight into what is wrong with George. 

Only George can learn it at the price of his life.

Not bad for a story. I was intrigued. Lance Weiler deserves a real budget and some good actors. The results would reward us all.