This was a low budget effort that does its darndest to work above its budget and does so through story and plot, which is refreshing. It is inventive, no doubt about that, but perhaps struggles a little on the characterisations, which is a shame because they could have been expanded to much more than they are presented as.
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| taking the Mandao's |
It starts with Jackson (Sean McBride) getting out of a tent, pitched in a living room. He starts making breakfast but sneaks into a bedroom, belonging to a sleeping Jay (Scott Dunn) and reaches for a cereal packet (called Mandao’s) and takes them. He pours a bowl (and finds the toy) but is caught when sneaking the packet back. Jay is incensed, it was the one thing he told Jackson to leave alone and the cereal was the last packet made before his father’s cereal company was sold. He kicks Jackson out telling him not to call him Uncle Jay.
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| Jackson and Maeve |
Jackson wanders the streets with his tent and bag and eventually knocks on a front door. Maeve (Marisa Hood) answers unsure as to why he would be there – they broke up. There is a comment about her being exposed to sunlight – she has a photosensitivity disorder. He manages to push his way in and it is clear that he is so unaware (he is played as pretty simpleminded) that he won’t or can’t accept their split up. He uses her loo and the water is red – her period she explains.
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| Jackson and his tent |
Jay finds Jackson pitching his tent in a friendly lady’s yard. When Jackson refuses to come back to Jay's, he trashes the tent until he cooperates. Back home Jay phones his sister but she won’t take Jackson in and puts the phone down on him. He technically was Jackson’s step-uncle as his sister was married to Jackson’s dad for a month (he still refers to her as mom). The interaction between the various players is the key to the film and is good but I did think that both Jay and Jackson needed something else in their characters to warm the audience to them.
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| astral projection |
Jay has been having weird dreams and we see one; it starts with him looking at himself and then seeing a green light emanating from the bathroom but being unable to open the door. This time he sees Jackson walk into his room and try to rouse him as he thinks Jay is having a nightmare. Jay calls his cousin Andy (Sean Liang) round, who is a paranormal expert and, it seems, somewhat jealous when he discovers Jay may be astral projecting with no effort. He gives him some sleep aid drops and says he’ll meet him that night in the astral if it is real.
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| Scott Dunn as Jay |
They do meet but Andy is freaked by the green light from the bathroom and skedaddles. He has told Jay how to move distances he goes to Jackson, who is stalking Maeve and rather upset as he can see her kissing a guy, Darth (David Gallegos), in her kitchen. Jackson, in the physical, leaves, but Jay can’t seem to move his legs he freaks, ends up in the front yard and meets Darth’s spirit. Freaking more he wakes at home, back in his body. Jackson persuades him to go to Maeve’s and Darth’s car is there, they see her drive off in it and Jackson breaks in. Jay meets the spirit again – apparently, he can now see dead people.
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| Darth dead |
It turns out the Maeve was fired from her job at the blood bank for stealing blood and had Darth steal more for her (he was a delivery guy for the blood bank). Unfortunately, security had increased and so he filled three flasks with cheap red wine. Maeve then decided to kill him and take his blood. Luckily Darth took a semester of parapsychology and knows that, as it is Halloween, the thinness of the veil means that an astral projector like Jay can go back in time and, with luck, stop his murder. Unfortunately, he only has till midnight for the conditions to be right. This plot direction throws things like evp into the mix and (very) minor paradoxes.
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| meeting |
Maeve’s vampirism is interesting. We get a flashback to Halloween where Jackson and Jay had crashed a party she was throwing and she talked to Jackson because he was dressed as a classic vampire (she was also dressed as a vampire). We see there that she has books on vampires (both reference and things like
The New Annotated Dracula) and it was perhaps the death of her mother (from leukaemia) that pushed her interest over the edge. She is drinking blood (presumably the blood in the toilet was vomited after drinking) and rubbing it on her skin and says that it prevents rashes developing in the sun. She also claims it offers vitality and health.
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| Maeve's books |
The acting worked for the film and the plot was interesting enough to overcome limitations that the budget offered. I thought the lighting and filters used to depict the astral was really well done. This is a comedy and mostly centres on the characters of Jay and Jackson, their behaviours and interactions. This is fine, and is amusing enough, but I felt they needed something extra to make them more relatable to the audience – not that they didn’t work but they could have been so much more than they were. That said I was pleasantly surprised with this one.
5.5 out of 10.
The imdb page is
here.
On Demand @ Amazon US
On Demand @ Amazon UK
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