The Afflicted (2011)
Studio: Brain Damage Films
Theatrical Release: Oct. 23rd, 2011
DVD Release: April 3rd, 2012
Rating: Unrated!
Directed by Jason Stoddard
Review by Craig Sorensen
So, I’ve kind of been putting this review off for a little while. See, everything that I’ve seen thus far from Brain Damage Films/Midnight Releasing has been painful. Like really painful. Sub Troma level films, and I really dislike Troma. So I was really dreading sitting down and watching this thing. I found it really difficult to find good things to say about the other films. Surprisingly, I didn’t hate this film. I think that there is some real talent here. Don’t get me wrong, The Afflicted is far from perfect, but for a first feature it’s got a lot more going for it than most of the dreck that passes for modern genre filmmaking.
Partially based on the true story of Theresa Knorr, The Afflicted follows bat-shit crazy mother Maggie (played by Leslie Easterbrook, yes Lt. Callahan from the Police Academy films) as she beats the shit out of her three daughters. That’s about it. There isn’t really much of a plot here. She just verbally and physically abuses them for about 80 minutes. It’s all pretty gruesome stuff but after a while it does start to get monotonous. It would help if maybe there was more of a character arc here to follow. Our main character I guess is Grace (played by Randi Jones and Tammy Tull in voice over) but she doesn’t have much to do until the very end of the film. Most of the film is Grace watching her mother beat up her two sisters Cathy (Michele Grey) and Carla (Katie Holland). We don’t really get to see Randi Jones really react to any of this, all her emotions seem to be conveyed through voice over. It doesn’t really help you bond with the character, which I think the film needs.
The young cast does a decent job with the material though. There’s lots of crying and screaming and they handle things rather well. Kane Hodder also shows up at the beginning to collect his paycheck and get the fuck out. He seems better than usual though. He is cast against type and that might have something to do with it. The two stand out performances though belong to J.D. Hart and Leslie Easterbrook. J.D. Hart chews all the scenery he can get as ‘Cowboy Profit’. Normally a role like this would bug the shit out of me but Hart is able to make it work. He’s able to take a role that begins like any other televangelist parody and actually imbue real character. The star of this picture though is Easterbrook, who pulls out all the stops in her demented white trash performance. The only role I knew her from was Police Academy (and I had to look that shit up) but not once during the running time did I think ‘holy shit, is that Lt. Callahan’? And she is able to take a pretty despicable character and inject some real pathos. It’s not a one note ‘Mommy Dearest’ knockoff.
Brain Damage Films’ DVD presentation is OK for what this is. I’m pretty sure that this was shot in HD (although I can’t really find any info to back that up) so it does have some pretty typical problems that seem to pop up a lot in these kind of productions. A lot of scenes are too dark. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell what the hell is going on. I’m assuming that this was an artistic choice and not a fault in the transfer. Either way though, it needs to be brightened up a bit. Kids, it’s great that it’s easier now than ever to shoot a good looking movie but you really need to get some goddamn lights on the set. There are also a few issues with the dialog being a little soft. It’s not too bad but I had to turn it up a few times to hear what people were saying. Overall though, things look much more accomplished than I’m used to seeing in modern low budget genre films. The only extra included on this disc is a trailer which plays more like an extended reel for potential distributers.
Theatrical Release: Oct. 23rd, 2011
DVD Release: April 3rd, 2012
Rating: Unrated!
Directed by Jason Stoddard
Review by Craig Sorensen
So, I’ve kind of been putting this review off for a little while. See, everything that I’ve seen thus far from Brain Damage Films/Midnight Releasing has been painful. Like really painful. Sub Troma level films, and I really dislike Troma. So I was really dreading sitting down and watching this thing. I found it really difficult to find good things to say about the other films. Surprisingly, I didn’t hate this film. I think that there is some real talent here. Don’t get me wrong, The Afflicted is far from perfect, but for a first feature it’s got a lot more going for it than most of the dreck that passes for modern genre filmmaking.
Partially based on the true story of Theresa Knorr, The Afflicted follows bat-shit crazy mother Maggie (played by Leslie Easterbrook, yes Lt. Callahan from the Police Academy films) as she beats the shit out of her three daughters. That’s about it. There isn’t really much of a plot here. She just verbally and physically abuses them for about 80 minutes. It’s all pretty gruesome stuff but after a while it does start to get monotonous. It would help if maybe there was more of a character arc here to follow. Our main character I guess is Grace (played by Randi Jones and Tammy Tull in voice over) but she doesn’t have much to do until the very end of the film. Most of the film is Grace watching her mother beat up her two sisters Cathy (Michele Grey) and Carla (Katie Holland). We don’t really get to see Randi Jones really react to any of this, all her emotions seem to be conveyed through voice over. It doesn’t really help you bond with the character, which I think the film needs.
The young cast does a decent job with the material though. There’s lots of crying and screaming and they handle things rather well. Kane Hodder also shows up at the beginning to collect his paycheck and get the fuck out. He seems better than usual though. He is cast against type and that might have something to do with it. The two stand out performances though belong to J.D. Hart and Leslie Easterbrook. J.D. Hart chews all the scenery he can get as ‘Cowboy Profit’. Normally a role like this would bug the shit out of me but Hart is able to make it work. He’s able to take a role that begins like any other televangelist parody and actually imbue real character. The star of this picture though is Easterbrook, who pulls out all the stops in her demented white trash performance. The only role I knew her from was Police Academy (and I had to look that shit up) but not once during the running time did I think ‘holy shit, is that Lt. Callahan’? And she is able to take a pretty despicable character and inject some real pathos. It’s not a one note ‘Mommy Dearest’ knockoff.
Brain Damage Films’ DVD presentation is OK for what this is. I’m pretty sure that this was shot in HD (although I can’t really find any info to back that up) so it does have some pretty typical problems that seem to pop up a lot in these kind of productions. A lot of scenes are too dark. Sometimes it’s really hard to tell what the hell is going on. I’m assuming that this was an artistic choice and not a fault in the transfer. Either way though, it needs to be brightened up a bit. Kids, it’s great that it’s easier now than ever to shoot a good looking movie but you really need to get some goddamn lights on the set. There are also a few issues with the dialog being a little soft. It’s not too bad but I had to turn it up a few times to hear what people were saying. Overall though, things look much more accomplished than I’m used to seeing in modern low budget genre films. The only extra included on this disc is a trailer which plays more like an extended reel for potential distributers.
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