Cassadaga

I thought this movie had a plot that had some potential. A deaf girl tries to figure out the identity of a serial killer who turns girls into marionette dolls.

This is low budget. Everything has some level of issue. Not all the acting is great. Not everything about the story flowed smoothly. The effects aren't top notch. Even with the issues, I kinda liked parts of it.

I think that if you are going to watch low budget you have to lower your expectations. I think that for being low budget this is a fairly decent film. It needs work but it isn't awful. This is really going to have to be judged on your personal tolerance for low budget. I've seen worse so I'm giving it 5 stars.

Judging by some of the online comments about Cassadaga, I was expecting something a bit special out of this indie horror. Sadly, there just didn't seem to be much new here to really stand out.

It's okay - that's about it. It's one of those films where a young woman gets mixed up with something spooky. Obviously, no one believes her and she does that thing they do in all horror films where they research it on the internet and then seek out 'professional' help.

It's definitely not bad. There are a few pretty sick scenes (nicely executed - no pun intended) for the gore hounds and everyone plays their part pretty well. However, it descends into territory where, if you're an avid horror watcher, you'll have seen it all before - how many times does the heroine knock over the killer and then just run away instead of continuing to batter him to death? Well, you get that sort of thing here.

If you can be bothered with another horror film, you could do worse. Sadly there's nothing here that is that memorable or that will lift it out of that vast middle ground of straight-to-DVD horror flicks.

Every once in a while, a low key movie comes along and makes you realise that there are writers and directors out there who enjoy making films, and more importantly, make them right.

Cassadaga is one of those.

Anthony DiBlasi works his magic over Bruce Wood's excellent story,. much in the same vein as Dread, but here, he manages to keep the suspense going right until the end. It's easy in this genre, to fall into the trap of letting the horror and gore overtake a great story, and in Cassadaga, the temptation to branch off to this must have be huge, however DiBlasi sticks to his guns, and directs us through the prickly path of the story mixing romance, horror, tension and chills in equal amounts to leave the viewer completely satisfied.

The casting of Kelen Coleman is a perfect - it's not often you watch a movie and instantly click with the lead actors, but Kelen's personality shines through from the start and the empathy immediately connects viewer and actor.

I don't like reviewing movies and putting spoilers in, and I'm not about to start now, suffice to say, that the suspense is carried through the entire film, and done brilliantly, and whilst the ending may not be as big a surprise as you may expect, it's delivered perfectly, closing off a superb chiller.

If you come across this little gem, don't pass it by, as you'll be missing out on an excellent film - grab it with both hands, sit back and let yourself go - you won't be disappointed.

7/10

"Dread", Anthony DiBlasi's first movie is among my favorites, so I was quite thrilled seeing his second movie being ready. I was a little bummed when seeing it basically is a restless ghost story but hats of to the writing. They really made this word by incorporating several Slasher and Giallo influences (pretty obvious from the Italian influenced poster artwork) and writing a stone solid script.

"Cassadaga" deals with a deaf girl who loses her beloved little sister in a car crash and heads of for an off-time in a psychic community (the title-giving Cassadaga) to clear her head. After a séance gone wrong she is haunted by visions of a ghost-zombie-girl who won't leave her alone before she clears the story of her death. So up to here this is some really worn out story material but the girls deafness is incorporated in a pretty creative way and the lead character works perfect. Also the story of the nice guy falling for he after she gives his daughter painting lessons is kind of different with him being torn between a girl seeing ghosts and having regular breakdowns and fighting to keep custody for his daughter. Now when the killer is introduced it gets pretty messy since "Gepetto" is obsessed with puppets and tries to build human marionettes by severing limbs and reattaching them to the living dolls in a pretty bizarre way.

The movie manages to serve you some disturbing imagery, staying close to the basic ghost story and yet throwing you curve balls from the beginning on and mixing things up in a puzzling thriller-type of way that keeps you guessing all the time. With all that "Cassadaga" manages to be a creative and kind of different ghost movie that will also satisfy the gore hounds. The whole movie has a pretty romantic feel with the girls relationships to her sister and the nice guy and I think they went a little heavy on the music which along with some wooden acting was the weakest point in the movie and often came across rather cheesy. But besides these flaws its still a really solid movie and among the few better horror movies of last year.

Like in "Dread" DiBlasi manages to tell interesting and different stories with a strong focus on the story telling and right amount of sledgehammer to the head. I'll definitely be looking out for his future movies.

The makers had a great concept, but sadly failed to really go anywhere with it. It could have been a cool, sick horror movie, but the truly disturbing part of the story (which is also what the movie is advertised for) completely stays in the background.

We hardly get to know or see anything about the killer and his work and thus are left with many unanswered questions, most importantly: his entire background story is hardly worked out. But also, for a character this sadistic he chooses a very unimaginative way of actually killing his victims.

The side story about Lily being haunted is completely superfluous and adds nothing to the movie, but it takes a lot of time and attention away from what should have been the actual storyline. To top it off, the movie derails even more in the end with an utterly inept cop and other ridiculous twists that the writers clearly needed to bring the movie to its end.

Had they focused on what this movie should have been about - a psychopath serial killer turning his victims into marionettes - it could have been great, but in stead we got a fairly bland ghost movie with a twist. It sucks that this concept is now ruined for future movies, because there was great potential there. But Cassadaga failed to deliver in all aspects.