Cassadaga

This movie may have been planned as a horror movie but it didn't came out as one. The supernatural theme was obviously meant as the ingredient holding the flick together, but it felt like someone got embarrassed of this and started experimenting by patching different plots and actions together - none of them is carried through to the end. I felt like listening to someone embroidering a vaguely interesting story with unnecessary detail: the movie is frequently wandering off by showing actions and telling story lines with no importance or meaning for the main plot. It is using the stylistic inconsistency as a device, but in my opinion this is not well enough executed. It left me slightly annoyed.. especially when I felt forced to witness some interactions between the main character and a young divorcée dragging along, which then break off whimsily like they couldn't find the space to end properly what they started. I found the frequent depiction of the main actress in revealing clothing ridiculous and therefore looked for a hint of self-irony but couldn't find one. I think it was really meant as: "we also could show some bum".. The movie delivers shock moments too scarcely to play the horror card even though the set-up would have left more than ample room for them! Why? It's a trial, I think. It's not bad, it's uncommon and mostly entertaining. But sadly it's not good either.. it feels unbalanced. So there is the ghost-story, some relationship drama.. at some point you may even think it's a serial killer story - but with every strand of action there is the phenomenon of negligence after introduction! the problem is that even after having finished watching the movie, I wasn't clear about its intention - it lacks a theme! The production value is good though and the result is surprisingly coherent - at least enough to keep me vaguely entertained.. Honoring the eagerness to do things differently and the technical workmanship, I give it 5 stars.

"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.

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.

The movie was not received well at the Frightfest festival in Glasgow in general. You can see why of course, especially towards the ending, when things got ... well a bit out of hand, you could say. The laughter that befall most people was definitely not intended by the filmmaker. The supernatural elements in it mostly work I'd say, if you let yourself into them of course.

It's a tough sell and I think you'll have to have a heart for that kind of movie. I didn't particularly think this was great, but I also didn't think it was as bad as some people thought. It comes down to if you think this will be worth your time.

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.