Union Furnace

In small town Ohio a petty thief under pressure from a loan shark is taken under the wing of a mysterious benefactor, who offers him a role in a game that will change his life.

More satire than horror, and the violence is mild with most of it not just off screen but barely even referred to - although it does get explicit in the end. Also the sex is coy - what were they doing on the floor? - so most horror fans would give it a miss. The game is one we've seen in many movies over the years, so I'll just note that it has harsh observations on inequality in the USA, including flag and anthem.

I enjoyed this. The atmosphere is seedy, the mood grim, but there's a touch of Scorsese in the strip club scene and the actors get their teeth into the dialogue as they deliver a group of engaging characters. And then there's the brilliant benefactor (the Lion), played with affable menace by a first time actor (and producer) who performs neat little dance moves as the ringmaster of the deadly game. He has a strong screen presence and gives the movie a real edge - more McConaughey than Hopper but still unsettling.

The game scenes have a downbeat decadence to them, reminiscent of many British movies of the '60s. The pace is pretty good, there's some farting about with out-of-sequence editing in the middle, and the music mostly fits well with sinister piano & synth & some scratchy strings, breaking into hill billy dance numbers during the game.

Overall, a small movie but a good 'un - although not strong enough in its tastes.

UNION FURNACE 2015 / Metropol Pictures / 89m / $19.99 BR / NR

If one is embarking on a low budget picture it's wise to be cognizant of the financial limitations. Unlike many a production whose goals exceed their capital "Union Furnace" was conceived from the get-go to be produced for very little cash. Set in a dying Appalachian town the main locales are a tacky motel and what appears to be a decrepit social hall (an antlered head on the wall might be an elk – the sparse lighting makes it difficult to be certain). Small time crook Cody (Mike Dwyer, who co-wrote the script with director Nicholas Bushman) gets hooked up with a mysterious stranger (Seth Hammond) who offers him the chance to earn tens of thousands of dollars. All he has to do is compete against other desperate contestants in front of a masked audience that will be wagering on each game. The premise isn't anything we haven't seen before but the presentation has rarely been so grim and gritty thanks to the cash-strapped budget and a cast of mostly unfamiliar faces. (Keith David is the closest thing to a name here and his presence suggests that his career has not exactly been going full bore since "Platoon.")

In addition to the low-rent settings (the most elaborate and colorful "set" is a strip club that assuredly is not something constructed for the film), the disguised audience wears cheap dimestore Halloween masks (which are surprisingly unsettling) and, except for the final sequence, the photography makes no effort to sweeten the lighting from the harsh and nasty fluorescent illumination available. I can think of no film since "Night of the Living Dead" that has made such a virtue of its threadbare financing to deliver a visceral impact. Now this isn't a great film and it may not even be a particularly good one. The chief deficit is that, despite many of them being given a soliloquy, none of the characters are fleshed out enough for the viewer to much give a damn who wins and who loses as the games grow increasingly more dangerous and ultimately lethal. The most intriguing character is the ambiguously menacing stranger who, in a gold lion masks acts as the emcee for the games. First time film actor Hammond (who also produced) is strangely reminiscent of Matthew McConaughy in "Big Mike," particularly when he breaks out some slinky dance moves. Ultimately he may be the very best thing about a film that trots out a familiar trope and imbues it with a few new twists. longsshorttakes.wordpress.com/

I definitely like the premise for this. It's not totally clichéd and what's usually expected, certainly not for an independent horror film. However, it does play with some conventions we've seen before even if it does it in a new light. I can see others liking this more than me. Something about it kept me at a distance in terms of enjoyment. Definitely nothing that sticks out as being bad, but just thoroughly average maybe. The acting is fine, and the editing certainly does things to just make it all the more confounding and disorienting just like how the characters feel. Not sure ow watched this will be but I could see it gaining some sort of following, whenever that would be.