Beneath Us All

The film starts in 912AD with a young girl being killed by a man, Frey, who is then captured by villagers and buried. We then jump ahead a few centuries and meet social worker Rebecca (Kaiti Wallen) who is being sent to check up on kids at a foster home. The foster home is run by Todd (Sean Whalen), who is a gambler, and his wife Janelle (Maria Olsen), who is anything but as pleasant as she first appears to be. Maria Olsen in my opinion delivered the best performance.

At the foster home we meet Julie (Angelina Danielle Cama), who is the film's lead character. One evening she finds a crate in the woods. When she opens it, a man in dire state emerges from the box, whom she takes home and shelters in the barn. As she starts caring for him, we discover something sinister about him.

'Beneath Us All' is so well filmed with stunning cinematography that its a pity I can't say the same for Yan Birch's acting as Frey, the man/creature whom Julie rescued. Unfortunately I found him unconvincing.

There were many instances in the movie that left me raising an eyebrow thinking surely this would never happen. Yes, I understand this is a fantasy horror, but the character actions - especially Julie - were not believable, even within the genre. The flow of events also just didn't feel natural.

'Beneath Us All' did not really interest me from the beginning, yet I gave it the benefit of the doubt hoping it would improve and possible even blow me away. Well, the final act was a gruesome turn of events for this slow burn horror, and by far the film's highlight, and most disturbing moments.

If you're looking for a different kind of vampire movie, then this is probably it. As for me, it was a bit too different. It was also an unusual film in the sense that some scenes looked like they belonged in a big budget movie, while other scenes felt cheap. Either way, the final moments are guaranteed to satisfy horror buffs and fans of the vampire genre.

After finding a special object in the woods, a teen living with several other kids at a foster family house in the countryside slowly starts acting out of character the more she's around this creature, and when the child-service agent in charge comes across the horrific truth tries to help them stop the creature targeting them.

Overall, this was a rather fun and generally enjoyable genre effort. One of the better aspects of this one is the rather intriguing build-up that manages to be quite likable overall. Including a nice bout of Nordic folklore here involving the backstory of the vampire at the beginning to show his influence in the past with the hunting party trying to track him down and capture him which sets up the discovery in America later on. This leads into the later scenes at the house where his uncovering and slow-burn healing process provides a nice means of including this connection in the modern day as his decided influence grows much darker and more devious over time. The bits involving his corruption over the daughter to keep the streak going as it gains the power to leave and move on in the world are quite fun and allow this to take on some intriguing storylines along the middle section of the film. This is carried over to the impressive vampire attacks that have a lot going for them. The main part of this is the storyline about his corrupting the daughter as this all comes off rather nicely involving the darker, more reclusive, and disengaged attitude while not being bothered to care about the world around her that flies in stark contrast to who she was before. The concurrent attacks on others around the area to generate the kind of power it needs to get stronger are generally more dramatic than anything but are still intriguing enough to offer up some solid scenes throughout here as it all prepares itself for the finale when it shows the creature attacking the house and bringing about some fine confrontations with the disbelieving members of the family that are quite chilling and suspenseful involving some nice bloodshed and action along the way. Overall, these are all enough to bring this one up quite a lot even though there are some issues that hold it down. The main issue to be had with the film is the generally slow build-up to the vampire as there's quite a lot to deal with the bland storyline about how the family is abusing their foster children. While it enables everything to come together quite nicely, a lot of these scenes involving the way the parents are dismissive of everything she tells them, the needless subplot about the detective trying to recruit the social worker to join him at a new job, or their burgeoning relationship that's shown throughout here where the two of them chat and hang out several times. It all ends up making the vampire's presence come about a bit later than expected and feels quite sluggish to get started. There's also a bit to this one where the daughter's failure to not notice anything wrong with the vampire makes her look more stupid than earnest due to the obvious malevolent energy of the creature and this is somewhat unbelievable. These all end up bringing it down overall.

Rated Unrated/R: Graphic Violence, Graphic Language, and children-in-jeopardy.

The story involves girl living in a foster home, being distraught with her living situation she takes a walk in the woods, she stumbles on a pendant that appears ancient, as she makes her way home she starts to feel funny. She finds a man in the wilderness that needs help so she places him in an old storage shed. Things become more strange and murders occur, a social worker is called upon to check up on the foster family but things doesn't set right with the foster parents things take a dark turn.

The story is a slow burn with a large quantity of drama. It features less gore and more of the ascetic approach with character reactions. One of the highlights would be actress Maria Olsen and Sean Whalen as the foster parents giving off cold and selfish characters they portray as we can tell the parents are in it for the easy money having foster care for kids without real notice from authorities. The foster father also being a gambler hoping to make the big money playing every night.

The film has nice overview shots and the creature looks well done. I would only like to have seen the foster parents become more dark by intentionally misleading the social worker and more verbal to the kids to heightened tension while the entity living in the shed builds its strength to kill.

It is a film to take a look into and can lead to curiosity on the lore of the main monster in the story.

Of course I hadn¨t heard about this 2023 horror movie titled "Beneath Us All", prior to sitting down and watching it. However, with it being a horror movie that I hadn't already seen, of course I opted to watch it, as I do enjoy horror movies quite a lot.

Bret Miller wrote a somewhat dull and mundane storyline and script for the movie. I have to admit that I found the narrative in the movie to be a bit slow and pointless, and thus it was difficult to enjoy this movie from writer Bret Miller and director Harley Wallen. And the storyline itself was just somewhat poorly written and constructed, with elements and things happening throughout the 91 minutes that the movie ran for somewhat odd and strange.

It should be noted that the acting performances in "Beneath Us All" were actually adequate. Sure, it wasn't impressive acting performances, but for a movie of this caliber, then the acting performances were fair enough. There were only two familiar faces on the cast list for me, and that was Sean Whalen and Maria Olsen.

Visually, then there weren't anything to write home about here, as "Beneath Us All" wasn't a movie that made use of a lot of special effects or CGI.

If you are a horror fan, then "Beneath Us All" is not a movie that I would recommend you waste your time, money or effort on. Some of us suffered through this ordeal, so you don't have to.

My rating of director Harley Wallen's 2023 horror movie "Beneath Us All" lands on a two out of ten stars.

Most of the reviews here are too positive along the lines of 'work of art'. It isn't. It's amateurish.

The scenes, the music, and the acting... they all just seem amateur level. I would only recommend watching this if you want to support upcoming actors and crew with low budget or if you are in to this kind of production.

But if you're looking for good quality production, then this is not it. As far as the story goes, it was good. With the right budget and production values it could have been a great movie.

There are couple of scenes where something important just suddenly happens in a second and you get the feeling that the scene was cut short for some reason. Like I said, it's an amateur movie.