MidWest WeirdFest Film Reviews: “In Action” and “There’s No Such Thing as Ghosts?”
By: Joseph Perry (Twitter)
In Action
Directors/writers/stars Sean Kenealy and Eric Silvera captured MidWest WeirdFest’s Best Film award with their action comedy In Action. The film tells the story of how screenwriters Sean and Eric, who decide to try and let bygones be bygones after five years of not speaking together, have their script about an invasion at the wedding of the U.S. President’s daughter intercepted by the government. This leads to the pair being mistaken as potential terrorist threats and captured, and sends them on a deadly, downward spiral.
Shot on an extremely low budget, with Kenealy and Silvera playing multiple roles, In Action substitutes fun storytelling, rapid-fire dialogue, and a constant barrage of dark humor in the place of choreographed gunfights (well, traditional ones, anyway) and huge explosions. The duo also displays creative ways to depict hand-to-hand combat and car chases. The screenplay sends up action film clichés and has fun referencing genre favorites, including some from the 1980s, doing so in an affectionate manner. Kenealy and Silvera play off each other beautifully, with pitch-perfect comic timing. In Action is independent, imaginative, creative filmmaking on a small budget, with a big heart.
There’s No Such Thing As Ghosts?
In his hour-long documentary There’s No Such Thing As Ghosts?, writer/director Aaron Daniel Annas explores the phenomena of spectral visitations. With his stated goal of trying to understand “why people believe what they believe when it comes to the supernatural,” he and his film crew interview people who claim to have had experiences with ghosts and demons.
Interviewees include Peg Knickerbocker, owner of the haunted Knickerbocker Hotel in Linesville, Pennsylvania; Bob Cranmer, author of The Demon House of Brownsville Road (the titular structure was located in Brentwood, Pennsylvania); Michelle Desrochers, paranormal consultant and owner of paranormal research company Canada’s Most Haunted; Heather Reese, psychic medium, whose team here investigates the Hinsdale House located in Hinsdale, New York; Bernice Golden, psychic; and other witnesses, along with others who have scientific and skeptical takes on the phenomena. Annas allows all of the interview subjects to tell their stories and give their opinions, treating them all respectfully and coming from a nonjudgmental angle.
Not just a talking heads documentary, There’s No Such Thing As Ghosts? also captures some ghostly incidents live, including Desrochers’ research team seemingly successfully speaking with someone or something through a spirit box, and one of Annas’ crew members — an admitted skeptic — capturing something unusual on camera. The stories of those who believe they had a supernatural encounter — or multiple ones — seem heartfelt, and it is interesting to see how those incidents affected these people in different ways.
Annas directs the proceedings well, offering some intriguing food for thought. There’s No Such Thing As Ghosts? is not likely to swing a skeptic’s belief in the opposite direction nor vice versa, but those interested in the supernatural should find the documentary to be an entertaining, intriguing effort.
In Action and There’s No Such Thing as Ghosts? screened at MidWest WeirdFest, which took place March 6–8 at Micon Cinemas Downtown in Eau Claire, Wisconsin.
Joseph Perry is one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast (whenitwascool.com/up-hill-both-ways-podcast/) and Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast (decadesofhorror.com/category/classicera/). He also writes for the film websites Diabolique Magazine (diaboliquemagazine.com), Gruesome Magazine (gruesomemagazine.com), The Scariest Things (scariesthings.com), Ghastly Grinning (ghastlygrinning.com), and Horror Fuel (horrorfuel.com), and film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope (videoscopemag.com) and Drive-In Asylum (etsy.com/shop/GroovyDoom).
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