Late, Not Great

The Mile High HorrorFest is a weekend-long extravaganza of horror films, most new and independent efforts you'd have to dig to see any other way (short of waiting half a year or more for Netflix). This year -- and last weekend -- it took place at the Alamo Drafthouse. Although friends of mine attended as they do every year, I've never taken the plunge. But this time around, those very friends scrounged up a pair of extra tickets for one of the films in the festival, called Late Phases.

Late Phases is the story of a blind Vietnam veteran who is placed in a community of retirement homes by his son. No sooner has he moved in when both his own guide dog and his new neighbor are both savagely killed by a werewolf. Quickly realizing what's going on, the veteran has one month to discover the human identity of the beast and prepare for its next transformation.

After the HorrorFest was over, my friends informed me that unfortunately, this film they happened to score us extra tickets for was actually the worst thing they saw all weekend. And no, it wasn't great. But it was certainly more of a mixed bag than a total loss. The movie did, after all, get several things right.

First, there's something inherently tense about building a horror movie around a blind central character. M. Night Shyamalan was circling this when he made The Village -- though that movie turned out to be more a romance than a thriller. (And a marked decline for the once great writer-director.) But the main character here is more than capable. He's also acid tongued and clever, making him a lot of fun to watch throughout the movie. Indeed, the movie nails the lighter moments all throughout, and presents a number of characters who, while not unfathomably deep by any means, are all more nuanced than the average horror film would craft them.

But foremost, a horror movie is about the scares. And here, Late Phases fails to deliver. Part of the problem is structural. By opening a movie with a werewolf attack, and then clearly telegraphing that the next full moon is going to happen at the end of the movie, you're telling us that not much is going to happen in between. Sure, the main character keeps it fun, but there are no scares nor even mild tension anywhere to be found. And perhaps worse, the movie is made too cheaply to present us a truly frightening werewolf. When your monster is more funny than scary, you have an insurmountable problem in your horror movie.

The cast has few recognizable faces in it, but those you do spot might make you wonderif you're ready for the retirement community yourself. Ethan Embry, of Can't Hardly Wait, is now the middle-aged son of the main character. One of the possible suspects in the retirement community is Lance Guest, aka The Last Starfighter himself. (Yes, he's now old enough to pass for retired.) Perpetual kinda-creepy-guy Tom Noonan will almost surely not be known to you by name, but his face has popped up in movies and TV shows aplenty.

Ordinarily, I think good characters and dialogue count for a lot in a movie. But here, they're having to overcome key flaws in the story, and they can't quite do it. I'd call Late Phases a C-. If you'll watch any horror movie for pretty much any reason, then you might as well check this one out -- there are far worse ones out there. But I think most people would be disappointed.