Revenant (2012)

by Michele Pearson:

I’ve always loved movies about hauntings and haunted houses.  Poltergeist, The Changeling, and The Others are all scary and compelling films the set the bar for other movies in the genre.  Recently, audiences have been subjected to “found footage” additions in the form of the Paranormal Activity series.  They are all hype and no pay off.  I actually liked the first one even though I found it extremely dull.  The rest were almost thrown together to try to cash in on a boring premise and seem to have gotten worse with each film.  Therefore, when I first saw Revenant, I assumed “Great, another Paranormal Activity.”  I was wrong.  Revenant is everything Paranormal Activity wanted to be and wasn’t.

Paul (Stephen Twardokus) is a struggling writer who decides to move into a haunted house in order to write a book about his experiences.  His girlfriend Stella (Liesel Kopp) joins him as she wants to experience the haunting as well.  The first night, Stella hears noises that scare her but Paul writes it off as “the house settling.”  Eventually, the poltergeist activity reaches a point that drives Stella from the house but leaves Paul feeling a sense of wonder, excitement and frustration.  He wants the house to show him more.  Unfortunately for him, the house is more than happy to oblige.

Stephen Twardokus portrays Paul as a curious writer who almost detaches himself from the situation.  He either doesn’t accept or realize that what is happening in the house is happening too him not just around him.  After the first sign of activity, the absolute childish glee on Paul’s face is real.  Director Derek Cole does an excellent job of capturing not just the paranormal but also the human reactions and feelings in response to the activity.  The effects were real, not CGI, and in fact the one use of animation for an effect was done so well that I didn’t catch it.  Another bonus is that this film is definitely family friendly.  No gratuitous sex or language makes this a natural PG-13, but so unlike the recent PG-13 horror films that have been released in the past couple of years.  Twardokus, who wrote the script, and Cole have proven that you don’t need to dumb down a horror film to make it attractive to all ages of fans.  I can only hope that other filmmakers and studios follow their lead.

This movie scared me.  I have watched it twice and both times I spent the majority of the film curled up in a ball watching the movie through my fingers.  During the world premiere on the second night of  Shriekfest, some people literally ended up cowering on the floor.  We laughed, we screamed and we jumped.  The adrenaline was definitely pumping and afterwards the movie received the loudest applause of the features screened so far.  One thing I will warn prospective viewers is that Revenant will do to bed sheets what Jaws did to swimming in the ocean.

You can catch Revenant‘s next screening at the Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival on October 17, 2012.  My hope is that Revenant will be in theaters or DVD soon.  I cannot wait to watch this again and add it to my movie collection.

Michele Pearson is a contributor for DarkMedia. She covers Vampire Diaries and any other films, books, etc that come her way. She reads everything from Lonesome Dove to Game of Thrones and loves epic tv series like Doctor Who and Star Trek: TNG. Michele also loves a good horror film and was able to channel that love as a judge for Shriekfest 2012. Follow her on Twitter at @GirlInRowB and check out her blog at http://www.girlinrowb.com.