A group of six former childhood friends whose lives have taken wildly varying paths – including a teacher and a priest – reunite for the first time in 20 years at a mutual friend’s funeral, from which they are inspired to retrieve a long buried time capsule at the dead pal’s request. This in turn leads them all to an abandoned medical facility that was once a clinic dedicated to dubious experimentation into child behavior. Although the research involved was allegedly harmless, many of the children involved subsequently disappeared. The six friends gradually realize, as long-repressed memories surface, that they were all childhood patients on Ward C-8 and have reawakened something in the derelict building that wants them dead.
Originally released as part of the Lions gate / After Dark Horror-fest in 2007, this low budget feature is a genuinely creepy psychological horror with an interesting, above average cast. It’s unusual for a contemporary horror film to focus entirely on a cast of thirty(and forty)somethings, a decision that gives the movie the feel of a dark side spin on THE BIG CHILL. It also allows for the presence of reliable, underrated actors like Frank Whaley, George Newbern and Dina Meyer – all of whom have had solid past genre experience. It’s especially interesting to see Traci Lords and Gabrielle Anwar, both consolidating newly held MILF status even though neither are shot in a very flattering light and both their characters lose it early on.
CRAZY EIGHTS, pared down to a refreshingly trim running time of just over an hour and a quarter, establishes a sense of unease from the very start and mostly sustains it to the grim end. Director James K Jones deftly employs foreboding tracking shots to stalk characters even when there appears to be nothing stalking them, and he also holds on lengthy torch-lit scenes that build an ominous mood but reveal nothing. Avoiding obvious music stings, overt gore, clichéd apparitions and J-Horror shocks almost completely, Jones’ camera cannily skitters away – as if recoiling in fear – at the most gruesome moments while also occasionally finding its view of gory death obstructed. This enhances the pic’s very few moments of actual onscreen bloodshed and adds to the oppressively sinister mood.
Sadly this impressively downbeat and scary flick is weakened at various intervals by some hokey dialogue, largely unsympathetic characters and, most of all, an overwhelming sense of plagiarism from Brad Anderson’s SESSION 9. From the claustrophobic interior setting (once there, the pic never leaves the confines of the facility) to the minimalist sound design to the torment of characters in a barely lit former medical building by an unseen presence, CRAZY EIGHTS wears its obvious influences on its sleeve to a damaging degree
– Steven West
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
