BITS 2019: Z (2019)

Z (2019)

Director (and co-writer): Brandon Christensen

Cast: Keegan Connor Tracy, Jett Klyne, Sean Rogerson, Sara Canning, Stephen McHattie, Chandra West

A family find themselves terrorized by their eight-year-old son’s imaginary friend. – IMDB

Coming in a year where Daniel isn’t Real (review) was an outstanding film with an well-crafted evil imaginary friend, Z takes on their own take on what can be done with the imaginary friends premise as well. Taking home the Best Director and Best Feature at the Blood in the Snow Festival this year, this movie does definitely pack quite a punch. 

Its easy nowadays to quickly assume that creepy children and evil actions and the whole lurking camera can bring a lot of general unsettled feeling. Z is a bit different. While it starts off in that familiar way, there is a hint of many great horror films and how it is execute from toning its scene into darker tones inside the house to create the atmosphere and playing with the off-scene sound effects while having the story scripted to progress in a well-paced delivery. These all add up to effective scares and a lot of them are land very well. There are quite a few startling jump scares that are delivered through its atmosphere, lighting and building the tension.

The cast here also delivers some solid performances. The most notable comes from lead actress as Beth played by Keegan Connor Tracy who plays the mother who realizes that her son’s imaginary friend might actually be real and causing him to do troubling things. Beth has a lot of depth and character development and its a fairly subtle performance most of the time with little reactions and expressions running the show until the bigger moments happen. Taking on the creepy child aka the troubled son role as Joshua is Jett Klyne (who we also saw in another BITS 2019 film in Puppet Killer) who definitely delivers on this without any overacting and making it very unsettling. Finally, two actor and actress, Stephen McHattie and Sara Canning respectively, always appears in the most unexpected places and also puts in some great performances as the respective roles of psychiatrist and sister of Beth. 

Perhaps the one thing to criticize about Z would be that that possibly its budget limited its polish of its effects. In a fire scene, there was some very apparently unreal fire and smoke circling the screen. The appearance of some of the scares while landed really well, also had the after effect of suffering one or two times from having this goofy CGI as well that took about the scare afterwards by a little. This is where we need to talk about creature design of Z, the imaginary friend in question. Z is revealed step by step and there’s a few creepy scenes that works however, there are some moments in close-up or in faster motion that gives it less of the finesse and fear that it should instigate. Luckily, the horror is maintained by how the scene was built up in advance to play up the moment, giving Z’s appearance more of a fleeting jumpscare moment. It is most effective and also frequently, remaining as the unseen presence.

Overall, Z is quite a breath of fresh air. Director Brandon Christensen crafts a movie with very good horror atmosphere. There are some tropes and predictable elements at the beginning but it quickly also increasingly adds in some surprises that startles whether as jump scares or traumatic scenes or simply finding a way to change it to have its own unique elements. Despite some minor CGI effects falling short, this indie horror film takes an innocent imaginary friend concept and breaths a lot of life and builds the tension using its atmosphere and all the surrounding elements as well as great performances by Keegan Connor Tracy and Jett Klyne. A lot of Z’s charm lies in its surprises and unique twists that it takes leading into unexpected territory.

The Right Kind of Wrong (2013)

Finally getting back to my long list of backlogged movie reviews to write.

In my first flight to Vancouver, I ended up watching an always wonderful Mary Poppins (which I don’t think I reviewed yet oddly) and the very mind-boggling Enemy (review HERE). After that whole transfer and running to catch my transfer, I finally had a very empty 12 hour flight to Hong Kong.  It was great stuff because I got to stretch out and enjoy a few movies comfortably.  If Enemy taught me anything, its that I needed to watch something less intense.  As I shifted through the many more selections on the long haul flights, I landed on Canadian productions and The Right Kind of Wrong.  I’m sure a lot of us has wondered how Ryan Kwanten will do nNOT being the idiot in the form of Jason Stackhouse.  Of course, there was Dead Silence before this, which I reviewed HERE! Horror is not my forte so I can’t judge his acting from that but rom-coms are totally in my ballpark so I was excited.

Let’s check it out! 🙂

Director: Jeremiah Chechik

Cast: Ryan Kwanten, Sara Canning, Ryan McPartlin, Kristen Hager, Catherine O’Hara

Leo (Ryan Kwanten), a recently divorced dishwasher who is ridiculed by his ex-wife’s, Julie (Kristen Hager) success by launching a blog called “Why You Suck” about his flaws and shortcomings when they were together. Refusing to look at these “obviously” false accusations, he lives life by himself the best he can until one day, he meets Colette (Sara Canning), a soon to be wed girl at her wedding.  He crashes it and professes his love for her, pointing out that he is in fact the right man for her. The pursuit continues after the marriage is finalize even after the resistance of Colette’s husband (Ryan McPartlin).  The question now is will he succeed in letting Colette see what he does?

Romantic comedies are almost always formulaic but regardless, the successful ones will pull out that feel good element with the right characters and the decent premise and even the good enough humor to keep the audience watching.  The Right Kind of Wrong is definitely not the best romantic comedy I’ve seen (Rotten Tomatoes rating would say that its horrible), but I’ve also seen much worse.  There is nothing wrong with being a dreamer and as outrageous as the premise of this is and probably wrong on many levels for wanting to be the cause of a divorce.  There are certain aspects that I did like quite a bit.

What is fresh about The Right Kind of Wrong is the idea of a man chasing after an woman and doing absolutely stupid things.  Most of the time, its the other way around.  Most rom-coms are about some woman being the love-crazed person that tries to find her love and does some desperate thing.  I appreciate the premise this one was putting out even if it was a little out there.  Leo Palamino was technically nearing the behaviors of a stalker because he would track down how to approach Colette but at the same time, Colette is a married woman so to start by trying to change her mind is already a wrong thing.  I’m guessing thats why you have The Right Kind of Wrong to justify the movie title.

Aside from the unusual premise, it was also filmed in the very beautiful Banff in Alberta, Canada.  The scenery and the setting was simply lovely to look at. With its hills, mountains and nature, it really was a treat to watch.

I’m not going to hate on this one despite its absurdity at times.  The story had a fresh attempt and it did give me a few laughs here and there, the cast was who won me over.  Ryan Kwanten was pretty good at being Leo Palomino.  He was a guy that did a lot of weird stuff to get a girl but between all that, he also went through an awakening of his own. Well, its normal and expected because he’s just doing the exact same thing a girl in a romantic comedy would.  Still, I thought it was entertaining to watch at the very least and I think he brought a lot more life to his character Leo than maybe the script even would’ve had.

Next up are the lovely ladies in this movie.  Our leading lady is Sara Canning.  I could not remember where I had seen her before while I watching this one (and I keep blanking out).  *checks IMDB* Right, she was in Vampire Diaries for a few seasons.  I think the best part of this one was Sara Canning.  She’s a pretty good actress all on her own.  She brings some good charisma to her character as Colette.  Moving right along, who can ignore the brief role of Catherine O’Hara as Colette’s mother.  Honestly, she has some of the most awkward but pretty funny lines in this one.  Her appearance, her encouragement to Leo and her re-bonding with her daughter brought on a bit of humor and I think I grew to like her character a lot.

Overall, I’m not saying this is a full-on winner and more than a month later as I write this up, I’m not even sure I remember everything that went on (which isn’t usually a good thing) but I do remember my feelings towards it.  Maybe it was being trapped in a flight that made me enjoy this more than I probably would but I thought The Right Kind of Wrong was okay.  It gave me a feel laughs, a nice setting and some engaging cast.  It kind of lost its steam nearing the end when things got a little predictable but it still has a charm.

Just remember, romantic comedies are pretty much, comedies so they can’t please everyone easily unless you like its humor.  But I’m sure you all know it already 🙂

Did you see The Right Kind of Wrong? Did you think it was more right or wrong? What do you think of Ryan Kwanten?