Tag Archives: Kelley Mack

‘DELICATE ARCH’ (DWF: LA 2024) This supernatural WTF showcases a new voice

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DWF-LA logoDELICATE ARCH

https://danceswithfilms.com/delicate-arch/

Delicate Arch Poster
Filmmaker Matthew Warren brings DWF: LA 2024 audiences DELICATE ARCH, where four college students embark on a camping trip to prepare for the inevitable societal shift due to climate change. When they arrive, visions creep into their waking mind, blurring reality for everyone.

Katie Self is the soothing voice of the narrator. While we hear her only briefly throughout the film, her presence is memorable. Rene Leech plays Ferg with exuberant energy. Their stoner persona is fun and carefree until shit hits the fan.

DELICATE-ARCH-2Kevin Bohleber gives Cody a know-it-all environmentalist vibe. He hides a much more nuanced undertone. Kelley Mack is Wilda. She mixes a breezy girl-next-door quality with authentic emotional baggage.

William Leon gives Grant an upright aura, quickly crumbling as his sense of reality changes at every turn. Leon is beyond compelling.

Delicate Arch 06The titular location is a real place in Utah. It is striking and entirely isolated, making for an immediately tense premise. The score is haunting and ethereal, comprised of disembodied voices. Scenes in which Grant trips on mushrooms utilize a combination of ever-evolving animation and VHS-style imagery to illustrate his POV. It is trippy.

Tongue-in-cheek dialogue overtly pegs each character by their archetype. Their love for horror and subsequent homages blend into the whirlwind finale.

The film plunges into chaos, further down the rabbit hole as the minutes tick by. Warren makes it impossible to predict. DWF: LA audiences are in for one hell of a ride in DELICATE ARCH. To weirdly quote Mean Girls, “The limit does not exist.” You will question everything.

WRITER/DIR: Matt Warren
PRODS: Larissa Beck, Josh Long, Aaron Nelson, Matt Warren
CAST: William Leon, Kelley Mack, Kevin Bohleber, Rene Leech

Four young friends with fracturing relationships take a camping trip to Southern Utah in order to escape an ecological disaster in the northern part of the state. Alone in the desert, they begin to suspect that their reality might not be as it seems, and soon realize they’re being observed by a mysterious cosmic force.

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Grimmfest (2021) review: ‘Shot In The Dark’ has a brilliant and bloody storytelling structure.

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SHOT IN THE DARK

Two years ago, William Langston made a mistake that would affect the course of his life. Now, with a killer loose in his home town and his circle of friends falling away one at a time, William faces his greatest fears as well as his own mortality.

Shot In The Dark is emotional and physical torture porn driven by incel behavior and extreme toxic masculinity. But, it’s also a relationship film. Keene McRae and Lane Thomas’ screenplay slowly gives you insight into William’s circle of friends and how their social dynamics have decayed over time. The small-town mayhem takes a personal turn very early on. While some minute details still left me with questions, I was captivated by the script’s structure.

Austen Hubert plays the role of Josh Ferrel. He gives a nuanced performance. Christine Donlon, as Lili, hits you right in the heart. She’s charming and earnest. You are invested in the relationship between William and Lili. Kristoffer McMillan, as William, is a fully fleshed-out, honorable man. This character is the life-breath of this film. Depression has consumed him, and that darkness becomes his fatal flaw. His tragic backstory is the catalyst for a psychopath. McMillan, who is also a co-writer, owns every frame.

GRIMMFEST 2021 audiences will be taken aback by this film, no doubt about it. The ending will shock and infuriate you. Shot In The Dark is a hell of a feature debut for Keene McRae. With a script like this, we’ll all be clambering for whatever comes next.

[Available October 15, 2021, 1:30 – 11:30 PM] Watch now online…