‘IT’S COMING’ (2024) A Multi-generational American Haunting

freestyle-digital-media-logoIT’S COMING

It's_Coming_2023_film_poster

Filmmaker Shannon Alexander delivers a chilling documentary about one family’s tumultuous home life in IT’S COMING. Ashley Roland has a gift, although she may feel it’s more of a curse. Her ability to see beyond the veil began at age eleven. Now a mother of five children and having moved back to her family’s Brooklyn apartment, entities are haunting everyone, particularly her young son, Javier. A black figure is making life incredibly frightening.

It's Coming_28Ashley can see and hear spirits. The physical and mental toll is obvious, despite her shockingly calm demeanor. She has become so accustomed to her circumstances, and not much ruffles her feathers, until she realizes how deep the negative energy goes.

The film’s structure features sit-down interviews with Ashley and some of her children. She describes her family history and evolving abilities. Alexander accidentally captures small paranormal incidents on camera, predominantly while Javier and Ashley speak. Blink and you’ll miss it, Alexander seamlessly replays those seconds in slow motion, making audiences aware of what they’ve just witnessed. We also get a glimpse of Ashley’s home security footage. Unsurprisingly, the activity increases when the family addresses them in interviews.

It's_Coming_25Ashley brings in medium Soledad Haren to cleanse the apartment. She provides viewers with paranormal canon, reasons, and triggers for an uptick in activity. It is a solid checklist if you aren’t a connoisseur of this genre. Like clockwork, incidents get worse. An acrid odor pervades their apartment, so intense it triggers CO2 alarms and multiple fire department visits. Soledad returns with her spirit box and performs an automatic writing session, providing few answers and more questions.

It's_Coming_28A husband and wife team of demonologists, Chris and Harmony DeFlorio, arrive with all the electronic bells and whistles. We see their footage intercut with Shannon’s. The results are undeniably unsettling. This is the point where Ashley finally breaks. It is the first time we see her cry and become physically unwell. When you witness the effect on Chris and Harmony, your heart rate increases tenfold. The comparisons to England’s most infamous haunting, The Enfield Poltergeist, are inevitable.

It's ComingJavier’s personality slowly changes throughout the long months of filming. He describes a growing friendship with the black entity he calls Kitty. If you know anything about the paranormal, you understand how dangerous this is. You can track what looks like disassociation creeping onto his face. Something is affecting this child, whether it’s his mother’s energy or something genuinely sinister is up to the viewer, but I’ve not been this disturbed by a paranormal documentary in a long time. The final scene will send a shiver down your spine. IT’S COMING will haunt your mind long after the credits roll. You’ll question everything.


IT’S COMING Trailer:

“It’s Coming” which debuted at Hot Docs, is being released by Freestyle Digital Media in North America on November 12th.

Synopsis:
Ashley Roland, a wife and mother of 5, has been beset by supernatural entities since the age of 11. After returning to her family’s ancestral Brooklyn apartment, she begins to witness strange events in her home and learns that her children are now experiencing the same. As the paranormal encounters begin to escalate, Ashley attempts to rid her house of malevolent spirits along with specialists in the field.

Website
https://itscomingfilm.com/

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Review: Shannon Alexander’s candid covid dating doc ‘Sex, Love, Misery: New New York’ has a title that says it all.

Synopsis:
Swiping. Dating. Ghosting. Have you wondered what was really going on in your date’s head? “Sex, Love, Misery” reveals candid thoughts and encounters between singles looking to mingle or marry, from initial texts to hook ups and beyond.


Dating in the city was a complicated nightmare when I was in college. That was 20 years ago now. I do not envy Millenial/Gen Y’s attempts to find love nowadays. Certainly not with the complexities of COVID added into the mix. Filmmaker Shannon Alexander gives audiences a new documentary, SEX, LOVE, MISERY: NEW NEW YORK, in which he follows six people navigating relationships with one another during the pandemic. An up-close and personal confession booth through the lens of modern dating, which may incorporate products like a strong g-spot vibrator, manages to be fresh and timeless all at once. 

The film follows Troy, Camilla, Jack, Izzie, Aisha, and our French transplant Emile. The openness these young people have with Shannon speaks to the power of his humanity. They feel comfortable sharing their most intimate thoughts and insecurities. They are totally unfiltered. It is their willingness to take chances that creates an engaging viewing experience. Go to the fling review website whether it is a fling you’re looking for or a serious relationship.

There are glaring differences in communication. Hearing each reaction to the exact same date is eye-opening. The assumptions made about one another by the forms of communication and interaction are like watching a modern-day version of the HBO docu-series Taxicab Confessions. If you don’t know what that is, let me explain. From 1995 to 2006, the cable network aired a show that featured hidden camera conversations from the back of a cab. Often sexual, it was a series that aired late at night and was one of a kind. SEX, LOVE, MISERY feels similar, except that our six subjects speak directly to Shannon in true cinéma vérité style.

What makes SEX, LOVE, MISERY so intriguing is even though these people are ten to fifteen years my junior, I know them. I was them. We all were. SEX, LOVE, MISERY: NEW NEW YORK is a fantastic proof of concept. I would watch this expanded into series form in a New York minute.


Sex, Love Misery: New New York is a light-hearted/comedic piece covering dating and relationships in NYC during the pandemic,
now streaming on TubiTV.

Review: ‘The Misguided’

The Misguided

Theatrical Release: January 26, 2018

Guest review from Reel Reviews Over Brews

University dropout Levi (Caleb Galati) is a young man incapable of holding down a steady job and has a reputation of taking advantage of his romantic partners for his own selfish reasons, especially in gaining financial support. Having suddenly become single and homeless, he begrudgingly has to approach his overbearing big brother Wendel (Steven J. Mihaljevich) for temporary help with a place of residence until he can sort out his troubled relationship. Wendel truly loves Levi, and is a captivating and manipulating personality with a special talent of drawing others toward him. He has big dreams for himself but is ill equipped to fulfil any of them, being a drug addict and part time dealer with a deficient memory. He also struggles with personal sexual and mental issues and a fear of loneliness. Shortly after lodging with his brother, Levi begins a romance with his Wendel’s ex-girlfriend Sanja (Jasmine Nibali), and plans to start a new independent life for himself with his partner in a new city to finally become self-sufficient. But when he learns of a deadly predicament Wendel faces, his loyalties between those closest to him and his sense of familial duty become divided, and a reciprocal sense of duty to assist his bro results in a tricky scheme of subterfuge.

When we first heard about The Misguided, we kept reading how this would be Katherine Langford‘s (13 Reasons Why) first film role. This got us extremely excited as we loved her in the Netflix hit. Well, we found ourselves disappointed on this end because although, yes, it was her first film role, it was a very minute role with very few scenes.  Jasmine Nibali did however do a spectacular job as the lead woman. Between Nibali and Mihaljevich the acting was far better than expected. We found ourselves really enjoying Nibali and couldn’t get enough of Mihaljevich‘s dark story. The premise of The Misguided is great! Feels as though you are watching an in-depth documentary. A classic story between love and family. We didn’t see the ending coming either. Those however, are the only few things we liked about The Misguided. We found it extremely hard to follow. It was very jumpy and things weren’t cleared up before they threw us into the next scene… and we get that’s what Shannon Alexander was going for, but it just didn’t work for us. With a few tweaks and (in our opinion) a little more Katherine Langford, The Misguided had potential to be a top movie this year. If we were to give it a second watch, we do think we’d understand A LOT more. Thus making it more enjoyable (even earning a higher rating from us), but it doesn’t seem likely we’ll be getting around to that anytime soon…

Reel ROB Rating: 2 out of 5 stars

Post Credits Scene: No

We want to thank our friends at Reel News Daily for allowing us to do this guest review!