“THE GRAND HORROR” (2007)

Starring: The Grand Theatre, T.J. Roe, Jeremy Cech, Steve Eaton, Rhyann Crooks, Robert Kister, Pam Ring, Carlin Mackie, Shannon Taylor & John Evans
Written & Directed by MaT Kister
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Polly Staffle: **

Most films with a budget of $300 aren’t going to have a star that impresses you quite like the one in the Dead Lantern Pictures debut “The Grand Horror.” It’s not the cast that blew me away in this ghost/zombie/cannibal/haunted house/serial killer/urban legend tale. In fact, the acting is pretty bad, making Brian O’Halloran and Jeff Anderson in “Clerks” seem like Oscar winners. It’s the movie’s location and inspiration – a 100-year-old theater in Grand Island, Nebraska – that shines brightly in the no-budget production.

The Grand Theatre closed its doors to the public a few years back when it was unable to compete with the chains in town. It was then slated to be turned into a church, but a group of business owners saved it in hopes of restoring it. One of the theater’s board of directors happened to be the uncle of Braden Johnson, a friend of University Of Nebraska At Lincoln film student MaT (He likes his T that way) Kister. Johnson, who served as the film’s assistant director, and Kister, the writer and director, got the chance to tour the theater in the summer of 2005.

As soon as they laid eyes on the Grand’s eerie basement and secret corridors, the duo decided they had to make a movie there. Kister came up with a script in three weeks. He gathered his friends and family to act as his cast and crew. Not one of them had any prior filmmaking experience. They committed to camping out in the theater three weekends. Nine weekends later, filming wrapped.

The end result is a fairly impressive first feature, but one that is so unpolished it does not transcend its amateur status. “The Grand Horror” is extremely spine-chilling at times. I wasn’t huge on the plot or how the film was crafted, but loved the creepiness of it all. The story begins with a group of people escaping flesh-eating zombies by boarding themselves up in an abandoned movie house. Well, they don’t exactly do anything to keep the zombies out. The creatures just seem to be anti-movie goers as they refuse to even try to get through the theater’s fully glass front entrance. While viewers will be expecting the film to play out as a “Night of the Living Dead” or “Dawn of the Dead” wannabe, “The Grand Horror” actually becomes more like a Japanese-horror influenced take off on “The Blair Witch Project.”

The film plays best during the suspenseful moments, which are sandwiched between death scenes and adlibbed dialogue exchanges. Deejay Scharton’s score and sound effects are extremely effective. Kister makes the simplest things such as two people with flashlights waking down a dark hallway and opening doors pretty damn frightening. As I was watching, “Session 9” came to mind, as well as the ending of “Blair Witch.” All I wish is these scenes in “The Grand Horror” would have been a tad bit darker. Sometimes the less we see, the more frightened we are.

Which brings me to who is haunting this movie. There are numerous killers on the loose from seemingly different horror subgenres. I don’t know if they were all ghosts or what exactly, but I felt there were too damn many. One of the “ghosts” really took me out of the story. He’s like this hillbilly janitor in overalls that appears to have feces smeared on his face and kills with a mop. I kid you not. I’ll admit that the mop handle through the eyeball is one of the best special effects/kills in the movie, but I really hated this guy. More so than the overuse of a fog machine a bit later in the film or one of the four main characters that looked just like Dr. Wolfenstein without any makeup, who was just plain annoying. Though I liked the cannibal scene with a movie screen and seats used as a backdrop, I needed either less killers or a better tie in than is given. Just give me the bloody herky jerky guy with long hair brushed over his face that felt like a take off on Leatherface in “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” mixed with the cat boy and his mom in “The Grudge” over and over again. Mix up the way he takes lives and I’m a happy camper.

The other thing that bothered me about this movie was the use of plastic on the floor in all of the death scenes. Basically, when the characters find themselves with plastic under their feet, some freak is on their way to snuff them out. Sure this aspect is explained in the movie, but I’m just not buying it. To me it felt like a precaution. It felt like Kister put the plastic down so his buddy’s uncle didn’t kick his ass when he spilt fake blood all over the place. Sure, I agree it would have been a bitch if they got a stain on the theater’s newly restored floor, but this just bothered me. If this isn’t the case and Kister wrote the script that way from the get go, I’m still not feeling it.

Even more herky jerky than the “hair guy” is the film’s editing, which I won’t be too harsh on, but a few times a noticeable lack of coverage also took me out of the story. All of this being said, there’s still enough enjoyable elements to the film that those involved should be proud of “The Grand Horror.” I’d really be interested in what Kister could come up with given more time, money, knowledge and an experienced cast and crew. The Grand Theatre was a brilliant place to film a horror movie. The dark and decrepit underworld of the theater is just something you can’t come up with using digital effects or a movie set. What really aids to that effect is the fact the theater looks great otherwise. You can still tell it’s an old place that has been taken care of as the lobby is reminiscent of the one in Michael Jackson’s “Thriller,” but I had no idea it was at the century mark. The so-called entertainment capital of the world Las Vegas doesn’t have a single theater like this one. In fact, there’s only one theater that is probably older than 10 years old and it’s also the only one not attached to a casino.

Maybe in a few years, twenty-six-year-old Kister could use the same location for another project or perhaps remake this film. If Kister gets rid of the doodoo-faced zombie, improves on his editing continuity and hammers out a more rounded script before hand, the star of “The Grand Horror” could really shine.

- CCF, May 2007