Review by
Eric Hillis
Directed by: Raymond Wood
Starring: Jenna Kanell, Danny Kang, Danielle Lyn, Max Calder
As an actress, Jenna Kanell knows a thing or two about being
menaced by killer clowns, having starred in both
Terrifier films. In director Raymond Wood's Faceless After Dark, which she co-wrote with Todd Jacobs, Kanell plays Bowie, an
actress best known for playing the final girl in a slasher movie
featuring a killer clown. Kanell was also one of the stars of the late
Stacy Title's under-rated supernatural thriller
The Bye Bye Man, and it seems Title may have had a profound influence on the young
star/writer as Faceless After Dark borrows its plot from
Title's 1995 thriller The Last Supper.
In that movie, a group of young liberal friends invite various people
of a conservative bent to dinner, only to bump them off.
Faceless After Dark sees Bowie do likewise, though the
menu is considerably more limited.
After starring in a killer clown movie, work has dried up for Bowie,
who ekes out a living selling signed autographs at horror conventions
and knocking out three second greetings to fans on a Cameo-like app. She
resents her friend Jessica (Danielle Lyn) for getting a role in a
superhero movie which sees her jet off to London, and she's likewise
jealous of her other friend Ryan (Danny Kang) for having rich
parents whose wealth allows him to pursue his creative ambitions. Bowie
seems ungrateful for Jessica allowing her to live in her unfeasably
large home and for Ryan helping her out with audition tapes. Jessica and
Ryan are both Asian, and I'm not sure if this is simply colourblind
casting or some point the movie is trying to make about white women
failing to recognise their privilege; regardless, it certainly doesn't make Bowie look good.
Alone in Jessica's sprawling home and feeling sorry for herself, Bowie
gets drunk and dances around to some ear-splittingly awful punk pop.
When an intruder wearing the killer clown mask from her film makes his
way into the house, Bowie defends herself capably, ultimately killing
the stranger despite his feeble pleas that he was just goofing around.
After dumping the body and hiding his pick-up truck, Bowie comes to the
realisation that murdering one of her deranged fans was just the
cathartic release she needed. As with the anti-heroes of
The Last Supper, Bowie decides to make a habit of inviting "guests" to her home and
bumping them off.
Faceless After Dark has none of the nuance of Title's
ahead-of-its-time thriller however. The people Bowie invites over –
selected from the abusive comments she receives online - are little more
than cartoonish caricatures of conservatives and never come across as
remotely realistic. One horny middle-aged misogynist complains that the
vegan Bowie hasn't cooked him a steak, while a woman styled after a Fox
News presenter uses the online handle "SoccerMom." Yeah, we're not
exactly dealing with nuance here.
The movie has no interest in getting into the meat and potatoes of
America's cultural divide; it's simply a violent masturbatory fantasy
for any liberals who might possess a reductive us-against-them
mentality. This student film level of immaturity is compounded by the
gimmicky visuals, all quick edits and strobing effects, and the use of a
clichéd selection of classical music tunes on the soundtrack.
Kanell is certainly a striking presence, but her entitled character is
so unlikable that it's difficult to get behind her, no matter how awful
her victims might be. It's certainly possible to sympathise with such
characters (check out Jill Gevargizian's
The Stylist
for how to pull off this premise), but it requires a level of filmmaking
absent here. Bowie is never placed in any real danger of being caught,
so there's little scope for tension or suspense. Instead we're simply
left to watch as she enacts violence. If that's enough for you, knock
yourself out, but most of us demand such things as story, plot,
character, suspense etc from our horror movies.
