House of Black Wings (2009)
Review by Elaine Lamkin
Hoo boy. Where to start on this film. Well, first, it’s not set in a house but one of those 3 or 4-story 1930s apartment buildings with a central courtyard (this particular one is in Chicago) and I never saw wings, black or otherwise. The premise is that former “rock star” Kate Stone (Leah Myette) has come to stay at the Blackwood apartment complex her best friend, Robyn Huck (Katherine Herrera), inherited from a family member. Apparently, Kate endured a tragedy involving her bandmate/boyfriend (and when the film finally gets around to letting the viewer in on what happened, it is SO ludicrous…) and has returned to the one person she feels she can trust to recover. But, as is always the case, things are not all as they seem.
Shot on video and badly lit at that, the movie looks cheap from the very beginning (and I KNOW it’s a low-budget indie but I’ve seen MUCH better looking films that probably had as minuscule a budget as this one obviously had). And the acting, particularly from Myette, is hilariously bad. She apparently attended the drama school where she was taught that biting your lower lip (over and over and over…) can convey a myriad of emotions but just made this viewer think that someone should play a drinking game based on how OFTEN she does this. And the wound on her leg she briefly exposes and which causes her to limp early on in the film – must have healed pretty quickly as the limp comes and goes. Noticeably.
“Mysterious” noises, nightmares (a Goth violinist who is obviously clueless as to how to play a violin, a bag-headed man papier-mache-ing a woman), creepy neighbors (only two that I counted and this is a BIG building), garbage continuously appearing in the courtyard (and why was the garbage always pages from an Asian-language newspaper?) and strange discoveries in the cellar have both women trying to figure out what is going on. I found it immensely amusing that the cellar scenes were brightly lit by natural light coming in the windows and yet both actors carried flashlights with them – just one of many illogical decisions by the director.
The Robyn character is an artist who creates shadowbox art and is in the process of building a strange dollhouse which eventually starts to mirror the weirdness going on in the apartment building. There are a couple of creepy images she “creates” which, when they really occur in the building, are a bit unnerving – the bathroom floor drain (and WHO in their right mind is going to stick their hand down something so disgusting – I don’t care WHAT fell down it??) and some “things” hanging behind the walls. There are also writings on the walls behind the wallpaper – this may be where some reviewers got the idea that this film had “Lovecraftian” elements as one of the words written over and over in several languages is “door”. And there is “something” that appears to Kate that may or may not have tentacles (I thought it was something disemboweling itself but that’s just me).
Bottom line – House of Black Wings is a huge waste of time. I’m sure everyone involved in it, from writer/director David Schmidt on down, was extremely passionate about doing the film but I can’t recommend it to anyone except for film students learning what NOT to do when making a low-budget film. If you saw it and loved it, good for you. For me, 101 minutes down the drain, so to speak.
Watch the trailer:
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[ ‹‹ Gary Kent’s Shadows & Light Autobiography Released Friday the 13th (2009) ›› ]
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