INDIE MOVIE REVIEW: WILD EYED AND WICKED

WILD EYED AND WICKED 

Lily Pierce, haunted, seeks her estranged father, a disgraced history professor, to learn how to battle supernatural threats like knights fighting monsters, drawing from a bygone era of swords and armor.

• Director
  • Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood
• Writer
  • Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood
• Stars 
• Colleen Camp, 
• Molly Kunz, 
• Stefanie Estes, and Michael X Sommers
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            • • I have never been one to lean into the conventions and "rules" of a genre but I will also be the first to admit that the reason that idea and way exists, is because it works. Well as much as you have to appreciate when a movie does that, then you have to appreciate when a movie subverts or contrasts the conventions to work still solely in the framework of storytelling while touching the genre in a way that defies the previous logic. 
                
                So if you see the poster and think "Ooh Fantasy" or see the trailer and think "Ooh Horror" you'd be right and wrong at the same time. As you get into it and it sucks you in you realize quickly too that genre is one of the movie's strengths and one of its glaring weaknesses too. 
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                • • What Gordon Shoemaker Foxwood brings to the table is a script and vision with all these nice nuances and subtle reminders of its genre or multiple-genre setting. When it works, it works impeccably. There are some incredible dialog exchanges and character backstory reveals that get sprinkled in with a couple incredible long brooding,  slow-pacing shots that start as if we are standing across the room and bring us into the actor's eyes. There is one of the skyline that I think may be one of my favorite shots of the year. When we get outside this living and breathing house of tortured memories that serves the horror elements of this story so well and jump into the woods and the landscape that fosters the Fantasy elements we aren't taken out of where we were just getting comfortable. In fact, it is nearly seamless until we are ushered into the tone shift in an interesting 3rd act. 
                    
                    It may seem like there are 2 movies here and I didn't even get into the beginning that sets up even more differently than the horror and fantasy elements, but Foxwood has a nice orchestrated touch that allows the 3 elemental genres to kind of weave in and out of the moments one genre is dominating the other. It is a really nicely written dead-end turn here and there or trap door sometimes even. 
                    
                    
                    
                    
                    Then you add in the performances of the 2 strong leads, Molly Kunz and Michael X Sommers, who utilize these little moments of transitions and transgressions to sit in the moments and really draw using. There are so many awesome on-screen moments that we are allowed to sit in and that all is thanks to the editing decisions that were no doubt made easier because of what these two actors did when given the source material. Kunz especially really draws inner child moments that matter to who she is in the now that also drive the doubts and fears that accompany us the audience on this journey. She has a real knack for finding that little subtlety that harnesses such power for an audience member. 
                    
                    Then you bring in Sommers whose narrative is predefined and watching an actor of his caliber devour that like a bowl of ice cream that needs to be consumed before it melts is precious viewing. His arch is a rich one. A lot of actors would overplay his hand but he has this beautiful design that really starts to play with the audience as much as it does the story. 
                    
                    That's really the truest beauty of this movie. It never goes on tilt, even into the climax, it stays at the same level, and by doing that everything is drawn to you as an audience member. Sure there are pulsating gotcha and crescendoed moments that get the heart racing or mind jumping but it maintains its balance through that and in doing so it creates what may be one of the most unique blending of genres I have seen on a screen before. 
                    
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                    I love a lot of what the camera does here but I have to admit as a fan of genre movies that this emulates sometimes the stiffness of its too perfect set up shot does take me out of it from time to time. That's when the gotchas and crescendos become most effective though. 
                    
                    I really admire the editing of this movie, it could have been sloppy and messy and had cause to be that but there is a meticulous nature to this design that really enhances the plausibility of seams of genres and storytelling and that's a lot in the editing here. 
                    
                    I think overall there are many layers to enjoy, this movie does a weird lull transitioning from 1st act to 2nd act and because it goes into a unique space it may not hit an audience member right away about what it is trying to do here but it does pay you off in the end. 
                    
                    I think for anybody who likes layers, maybe someone a little shell-shocked by horror films, or another person who is a little bored by fantasy scopes, this might just be in your wheelhouse because it takes you to edges of both genres here and yet doesn't venture too far into those conventions. 
                    
                    This is a solid piece of art. I can also see where one person might enjoy the 1st act, one person might enjoy the 2nd, and another the 3rd a little more but for me, I liked the blending and how it all came together in the end. 
                    
                    You can check out WILD EYED AND WICKED HERE
                    
                    STAY TUNED TO GO INDIE NOW BECAUSE COMING SOON IS A SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW WITH THE DIRECTOR OF THIS MOVIE GORDON SHOEMAKER FOXWOOD.