Cassadaga (2011)

Highly Overrated But Still Good

Better Late Then Never

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

Judging by some of the online comments about Cassadaga, I was expecting something a bit special out of this indie horror. Sadly, there just didn't seem to be much new here to really stand out.It's okay - that's about it. It's one of those films where a young woman gets mixed up with something spooky. Obviously, no one believes her and she does that thing they do in all horror films where they research it on the internet and then seek out 'professional' help.It's definitely not bad. There are a few pretty sick scenes (nicely executed - no pun intended) for the gore hounds and everyone plays their part pretty well. However, it descends into territory where, if you're an avid horror watcher, you'll have seen it all before - how many times does the heroine knock over the killer and then just run away instead of continuing to batter him to death? Well, you get that sort of thing here.If you can be bothered with another horror film, you could do worse. Sadly there's nothing here that is that memorable or that will lift it out of that vast middle ground of straight-to-DVD horror flicks.

This is a pretty hard film to review. I'm not a great fan of gore or murder mysteries (even though I appreciate a gem once in a while), more of a fan of supernatural horror. And that's just it. Even though there are disturbing and bloody scenes, "Cassadaga" is not a gore film. There is a mystery, but it isn't carried out in a very interesting or suspenseful way. There are supernatural elements, but they're not really inventive and don't carry the film. It's a mixture of all these things, and while it's a little underwhelming, it does manage to stay intact.Coleman isn't bad in this, but I guess I'm just not a fan. She is the main character, and for some reason she was the most uninteresting to me. When that happens, I can not enjoy a horror movie. I guess the dialogue can be partly blamed: there's some too dumb and obvious exposition. When a character recaps his/her life and motivations to another in a single conversation, that usually always fails and feels forced. You instantly get out of the mood when characters are treated as cheap toys. Yes, I want to know the character, but forcing me in the worst way possible is not going to do it. Coleman's character isn't the only one to do this, by the way. Anyway, despite me not liking Coleman's (and a certain child actor's) performance that much, acting is not a problem for this movie, most actors do a fine job. I would've wanted something more. A more thrilling mystery, perhaps. More focus on the effective side of paranormal, not just the obvious. Less common camera angles for used-up scare tactics, less bad conversations.I may sound like I hate this movie. I really don't. It's not terrible in any way and it's certainly better than your average horror fest with idiot teenagers getting slaughtered. There's enough disturbing material for a horror fan to at least see this once. I probably won't watch this again, but hey, I've seen worse. If you can find it real cheap, might be worth a shot. My 10+ euros were a little too much.

There appears to be an attempt to make a coherent film by the filmmakers, but they misses it by a long shot. The production values for this independent film are the best part of it. Some of the acting is good. It's the story and then the subsequent direction that leads this film astray.The attempt is to concoct some kind of horror/mystery/ghost story. The attempt would have been best to focus on one and not go scatter shot at them all. For in the end, it all just doesn't make sense. The writer could've plucked the horror part out and still had a good , if not standard, story. Or maybe just focus on the horror. I think the producers were looking to be clever in some way by combining it all. It just doesn't work. There are way too many "Why is this happening?" throughout.There is also the now gratuitous drug smoking scene. No one else smokes cigarettes throughout the film. But drugs are OK. Sheesh! I get it, film makers - You want legalization. Maybe if you weren't so concerned about the politics and more about the story, the whole thing would have worked better.The worse part of the film is the main actress who is supposed to be deaf. Then what's with the Valley Girl lingo? There are several goofs throughout the film where suddenly she hears. I get the feeling, the film makers didn't take the time to learn about how people who are actually deaf make their way in the world. Frankly, that could've been left out of the film and also helped with the story telling.This is more observation: I also wish they had made more use of Cassadaga as a backdrop. There is limited use of the area throughout the film while it has so much charm and historically interesting structures. Spelling more out about the history would've also helped in storytelling. Then fleshing out more of the area's people and what they do. Otherwise, this could have just as well been shot in Micanopy or Arcadia which have their own ghost stories and spiritualists.

"Dread", Anthony DiBlasi's first movie is among my favorites, so I was quite thrilled seeing his second movie being ready. I was a little bummed when seeing it basically is a restless ghost story but hats of to the writing. They really made this word by incorporating several Slasher and Giallo influences (pretty obvious from the Italian influenced poster artwork) and writing a stone solid script."Cassadaga" deals with a deaf girl who loses her beloved little sister in a car crash and heads of for an off-time in a psychic community (the title-giving Cassadaga) to clear her head. After a séance gone wrong she is haunted by visions of a ghost-zombie-girl who won't leave her alone before she clears the story of her death. So up to here this is some really worn out story material but the girls deafness is incorporated in a pretty creative way and the lead character works perfect. Also the story of the nice guy falling for he after she gives his daughter painting lessons is kind of different with him being torn between a girl seeing ghosts and having regular breakdowns and fighting to keep custody for his daughter. Now when the killer is introduced it gets pretty messy since "Gepetto" is obsessed with puppets and tries to build human marionettes by severing limbs and reattaching them to the living dolls in a pretty bizarre way.The movie manages to serve you some disturbing imagery, staying close to the basic ghost story and yet throwing you curve balls from the beginning on and mixing things up in a puzzling thriller-type of way that keeps you guessing all the time. With all that "Cassadaga" manages to be a creative and kind of different ghost movie that will also satisfy the gore hounds. The whole movie has a pretty romantic feel with the girls relationships to her sister and the nice guy and I think they went a little heavy on the music which along with some wooden acting was the weakest point in the movie and often came across rather cheesy. But besides these flaws its still a really solid movie and among the few better horror movies of last year.Like in "Dread" DiBlasi manages to tell interesting and different stories with a strong focus on the story telling and right amount of sledgehammer to the head. I'll definitely be looking out for his future movies.