SXSW Film Fest, Day 5: Paul Walker's Hurricane Katrina Thriller "Hours," "Holy Ghost People," & More

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Director: Mitchell Altieri
Stars: Emma Greenwell, Brendan McCarthy, Joe Egender, Cameron Richardson, Roger Aaron Brown, Don Harvey, Buffy Charlet
Running time: 95 minutes
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Score: 4/10

There's a compelling thriller hiding somewhere inside director/co-writer Mitchell Altieri's Holy Ghost People, just waiting for one final post-production stage to accentuate its strongest attributes while eliminating the glaring inefficiencies. In its current form, Holy Ghost People, to be fair, is an undeniable leap forward for Altieri, whose earlier movies April Fools Day (a straight-to-DVD remake of the 2008 cult favorite) and The Violent Kind—both made as one half of "The Butcher Brothers"—rank as some of the worst indie horror of the new millennium. Major problems are still at work, though, and Holy Ghost People misses its mark considerably.

It's a shame, too, because Altieri and co-writers Kevin Artigue, Joe Egender, and Phil Flores do some intriguing things with the snake-toting, god-fearing backwoods congregations recently depicted in Kevin Smith's Red State and the FX series Justified. Charlotte (Emma Greenwald) goes undercover inside the "Church of One Accord" in hopes of locating her missing junkie sister, who sent her a letter saying she's been living with Brother Billy (Egender) and his band of hillbilly religious fanatics. For some muscle, she pays ex-Marine Wayne (Brendan McCarthy) $200 to infiltrate their farmland headquarters alongside her.

Holy Ghost People is Altieri's first film as a solo director, and a lack of self-confidence, whether intentional or not, permeates the whole enterprise through the overbearing use of voice-over from Greenwald's character. It's narration of the infuriatingly explanatory and Captain Obvious variety that also sank George A. Romero's disappointing found-footage zombie flick Diary of the Dead. Rather than let his own direction tell the story, Altieri relies heavily upon Greenwald's unnecessary descriptions of what's happening to the characters, as if we can't see for ourselves, and quasi-philosophical ramblings that sound like a pre-teen horror fan trying to impersonate Ernest Hemingway.

It also doesn't help that the members of One Accord aren't the least bit intimidating—they're as menacing as a Sunday School class for adults. That unfortunate truth gets exasperated during Holy Ghost People's foreseeable conclusion, which ups the bad dialogue ante, features some poorly choreographed action, and inexcusably brings in CGI during a stoning that's on par with Birdemic's special effects. The narration could've been useful for that: "And then God, Our Father, rained down on me with Atari-like graphics."

Director: Kieran Evans
Stars: Antonia Campbell-Hughes, Julian Morris, Stephen Walters, William Ruane, Claire Keelan, Michael Ryan, Sean Mason
Running time: 90 minutes
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Score: 8/10

Less that 24 hours before seeing Kelly + Victor, I was completely won over by the dark yet sweet romance in The Spectacular Now, leaving Austin's Topfer Theatre on a feel-good high. Which, as it turns out, was the worst way to walk into the Stateside Theatre for an early morning screening of Irish filmmaker Kieran Evans' downbeat, emotionally punishing Kelly + Victor.

Yes, the L-word is in the air throughout Evans' adaptation of author Niall Griffiths novel, but so are bondage, abuse, heartaches, and fatality. Kelly + Victor leaves you reeling, stunned by how viscerally it handles tainted love and invigorated by how well put together it is on all fronts. It's the Requiem for a Dream of on-screen romances. 

Anchored by two exceptional lead performances, Kelly + Victor depicts the ways in which suddenly getting smitten by someone can be as harmful as it is empowering. The title characters—played by the fragile, uneasily enchanting Antonia Campbell-Hughes and the charismatic Julian Morris—are lost souls drifting around the streets of Liverpool, searching for connections that'll provide their demoralizing daily routines with some meaning. Victor works a crap construction job and hangs around with a crew of deadbeat, drug-pushing friends; Kelly has an unhealthy relationship with her mother, a persuasive prostitute for a best friend, and an ex-boyfriend who's fresh out of jail and prone to disobeying the restraining order she's put into action. Randomly, inside a nightclub, Victor catches Kelly's eye, they dance, kiss, and then head back to her apartment for rounds of intense sex.

Victor soon learns that Kelly's bedroom habits aren't very innocent: She gets off on choking men as she rides them. And Victor, feeling the excitement from her hands around his neck that's otherwise absent to him, likes it. A few positive, heartwarming dates later, they're back underneath the sheets, but Kelly's kink gets out of control, waking Victor up to the fact that she might not be the ideal partner.

Evans shoots the film's toughest scenes—of which there are plenty, some that rival anything you'd find on our list of the 50 most disturbing movies—with an in-your-face bluntness that's assaults and mesmerizes. Kelly + Victor is a thing of beautiful dread, a symphony of sadness that leaves you wishing you could jump into the screen and save either one, or both, of the protagonists—a testament to Campbell-Hughes and Morris—from themselves.

You can't, of course, and Evans' devastating film makes you suffer for that. The distress, although difficult to stomach, is profound.

Director: Walter Strafford
Stars: Brian Geraghty, Alexia Rasmussen, Abigail Spencer, Chris Marquette, Bruce Altman, Henny Russell, Jim Gaffigan, John Cullum, Diego Klattenhoff
Running time: 80 minutes
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Score: 3/10

On paper, Kilimanjaro's plot description hints at an emotionally cathartic, everyman adventure.

Brian Gergaghty (The Hurt Locker) plays Doug, a mild-mannered guy who lives in Brooklyn, holds down an uneventful job at a publishing house, and generally lacks any visible excitement about where his life is at any given moment. His girlfriend (Alexia Rasmussen), aware of Doug's disenchantment, breaks up with him right as his grandfather winds up in the hospital. Ready to finally do something that he can look back upon with pride, Doug convinces his sarcastic best friend (Chris Marquette) to plan a trip to Africa so they can climb the massive volcanic mountain Kilimanjaro.

Doesn't sound half-bad, right? Well, that's not really what writer-director Walter Strafford is selling here. What the milquetoast Kilimanjaro is, in fact, matches Doug in terms of blandness, lack of direction, and a disregard for seeing its potential through. Building to the ultimate anticlimax, it's the indie film world's answer to the first season of AMC's The Killing.

Gergahty—so good in Kathryn Bigelow's aforementioned 2008 Oscar winner, as well as in last year's Flight—plays the dull, non-emotive Doug almost too well. Throughout Kilimanjaro, he sports the same nearly catatonic facial reaction to every bad turn, draining the film's overall mood as Doug contends with financial woes, family tragedy, and an increasingly complicated relationship status. Where's the tension supposed to come from if the main character never actually seems all that tense?

Perhaps he's really clairvoyant and, without the audience knowing it, he's watching Kilimanjaro's resolution with the same indifference as anyone who's expecting any major changes to Doug's arc. As far as scaling mountains goes, this one's more like an ant hill.