Permanent Midnight: Zombeavers, Chupacabras, and German Samurais Invade the Tribeca Film Festival

Permanent Midnight is a weekly Complex Pop Culture column where senior staff writer, and resident genre fiction fanatic, Matt Barone will put the spotlight on the best new indie horror/sci-fi/weirdo cinema, twisted novels, and other below-the-radar oddities.

Launched in 2002, New York City’s Tribeca Film Festival has become a yearly highlight for Manhattan’s most adventurous cinema buffs. You know, the kinds of movie lovers who’ll gladly spend up to eight hours a day watching independent films made by mostly unknown directors and actors. People like myself—this will be my third straight year covering Tribeca here at Complex, and I’m more excited than ever before to do so. The reason: the festival’s 2014 lineup looks like its strongest one yet, with splashy world premieres starring your TV actors (i.e., About Alex, with Aubrey Plaza and New Girl’s Max Greenfield), standouts from the Toronto International Film Festival and Sundance (Starred Up and the Mark Duplass/Elisabeth Moss rom-com The One I Love, respectively), and intriguing debuts from rookie filmmakers hailing from all across the globe.

If there’s one thing that Tribeca’s narrative features have in common, based on past years’ experiences, it’s heavy drama. Devastating, emotionally searing drama. Last year, two of the best movies I saw, the Israeli youth-gone-bad film S#x Acts and the quietly traumatic coming-of-age flick Hide Your Smiling Faces, lingered in my thoughts for months after their initial screenings. With all of those feelings bouncing around during the day, it’s necessary to unwind at night, which is where Tribeca’s Midnight section comes into play. And, mirroring Tribeca’s 2014 status as a whole, the festival’s late-night fare has the potential to shock, awe, and introduce audiences to their new favorite genre films.

Among the most unique offerings in this year’s Tribeca Midnight lineup: Indigenous, a killer-in-the-woods movie in which the killer happens to be a Chupacabra; The Canal, Ireland’s answer to supernatural chillers like Japan’s Ringu and Hollywood’s Sinister; and a little Internet sensation known as Zombeavers, a tongue-in-cheek B-movie that’s been billed as the “next Sharknado.”

As diverse as that all sounds, though, there’s a unifying theme running throughout the Midnight section. We don’t program with any kind of agenda,” says Tribeca programmer Cara Cusumano, “but once we’ve finalized the lineup, we do look back and see if there are any threads running through it. In the Midnight films this year, there’s a trend of people taking on really classical genre stories and frames and really making them their own. It’s these really amazing new voices saying, ‘I’m going to make a ghost story,’ or, ‘I’m going to make an alien invasion story,’ or a ‘sports underdog movie.’ They’re these genres and frames that exists as types, but the filmmakers this year have completely twisted them and turned them into something new and distinctive.”

How so? Cara Cusumano breaks it all down for you in this exclusive preview of the 2014 Tribeca Film Festival’s Midnight section, along with a few midnight-minded films from the fest’s other programs.

As told to Matt Barone (@MBarone)

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Director: Christopher Denham
Stars: Wrenn Schmidt, Aaron Staton, Pablo Schreiber

Plot synopsis: Brothers Sean and Mike Neary, along with Mike's wife Wit, head out on a hunting trip that doubles as a distraction from their troubles at home. But ignoring the "closed" sign and heading deep into an overgrown nature preserve, they soon find their troubles are only beginning. When all of their gear is stolen, they immediately turn on each other. But the hunted can only survive so long standing alone. Just when you think you have heard the story before, Preservation twists into a sharp and startling take on why we fight and, in our tech-obsessed age, what we have been missing out on in the great outdoors.

Cara Cusumano says: Christopher Denham, the writer and director, has acted in movies like Sound of My Voice, Shutter Island, and Argo, and that really contributes to the strengths of this film. He’s working with three talented actors: Pablo Schreiber, from The Wire and Orange is the New Black; Aaron Staton, from Mad Men; and Wrenn Schmidt, from Boardwalk Empire. Being an actor and working with a three-character piece really helped Chris make this film feel real and stand out. It has this authenticity and realness to it that really elevates the film and kind of makes it feel like it exists in more of a marriage between independent film and genre film. It’s a drama, as well.

It definitely has a message behind it and ideas for you to unpack after you’ve seen it, but it’s also a really tense thriller and it fires on all of those genre cylinders. For me personally, too, this movie has one of my favorite final shots in any film we’ve seen this year. I was really excited, beginning to end, about it.

Its very much about these three characters put into this extreme situation together, and once you find out what’s happening to them, there’s this new added layer of… Well, I don’t want to say too much. [Laughs.] Let’s just say that there’s a new added layer. One of the things I really enjoyed about watching this film is the way it reveals itself to you. It does start off as an intense survivalist piece but then it builds from that, and you start to understand the characters and you get the message. I hope the audiences can have that same experience.

Director: Ivan Kavanagh
Stars: Rupert Evans, Antonia Campbell Hughes, Hannah Hoekstra, Steve Oram, Kelly Byrne

Plot synopsis: Sitting in an empty theater, a film archivist watches the grainy footage that will be his undoing. David and his wife are perfectly happy-or so he believes. When he finds out the home he shares with his wife and son was the scene of a ghastly turn-of-the-century murder, David dismisses it as ancient history. That is, until the sinister history ripples into the present and casts a shadow over life as he knows it. And when a looming secret shatters his marriage, David can't help but suspect the dark spirits of the house are somehow involved. In his drive to unveil the shadows hidden in the walls, David begins to descend into insanity, threatening the lives of everyone around him.

Cara Cusumano says: The Canal is really excellent. The first thing it reminded me of was the American version of The Ring. You have this mystery to unravel, but at the same time you have a lead character who’s falling down a rabbit hole and maybe losing his mind. It’s saturated in this imagery, which is some of the most original and intense horror imagery I’ve seen in a long time. There are things that you see in this film that are genuinely nightmarish and shocking, in a way that I don’t think most filmmakers can be original with, in how they deploy all those tools.

The way it engages with the subject matter, which is basically a ghost story, it just feels fresh and like it’s coming from such a different voice than what we had seen. In a movie like this, it’s so easy to fall into the same tropes and the same images. This was one of the most straight-up scary midnight films that we saw all year.

Horror movies like this one, when you’re dealing with supernatural subjects, they really succeed or fail on how well they can evoke something really paranormal, something that you’ve never seen before—something that makes you believe that this character is being haunted. The way that they do it in this film is special. It’s one of the only films I screened and then needed a palette cleanser immediately after. [Laughs.] I couldn’t go right to bed. I had to be like, "OK, I’m going to watch an episode of The Daily Show now. I can’t go right to bed.”

Director: Jordan Rubin
Stars: Cortney Palm, Rachel Melvin, Lexi Atkins, Jake Weary, Peter Gilroy, Hutch Dano

Plot synopsis: You know the story: sexy teens head to a secluded lakeside cabin for a weekend of debauched fun, but as the temperatures rise both on and off the beach, a menacing force is lurking just around the corner, laying in wait to start picking them off one by one. But this isn't just any horror movie cabin, because here the culprit proves to be a horde of bloodthirsty zombie beavers, bringing with them enough splatter and innuendo to make Sharknado blush.

Cara Cusumano says: What can I say about Zombeavers? [Laughs.] It’s sort of unstoppable at this point.

The appetite for this film is really high. People were so excited about the trailer, and the feature version really does take it to another level. It’s coming at exactly the right time, now that the creature B-movie features are having a moment after Sharknado. People are enjoying this old-school, fun, drive-in movie experience, and I think this film, again, takes on a classic genre in a fun, modern way. It delivers all of the gore and innuendo that you’d expect. I also love that this film uses practical effects—it’s nice to see that when you’re mostly looking at a lot of CG effects these days. That also contributes to the fun, classic, genre movie feel. It’s just a fun movie to watch with a crowd.

We actually saw it before the trailer was posted online. Everyone in our office had that same response that the Internet had, based on the title and the concept alone. We all thought it was so fun and no one could stop talking about it. And then when the trailer went viral, we thought, OK, great, the whole world is just as excited as we are.

Director: Colin Minihan
Stars: Brittany Allen, Freddie Stroma, Jesse Moss, Anja Savcic, Melanie Papalia, Gill Bellows

Plot synopsis: A group's getaway into the woods dissolves into a full- throttle fight for their lives when unwelcome aliens invade. Five college friends escape to a cabin for the weekend, unaware that the town has experienced as rash of seemingly random disappearances and animal attacks. Blinded by their revelry, they accidentally trespass on a neighbor's property, only to find themselves face to face with a conspiracy-spouting Vietnam vet and a flickering object that seems to crash-land in the woods nearby. Curious, they set out to investigate. But as they reach the crash, they spot mysterious footprints heading away from the scene and straight towards them.

Cara Cusumano says: These filmmakers, the Vicious Brothers, are filmmakers we’ve supported since day one. For their first film, they made a haunted asylum film called Grave Encounters a couple of years ago that we premiered. This is their new movie, and it’s a big, bold new step for them. It definitely feels like a bigger film.

They’re doing an alien invasion story, and I think it’s really impressive how the story escalates over the course of it. That can be a really difficult thing for filmmakers to achieve. This is only their second film, but they’ve made something that starts out feeling like an intimate kids-at-a-cabin-for-the-weekend horror movie but ends up becoming this really big sci-fi feature.

We’re really excited for them and excited to have some Tribeca talent discoveries back at the festival. We’re very lucky that the filmmakers who’ve been here have had positive experiences here and want to come back with their next film. It demonstrates that this is a good place to premiere and that we’re going to be supportive of your career.

Director: Alastair Orr
Stars: Soetenga, Lindsey McKeon, Sofia Pernas, Pierson Fode, Jamie Anderson, Juanxo Villaverde

Plot synopsis: A group of five American friends on the cusp of adulthood travel to Panama to relax and party amid the exotic paradise. Befriending a local woman in their hotel bar, they learn of a pristine waterfall nearby, but also of the ominous legend of a monster inhabiting the expanse of unexplored jungle just outside their resort. Ignoring the warnings, they convince the woman to guide them to the picturesque falls. What begins as an innocent outing quickly turns frightening when she suddenly goes missing. As night closes in, the friends realize too late the truth behind the rumors-the legendary, blood-sucking Chupacabra is now stalking them.

Cara Cusumano says: Indigenous is another film where they’re kind of toying with a pre-existing genre trope, which, in this case, is the creature-in-the-woods story. The plot revolves around a bunch of kids who go to Panama to have a crazy weekend and convince the locals to take them to a forbidden area of the woods. They’ve heard about this legend of the Chupacabra and want to see if it’s real or not.

The film excels with its really effective creature design. A monster movie should have a good monster, and this one delivers. In the second half, the film takes some chances and heads into some interesting directions that really surprised me. It has an amazing sense of place, too, that really contributes to it. Even before you meet this monster and you’re in the woods with these kids, it has a great ominous feel to it. It’s very lush and creepy.

Director: Till Kleinert
Stars: Michel Diercks, Pit Bukowski, Uwe Preuss, Ulrike Hanke-Hänsch, Kaja Blachnik, Christopher Guy Kane, Janin Halisch, Ulrike Bliefert, Michael Fritz Schumacher

Plot synopsis: In the dense forest on the outskirts of a small village, a samurai-wielding figure wearing a pristine white dress lurks menacingly among the birch trees, waiting to descend upon the unsuspecting villagers. As the Samurai makes his way through the streets, heads roll with each stroke of his sword. Desperately wishing to protect his hometown from the blood-splattering onslaught, Jakob, a dutiful, straight-laced cop, becomes increasingly powerless to resist the draw of the Samurai's feral otherness. The two enter into a bizarre folie à deux as Jakob is forced to confront his own carnal impulses.

Cara Cusumano says: When I first heard about this film, I was in Berlin, at the Berlin Film Festival. I was standing on lines for movies and started overhearing people talking to each other, like, “Have you seen this movie Der Samurai? It’s the craziest movie I’ve ever seen!” I told myself, “If this is the craziest movie people have ever seen, I have to see this!"

It is certainly unlike anything else we saw this year. It’s surreal and scary, and it’s also a compelling character piece. It lives in an art-house genre world, but it’s so original and really smart in how it uses those genre elements to tell a much more interesting story about the relationship between these two central characters. It’s about this young cop who’s on a sort of dead-end, boring suburban beat. He starts hearing about and seeing this mysterious man in a woman’s dress and holding a samurai sword who’s killing people. They begin this very convoluted relationship where they’re drawn to each other but in a very antagonist way.

It’s this dance between the two characters presented in a very surreal, strange, amazing, dreamy way. Every shot looks like a work of art.

Director: Andrew Disney
Stars: Jake Lacy, Nikki Reed, Kate McKinnon, Beck Bennett, Nick Kocher, Brian McElhaney

Plot synopsis: There comes a time in every fifth-year senior's life when they must either accept the impending real world of jobs, marriage, and payment plans or to shirk that responsibility in favor of playing the most glorious intramural football game your school probably doesn't really care to see. Once a freshman intramural champion, Caleb Fuller threw in the towel after his best friend and teammate Grant Rosenfalis paralyzed his (hint: see pun) on the game-winning play. Now back for redemption and exercise, the team reunites to face off against their archrivals, the insufferable reigning champion, the Titans.

Cara Cusumano says: We were happy to include a comedy in Midnight this year—we hadn’t in a few editions. It’s a spoof of the underdog sports movie with a Revenge of the Nerds twist. It’s definitely in that sketch comedy spirit, too, where everything is heightened to the best possible degrees. It has nut-shots and pratfalls, but the filmmakers really do have a strong knowledge of the film history they’re spoofing. There’s something really fun about it if you’re able to catch all of the reference they’re spoofing.

The cast is full of the newer, younger Saturday Night Live cast, like Kate McKinnon, Jay Pharaoh, and Beck Bennett. It’s nice to see what they can do in a longer format, and they’re quite impressive. It’s got a lot of talent. It surprised me in how fun and hilarious it was. Sometimes if you’re working in the sketch comedy format, you run the risk of your joke getting old.

We see a lot of films where that happens, where the jokes feel repetitive because the film is essentially one long sketch. This one didn’t, though. It keeps making the joke fresh and keeps coming at it from new angles. And it’s one of the few films recently that has made me consistently laugh from beginning to end. It’s so heightened and cartoon-y that Midnight seemed like the best place for it.

BONUS: Viewpoints section
Director: Onur Tukel
Stars: Anna Margaret Hollyman, Dakota Goldhor, Onur Tukel, Dustin Guy, Melodie Sisk, Jason Selvig

Plot synopsis: Brooklyn writer-director Onur Tukel stars in this black comedy about relationships, attraction, commitment, and the true meaning of 'eternity.' Eric, a misanthropic, emotionally-stunted New Yorker, finds himself on the brink of a premature mid-life crisis when he rejects his career-woman girlfriend's marriage proposal. Stuck at a dead-end job with no allure in the dating pool and even less in bed, Eric has all reason to lose hope. But that all changes one fateful night when he runs into a vampire in an alleyway. The next day, Eric finds his confidence invigorated and his stomach in an excruciating pain that can only be subdued by one thing: blood.

Cara Cusumano says: Summer of Blood is the opening night film for our Viewpoints section, which is where we screen new filmmakers and people who are doing things outside the box. Onur Tukel is a local New York filmmaker who has made a few films already, but this is his first time screening with us. He did something really smart and funny, which is to take his usual plot and twist it. He plays the main character, this schlubby guy who lives in Bushwick and doesn’t want to commit to his girlfriend and hates his job. It’s that typical Brooklyn comedy set-up but flipped into a vampire movie. What would happen if this guy was bitten by a vampire?

It’s very funny just watching this character deal with being a vampire in that typical Brooklyn shtick that Onur does. It’s a lighter film and a great showcase piece for Onur and it really sets up the festival nicely to show it on the first night. He’s being playful with the genre, which I really appreciate.

BONUS: Viewpoints section
Director: Leigh Janiak
Stars: Rose Leslie, Harry Treadaway, Ben Huber, Hanna Brown

Plot synopsis: What begins as a peaceful retreat honeymoon for newlyweds Bea (Rose Leslie) and Paul (Harry Treadaway) takes a sinister turn when Bea disappears one night, only to be found the next morning naked and alone in the woods. What follows is a brooding domestic drama punctuated by supernatural forces. Bea’s shift from a carefree young woman to cold, distant, and calculating echo some of the anxieties that come with a new marriage —issues such as secrecy, mistrust, and loss of identity—made all the more visceral through Bea’s unexplainable physical transformation and the possibility of a force beyond human control.

Cara Cusumano says: I really responded to this one. I love the domestic/Gothic/supernatural romance thing it does—it gave me amazing flashbacks to The Yellow Wallpaper and classic Gothic literature where the woman gets married and suddenly she has all these anxieties about losing her identity. And it becomes this supernatural force. That’s a trope that’s been around for a long time, but you don’t see many films that are as intelligent as this one. It doesn’t feel like it’s speaking over the audience, either. It’s very real and relatable.

Everyone on our team loved this film and couldn’t stop talking about it. The filmmaker, Leigh Janiak, really knows how to tell a great story. To be able to synthesize all of these ideas into one cohesive, intimate story isn’t easy, but she totally nailed it. She’s amazing—she put all of these big, ambitious ideas into a film that’s still enjoyable to watch.