Three Films Make A Post: It all started when he met a woman.

The Tourist (2010): On paper, I’m all in for the ridiculously named Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck’s attempt to make a film about the Hollywood idea of an everyman stumbling into a spy-ish romantic adventure in the light mood of Hitchcock circa North By Northwest. The problem, well, one of the problems, is, von Donnersmarck sure ain’t Hitchcock. The script by the director himself, Christopher McQuarrie and Julian Fellowes lacks tension, pace and charm, so there’s really little of the joyfulness this sort of film needs to breathe.

Putting paid to the film’s romantic aspect is the simple fact that Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie have no chemistry, and are both not exactly at the best stages in their respective career: Depp seems mostly completely checked out, going through the motions – I blame the alcohol; Jolie is at the stage of being so perfectly together, made up and beautiful, she’s totally lifeless.

So what’s to like here?

Chum (2026): I already didn’t like the shark and serial killer movie Dangerous Animals Jonathan Zuck’s film seems rather enthusiastically, ahem, “inspired” by. Having seen Chum, I believe I was much too hard on that film, seeing as that one offered competent editing, dialogue that didn’t make me cringe in pain, and also didn’t take the lazy hack’s way out of using hefty amounts of AI for the shark footage. But then, of course a filmmaker who shows no talent in directing actors, action, or shooting a simple fucking establishing shot would do that.

The Blackwell Ghost (2017): The first of a by now 8-part series of POV horror films is a thing of small yet real pleasures: filmmaking one man band Turner Clay (accompanied by his long-suffering wife Terri Czapleski) spends an hour checking out a supposedly haunted house. Pixel hunts and minor attacks of creepiness ensue; a wife wields the power of sarcasm. All this is presented with a sense of naturalism, featuring two characters that feel likeable and real, and performed without any pretence. While everything here is really very minor, it’s also done well, pacy for the kind of film it is, and appears to know where it wants to go and how to get there without falling into the classic pitfall of unlikeable characters spending hours of your lifetime farting around.

It’s just a likeable project, done well inside of limited means.

In short: Raccoon Valley (2018)

A military plane carrying some nasty infectant crashes right into the water reservoir of an American small town named Raccoon Valley. Our protagonist is a deaf and socially isolated woman (Terri Czapleski, who is pretty damn fantastic) who doesn’t notice the ensuing evacuation measures and soon finds herself quarantined in town with a handful of the infected. But then, even if she weren’t deaf, this is a rather quiet apocalypse for the place, the infected not turning into rage zombies but white-faced, black-eyed ghouls who loom menacingly in the background more than anything else. Once she has realized the gravity of the situation, our heroine will do her best to find her way to safety.

Apparently made for $175 – and a lot of goodwill, favours, and free work I’d imagine – this little gem was written, directed, produced, scored, edited, sound designed and visually magicked by one Turner Clay. It’s an excellent example of how great indie genre filmmaking in the digital age can be if the people involved are talented and focused. And focused is the watch word here. This is a film that seems to know exactly what story it wants to tell and then tells it in the most economical manner possible, leaving out all distractions and diversions that detract from many an example of indie horror in this budget range. Consequently, the film ends up on a lean 65 minute running time – which is exactly as long as it needs to be.


There is so much to love here: from a visual style that often makes highly effective and intelligent use of limited lighting as well as of autumn colours (always an easy way to get bonus points from me, I admit), over Clay’s sound design which blends our heroine’s memories of sounds with the noises surrounding her she can’t hear and a dark ambient soundtrack, the sense of isolation and melancholy yet also persistence in the face of danger surrounding our heroine, to the effective looming of the infected, everything in the film comes together incredibly well. Not incredibly well for $175, mind you, but so well as to make Raccoon Valley exactly the film it wants to be.