Fairview Falls (2011)

(Screener Copy)

Directed by Glen Baisley

Produced by Glen Baisley

Written by Glen Baisley

Stars: Joseph Policastro, Kerri Taylor, Joe Lauria, Mike Lane, Brett Fallon, Brittney Evans, Morgan LaRocca, Gene Mazza, Sal Sirchia, Michael A. Valenzano, Sandy Pasquale with Michael Gingold and Debbie Rochon.

Writer/Director/Producer Glen Baisley continues his foray into an American town haunted by evil in Fairview Falls. I am rather ashamed not to have known much about Glen's previous movies, which feature the same titular town of this film. Previous entries; Fear of the Dark, The Tenement and Sins of the Father all feature Fairview Falls and the various horrors which occur there. They also all, to a greater or lesser extent involve an elusive serial killer dubbed The Black Rose Killer. New movie, Fairview Falls, is coined by Glen as 'The Breakfast Club with a horror twist' and on that advice I couldn't wait to check it out!
















So the movie primarily focuses on a band of Fairview Fall High graduates who, in keeping with the Breakfast Club theme, couldn't be more different from one another. Sadly for them, the horrible history of the town is about to catch them up. There are a number of horrors and intricacies  interwoven into the plot which raises it far above your standard stalk and slash fare and I really appreciate that about this film.

As far as the the characters and acting goes there are several stand outs in this film. I felt that Brittney Evans did a fantastic job as the massively snotty 'Alicia' who may not be as hard faced underneath it all as she likes to make out. A great character who I enjoyed watched immensely; not only that by Glen tells me that she comes from horror royalty! She is, in fact, the granddaughter of Susanna Foster (Christine Dubois in the 1943 Phantom of the Opera). How cool is that!? The character of 'Chopper' played by Gene Mazza was also very fun to watch purely because the guy is just a complete and utter douchebag! Other mentions should go to lead character Matt ( Joseph Policastro) who comes across as very natural in his role as a leader and protector and also Kerri Taylor who does a great job in the role as the flighty and flirty 'Tina'. Also featuring in cameo roles, Fangoria's very own Michael Gingold as well as the most triumphant of indie scream queens Debbie Rochon, Fairview Falls gives indie fans many things to get excited about.

The horror scenes, once they start to kick in are pretty good! I say this because aside from a bloody opening scene it takes a while to get to the bulk of the horror in the film. This is no bad thing really as it means we get to know our motley gang of misfits that much better since there are rather a lot of them. After this, one of the group is gruesomely hacked to death which in turn, rains other terrors down on the rest of the group. But why? You will have to grab a copy of the film as soon as you are able to and find out for yourselves!

There are a few issues such as a number of weaker performances and the budget of the film is very obvious. That said I feel that when this is the case and the movie still manages to be hugely entertaining then so be it. The film gave me a good hour and a half of fun and a few cringes in the right places so I am a happy guy. For more info on the film please head over to the films official Facebook page. Hopefully there will be more news on when you can see the film soon!

***********REVIEW FOLLOW UP**********

Since Glen Baisley was kind enough to send me a copy of the official Fairview Falls 'Insanity Edition' DVD, I would like to take you through the plethora of special features available. You can grab a copy of this version from the official Light and Dark Productions website from the 30 October  (Highly recommended). Otherwise you  can get your VERY OWN copy direct from Amazon NOW - check out it out HERE. If you prefer the good old digital format you can also view on demand (US viewers only) right HERE. Please note that the versions available from Amazon do NOT include all the cool stuff below so please bear this in mind when you get yours.


So the special features are as follows:

· Audio commentary by the cast and crew


• sanity Edition intro with gallery of over 200 photos set to music by Sirchia


• Deleted/extended scenes


• Bloopers


• Tongue animatic featurette


• “Anatomy of Horror: Blood, Vomit and Condoms” featurette


• “Shooting the Sh#t” featurette


• “Return to Cimarron Ranch” featurette


• “Behind the Scenes With the Putnam Valley Ambulance Corp.” featurette


• Makeup FX modeling shoot


• DOMINATION: RELLIK VS. THE BLACK ROSE KILLER short film


• NO TRESPASSING 2: NO EXIT short film with three audio commentaries by the cast and filmmakers
As you can see, if you are into special features you are being catered for in a massive way here. Not only do you get the usual cast/crew commentary, extended/deleted scenes, bloopers, you also get a HUGE photo gallery, several featurette's and two short films!

The commentary with Glen and some of the cast and crew is great. Here you can watch Fairview Falls with the added bonus of learning more about how the movie was made and more importantly the pitfalls to watch out for while filming an indie horror movie! I really recommend checking out the commentary as it gives so much insight into the film making process and actually would provide some valuable lessons to budding movie makers out there! It's not all serious though there's lots of funny stuff in here and a lot of laughing and banter. Really enjoyable.

The two short films, one of which also comes with a number of special features, demonstrates the sheer amount of work gone into putting this together this DVD. I really enjoyed both shorts particularly Domination which is a loving tribute to actor Joe Lauria who played the Black Rosé killer before his sad passing. Both shorts have some nice gore too, as with the feature presentation so gore hounds rejoice!

The FX feature gives great insight into the cast and crew planning the gory mini golf scene and I loved this as it was one of the greatest scenes in the movie. There is a lot of bantering back and forth in this part of the featurette which I enjoyed and then you move onto the application of  some of the other gory goods present in the movie.

There are some fun deleted/extended scenes and the bloopers are really funny. There's 21 minutes of bloopers and its great to see the cast goofing up and having a good time amidst what was properly a tough shoot. It looked as though Fairview Falls was hard work but also really fun to do. The blooper scenes where Morgan LaRocca's character and her father are facing off really cracked me up. Pesky cat!

I also really enjoyed the Shooting the Shit featurette which gave further insight to the movie. Brett Fallon and Kerri Taylor's discussion on some of the filming challenges was particularly great and really funny. Somebody throwing a chair you say?.....

Check out the movies official Facebook HERE for more information and please go and grab yourself a copy of the film. You have a film of almost two hours length and more special features than you could possibly hope for. Its not called The Insanity Edition for nothing folks!!