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Keepsake (V)

“It’s actually a lot like Broken, in that it’s really not about anything but tying a woman up, knocking her around, and occasionally trying to “shock” the audience by cutting an Achilles tendon or plying out a tooth or whatever.”

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There are few things that would excite me less than the phrase “From the makers of Dark Harvest”, so to the credit of the Keepsake marketing team, they avoid mentioning it. Even in the post film Q&A they just referred to their “older films” without specifically naming them. Still, if I had to pick one to sit through again, I’d go with Dark Harvest hands down.

While a giant improvement in terms of filmmaking (no glaring continuity errors, actors actually acting, etc), the script for this film is utterly worthless, making even Captivity look good in comparison. It’s actually a lot like Broken (which I watched almost a year to the day ago), in that it’s really not about anything but tying a woman up, knocking her around, and occasionally trying to “shock” the audience by cutting an Achilles tendon or plying out a tooth or whatever.

I knew I was in for something shitty almost from the start. Shortly after revealing his intentions, our villain chains the girl up in a bathroom, before heading outside to deal with a cop who has happened by. She tries to free herself while we get a “suspenseful” scene of the guy dealing with the cop. The cop eventually gets killed, and the bad guy goes into the bathroom, just as she frees herself (how I couldn’t understand – she was chained up but somehow she gets the cuffs off by pulling her top over her head?). He then injects her with some sort of serum that knocks her out cold. Why the fuck didn’t he do that in the first place? Oh right – then there would be no setpiece. And then all the people who really thought she would escape from the killer in the first ten minutes wouldn’t be engaged by the onscreen events.

The rest of the movie is the usual Moebius strip of nonsense: girl gets degraded, another girl is killed while our heroine watches, “tense” dinner scenes, torture… etc. Writer/director Paul Moore tosses in a small variable (the girl keeps dreaming about her sister, giving her pep talks to help her escape), but it’s hardly enough to keep the movie interesting in the slightest.

And then the end, which not a single person in the crowd seemed to understand (the Q&A sounded more like a brainstorming session than anything else), and was probably designed to give the movie its own identity, just makes the whole thing even more annoying. I won’t spoil it, since it’s not out yet, but let’s just say that Donald Kaufman would approve.

I’ve really had it up to here with the “Let’s try to do our own version of ______ to get our foot in the door!” style of filmmaking. Some of the films at Screamfest have been underwhelming, such as Acolytes, but at least I could tell that the film was born out of an actual desire to tell a particular story, not to just make a cheap horror movie and hope to cash in on a “craze”. Congrats on your future deal selling Keepsake to Lionsgate (or, *fingers crossed*, Dimension Extreme!) and being one of a million undistinguishable movies on the shelf that only people like me will ever bother to watch.

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SCREAMBOX Investigates UFOs and Extraterrestrials: Several Documentaries Streaming Right Now!

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As someone who is obsessed with UFOS (or more recently known as UAPs) and the concept of extraterrestrials, I love a good documentary. Sightings have been on the rise since the 1940s, with the atomic bomb seemingly acting as a catalyst for new visitors. But what are these UFOs/UAPs? Is there an explanation or are they simply beyond our explanation? Why are they here? Who are they? How much do our governments know? The questions are endless and so are the documentaries that attempt to uncover the secrets behind decades of sightings and alleged confrontations.

Whether you’re a seasoned viewer or new to the rabbit hole, there’s always a handful of interesting documentaries to get your neurons firing and leave you with sleepless nights. SCREAMBOX is investigating with the addition of several docs, all streaming now on the Bloody Disgusting-powered service. Here’s the breakdown:

Aliens (2021): Beam into this unidentified streaming documentary for a glimpse into Extraterrestrial life. Aliens are hypothetical life forms that may occur outside Earth or that did not originate on Earth.

Aliens Uncovered: Origins (2021): Before Area 51, hidden deep in the desert, the military discovered a hidden gem that helped them create Project Bluebook.

Aliens Uncovered: ET or Man-Made (2022): The crash of Roswell wasn’t meant for New Mexico. In 1947, a neighboring state had 3 major sightings that were swept under the rug.

Aliens Uncovered: The Golden Record (2023): In the late 70s, the US government launched a message to our distant neighbors.

Roswell (2021): This high-flying documentary examines the July 1947 crash of a United States Army Air Forces balloon at a ranch near Roswell, New Mexico. Theories claim the crash was actually that of a flying saucer, but what is the truth?

Also check out:

The British UFO Files (2004): Since the 1940’s the British Government has been investigating the Flying Saucer phenomenon. High-ranking military and government personnel, speak out for the first time, offering unique eyewitness accounts and inside information.

Alien Abductions and Paranormal Sightings (2016): Amazing Footage and stories from real people as they reveal their personal encounters of being abducted by Aliens.

And do not miss Hellier (2019): A crew of paranormal researchers find themselves in a dying coal town, where a series of strange coincidences lead them to a decades-old mystery.

These documentaries join SCREAMBOX’s growing library of unique horror content, including Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls, Here for Blood, Terrifier 2, RoboDoc: The Creation of RoboCop, Hollywood Dreams & Nightmares: The Robert Englund Story, The Outwaters, Living with Chucky, Project Wolf Hunting, and Pennywise: The Story of IT.

Start screaming now with SCREAMBOX on iOS, Android, Apple TV, Prime Video, Roku, YouTube TV, Samsung, Comcast, Cox, and Screambox.com.

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