Starring: Rich Tretheway, Gillian Williams, AJ Paratore, Ally Tully
Plot: "Villanelle" tells the story of a hard drinking but honorable, down on his luck, Travis Burke. After a storied career as Boston Police Detective taking down high profile criminals, Burke has an "indiscretion" and is compelled to leave his life behind. Making the difficult decision to stay in law enforcement, Burke acquires the position of Chief of Police in the township of New Shoreham.
Old habits die hard for Chief Burke, who is pulled back into his old school sense of justice when he's approached by Dawn an intriguing, beautiful, and mysterious woman who was attacked, and left for dead.
My Review and Thoughts:
Villanelle:
"A poem of fixed form consisting of five tercets and a final quatrain on two rhymes, with the first and third lines of the first tercet repeated alternately as a refrain closing the succeeding stanzas and joined as the final couplet of the quatrain."
Chief Burke who was head detective from Boston has been reassigned to a small little village, small town by Rhode Island more or less stuck there against his will. He is haunted by an old case that controls him, every great detective has a case that ends up almost destroying them or there career.
Now his life is more simpler, he drinks, he sits behind a desk, waiting for a call, calls that never come, only Mundane simple task, simple small village reality.
His career was great bringing down serial killers and mass murderers and now the alcohol and past choices control his every waking and sleeping moments.
First I want to mention the writing, not only is the movie fantastic, the writing is brilliant, it is a darker nature, gives it a true realistic storytelling type of tale. It almost is like watching a book on screen. It's brilliantly focused in narrative and in action as you the viewer step closer and closer into the dialogue and thick plot of the story.
There are moments of haunting artistic beauty in this film. Dreamlike states of water and a red umbrella and then a waking of blood and horror upon the sleeping, just one of many fantastic moments that I will remember.
The poetic narration by the psycho is a stunning voice over and words that sinc together with the plot. Something that needs to be mentioned is the sound, the music score, the sound effects are a story in themselves. The score of tunes are in haunting fashion and extraordinary reality as the screen burst with images and actions. The music fits with perfect clearity.
Soon the plot does a 360 and what you think is going on is twisted around the aspects of the unknown. A victim named Dawn visits Chief Burke. A victim who claims she was attacked and rapped and her neck is cut. Burke with his normal human routine wants to rush her to the hospital but soon Burke realizes this is no normal case. For Burke has just stepped into the reality of good and evil or better yet The Twilight Zone.
Soon on the urging of Dawn, Chief Burke finds there's a lot of young men and women mysteriously and accidentally dying in such a small little town. And so begins the mystery, suspense, the thriller as Burke seeks out the truth. This is an amazingly twisted little movie of good and evil and of what the truth is and what the real reality is. From the mysterious urging of the dark side, to the modern reality of a serial killer.
It is a mixed bag of story, poetic reality, photographic beauty and a morbid, twisted, disturbing ordeal of violence mixed around the idea of the supernatural.
Wonderfully written, wonderfully filmed, wonderfully acted. I think this is a great film. I recommend it highly. It's a true independent horror/serial killer/small town reality film. It also plays on the old lines of a Film Noir.
Ricky Laprade created a truly original film that left me wide-eyed and a little dumbfounded on the reality that this is what true cinema should be about. This is how true cinema should be created with story, image, acting, and the direction in a flawless degree of detail. The love of the lens. The love for the sound effects and music that tells a story in itself. The love of filming moments of horror, mixed with the drama induced reality of originality and imagination in creating a whole new idea on film.
I do have to say that Gillian Williams who plays Dawn is stunningly beautiful and very sexy, I just felt I had to say that. I really liked the reality of her character and the persona of what her purpose is. She is directed perfect, her part along with her acting is very believable in the and she makes you believe in her role.
I want to mention the short part of Ally Tully who plays Amber in the film. She made me believe in her pain and suffering. She truly looked tormented in the part. She acted it in great detail even though it was a small part.
Rich Tretheway who plays Burke is truly priceless as the down in the dump alcoholic Chief. His role is golden and I could watch him in this part on a regular basis. This needs to a movie or TV series based in this small town with the character of Burke. I saw the amazing mix of Twin Peaks with a twist of Northern Exposure and a drop of The Xfiles all created around a fascinating and truly original idea.
Ricky Laprade created a fantastic example of mixing many genera's and showcasing something entirely new.
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