Alan Rowe Kelly sent me a screener of his new short film (45 minutes) A FAR CRY FROM HOME which I have been anxiously awaiting for as I am a fan of Alan’s previous films, I’LL BURY YOU TOMMORROW and THE BLOOD SHED.
Alan Rowe Kelly’s story of a gay male couple’s battle against religious zealots hellbent on doing “the lord’s work” is truly terrifying. This is the type of story typically told by Sundance independent “art” films but told with lots of blood, guts, and gore. As we watched this film, my wife Dione and I could not help but to remember 1999 as we watched the horrifying and very disturbing story of Matthew Shepard unfold in her home state of Wyoming. To say A FAR CRY FROM HOME is horrific is an understatement as horrific simply does not do the film justice as an adjective.
The cinematographer (Bart Mastronardi) and editor (Stolis Hadjicharalambous) share Alan’s genius. The film is technically incredible. The cast was bang-on from beginning to end. It must have been incredibly difficult for Alan’s friends to have had to spew such hateful and homophobic dialog. But it was that very dialog, those very anti-gay slurs, that very hatred that made this film so real. Again, we found ourselves remembering the media coverage of Matthew Shepard’s funeral, investigation, and subsequent trial and conviction as those from Fred Phelp’s Westboro Baptist Church demonstrated with signs using many of those same hateful terms and spewing the same hateful dialog.
This is close to being the perfect horror film – the viewer, if he has an ounce of human compassion, is drawn into genuinely caring for Lane and Kayle, so as they are beaten and tortured the viewer finds themself empathizing and feeling the pain with Lane and Kayle. The story is very real – I can only imagine the horror Kayle and Lane experienced was lived by Mattthew Shepard as he was beaten and tied to the fence post left to freeze over night in the cold Wyoming plains. The gore f/x were incredibly well done and the death scenes are incredibly executed. Every actor is bang-on in his or her performance. I really cannot find a flaw. The ending with the interracial couple was the perfect ending. The hate of the religious bigoted zealot knows few bounds and this film shows that.
A FAR CRY FROM HOME really did horrify us and is an emotional ride down into the depths of hell. This has to be the piece that shows the world that Alan Rowe Kelly is truly a Master of Horror. His talent as a writer and director are truly matched by his talent as an actor. The film demonstrates that Alan Rowe Kelly knows what ingredients are needed for a good horror movie: A realistic story with truly likeable victims and truly despicable villains, heavy doses of blood, guts, and gore, incredibly violent scenes, actors that pour their heart and soul into their performance, and finally – a damned good technical staff at the helm.
This short will be available in 2009 on the anthology GALLERY OF FEAR along with 3 other short films from Alan Rowe Kelly and Anthony Sumner.
Watch the trailer on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H5tbfPqBc0
