By DEIRDRE CRIMMINS
Starring Chris Mayers, Haley Leary and Levi Burdick
Written and directed by William Bagley
Blue Finch Film Releasing
As far as horror movies go, HOLD THE FORT is pretty gosh-darn charming. It feels like a valentine to the genre as a whole, and has a bit of fun with all of its attendant tropes and creatures.
A world premiere at the current Fantasia International Film Festival, it starts with a farmer and his wife preparing to defend their family’s land and house against an offscreen terror. Their weariness makes it clear this is not their first time preparing for such a fight. In a quick and comedic edit, we see that it will be their last.
On the same site, in the near future, a community of new houses has arisen, and are ruled by an involved homeowner association (HOA). Jenny and Lucas (Haley Leary and Chris Mayers) are a young couple from the city who have just bought their first house in this neighborhood, and Jenny is less than thrilled to find out that Chris neglected to mention the controlling HOA. At their first gathering in the big, central clubhouse–which was once that farmhouse–Jenny and Lucas get a rude awakening. Just like the farmers before them, the entire HOA must come together for one night each year to defend themselves against whatever evils fly out of the burning hellmouth on that land.
The casualness of the existing HOA members to this violent reality is alarming to Lucas and Jenny. Though they each deal with it in very different ways, their responses are a funny contrast to the neighbors who are old hats in this yearly battle.
The tone of HOLD THE FORT is largely light and satirical, with Jenny as the straight (wo)man. Lucas is the personality equivalent of an animated golden retriever who does not have to worry about ever saving for retirement, while Jenny’s slightly sardonic manner anchors the film and elicits many of the laughs. As the hellmouth starts spitting out menaces, the HOA must choose the correct weapons out of an inherited trunk.
The discrete evils coming out of the fiery ground largely attack one at a time, taking their turns coming at the humans. This paced and measured approach gives a HOLD THE FORT the feeling of a video game more than a movie, and with each barrage of witches, bats, zombies or what have you, the correct tool can get the job done fairly quickly. These attacking monsters consistently look pretty great, however. The varying threats each hold their own on screen, and look as if they were created for a film with a much higher budget. They are scary but beautiful, and great to watch as they fly, creep and bite.
With its comic tone and the episodic onslaughts, HOLD THE FORT is not the sort of film that spends its time developing characters or tension. However, as a vehicle for laughs, stunts and creature design, it gets the job done.
