Dir: Jon Springer
Is this supposed to be a comedy? Or a straight film noirish supernatural tale? I couldn't tell if I was laughing because I was in on the joke or if I was laughing at the writers, actors and director.
The Hagstone of the title is a soon to be condemned building where alcoholic caretaker Douglas (Mark AMERICAN MOVIE Borchardt) has been brought in to keep the place running just long enough for the tenants to relocate. A former journalist, the polite and competent Douglas still pounds away at the keys of an old typewriter when not drinking himself into oblivion due to the death of his wife Julie (Gizelle Erickson who co-stars in LIVING ARRANGEMENTS with Borchardt) by her own hand. Following up on a complaint about a squatter living in one of the apartments he finds himself intrigued by the mysterious woman Karna (Nadine Gross) and her hairless cat who enjoys eating raw fish heads and perching on its owner's shoulders. Douglas' nose for news starts him down a path of getting to the bottom of the intriguing Karna by tailing her leaving a bar and breaking into her claimed apartment. Her appearance at the Hagstone coincides with a number of deaths of tenants and men that go missing after she picks up and entertains them in her room. |
| Fish heads, fish heads... |
Presented in arty black and white with switches to colour that I'm sure meant something to the creators, THE HAGSTONE DEMON is a muddled mishmash of genres. The B&W and the narration by the Douglas character as he uncovers family secrets all made me think of the hard boiled detective genre. Start throwing in ghostly apparitions, satanic cults and demons and I think of the tongue in cheek CAST A DEADLY SPELL, which unlike this film, was fun and entertaining. The film does focus a bit more during the final reel and manages a couple of creepy shots but by then it's too late.
If this is a comedy then the joke's on me.
* 1/2 out of ****
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