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Beezel
[Blu-ray]
Blu-ray ALL - America - Epic Pictures Review written by and copyright: Eric Cotenas (7th December 2024). |
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The Film
 An old Massachusetts homestead has long had a reputation in the neighborhood for being haunted by a killer witch; but there was nothing truly concrete until 1966 when the Weems family moved in and wife Jane (Elise Manning) was found in the basement bitten to death and young son Avery (Leo Wildhagen) was discovered in the ground floor bathroom above the basement laundry hatch with his face pulled off. Twenty-one years later, while suspicion officially has stuck with husband and father Harold Weems (Bob Gallagher) despite no evidence while his wife (Kimberly Salditt Poulin) finds joy in scaring off the children who dare each other to creep onto the property and see the witch. Harold is ready to "spill his guts" and hires documentary videographer Apollo (The Hangman's LeJon Woods) to film his account of what really happened. He has celluloid evidence to prove it, but his testament takes a turn neither man could have anticipated. Sixteen years later, hospice care nurse Naomi (Caroline Quigley) arrives at the house to care for bedridden Mrs. Weems, replacing the last nurse Charlotte (Sarah Vular) who mysteriously abandoned her post and has not been heard from since. As Naomi slots herself into Mrs. Weems' care routine, however, she discovers a cassette recorder containing an audio diary kept by Charlotte about her feelings of unease with the house and her patient along with the discovery that Charlotte herself replaced another nurse who also vanished. Naomi's nightmares become waking hallucinations and she starts to suspect that Charlotte never left the house, and she may not either. Ten years later, Mrs. Weems' estranged son Lucas (Nobody Else But You's Nicolas Robin) arrives from France with his American wife Nova (Victoria Fratz Fradkin, who also scripted) upon inheriting the house. Nova is excited not only about the a home of their own where they can start a family – despite Lucas being adamant about not having children – but also about its freaky history. Lucas, however, is eager to find a buyer at whatever cost. As Nova falls in love with the house, obsessively so, Lucas fears whatever happened to his mother after she met Harold Weems is happening to his wife as well.  The history of a haunted house spanning several decades, Beezel is really just three short films – director Aaron Fradkin has built up an audience on YouTube with horror shorts and this is his feature debut – loosely based around the concept of the "blind witch" heavily promoted in the advertising but barely-glimpsed in the film. While Fradkin is able to wring some atmosphere out of a cozy suburban New England house with obvious earlier architectural roots, his efficient style seems so slavishly indebted to Sinister with a side of Creep and We Are Still Here as to overshadow any originality or even the ability to shuffle familiar genre elements. The first section – if one can consider the opening 1966 sequence to be a teaser rather than the first story – largely works due to the performances of Gallagher and Woods while the witch's actual appearance is more of a punchline than the height of horror. The second and central segment is an exercise in suspense and heavier on jump scares but barely seems to have anything to do with the witch – more on that below – while the third is the most "developed" in terms of character but the characters themselves are uninteresting. Fratz Fradkin tries to convey her character's inner conflicts, giving the "possessed wife" character a bit more than just reacting to scares, but it is hard to tell whether French actor Robin is stilted by his abilities or by the language but it is hard to care for either and the film ends without the short's punchline rather than something to tie everything together. As much a victim of its construction as its hyped-up horror community reviews, Beezel should at least has pointed this viewer towards the director's shorts and some optimism about what he might achieve with a more cohesively-conceived follow-up feature. 
Video
Shot with the Red Komodo 4K digital camera, 8mm film, the popular eighties JVC GR-C1 VHS camcorder, and a MiniDV camcorder, Beezel's aspect ratio shifts between 1.78:1 and 2.40:1 – with the full width of the 8mm image visible including sprocket holes along the left side of the frame – and Epic Pictures' Dread series 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC Blu-ray is up to conveying the different textures due to all of them being finished in HD with flatly-shot raw video and raw scanned film digitally-graded darker and contrastier along with the addition of film damage as well as analogue and digital "found footage" glitches. 
Audio
Audio options include Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 stereo options. While the surrounds are utilized in a modern horror sound design fashion, the 2.0 fold-down option also suffices given the scope and scale of the story. Optional English SDH and Spanish subtitles are provided with some odd notations to describe the offscreen sounds.
Extras
Extras start off with "The Making of Beezel" (8:22) narrated by Fradkin and Fratz Fradkin in which we discover that Fradkin conceived the film as an anthology, quickly writing the second story to take advantage of his childhood home before his parents put it on the market with the plan of shooting the other two unrelated stories back in Los Angeles; however, after editing the short together and getting some feedback, he and his wife decided to return to the house and shoot two more stories conceived as what happened before and after the second story (with pickup shots to incorporate the witch played by Fradkin himself in a body suit). Fratz Fradkin discusses writing the script and creating a role for herself. The disc also includes two Fradkin shorts Doctor Death (8:44) and The Sleep Watcher (8:03), both starring Fratz Fradkin, with the first very relatable to YouTube scrollers who tune into horror/paranormal-related reaction videos while the latter is a more surreal piece. Extras close out with the film's trailer (1:52) and trailers for other films in the label's "Dread" line including the aforementioned The Hangman (co-scripted by actor Woods). 
Overall
As much a victim of its construction as its hyped-up horror community reviews, Beezel should at least has pointed this viewer towards the director's shorts and some optimism about what he might achieve with a more cohesively-conceived follow-up feature.
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