THE BRINK

Produced by Robyn Cooper and Benjamin Cooper
Directed by Benjamin Cooper
Written John Bowker
Edited by
Director of Photography

Megan - Rachael Balzar
Bianca - Heather Ashley
Leo - Jeff Ryan
Todd - Jason Flowers
Woman - Catherine Barlow

Rarely do I ever get to see micro-cinema horror efforts that are as slick and polished as Benjamin Cooper's sophomore film, THE BRINK. This haunted house yarn has all the look and feel of a professional production with a much larger budget. And as I always say, if you're going to make a movie, make one worth watching.

Joining Cooper is writer John Bowker, the director of EVILMAKER and HOUSEBOUND, and the script is typical for those written by Bowker. There's a flawed but strong female lead in the form of Megan, complicated romantic entanglements complete with history, and a simplistic plot dealing with the supernatural. Bowker's strongest attribute as a writer is his ability to give each of his characters their own distinctive voices. While some of Bowker's dialogue is bit to pointed for my taste, none of it is ever out of character. In other words, Bowker doesn't write like Kevin Smith where all the characters sound like Kevin Smith. But if you listen closely to the words spoken, all of Bowker's screenplays sound distinctly Bowker.

The story follows Megan, played with all the crush-inducing tomboy spunk by Rachael Balzer, as she tries to rebuild an antique machine created by Thomas Edison which allows ghosts to become corporeal entities. Megan's single-mindedness is of course the catalyst for much of the action as she loses sight of those around her and focuses solely on her scientific achievements. Her plan is to rebuild the machine in the most haunted house she can find, one where members of an entire family slaughtered one another.

You can guess the rest.

As far as horror films go, THE BRINK isn't particularly gore-filled or frightening. Cooper's directing style never focuses on the money shots, preferring to allow the audience the chance to fill in the finer details. His directing style is similar to B-auteur Brett Piper, so much so that if I hadn't known Piper wasn't the director, I would have assumed he was just from scanning any given 10 minute section. I've often described Piper's work as "family friendly," and that's never meant as in insult. His films make great "starter horror" for actively involved parents who want to share horror cinema with their children but feel their kiddies aren't ready for the more extreme stuff. THE BRINK has that same good-natured vibe.

In a roundabout way, I'm trying to say the movie feels "classy" compared to so many other indi-horror efforts I've seen. When Megan gathers her college engineering pals together to build the machine, there's no scenes of gratuitous nudity with token blonde bombshell Heather Ashley. When the ghosts become corporeal and start hunting the group, the violence is quick and jaring instead of lingering and unsettling. The exploitation elements that would normally be the selling point have been sacrificed for something more important - story and character.

The only negative thing I can say about the movie is that it's too short, and it's something I've noticed in much of Bowker's writing. The second acts aren't as fleshed out as they should be and events climax too quickly. His endings are always cleverly engaging, but without the hardships of the journey, those endings lack the emotional weight that they could, and should, possess. This isn't as big a problem with THE BRINK as it was with HOUSEBOUND, but it is noticeable and events feel as if they're resolved too quickly. When the big plot twist comes regarding the Ghost Family, it comes across as a left-field surprise rather than in integrated plot element.

The look of the film if fantastic. This is the first feature I've seen shot on the Panasonic DVX-100, the 24p digital camera that's had everyone in the biz talking these last few years. The image is bright and crisp and yet it doesn't have the harshness of standard video. I'd recently screened the Hi-Def opus GHOST LAKE around the same time as THE BRINK and I was hard-pressed to tell a difference in video quality. Occasionally there was a blurriness with the mini-dv cam, but overall the DVX image held up nicely against the higher end camera.

THE BRINK is about as good as it gets with no-budget horror. It isn't perfect, but not much is. All the elements that should work, do, and that's what's important. If Cooper is going to continue making films with the same care and precision shown with THE BRINK, I'll be sure to look for each and every one.

Thunderhead Studios