- Release year: 2024
- Director: Aaron Fradkin.
- Producers: Aaron Fradkin, Victoria Fradkin, Paul Kim, and Adam Liderman.
- Screenplay by: Aaron Fradkin and Victoria Fradkin.
- Cinematography by: Keelan Carothers.
Synopsis: a witch living in the basement of a house toys with and eats its inhabitants.
Shotgun Commentary: intense the first minutes, soporific the rest of the film.
Review
Beezel is the type of horror film that has a very strong opening and then steadily losses traction, leaving you with almost an hour of unwatchable footage and an incredibly disappointing ending. On top of this, the film actually has four sections, all related and each of them longer than the previous. You got that right, the longer they are, the more boring too.
Anticlimactic villain
The feature follows several generations of a family that lives in a house which is also hosting a witch, Beezel, in the basement. The witch could have been Malthus (Annabelle, 2014), Volpaazu (Traumatika, 2024), or even the Lipstick-Face Demon (The Conjuring, 2013). Why are all demons just random people painted in black? Not a clue, but it is a trend worth investigating.
Beezel also has a completely unoriginal set of powers/behaviour to match her appearance. She eats people to stay alive forever… That’s… that’s it, really. As far as witches go, it’s pretty disappointing. In fact, the movie is a lot more terrifying the less you know about the creature, which is not ideal for a horror film.
Outside the limits of logic
As for the victims, they rank really high up on the stupidity scale, even for horror movie characters. There are four different stories, as previously mentioned. Let’s broadly analyse their behaviour real quick based to those you can get the gist of it. The first story is incredibly short, a man with a kid living in a house, the kid hears voices in the kitchen and finds his very possessed mother, bloody shenanigans ensue.
It’s hard to imagine that anyone would be capable of making so many illogical decisions in such a short amount of time, but there’s where the horror genre comes in, to broaden our minds to the illogical. Why is a possessed woman in the same house as a child? Why is the father chilling while the kid gets close to where she is? And most importantly, why is the door of doom not locked?! Anyway, the narrative stresses and scares you, which is rather the point. Sure, you need to completely forgo common sense, but it’s not that hard of a sacrifice… yet.
The second story is longer than the two minutes of the first. This one shows the same incompetent father as an old man (Bob Gallagher) now. He hires a man from New York named Apollo (LeJon Woods) to record his side of a story that has haunted him for years. A clear ruse, Apollo is kidnapped and bloody shenanigans ensue. While there are tons of things wrong with this story, the main one is: if you are to be killed, and you are a big, strong man, do you not at least try to land a punch?
The death rattle
Onto the third, and arguably the best, story. A nurse takes care of an old woman after the sudden disappearance of her previous nurse. The woman is the wife of the incompetent father. He is now dead and she is ancient. Weird things happen. Nobody calls the police or leaves the house in the many, MANY chances they get.
The protagonist thinks it’s a great idea to listen to creepy recordings over and over in a dark house. Why is it dark? Because apparently an old lady who can’t move from her bed doesn’t like bright lights even if she can’t see them. And as you might have imagined, a bunch of jumpscares, loud noises, and bloody shenanigans ensue.
However, if you think the previous tales were horrible, you are sadly mistaken, at least those are scary. The last story isn’t only the least scary, but also the most boring, unrelatable, annoying story of the bunch.
Flat-lining
You don’t expect to be annoyed by anything after the incomprehensible amount of nonsense you experience in the first accounts, but then you realise how well acted they all were and how compelling their characters. After only a couple of minutes, you are already praying for Beezel to kill the couple of protagonists and end your suffering. The story is about a young couple formed by the old woman’s son, Luke (Nicolas Robin) and his wife, Nova (Victoria Fradkin). They are completely different and disagree on minor topics such as sex, privacy, and having kids. All the makings of a successful couple…
To pair nicely with the absurdity that is their marriage, the wife spends the whole day recording random stuff, even her failed attempts at getting into bed with her husband. Maybe her recording has something to do with it? She doesn’t seem to think so. In fact, she seems to think that dressing as his mother will somehow change his mind. Lot’s to unpack there, but let’s not get into that muddy road.
No. Just…no
Her weird behaviour and complete disrespect for her husband’s boundaries could potentially be forgiven if the character had anything redeemable qualities. Regrettably, not only is she one of the most annoying characters to ever appear in a horror movie, she is also played pitifully.
Fradkin manages to be half-convincing in about three scenes, all of them with very dimmed lights and minimum acting requirements. The rest of the film is a masterclass on how to not act. Robin’s performance, although quite average, looks astonishingly convincing in comparison. Why are the worst actors of the cast playing the longest story? Unclear.
All in all, Beezel is a completely skippable movie. As far as horror goes, you can watch the first three stories and finish your experience happy, having had a fair share of thrills and fun. Highly recommend you don’t watch the last part unless you want your opinion of the work to plummet.
Advice to take from this movie:
- Don’t investigate basements on your own.
- If your house is supposed to be hosting a witch, either don’t investigate it on your own, or blow the sh*t out of it and start from scratch.
- There is nothing wrong with burning your house and selling the land when the alternative is getting eaten by a with.
What’s your take? Have you watched Beezel? Don’t hesitate to let me know your thoughts in the comments section below, or leave a message in my contact page! For more reviews and cinema-related articles, check out the rest of my blog! 😀