Geekscape Movie Reviews: ‘Late Phases’

It isn’t difficult to be overwhelmed with a sense of dread when amongst retirement homes or communities. Although retirement community residents retain much more independence and dignity than home residents, there is still has an emptiness that can’t be fulfilled. It is life worn out, the light of yesteryear faded and burned. Of course, perspectives vary on how to spend one’s twilight, but generally speaking there are two options: Stay dwelling in the ghosts of yesteryear, or go out kicking and screaming in a blaze of glory.

Ambrose McKinley chose option three: Showdown with a werewolf.

Adrián García Bogliano has roared in his English-language debut with Late Phases, an expertly-crafted throwback to ’80s monster movies for modern audiences that is bound to be a new indie classic someday. Nick Damici stars as Ambrose, a blind Vietnam War veteran who has moved into a retirement community. A lesser movie would have had a needless arc of Ambrose refusing to admit he’s silvered, but Ambrose has embraced his age. Rather, his issues lie with his son Will (Ethan Embry), who has moved on in his life and treats his father as a kind of burden. Ambrose just wants some peace before he kicks the bucket, wherever and whenever that will be.

But where is Crescent Bay, a retirement community at the edge of a deep forrest. It’s a perfectly normal, if quiet and somewhat religious community, until Ambrose is attacked and his beloved seeing-eye dog and next-door neighbor are viciously murdered by a giant… thing. Ambrose is blind, and no one in the town, not even the police, want to admit what it is. Either they don’t know or they don’t want to know, but Ambrose — “23 United States Army, 5 years Vietnam” — for damn sure well. With revenge on his mind and his gun in hand, Ambrose spends the next month, until the next full moon, preparing for revenge. On paper that sounds like a riot, like an old school monster movie — and, yeah, Late Phases is! — but the movie is in fact kind of subdued, and in between the encounters with the werewolf the movie is very much a drama about a father and son.  It’s a quiet riot, if you will. It has a brisk pace at a calculated speed, and truly unlike other indie horror movies of its kind.

Late Phases, the title, refers to more than just the moon. It refers to everyone in Crescent Bay, spending their last days in relative peace besides the monthly werewolf murder. And it especially refers to Ambrose himself. In action movies, a man with nothing to lose is a tired trope, but in horror it’s fertile ground. In fact, the choice of protagonist is a supremely unique choice given the genre. Horror, unlike other genres, frequently employs tropes like horny teenagers and the well-known “final girl,” but here the film is centered on a grizzled war vet. A blind vet. It is really, really difficult for me to say that a film is unique when its protagonist is an old white dude and make you believe that is a good thing, but watching Nick Damici as Ambrose gives the film a dynamic unlike many other monster movies before it. The last badass white guy in the center of a monster movie I recall was a superhero Van Helsing. Ambrose isn’t a superhero, but he’s a man with nothing to lose. Hell, he’s already lost one of his senses. And still, the terror never goes away.

And what terror! The very design of the werewolf is ingenious, and its fee-fi-fo-fum presence utterly chilling. There’s something about the old school costume design and the body language the werewolf actors employ. It is both animalistic and alien, like a foreign creature from a totally other world. But I need to give a round of applause to the sound editors above all. From the banging doors to the howl of the werewolf, the blood-churning sound engineering really sells the atmosphere of the film. Even when the werewolves look their goofiest from certain shots, their growls and howls keep them a force to be feared. What’s weird: They used stock library dragon growls. And somehow, they still manage to make that work.

A word about Ambrose’s blindness. It’s a weird character trait for sure. In the end, there’s no payoff from him being blind. I’m sure there’s a deep reading you can make of it somewhere, but Ambrose could have had 20/20 vision and his character arc would have been roughly the same. But there is a wonderful dynamic for a blind man to be in a horror movie, a monster movie at that. To remove sight from the central protagonist in a monster movie kind of removes an element of visual fear for the character, so when it comes to pointing a gun at them they won’t blink twice (uh, so to speak). Yet, his background as a Vietnam War vet could have easily sufficed. His blindness didn’t need to add to that.

Bogliano and cinematographer Ernesto Herrera know how to direct the camera, and their vision of horror action is both novel and superb. A lesser film would have shook the camera to a frenzy, because that’s just how things are now. But Bogliano remains steadier than others, and no matter how dark the picture the action is clear and concise. Ambrose, being a Vietnam vet, chooses guerrilla tactics that’s best described as a cross between Eastwood and Home Alone. But it’s good! The film does not resort to absurdity to tell its story, and you will not see this old dude bring out an AK-47 he just happened to have in his closet. He’s a soldier, not a gun-toting maniac. The Vietnam part of his military career was careful. He doesn’t just know how to kill. He knows how to survive.

Damici sticks out, and for good reason. His New York accent and Army vet swagger separates him from the rest of Crescent Bay. He’s an outsider, and he doesn’t belong playing nice with wannabe elder WASPs still trying to keep appearances. But he finds kindred spirits with the local church’s pastor, Father Roger (character actor Tom Noonan), both outsiders aimlessly seeking to make up past sins somehow. But Damici is a powerhouse, and his presence in Crescent Bay is probably the most exciting thing that has happened to the community in awhile. The werewolf comes every month, they’re kind of used to that by now, but Ambrose? They weren’t prepared for him.

Despite how much he’s pissed off Crescent Bay, he hasn’t pissed anyone else more than his own son Will. It’s understood that Will’s mother had something to do with Ambrose and his son’s tiff, but in the end the specific thing that caused their riff is no real matter. Sometimes you don’t even remember why you fight with someone for so long, you just know that you can’t stand them and need no other reason to. It sounds like a fault, but the chemistry between Damici and Embry carry weight that sells their history well enough that you won’t need to ask so many questions. You kind of just get it.

Late Phases is really just a really good indie horror movie, warts and all. And there are warts, but to go over them in detail would be needless nitpicking. Some of the other characters could be better developed, primarily the women, but the movie is really just one soldier with family issues against a monster. Almost everything else is second. It’s fascinating that the film accomplishes to both terrify and excite, and that it only uses the monster sparingly demonstrates just how good the central character and his inner turmoil is. You come for the werewolf fight, you stay to see a man struggle to be a father to a grown-up son. There’s more I could talk about but it would be giving away far too much. It’s an expertly-paced monster movie with surprisingly dramatic elements that all form to make up a new kind of horror movie, one that is bound to find a dedicated, hardcore audience in the years to come.

Geekscape gives Late Phases a 4/5. It is a monster movie unlike anything else with a compelling central character, emotionally strong inner and outer conflicts, and one hell of an atmosphere. You seriously need to see the werewolf transformation.

Late Phases is out now in theaters and Video on Demand.