Studio: Altitude Film Distribution
Director: Howard J. Ford
Writer: Howard J. Ford
Producer: Howard J. Ford
Stars: Tony Todd, Angela Dixon, Heather Peace, Sarah-Jane Potts, Jon Campling, Justin K. Hayward, Jessica Millson, Tiffany Hannam-Daniels
Review Score:
Summary:
During the COVID-19 lockdown, a detective remotely investigates a series of bizarre strangulations seemingly caused by paranormal activity.
Review:
The final screen before end credits informs the most important thing there is to understand about “The Lockdown Hauntings.” Text tells us:
“This film was shot during the first UK lockdown for COVID-19… by one man.”
Now, if you know that fact before watching the movie, you’re liable to have one of two predispositions. Forgiving folk might reason, “Okay, I can put my thumbs in my ears for shakier sequences and try to appreciate what one driven filmmaker was able to do in adverse conditions with only bubble gum and a paper clip.” Cynical skeptics routinely burned by bad B-movies on the other hand, will hear the same thing and say, “Nope, no way in Hell can something so slapdash possibly be worth $4.99 and 100 minutes of my time.”
Personally, I’m of both mindsets. Although I’m afraid I fall far further toward the latter than I do toward the former.
I’ll attempt to soften the blow I’m about to deliver by saying something nice. Visually, “The Lockdown Hauntings” looks nominally better than a vast majority of shot-on-digital indies recorded by people with minimal, if any, professional experience in cinematography. At the very least, the camera moves steadily with smooth sweeps, booms, and dollies. There isn’t a haphazard handheld shot to be found. Partly due to an overabundance of narrative threads, rhythmic editing regularly refreshes the screen by bouncing between concurrent character arcs too.
Writer/director Howard J. Ford’s eye appears too preoccupied for other aesthetics however. Brightly blown-out skies, windows, and backgrounds show little regard for uniform lighting. Close-ups on actors without makeup additionally hint at more on-the-fly filming.
But hey, Ford did something productive during the pandemic and went start to finish on a feature film with a modicum of polish for DTV horror. A genuine doff of the cap goes to him for being an ambition-fueled one-man-band.
As for the film itself, specifically the story? Hmmm. How can I put this nicely? I don’t think I can. Bottom line, “The Lockdown Hauntings” is scatterbrained claptrap that is dull as dirt.
A lot would be explained if it turned out “The Lockdown Hauntings” made up its script as filming rolled along. After some heavy-handed narration over B-roll of empty streets, we see a blonde woman pull up to her home. Elsewhere, a bald man arrives at his home. In between alternating shots of the two of them setting up separate digs, a dark-haired woman does the same thing. A young woman then says goodbye to her boyfriend. Another woman phones her mother. Cut back to the young woman who just said goodbye to her boyfriend. Now she phones her mother. Cut back to the previous woman who just phoned mum and cue a bowl breaking on her floor. What in the world is going on and how is anyone expected to keep everything straight?
We can argue what the movie’s biggest failing is since there are several contenders. One of them is a cast list overstuffed with a whopping 34 characters, which is about 20 too many for what should be a straightforward mystery. Compounding the people problem is that, especially early on when exposition jumps all over the place with no awareness of when is the right time to switch tracks, it’s impossible to tell anyone apart thanks to nearly everyone being blondes with no distinct features or known backstories. While keeping track for my summary, my notes for each person merely read: “yoga blonde, jogging blonde, student blonde, model blonde, curly blonde, maybe same student blonde from before (not sure?), blonde on the phone, and other blonde on the phone.” If you’ve never experienced facial blindness before and want to know what it feels like, try counting how many different women are introduced in the first act. Whatever number you arrive at, you’ll probably be off by a half-dozen and there’s no predicting whether you’ll be over or under.
A lot of things happen, yet none of it is interesting. One woman sips wine over Zoom with a boyfriend who does the same. Some people sip coffee. Others jot notes. Occasionally, doors creak open or teacups inch across a countertop while viewers wonder why they haven’t hit the Stop button yet.
Eventually, a narrative takes shape where a self-isolating detective’s remote investigation connects a series of seemingly supernatural slayings to a serial killer. The trouble is, that serial killer is dead, so how can he be murdering women from beyond the grave? The bigger trouble is, the detective’s investigation adds up to a great deal of nonsense, so how can “The Lockdown Hauntings” hope against hope to be engaging?
To start with, here’s a local serial killer who made huge headlines and neither detective working on the new deaths has heard of him before. The killer left a sole survivor, yet they don’t identify her until week three, when you’d think she would be a major note in the case file. Other details sneak in such as how the murderer sometimes, but not always for some reason, wore a mask that was never found. (“Sometimes” is a big part of his inconsistent M.O. since he sometimes stabs, sometimes strangles, sometimes carves letters into his victim’s skin and sometimes carves those letters into nearby cabinetry.) You’d think this missing mask, which looks suspiciously like a Michael Myers knockoff, might become a critical clue of some sort. It doesn’t. It’s one more dead end straying off an indecisive plot path that doesn’t have a definitive direction in mind, so the movie detours down sleepy side stories featuring countless nobodies instead.
Tony Todd, the main attraction for many horror fans, only appears over Zoom. He plays a paranormal expert who refers the lead detective to a different paranormal expert. That guy ends up playing the “real” role while Todd appears for such a short period, there’s no telling if he was paid a regular fee or if his scant screen time was purchased as a series of $50 ‘Cameo’ clips.
The movie can’t keep its own shoddy storyline straight, ending on a bizarre implication that seemingly says, “We really dug a hole we don’t quite know how to get out of, didn’t we?” Summing up what’s already been said, points go to Howard J. Ford for giving it an honest go. But without any sensible substance or the slightest scare, the only thing going for “The Lockdown Hauntings” is a loose COVID gimmick whose limited timeliness won’t outlast the pandemic that motivated it.
Like it or not, fright film fans are only facing the first wave of COVID-themed thrillers. They’re the trend du jour that’s cheap to produce and easy to market. Think of it as indie horror’s heir apparent to “found footage” for the time being. When that subgenre inevitably runs its course, “The Lockdown Hauntings” won’t be seen as the sloppiest, though it will still land in the bottom layer of the heap. But that’s only if “The Lockdown Hauntings” is even remembered at all.
Review Score: 30
At least the movie only runs 70 minutes, though I suppose that extra 10 technically disqualifies it from being a literal amateur hour.