d. Chris O’Neill; w./p. Rochelle Carino, Chris O’Neill; cast: Nika Khitrova. Olivia Castanho, Chris O’Neill,
Dani Savka, Christina De La Ossa, Thomas Ohrstrom
Passable LA-set, UK-produced horror thriller that successfully
pulls off an impressively complex structure and an end-of-act-one narrative
switcheroo. British actress Jaime moves to Hollywood, hoping for a break, where
she finds that all the women are desperate wannabe film stars and all the men
are creepy professional photographers. When Jaime stops calling home, her
brother and sister lock up their tea shop and jet across the Atlantic to search
for her. Some creepy exual fetishism leading to savagely calm
stabbings and face peelings provides the horror and raises the question: how do you get blood out
of velvet? London-raised Russian-Lithuanian Khitrova was in Enchantress before
she moved to the States. Ex-pat Yorkshireman O’Neill’s first feature was crime
romp Absolute Debauchery. This premiered in December 2018 at the Culver City Film
Festival. An opening caption reckons 42,000 people go missing in LA every year
and “none are ever found” – rather damning of the LAPD! A VOD release is planned for late 2019.
