Deadly Revisions & Garden Party Massacre: Written Review

Deadly Revisions is Blair’s directorial debut. The story follows horror-writer Grafton Torn, played by acclaimed indie actor Bill Oberst Jr. Grafton awakens from a coma suffering from amnesia and an injured leg. He has no recollection of what led him to the coma. All he knows is that he was found unconscious at the bottom of the stairs at his home. His estranged wife, Kat, portrayed by Lise Hart, fails to visit him while he is in the hospital.
Feeling somewhat lost and confused, Grafton is aided by his close friend, Deter, depicted by Mikhail Blokh, who offers his secluded cabin in the woods, for some rest and relaxation, so that Grafton could focus on healing from his trauma. Grafton hires Ally Morris, a hypnotherapist played by Cindy Merrill, to try and bring back the memory of what caused the incident.

He begins to experience hallucinations, manifesting fictional characters from his writing. As these hallucinations worsen, Grafton feels he is completely losing his grip on reality.

This is a dark and mind challenging film. Blair carefully constructed a story that does a great job in building up suspense. It gives us very little information about what’s really going on, as we experience the plot through Grafton’s eyes. On the other hand, it has a fair share of subtle clues that might shed more light, if we are keen enough to pick up on them at first viewing.

I personally like the way Blair manages to keep his viewer guessing as to what is going on and refrains from bluntly providing too much information. It keeps the mystery alive throughout the film, and of course makes it enjoyably more difficult to decipher the true meaning of what burdens our protagonist.

Also, when we keep in mind that as an experienced horror-writer, Grafton is all too familiar with the structure and rules of a horror story, it makes watching him cope with his confusion all the more interesting.

Being a relatively low budget indie feature, the film uses a fairly minimalistic, yet very professional approach. In the festival circuit, it received a total of seven awards and six nominations, which is very impressive for any film, let alone a first time feature.

To sum up, the story is intriguing, the performances solid and the outcome is a delight. Highly recommended.

Deadly Revisions gets a 7/10 on the Look At Me, I’m a Film Critic scale

Garden Party Massacre is Gregory Blair’s second feature, which he also wrote and directed. Caleb and Addison are hosting a garden party at their Suburbia home for their friends: Wesley, Lincoln, Reena and Melanie, when suddenly a raging pickaxe murderer crashes their party. 

Portrayed by Andy Gates, Nichole Bagby, David Leeper, Gregory Blair, Lise Hart and Dawna Lee Heising, the six frantically lock themselves in the house and try to devise a plan to get away from the killer lurking in the yard, played by Matt Weinglass.

Garden Party Massacre is a wacky parody on the slasher horror sub-genre. It seems that most of the characters are outrageous and intentionally over-the-top. The way they deal with the situation is hilarious to say the least.

It seems Blair kicked it up several notches on the wacky scale. He wrote characters with quirky traits. Caleb is the mostly clueless boyfriend who consistently misinterprets his girlfriend, Addison’s mood swings. Addison is organized and shrewd, Wesley is the witty single gay guy, Lincoln, or Link is the naive, somewhat dimwitted nice guy. Reena is the sarcastic one and Melanie is the freaky man-hunting widow.

This film must have been a lot of fun to make.

The production value is very impressive for an independent film. The style and visuals are very aesthetic and give a cheerful vibe, the characters are lovable and fun. It was a fun film to watch.

On the festival circuit, according to IMDb, Garden Party Massacre received a total of four nominations and eleven awards. A very impressive result, being only Blair’s second feature.

To sum up, if you like horror parodies and feel like watching a movie that can make you forget all your problems for an hour and a half, I highly recommend you watch this one.

Garden Party Massacre gets a 7/10 on the Look at me, I’m a Film Critic scale!

It is interesting to experience these two films while keeping in mind that they were made by the same filmmaker. They are so different from one another. I mean the visual style, the acting, the rhythm. Either Gregory Blair has two different signatures as an artist, or maybe he has a split personality. If I had watched the films without knowing who’s behind them, and without reading the credits, chances are that I wouldn’t have had a clue that they were created by the same filmmaker.

Garden Party Massacre & Deadly Revisions are available on their official websites. Links in the description.

Until next time, keep supporting Indie Film. My name is Asaf Angel. Thank you for tuning in to MyIndie Review Vlog.