Ever since the pleasant surprise (to me, at least) that was "We Are Still Here", I've been keeping an eye on the work of writer/director Ted Geoghegan. Hence, "Brooklyn 45" came on my radar when it was still in production phase, and I didn't hesitate to purchase a ticket when it played at a modest genre-festival in my country. Especially on paper, "Brooklyn 45" has an original concept, mixing supernatural elements with post-WWII drama.
The idea is new and unconventional, for sure, and it also has a good cast and a few excellent gruesome effects, but the overload of dialogues versus the shortage of action footage inevitably puts the film to a mortal sleep. "Brooklyn 45" is almost entirely set in one single and interior location, namely a living room where a séance is performed and where the participants are subsequently trapped. You need a downright brilliant screenplay to make that work, and the film simply hasn't got that. "Brooklyn 45" starts out strong, but rapidly becomes repetitive and tedious, notably when the characters get stuck in their stubborn tunnel vision ("She's a Nazi", "She's not a Nazi", "Give me the keys", "No I won't give you the keys", etc) and endlessly whine about the War not really being over.
I kept hoping for a similarly abrupt transition as in "We Are Still Here", when the textbook ghost story/haunted house horror flick suddenly turned into a hardcore and gore-soaked slasher with an enormous body count. Alas, not this time...
The idea is new and unconventional, for sure, and it also has a good cast and a few excellent gruesome effects, but the overload of dialogues versus the shortage of action footage inevitably puts the film to a mortal sleep. "Brooklyn 45" is almost entirely set in one single and interior location, namely a living room where a séance is performed and where the participants are subsequently trapped. You need a downright brilliant screenplay to make that work, and the film simply hasn't got that. "Brooklyn 45" starts out strong, but rapidly becomes repetitive and tedious, notably when the characters get stuck in their stubborn tunnel vision ("She's a Nazi", "She's not a Nazi", "Give me the keys", "No I won't give you the keys", etc) and endlessly whine about the War not really being over.
I kept hoping for a similarly abrupt transition as in "We Are Still Here", when the textbook ghost story/haunted house horror flick suddenly turned into a hardcore and gore-soaked slasher with an enormous body count. Alas, not this time...