Everything in this movie centers on a fabled Wisconsin Haunted House. It starts with a disturbed priest (Metcalf) telling of the evil he encountered when he was there and begins to tell parallel stories from the past and present showing us the history of the evil place. Abby Conner (Bilke) and some of her friends go to explore the house themselves. This low budget movie dips and dives all over the place as it tries desperately to keep it all relevant and connected. The result is a blurry mess of a screenplay that seems to have thrown five storyline s, or more it's hard to tell together in hope of finding some scares and chills along the way. It doesn't do that either. Director Jason Satterfield makes this gory in parts but never scary and most of the time you will be asking yourself what is going on.
5 Reviews
A dark look at Wisconsin history
terrible26 February 2007
"Wisconsin has more hauntings per square mile then any other state".
And so "The Legend Trip" explores this statement to great effect. Director Jason Satterfield's film looks into the history of a single house besieged by unthinkable misery and horrific events. The story, written by Sara Bulle, Steven Lentz and Nick Firer weaves it's allure through more then a century of misfortunes and asks the question: "Can evil manifest itself and lay dormant in one particular place?"
Satterfield paints a gloomy picture, very reminiscent to the style of David Lynch. The film's visual prowess shows the passage of time through shadows of black and white, and the grainy color textures of the 1970's. Each presenting a different chain of unspeakable events. The film stars Mark Metcalf of "Animal House" fame as an ex-priest haunted by a demonic vision, and now confined to a mental institution. An unsuspecting group of grad students decide to base their thesis on the legendary house and find out what is lurking in the darkness... the hard way. With stand out performances by Benjamin Keepers, and a rather amusing turn by writer/actor Nick Firer, the ensemble cast sells the horror in convincing fashion. Never light on the (Gore-Factor), "The Legend Trip" delights fans of the genre with cannibalism, self mutilation and extremely graphic torture scenes like you've never seen on film before. All set to a spine tingling musical score and vivid cinematography... Certain to entertain Independent Horror fans abroad, "The Legend Trip" answers it's own questions with barbed-wire, entrails and all things that go bump in the night.
And so "The Legend Trip" explores this statement to great effect. Director Jason Satterfield's film looks into the history of a single house besieged by unthinkable misery and horrific events. The story, written by Sara Bulle, Steven Lentz and Nick Firer weaves it's allure through more then a century of misfortunes and asks the question: "Can evil manifest itself and lay dormant in one particular place?"
Satterfield paints a gloomy picture, very reminiscent to the style of David Lynch. The film's visual prowess shows the passage of time through shadows of black and white, and the grainy color textures of the 1970's. Each presenting a different chain of unspeakable events. The film stars Mark Metcalf of "Animal House" fame as an ex-priest haunted by a demonic vision, and now confined to a mental institution. An unsuspecting group of grad students decide to base their thesis on the legendary house and find out what is lurking in the darkness... the hard way. With stand out performances by Benjamin Keepers, and a rather amusing turn by writer/actor Nick Firer, the ensemble cast sells the horror in convincing fashion. Never light on the (Gore-Factor), "The Legend Trip" delights fans of the genre with cannibalism, self mutilation and extremely graphic torture scenes like you've never seen on film before. All set to a spine tingling musical score and vivid cinematography... Certain to entertain Independent Horror fans abroad, "The Legend Trip" answers it's own questions with barbed-wire, entrails and all things that go bump in the night.
Warning: contains truly awful Christopher Walken impersonation
SmokeAndMirrors116 March 2009
Warning: Spoilers
You don't want to give this a watch expecting 2 mil plus production values. It's a local production that attempts to tell an ambitious story spanning several eras, done on what looks like an extremely limited budget with community actors (with the exception of Mark Metcalf).
There's a large amount of exposition footage throughout the film and the majority of it is dialogue-free, which leads to a certain disconnection with the flow of the film. By the end I felt I'd watched a series of unrelated incidents, all connected by the thinnest of dialogue from two cops who appear for the closing five minutes to banter on about ghosts, madness and 'buns in the oven'. The cop who says this is both black and having a child, so I figured they'd find a way to kill him in the closing minute but at least the film defies this horror convention.
I'll say one thing for Jason Sattersfield, he's got a good eye for visual design. There's a couple of apparations that are great work, particularly during the opening sequence. He's still a slave to the 'Jerky-Ghost-Walk' effect that was doing the rounds several years back (Gothika, House on Haunted Hill, etc) but the make-up and creature design are well done.
There's also some shocking ADR work. One sequence has us following a group in a park, yet sounds as if they're behind us in a concrete tunnel. That said, the film has a well-composed soundtrack with a decent selection of those creepy gramaphone numbers that are usually trucked out to portray 'the horrors of days-gone-by'.
Where the film really excels is during these thirties-era segments, which is where everything gets lifted several notches. Using black and white film and relevant filters, the look and feel of Legend Trip comes into its own. The acting from the cast used for these segments is pretty strong, far above the seventies and present era troupe. In particular, Tom Lodewyck turns in a decent performance as the head bad egg. He got the biggest laugh from me while tending to his associate who's bleeding out from a gutshot wound and looks to have about half a pint of blood left in him. "Get some rest", he tells him. "And I'll see you in the morning." Yeah, Georgie, you just put your feet up and take a load off.
There's another good laugh while Nick Firer is reading some archived newspaper footage on the internet. "MURDER SUICIDE!!", with two exclamation marks!! The article then goes on to show us about how it "ended the life of 'there' 4 year old daughter". That's some classy local paper, who make it all do good grammatical like.
Which leads us to the indomitable talents of said Nick Firer. A man who not only resembles John Belushi with a soul patch, but also uses the term Goat boy more times than a Bill Hicks concert. Dear god, when he began to rap Kelis's "Milkshake" I came pretty close to ending the whole experience right there. He then goes on to completely redeem himself by dying an ambiguous death at the bottom of a staircase towards the end of the film. Incidentally that's not a spoiler as much as it's an event to look forward to. In saying that, he probably brings the most energy out of anything set in the present-era segments and yes, he is the chief perpertrator of the criminal Walken impersonation.
The film is what it is and i've seen a hell of a lot worse. There's a bit of gore, at least one reasonable jump and some very watchable ol' timey business. It's clearly a learning curve film for many of those involved and with a little more cash and experience, Stolen Light films have potential for something pretty decent to be coming down the pipeline.
There's a large amount of exposition footage throughout the film and the majority of it is dialogue-free, which leads to a certain disconnection with the flow of the film. By the end I felt I'd watched a series of unrelated incidents, all connected by the thinnest of dialogue from two cops who appear for the closing five minutes to banter on about ghosts, madness and 'buns in the oven'. The cop who says this is both black and having a child, so I figured they'd find a way to kill him in the closing minute but at least the film defies this horror convention.
I'll say one thing for Jason Sattersfield, he's got a good eye for visual design. There's a couple of apparations that are great work, particularly during the opening sequence. He's still a slave to the 'Jerky-Ghost-Walk' effect that was doing the rounds several years back (Gothika, House on Haunted Hill, etc) but the make-up and creature design are well done.
There's also some shocking ADR work. One sequence has us following a group in a park, yet sounds as if they're behind us in a concrete tunnel. That said, the film has a well-composed soundtrack with a decent selection of those creepy gramaphone numbers that are usually trucked out to portray 'the horrors of days-gone-by'.
Where the film really excels is during these thirties-era segments, which is where everything gets lifted several notches. Using black and white film and relevant filters, the look and feel of Legend Trip comes into its own. The acting from the cast used for these segments is pretty strong, far above the seventies and present era troupe. In particular, Tom Lodewyck turns in a decent performance as the head bad egg. He got the biggest laugh from me while tending to his associate who's bleeding out from a gutshot wound and looks to have about half a pint of blood left in him. "Get some rest", he tells him. "And I'll see you in the morning." Yeah, Georgie, you just put your feet up and take a load off.
There's another good laugh while Nick Firer is reading some archived newspaper footage on the internet. "MURDER SUICIDE!!", with two exclamation marks!! The article then goes on to show us about how it "ended the life of 'there' 4 year old daughter". That's some classy local paper, who make it all do good grammatical like.
Which leads us to the indomitable talents of said Nick Firer. A man who not only resembles John Belushi with a soul patch, but also uses the term Goat boy more times than a Bill Hicks concert. Dear god, when he began to rap Kelis's "Milkshake" I came pretty close to ending the whole experience right there. He then goes on to completely redeem himself by dying an ambiguous death at the bottom of a staircase towards the end of the film. Incidentally that's not a spoiler as much as it's an event to look forward to. In saying that, he probably brings the most energy out of anything set in the present-era segments and yes, he is the chief perpertrator of the criminal Walken impersonation.
The film is what it is and i've seen a hell of a lot worse. There's a bit of gore, at least one reasonable jump and some very watchable ol' timey business. It's clearly a learning curve film for many of those involved and with a little more cash and experience, Stolen Light films have potential for something pretty decent to be coming down the pipeline.
Review of the Premiere at the Times
criticalobserver26 August 2007
(My rating has to be taken in context--I understand what limitations there inherently are when working with small funding) What a delight to see a locally created film at the Times! Based on attendance it seems that "The Legend Trip" may have quite a following coming together. As far as quality is concerned it seems that director Jason Satterfield can take much of the credit for the visually stunning final product. I was told that this production was made on a pittance (compared to standard, or even mid-range, movies) but what the crew did with the money they had was wonderful at times. While many of the present-day scenes could have used more work, (especially in some of the performances--I'm guessing that these changes weren't made due to the fact that a few of the actors were also crew members and non-negotiable in their roles) scenes from other time periods were first-rate. While the 70's montages were stronger in acting ability they did still have the stilted moments that can come with a B-movie (Also the actors appearance's were not in keeping with the look of the 70's--I found this bothersome). However, the 20's segment was pure genius. While individual performances were each spot-on (Jill Turner and the 20's Killer were fabulous) the overall tone and feel of these segments had the exact gritty and raw emotion that, I'm guessing, was the goal. (I will never hear the song "Me and My Shadow" again without remembering this movie) Also, the final scene of the movie MUST be mentioned. It's deliberately painfully slow pace made every member of that audience squirm and wish for the torture of the character on screen to stop. Honestly, both the idea of that final scene as well as its execution were flawless. Of course, Mark Metcalf has to be noted as well. As Father Knotting, Metcalf shines with vacant eyes and a clearly haunted soul. His was a smaller role that seemed much more grand because of his fine performance. Of course, there were sound issues (standard when working within the confines of a small budget) and this was unfortunate because I think this small facet of the showing took away from a lot of the movie. However, I am being overly critical--The feeling I left the Times with last night was one of awe. As mentioned in the pre-screening speech, Jason Satterfield is one incredibly talented man. The only question about Satterfield that came to mind after seeing the movie is: Which is his greater skill--that powerful eye he clearly possess for creating visual images or his masterful discrimination throughout the editing stage? If this is what he can do with little money, I absolutely would love to see what stunning things he would create with more resources. Fortunately for us, I have a feeling that we will all get the chance to find that out in the years to come.
I'm impressed with this movie! I highly recommend it.
gijoe-wi1 April 2013
04-01-2013
I live in Wisconsin and just recently started buying movies that are made here.
I just received this DVD in the mail this week. As fast as I unwrapped it, I was watching it. I highly recommend this title to anyone who likes all the haunting type movies with blood and guts. TRY THIS ONE!
I'm not going to say anything to spoil the movie for viewers, but I'm more than proud to say as a Wisconsin native, I did recognize several of the filming area's from our tri-county area. I really liked this movie and highly recommend it to others who like these types of movies.
REALLY! This is a 'Must See' film. Movies are made to entertain and exercise your imagination, or in this case ...be a little scary or gory. That's exactly what this title does for me. I'm glad I bought it.
I live in Wisconsin and just recently started buying movies that are made here.
I just received this DVD in the mail this week. As fast as I unwrapped it, I was watching it. I highly recommend this title to anyone who likes all the haunting type movies with blood and guts. TRY THIS ONE!
I'm not going to say anything to spoil the movie for viewers, but I'm more than proud to say as a Wisconsin native, I did recognize several of the filming area's from our tri-county area. I really liked this movie and highly recommend it to others who like these types of movies.
REALLY! This is a 'Must See' film. Movies are made to entertain and exercise your imagination, or in this case ...be a little scary or gory. That's exactly what this title does for me. I'm glad I bought it.
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