Scarewaves

Released by: Camp Motion Pictures
Released on: October 27th, 2015.
Director: Henrique Couto
Cast: Erin R. Ryan, Haley Jay Madison, Geoff Burkman, John Bradley Hambrick
Year: 2014
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The Movie:

Obviously a love letter, albeit a low budget one, to horror anthology films like Creepshow and the Amicus efforts, Henrique Couto's Scarewaves begins in a DV booth at a radio station where disc jockey Amos Satan (John Bradley Hambrick) is finishing up what will be his last broadcast. He takes some calls from people, thumbs through an issue of Fangoria or two, and then tells spooky stories over the air. As he does this, we see the stories acted out.

Up first is Painting After Midnight, a story about a painter (Joe Kidd) who rents out a room in his large home to a photographer (Erin Ryan). She does her best to be friendly to him, but soon realizes that he's not interested in her company. He is, however, a man of some very unorthodox talents and he isn't about to let anyone get in the way when he decides to create his latest masterpiece. Ryan's performance here is as strong as you'd expect if you've seen some of her other movies and this one has a pretty cool twist at the end.

In Fair Scare, a pair of bank robbers, Mitchell (Titus Wolverton) and Robbie (Vincent Holiday), gets away with the loot and lays low for a bit. Mitchell's foxy wife Eva (Joni Durian) has plans of her own, however, and well, we don't want to spoil the twist. Durian steals the show here, she looks great and her character is manipulative and deceitful. Another cool twist ending on this one as well.

The third story is Office Case in which a surly former police officer named Easterly (Geoff Burkman) is let go from the force. He winds up taking a job as a security guard and working the night shift at a big, eerie space where his past literally comes back to haunt him. Burkman's performance comes a little too close to scenery chewing in a couple of spots but he's fun to watch, channeling a sort of Dirty Harry-esque style that's pretty entertaining.

Last but not least it Worth The Wait wherein a young woman named Tara (Haley Madison) is waiting for her boyfriend to come back to her. She knows that he's been out dealing with the one thing that stands in between them - the other woman. With her out of the way and her money now his, they should be all set to live happily ever after, right? No dice. Madison has been popping up in more and more indy horror pictures lately and that's definitely a good thing. Not only is she very easy on the eyes but she's a solid actress too.

The Amos Satan segments that link all of this are also well done. Throughout the movie Couto does a great job with colored lighting and some slick camera work. The movie was mad with limited funds but cast and crew all commit here, resulting in a movie that is quite polished and at times even downright slick. The acting is above average for a regional low budget indy and while the movie has trouble finding genuine scares it does offer up some moments of good tension. Add to that plenty of completely gratuitous but very welcome nudity and some decent storytelling and Scarewaves turns out to be a pretty entertaining and fun way to kill an hour and a half.

Video/Audio/Extras:

The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen presentation offers good black levels and nice, lifelike color reproduction. The shot on digital video movie is nice and clean, and the disc is well authored so there aren't any serious compression issues. Some light banding and minor shimmer pops up here and there but otherwise, this looks good thanks to the obvious care that went into both the compositions and the lighting.

The Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo track, the only option, is fine. Dialogue is generally easy to understand and while there are a couple of spots where the levels jump, these are rare exceptions. Overall the movie sounds pretty good, music is used well and the sound effects come through with some solid resonance. There are no subtitles or closed captioning options provided.

Extras start off with a commentary track featuring director Henrique Couto that is about as thorough as you can get. Couto's got a very enthusiastic speaking voice here, he's stoked to be telling us about his movie and as we go through this scene specific talk, we learn who contributed what to the stories, what the cast and crew contributed to the picture, why certain shots are set the way they are, the use of music and loads more. Couto's never at a loss for words here and he covers pretty much everything you'd hope that he would here.

The disc also includes two minutes of 'Comedy Alternate Edits' that are basically just goofy alternate takes of some of the scenes seen in the feature that were shot for no other reason than to amuse the cast and crew working on the picture. The 'Fair Scare Audio Drama' is a ten minute book-on-tape style reading of a horror story that plays out over some footage of a candle in the dark. It's a tale of a robbery gone wrong, the same robbery gone wrong that wound up being turned into the second story in the feature. We also get a sneak peek at Couto's upcoming Awkward Thanksgiving, with an intro from the director, that gives us five and a half minutes of footage from that movie.

Aside from that we get a trailer for the feature, trailers for a bunch of other Camp Motion Pictures releases, menus and chapter selection.

The Final Word:

Scarewaves is quite well done. It features some solid acting, some lovely ladies in the female cast, great cinematography and lighting and some decent storytelling too. The DVD from Camp Motion Pictures looks and sounds quite good and it's also got a few choice extras on it too.