Hey look! It's Michael Berryman!

Oh wow, it's Bill Moseley!

Hey, that's the guy from UHF!

Man, David Hess too? Neat!

THE END.

Wait, was there a movie?

Ah, Jeff Thomas, it's been a while. Ever since I caught the Jacob's Ladder rip-off 13 Seconds so many years ago I've been waiting to see his follow-up. For some reason it took a while to get but here it is, the much anticipated Fallen Angels. Otherwise known as Hey Look! Well, at least to me.

The opening premise I admit was definitely intriguing. Somebody killed a bunch of kids years ago and buried them in a prison basement? Nice. Unfortunately this is quickly forgotten and the story turns to Preston, our forlorn individual who has lost his faith. Demons in the form of different sins arise and it becomes sort of a rehash of Thomas' last film.

I mean, if the whole set-up was just to get this clown to the area so he could be corrupted or whatever by Krug from Last House on the Left, there were definitely easier ways to do it. Just have a big sign with his name on it or something. Don't have some interesting set-up that tricks me and pisses me off.

Really the cameo filled cast is a huge issue, as it's more of a who's who than trying to tell a coherent story. The narrative jumps around at random and we don't learn about anybody except Preston, and that's all done through some soul-searching with every character in the movie. It's just a bunch of random scenes that don't intermingle at all.

The main problem? That little credit in the movie that reads "Film Editing - Jeff Thomas." I think at some point he sneezed and had to just repaste the cells in whatever order he could find. That's the only explanation for the insanity we get. I've really come to learn that editing your own movie is a bad idea - there's no way to separate yourself from the footage. I'm almost certain that every single second of footage was crammed into the running time because of this.

It's a real shame too - a real waste of a great location. Perhaps someone else can use it now for a film that makes sense and you can actually SEE. Yes, dark and spooky is great, but the audience would like to actually see the action at some point. I've heard this complaint about other movies, that they are too dark, but in this case the lighting really is just awful and inconsistent.

I'd comment on acting but we don't see any one person long enough to really get an idea. I will say the dialogue is a little better this time around, but not by much. It's not as hokey but just kind of dull and lifeless.

The "good shot sequence" referenced below is set in a camper/trailer - one of the random people involved gets attacked and as he is screaming the scene moves outside, watching him through the window, cutting off all sound in the scene. If it had ended there, I would've been impressed, as it was mildly effective. But no, we go back inside and the camera is crammed in their faces so we can't see anything. This happens a lot. One or two sound effects, especially the teeth being pulled out, were ok however.

Despite all this I still feel Jeff could be a good director - give him a good script (obviously something not written by him) and give him a good editor (again, not himself) and a decent film might emerge. Until that happens I don't see him improving.

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