In this month of horror Cassadaga opens today with a tale that should curl the hair on the back of your neck. It’s a spine tingler that’s relentless to chill, gross out and scare with a nice production that uses its low budget very wisely. The film has a director that’s focused on fright and he proves worthy of it with Cassadaga.
The movie centers on schoolteacher Lily (Kelen Coleman) a young deaf woman who gets the news that her young sister has been killed by a school bus in the parking lot where she teaches. Torn apart by the unfortunate incident she seeks solitude and decides to further her education by moving to Florida and staying on the grounds of Cassadaga College.
She’s starts to do well in a new side job, meets Mike (Kevin Alejandro) and they start dating. One night while they are out with another couple the conversation comes up about a spiritualist who can contact the dead. Not having really said goodbye to her sister, she decides to attend a seance with a popular medium.
During the seance Lily gets attached to a ghost and it clings to her. The medium tells Lily “that once a revengeful ghost connects to you it will not relent until you do whatever it is it wants from you”. When she finds out that the ghost wants her to search out a serial killer called “Geppetto”, she finds herself in inescapable trouble between the afterlife and her mortality. It’s a life and death attempt to complete her hideous ghost’s demands.
Director Anthony DiBlasi knows his way around horror cutting his acting teeth on another thriller called Dread. Here he gets some very good actors, set designers, make-up artists and a camera crew that does a great job of bringing it all to the screen. But, without the creature shop it would not have been a scary film. His very morbid afterlives are hideous and his serial killer a butcher severing limbs to form his art.
DiBlasi keeps his film moving at a fast clip introducing his characters, getting them involved in the drama than working them all together for a feast of bloody horror. I like his style and the showing of the twist put into the story written by Bruce Wood. He keeps his audience guessing while entertaining them with some very tight terror filled scenes. When it’s time to for the finale, the butcher takes over.
The locations he uses are real and the spiritual camps are in the town of Lake Mary, Florida that borders Cassadaga, Florida. Its fun to google map the locations and actually see the town that been nicknamed the spiritualist capital of the world. Just knowing it exists, makes me skin crawl and I live just a couple of hours away.
Cassadaga has been rated R for violence, disturbing images, sexual content and language. The makeup is exceptionally gruesome as are the deeds of the serial killer. The nudity in the film is more artistic than prurient, but the sexual content gets realistic.
Specifications and additional film information:
Cast: Kevin Alejandro, Louise Fletcher, Kelen Coleman, Rus Blackwell, Hank Stone
Directed by: Anthony DiBlasi
MPAA Rating: R for violence, disturbing images, sexual content and language
Genre: Horror, Thriller
Running Time: 1 hr 48 min
Release Date: October 11, 2013
Distributed by: Archstone Distribution
Writer, critic, film editor John Delia, Sr. has been on all sides of the movie business from publications to film making. He has worked as a film critic with ACED Magazine for more than 20 years and other publications for a total of 40 years. He earned a Bachelor’s degree in communications from the University of Florida. John is a member of the Southeastern Film Critics Association and Critics Association of Central Florida Send John a message at jdelia@acedmagazine.com
