FACELESS AFTER DARK (2023)

New On Demand from Dark Sky Films!
Directed by Raymond Wood.
Written by Todd Jacobs, Jenna Kanell.
Starring Jenna Kanell, Danny Kang, Max Calder, Danielle Lyn, Michael Aaron Milligan, Kathrine Barnes, Jason MacDonald, Catherine Corcoran
Check out the trailer here!!

Jenna Kanell plays Bowie, an actress who gained horror movie fame after starring in a killer clown movie. Overwhelmed by adoring fans and creepy internet stalkers, Bowie struggles with her stardom when left alone by her more successful actress girlfriend Jessica (Danielle Lyn) who leaves for an extended movie shoot. When an obsessed fan breaks into her place, Bowie attacks and kills him, awakening something dark in Bowie’s psyche.

I’m torn on FACELESS AFTER DARK. This review will most likely come off as mean, but this is a mean movie to begin with.

I wouldn’t know, but I’m sure the struggle is real when it comes to fame. I imagine never getting a moment’s rest and being the subject of all kind of weird fantasies from creepers wears on you. But FACELESS AFTER DARK feels somewhat full of itself and while I’m sure Jenna Kanell has her fans having starred in the film TERRIFIER, which became somewhat of a phenomenon, seeing this actress turn on those who got her stardom in the first place feels off in many ways. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not condoning stalking or assault or anything like that. But Bowie basically comes off as ungrateful right from the get go as she exhasperatedly interacts with just a guy who wants a photo with her. Later, when her girlfriend is approached by a fan, Bowie seems jealous of her stardom and hurt when the fan isn’t able to recognize her as an actress he knows. These aren’t traits that make an audience feel for a character and while the stalking and online harassment give Bowie an excuse to strike back, it seems she was rather ungrateful of the stardom she has from the beginning.

So from the get-go, Bowie is a tough character to like, making it hard to empathize with her when she does go off the deep end in this descent into madness tale. I get it that it would be annoying, but let’s face it, Jenna Kanell isn’t a household name and if she can’t cope with stardom, then get out of the business. But Bowie doesn’t want that. She just doesn’t seem to like it that she is only recognized by a killer clown movie. Kanell is a young actress. I’m sure with a tiny bit of patience, she can leave the horror genre and appear in other movies and maybe find the kind of fame she is looking for. But honestly Kanell feels like a brat to me, or at least this character does and since the character she plays is inspired by real life, one can assume she feels this way as well about fans, stardom, and the genre. The post credit sequence has an online reviewer not unlike myself saying the same thing I just elaborate on, I guess, in an attempt to shush the nay-sayers or put them in the same category as the online harassers, stalkers, pedos, Christians, and other miscreants Bowie gets rid of through the course of the film. Which again, doesn’t award Kanell much likability as she co-wrote and produced the film.

Is it a compelling film? Unlikable lead aside, I guess, as a descent into madness, I’ve seen worse. Director Raymond Wood incorporates a lot of flashes and strobe effects along with quick cuts of surreal scenes, which illustrate the fracturing of Bowie’s mind pretty well. The kills are occasionally gory, no where near TERRIFIER levels of gruesome, but the typical carnage you see in most revenge films. Of course, there’s a castration tossed in for good measure, which seems to be a must in the feminist revenge fantasy genre. The kills are nothing new and don’t really hit hard, mainly because the victims are extreme traits and caricatures rather than characters.

Again, to be clear, Bowie’s victims are all pretty horrible people, but Kanell seems to portray all of her fans in this light. And in my experience, that’s just not the case. Having been behind and in front of tables at conventions attending as a fan and tabling to promote my own comic books, I’ve often found fans to be kind, sometimes awkward, but genuinely good people. There are celebrities who have worked these conventions who seem to genuinely listen and seem to get recharged interacting with people who admire their work. Sure, there’s the occasional weirdo or nut, but for the most part, cons have been a positive experience for me. I’m sorry Kanell’s experience has been so bad. Or maybe she feels like she is better than all of it. Had she portrayed maybe one fan as likable or genuinely nice or even treated a nervous fan with respect and empathy, maybe Bowie would have come off as less arrogant and more likable.

Whether it was purposeful or not, FACELESS AFTER DARK does a good job of illustrating Bowie’s i.e. Kanell’s contempt for fans and online personalities. It also offers up a protagonist who is hard to sympathize with. This feels like a movie made out of spite, almost as a gotcha for fans and critics, by a young actor who is angry she is not a big star and ashamed of the stardom she has accumulated. I went into FACELESS AFTER DARK liking Kanell from her wonderful performance in TERRIFIER. Sadly, I left this movie liking her a little less. Now that Kanell has this anger out of her, I look forward to seeing what the talented actress has up next, but this film makes me wonder how Kanell will feel in ten years when she matures and learns to appreciate what she’s got. FACELESS AFTER DARK is an angry movie. I don’t know what message it is trying to communicate other than portraying the lead as a victim and casts a broad net atop who it points its anger towards.