Starring Jason Reed, Chrissy Frick, Bob Fullenbaum and Lisa Chelenza. Written and Directed by Ron Bonk.
Ron Bonk is one of the more interesting filmmakers working in the world of low-budget film and video. His movie The Vicious Sweet told an engrossing, character-driven, non-linear story to great success, and has received justifiably positive reviews from even the harshest critics. His latest movie, Strawberry Estates, marks a return to a project that he had originally shot almost four years ago, but never completed.
Both versions told the story of a group investigating a haunted asylum, and the whole film is seen through the lens of the cameraman hired to document the event. (Sounds familiar, doesn't it? Please hold all comments until the end of the review.) The original version starred cult queens Debbie Rochon and Tina Krause. It was also to feature elaborate special make-up and digital effects.
As Bonk explains in an article written by Chris Irvine -- which can be found on at the B-Movie Theater, the original Strawberry Estates was shelved for numerous reasons, primarily that Bonk himself was unhappy with the footage resulting from an unsatisfactory script.
This Strawberry Estates version 2.0 is a lean, usually single-camera film adhering very closely to the original concept of a college professor leading an expedition into the heart of a supposedly haunted insane asylum. The entire story is laid out before the lens of the cameraman, Jason, and what Jason doesn't capture, the audience doesn't see. Things of course begin to go horribly wrong when the psychic brought in by the professor makes contact with the beings haunting the Estate.
Bonk is to be commended for a number of reasons, not the least of which the agonizing decision to shelve a project on which he had worked so hard originally. Bonk should also be given props for bravery, knowing that single-minded fan-boys will undoubtedly pillory him for releasing something that can be easily dismissed as a Blair Witch Project rip-off, which, of course, it is not, inevitable comparisons be damned.
Strawberry Estates is a decent movie. It has a few very slow spots, in which the characters expound almost endlessly on philosophy and religion. But later in the story, Bonk plays with this very idea by having the cameraman say the exact same thing! "Nothing's happening," Jason says to his lens. "Just people babbling endlessly." The script constantly toys with the viewer's expectations, always struggling to stay one step ahead of the audience.
Where Strawberry Estates fails, sadly, is in the acting. Bonk writes difficult dialogue - a strong point in a story-driven movie like The Vicious Sweet, but in Strawberry Estates, which proports to be a documentary, the actors just aren't strong enough to deliver their lines without it sounding scripted. And while Reed and Frick are very good as the cameraman and the professor's top student, respectively, Bob Fullenbaum and Lisa Chelenza, the professor and the psychic, are not. Fullenbaum is obviously a stage actor, projecting to the back of the film plane, and completely over the top -- though this works much better towards the end as his character begins to identify a bit too closely with the Estates. Chelenza, however, comes across like she just woke up, and delivers every line on the same level. Which is regrettable, because they, like the other two, are strongly-written characters. I can imagine that a seasoned actress (like Debbie Rochon in the original) handled the role of the psychic with much more dexterity.
That it is presented as a documentary is Strawberry Estates' only resemblance to The Blair Witch Project. It is a much, much creepier movie than Blair Witch, with a greater feeling of dread throughout. Just the mention of a potentially haunted insane asylum sounds creepy. There is enough good going on in Strawberry Estates to recommend it and fans of indie horror won't be disappointed. But as a follow-up to a strong film like The Vicious Sweet, Strawberry Estates just can't measure up. Still, I eagerly await Bonk's next project.
Additional information, can about Strawberry Estates can be found on the B-Movie Theater homepage:
http://www.b-movie.com/scvpnews/estates.html
http://www.b-movie.com/movies/ex111.html
http://www.b-movie.com/dghome/pg99.html
http://www.b-movie.com/dghome/pg97.html