KillingAriel

Killing Ariel (2008)

This wickedly awesome movie starts out with Rick, as a young boy, witnessing a horrifying scene in which his mother apparently murders his father with a shotgun and then turns it on herself, blowing her brains out after glancing over and spotting little Ricky peering through the half open bedroom door at her. But wait there's more! After she kills herself a naked man appears in the darkness and then pursues the terrified young boy through the house, whispering things to him until he hides himself in a closet where he cowers until he is later found by a kind older couple. It then goes to the Present Day where Rick is now talking to a psychiatrist. It's then that you find out that the naked man was Ricks mothers lover (It's a bit more disturbing than that, but some things you'll have to find out by watching the movie) who Rick claims was an incubus. Then the movie jumps to 1973 where most of the movie then takes place. During this time, Rick is a happily married man with two children of his own. Things begin to change however after he has a dream where a hot demon chick has her way with him. This apparently triggers one heck of a midlife crisis. He goes out and secretly buys a sports car his wife says they can't afford, dyes his sideburns to hide the gray and begins flirting with a hot jogger girl. Eventually he decides to cheat on his wife with said hot jogger girl. Her name is Ariel and he takes off with her in his sports car to go out to his childhood home and have a weekend packed full of adulterous fun! You find out later that Ariel is not only cute and athletic, but also a psychic who explains to him that what she does is lets go of her Ego and finds herself in a Forever Now, a timeless state where she can feel the psychic vibrations of a given place. Then the fornication's begin! Good times, except afterwords he begins to have these weird visions. They start out as being off his wife and they think it may just be because of his guilty conscience but they don't stop and they get weirder and more vivid. As the visions worsen Ariel begins to get more concerned and Rick begins to get more unhinged. Finally the visions seem to come to a climax when he goes to the attic to look for something and he starts seeing the Naked Man (or Incubus) who begins to torment him with little whispers and seems to disappear and appear again as Rick gets more upset and loads a shotgun he finds. Rick thinks he hears the Naked Man behind him again and turns and fires the shotgun, catching Ariel (who was heading to the attic after finishing a shower) full in the chest with the shot and sending her tumbling backwards over the railing. Now he doesn't know what to do and after freaking out a bit he wraps the body in the shower curtain and has it down in the living room. He then has a vision where she is alive, but returns to the realization that she's dead a few moments later. He takes her body out to the middle of nowhere and buries it. Then he finds himself back in the house with a live Ariel. He tries to explain what happened to her, but it just freaks her out. He has more wacky visions and eventually ends up strangling Ariel. After she seems to come back to life again this time he begins seeing her as the enemy, as a demon and he ends up murdering her several more times, taking it as a challenge to finally rid himself of her and stop waking up with her in his old house. There are plenty of twists towards the end but I'll leave them for you to discover yourself.

This movie was great. I really enjoyed it. It skipped around a bit, but was easier to follow than most I've seen doing the same thing and all the pieces seemed to fall into place at the end. It was well written and I loved how some of the little things that seemed so innocent before the first time he killed Ariel became rather sinister and spooky afterwards. The Naked Man was creepy as hell and the actor they used was definitely the right guy for the part. The acting was much better than I expected and didn't falter at all during the entire movie. There were a few good practical special effects some of which used camera tricks that really worked well. It has a good plot twist at the end that I won't give away and actually set itself apart from most of the horror movies nowadays that seem to all blend together.

This is a gem in the MTI collection. It was surprisingly good and well worth owning. I'm becoming more and more of a MTI fan and movies like this are the reason why. I definitely recommend this movie so go and think it would be a good buy for anyone, especially if you're into indie horror flicks.

3 ½ out of 4

Reviewed by Scott Schwarzwalder