Modern horror film-makers always look to the triumphs of the past for their inspiration as a point of reference – and British director Julian Richards certainly knows where he is coming from with his latest offering, REBORN, which screened as part of this year’s London Independent Film Festival.
A baby girl is seemingly still-born and lies dormant on an LA morgue table, but when a lightning storm strikes where she lies, she is no longer so. The morgue attendant, Ken Stern (Chaz Bono) takes the baby under his wing and attempts to raise the child as his own with his partner, but proves to be an unreliable parent – and sixteen years later, his adopted, Tess (Kayleigh Gilbert) is showing unrest, not to mention some bizarre powers as an after-effect of her rebirth as a baby.
The alleged mother of the child, Lena O’Neal (Barbara Crampton, RE-ANIMATOR etc) is a seemingly on-the-ropes actress of cult films who makes her living as a teacher to young and upcomers who is struggling to come to terms with the events of the past and is also up for a key role in a brand-new film directed by Peter Bogdanovich (WHAT’S UP DOC, THE LAST PICTURE SHOW, AT LONG LAST LOVE).
Her agent, Dory Ryder (Rae Dawn Chong, QUEST FOR FIRE, COMMANDO) suggests seeing a psychatrist, Doctor Hecht (Monte Markham) to come to terms with her realities, but things begin to get complicated when Tess shows up at one of her acting classes, proving to be more talented than usual.
Her ‘sparkling’ talent finds a deadly purpose, which leads to Detective Marc Fox (Michael Paré, THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT, STREETS OF FIRE) who finds himself tracking Lena for more answers…..
Incredibly shot in fifteen days with some nifty visual effects, REBORN is a neat horror treat rooted in classic horrors like CARRIE, THE OMEN and FIRESTARTER amongst others, with a visual style reminiscent of many of the slick New Line horrors of the 1980s like A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET.
There is real joy for genre and horror fans. Crampton is well-loved in the genre for her body of work, but there is equally wonderful cross-over appeal for fans of STREETS OF FIRE and COMMANDO in seeing Paré and Dawn Chong after seemingly a long time, though they have been working steadily.
Refreshingly, Richards directs a great core group of performances in REBORN which raise the film above a lot of the low-budget horror offerings, with a genuine bond and connection and some well-thought out depth of characterisation amidst the bloody mayhem that Tess unleashes as she attempts to reconnect with her biological mother.
Admittedly, there is a lot of homage in some sequences here, but it doesn’t detract from what transpires as a solid eighty-minute yarn and is definitely a film that will find its audience eventually.
REBORN screened as part of the London Independent Film Festival.
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