Movie Review: WINEVILLE

By ABBIE BERNSTEIN / Staff Writer

Posted: September 13th, 2024 / 01:42 AM

WINEVILLE movie poster | ©2024 Dark Star Pictures

Rating: Not Rated
Stars: Carolyn Hennesy, Brande Roderick, Texas Battle, Casey King, Christie Chaplin, Chris Schellenger, Keaton Cadrez, Duncan Anderson, Seneca Palliota, Will Roberts
Writer: Richard Schenkman, story by Brande Roderick & Richard Schenkman
Director: Brande Roderick
Distributor: Dark Star Pictures
Release Date: September 6, 2024 (theatrical); September 10, 2024 (physical media)

WINEVILLE is set in the ‘70s, with a news reference to Jimmy Carter’s presidency at the start. The movie also feels like one of the wild low-budget indie horror offerings of that era, with plot elements that just won’t crop up elsewhere.

Pretty blonde Missy (Christie Chaplin) is driving along a stretch of California highway in her convertible, singing along to the radio. When she sees a cute guy, Joe (Casey King), stopped on the side of the road with a broken-down pickup truck, Missy asks if he needs help.

One thing leads to another, and Missy takes Joe back to his place, the Lott Vineyard in the little town of Wineville. Joe nips Missy. She asks if there’s somewhere more private. The next thing she and the audience know, Missy is tied to a wooden X in a dark room, where she is disemboweled by someone with work gloves and rusty scissors.

The word “EVIL” then appears on the screen, with letters spreading out on both sides until it spells out the title WINEVILLE. It certainly has our attention.

We then meet Tess Lott (Brande Roderick, who also directed) and her pre-teen son Walter (Keaton Cadrez) heading toward Wineville from their home in Las Vegas. The occasion for this trip is that Tess’s father Edmund (Will Roberts) has died without leaving a will.

As Edmund’s closest living relative, Tess has inherited his estate, which includes a house, a vineyard, wine-making equipment, and so on. Tess fled when she was sixteen and has not been back since. She hates Edmund so much that Walter is shocked to learn his grandfather just died, since Tess told her little boy that both her parents passed away before she left home.

Currently on the premises are Tess’s aunt Margaret (Carolyn Hennesy) and Joe, who Margaret explains is her adopted son. Margaret is furious that her brother Edmund didn’t leave everything to her. She’s especially irate at the prospect of being evicted from the property if Tess sells it.

Joe hopes to restore the winery to its former glory, even though Edmund, who inherited it from his father, let it fall into disrepair. He shows Tess and Walter around.

We know from the opening that at least one person in the vicinity has some serious issues. Who and how and why are revealed over the course of the film.

At the risk of being spoilery, it should be noted that there is a lot of sexual abuse of various kinds, including involving minors. This is the backbone of the sundrenched Gothic tale.

Director Roderick and screenwriter Richard Schenkman, who co-wrote the story together, want to explore psychological damage, and to an extent, they succeed. However, the “ick” factor may exceed the insight for many. We also get a massive plot twist (which many viewers will spot at the first clue) that has no effective pay-off.

The filmmakers set up a narrative that in some ways tracks, but their decision to tell the main story in the ‘70s is baffling. This puts the back story in the ‘40s. Since the attitudes and back stories of Tess and a high school classmate both seem much more tied to (and indeed possible) the ‘60s, and other characters seem to be acting in the freer spirit of more recent decades, it’s puzzling why the primary action doesn’t take place in the ‘90s. We still didn’t have cell phones then; nothing would be lessened or changed.

Then again, Roderick appears to make WINEVILLE look like it was made as a ‘70s indie, with ever-so-slightly faded sunny exteriors and specific lighting on dark interiors.

King is persuasively troubled. Cadrez is natural and likable as young Walter. Hennesy puts merriment into her malevolence, and Roberts, in the flashbacks, succeeds in convincing us that his Edmund Lott is a man with no redeeming characteristics whatever. The character is so utterly hateful that the filmmakers miss major audience gratification by having him expire peacefully pre-action and not showing us his demise.

WINEVILLE never gets either as gonzo or as profound as its subject matter would seem to warrant. On the flip side, it weaves together script threads in a unique manner.

Follow us on Twitter at ASSIGNMENT X
Like us on Facebook at ASSIGNMENT X

Latest Buzz

Movie Review: WINEVILLE

Psycho-sexual horror, emphasis on PSYCHO

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: WINEVILLE

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment

Assignment X Poll

Newsletter subscription status

Latest Buzz

Movie Review: WINEVILLE

Psycho-sexual horror, emphasis on PSYCHO

Article Source: Assignment X Article: Movie Review: WINEVILLE

Related

Related Posts:

Leave a Comment

Assignment X Poll

Article Source: Assignment X
Article: Movie Review: WINEVILLE