World War 2 had a way of not only destroying everything it touched but also creating things as well. New ideologies, new social standings, and new relationships. Years after it ended five friends get together to drink and reminisce after the death of one of their own. Death is never the end.
On a cold winter night in a quiet Brooklyn Brownstone, a group of five World War 2 veterans, and friends, gather together to mourn the loss of another. Their commanding officer Col. “Hawk” is having a very rough time after his wife, Suzie, killed herself a few months earlier. Since her passing, he has tried to comfort himself in the church. He regularly would attend services, attempting to find closure in knowing that his wife would be somewhere waiting for him on the other side. However, the priest he confided in and trusted for sanctuary told him that because his wife had killed herself, she was damned to hell. After that Hawk took to finding solace in other places. He read books about the other side and metaphysics. He gathered his friends tonight to help him conduct a seance to contact his wife, so he could know that she was in a better place.
Suzie slit her own wrists because she thought that the German family down the street were spies, and worse, her husband, Hawk, didn’t believe her. After her death, Hawk began to see that she might have been right. He needs to talk to his wife. He needs to apologize. He needs to know if she was right. As he begins the seance, he tells his reluctant friends that they are NOT to break the circle until the seance is done. If they do, the door to the other side will remain open and who knows what might remain.
Brooklyn 45 is another Shudder original and one that came out earlier this year. It’s honestly a shame, though, because it is a fantastic movie and sadly will not be seen by as many people as a result of this exclusivity. For a movie that I thought was going to be a weird period horror piece with maybe a few good jump scares and some decent acting, it turns out that it is honestly superb on all fronts. Well acted, well written, and has a very high production value. From the beginning, this movie felt like something that could have been a theatrical release.
I have always been a sucker for a war movie. I don’t honestly know what draws me to them but when I see a well-done film, even a horror movie like this, it just grabs me in a way I am never prepared for. I went into this movie thinking it would just be a fun little horror romp about nazi ghosts or demons or something. By the time the movie ended I was full of emotions I never expected. I felt terrible for what my grandparents and so many other WW2 vets went through. The last line (spoken many times over the course of the film.) was really what stuck with me. Will this resonate with everyone? Probably not, but this is my review, and it affected me.
I watch a lot of shitty horror movies year after year. Almost all of them flow right through me and I never think about them again. Hell, half the time I start watching them again at a later date and think “This seems familiar.” only to realize that I watched it years earlier. Two horror movies have touched me on an emotional level in the last few years. One of those is “Summer of 84” which I still think about at least once or twice a week. The other will surely be this one. So much sadness and senseless death. Sure it’s presented in a weird and outlandish way, but deep down the marrow of the matter remains true. War… war never changes, but it changes everything around it.
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