Brooklyn 45

For me, it’s the film to beat this year, easily taking the crown as my favorite scary movie of the last several years — even if all the scares come from the idea of what might happen when your closest friends turn on you.

Most of what makes Brooklyn 45 so entertaining doesn’t cost a lot of money. It just takes talent, and diligence.

As in much modern horror, humor resides just under the surface of “Brooklyn 45,” except when it erupts like a punctured artery; the cast has to walk a fine line, though they do behave as people might under extraordinary and extraordinarily unnerving circumstances.

It delivers supernatural and Earthly suspense in a period-piece package whose wit and personality help overshadow its rougher bump-in-the-night patches.

The risk for these kinds of stories––the best ranging from 12 Angry Men to One Night in Miami––is that they lose momentum after the initial setup. You need strong, convincing characters to make persuasive arguments and unearth deep-seated secrets. Brooklyn 45 supplies such.

Geoghegan’s Brooklyn 45 is largely able to rise above its shortcomings and deliver a unique, chilling story about the horrors of war and unsettling depths of humanity.

The cast does what it can with the material, but their big speeches rarely add up to a “big moment.”

All the action in this film takes place in the same location, so you have to be creative to pull the story forward and not get repetitive, which unfortunately for Brooklyn 45 is a problem it can't get rid of. Its atmosphere and level of suspense are very good, but its space limitations also make it slow and erratic. I could say the overall structure feels very theatrical and not in the aspect that the performances are over the top but its proposal feels like an staging act. Not an actual drawback but at times it feels kinda robotic. Thematically it is believable and clever enough to keep the plot moving. As I said, the atmosphere even with little touches that make it feel like a horror film provide it with a substantial identity even if its story doesn't quite stand out and its conclusion feels somewhat poor. It may not be the best choice in a sea of different proposals, but if it catches your attention and you know what kind of movies Shudder offers, it may become a valid option for you.

Slow. Boring dialogue. Not scary in any way. Lame ending. How did this get a 71 critic's score??