Since June 4, 2014, I've been following the development of an independent film, "The Legend of Kate Kensington", which was filmed largely in my county and starred mostly local actors (or, at least, from the Central Florida area).
The film had its premiere in Ocala, Florida, last Halloween. The first showing was a "Black Tie Optional" event with cast and crew, dinner, and a concert. It promised a screening of the "Director's Cut". The second showing was "Casual Attire".
I couldn't go to that event. However, this weekend (April 29 - May 1) had another "premiere" in my county. Two showings per day. The second showing on Friday and both showings on Saturday promised various combinations of the cast to be in attendance. I opted for the 7:30 PM showing on Saturday, April 30.
The event was held at the old Valerie Theater in historic downtown Inverness (which is the county seat as well as the primary setting of the film). The theater, which I had been completely unaware of until last year, was a single-screen theater that was built in 1927 during the silent era. Its first screened movie was "The Only Woman". When Elvis Presley filmed "Follow That Dream" in Inverness, the dailies were screened in the Valerie Theater, and Elvis was in attendance. He was invited back for the premiere, but he didn't attend. From what I've read, he didn't miss much. Audience members kept interrupting the movie by pointing themselves out. The theater's last screened movie was "The Untouchables" in 1987. It then closed and sat vacant. Someone purchased it to turn it into a hardware store or something, but that never happened. The city purchased it in 2009, and renovations eventually began. It opened last June and now mostly shows live performances, specialty films, and old films. It's also available for rental.
So I showed up around an hour early to purchase my ticket. Various actors from the film (as well as the composer) were outside, mingling with whoever showed up and getting their pictures taken. Here are mine:
From left to right, Melony Daemer (Kate Kensington), me, one of the child actors (I don't know which one, unfortunately), and Edward Harrison (Dr. Robert Kensington II, Kate's father). Standing off to the right is David McDivitt (William H. Mahler, Kate's fiance).
From left to right: David McDivitt, me, Alison Trado (Michelle Parsik, a local news reporter; more on that below).
Also present early on before leaving was the actor that played the Methodist minister near the end of the film. He seemed to be taking pictures with a camera for a bit but left way before the film started. I don't know his name, and IMDb isn't helpful, because it credits an actor playing a priest, and there are two ministers in the film, probably neither of which are priests.
We went into the theater at around 7:00 PM. The end of my (unusually long) ticket was torn off. Wow, I'd completely forgotten that's what used to be done.
We went into the actual theater, which has a maximum occupancy of 150. The seats are all on the same level, and I didn't realize until this morning that that's why the heads of the people in front of me were blocking the screen. The audience was mostly old people (the woman seated in front of me had an oxygen tank).
There was an on-stage introduction by one of the actors from the film. She went through the usual stuff (silence cell phones, don't record, etc.). Also, the Inverness City Council voted this weekend as "Kate Kensington Weekend" (although she might have announced this after the film; I don't recall).
The best way that I can describe the genre of this film is "Christian paranormal thriller". Points for creativity, I guess.
The backstory involves a young woman from Inverness, Kate Kensington, getting engaged to William Mahler, who's in the military and off to fight in World War II. The goodbyes between them are so heavy-handed that there's no doubt that this dude is gonna die. Sure enough, Kate hears over the radio that Pearl Harbor has been attacked. William is killed. Kate falls into a depression. Her family sends her to a mental hospital for treatment (including electroshock therapy). Finally, after no progress is made, her family brings her home to the family estate (which was filmed in Micanopy, Florida, in Alachua County, which is two counties northeast of us). One day, Kate puts on her wedding dress, goes to visit William's grave, buries her engagement ring, goes down a trail to a dock, and commits suicide by jumping into the water. She then immediately comes out of the water as a...ghost? Ghoul? Zombie? I have no idea. This is one of the many problems with the film: Kate is seen too early and way too often, and there seems to be no logic to who can see her and who can't.
The make-up work on Kate is pretty good, though. And I think a black-and-white effect was applied to her, since she looks way pale.
The bulk of the story occurs around Halloween of 2015. A young girl from North Carolina (the house scenes were filmed in Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia; not sure about the exteriors), Haley Jennings, has the Shine, er, I mean visions. She keeps seeing a missing local girl that she's never met before. She's confused by them, and her mother, Diane, is worried. After a visit from her dad in which he reveals Haley predicted Diane's husband's death six months before it happened, Diane takes Haley to the police station (which looks like a conference room in a hotel) to meet with detectives. Haley gives them info that helps them crack the case, finding the redneck that killed her (or caused her death by chasing her until she fell into a river; I'm not sure).
Diane meets with her minister to discuss this. The minister goes on about how the Bible warns against clairvoyance (never mind that the Bible is filled with "visions" by supposed prophets), and this is where the film starts getting preachy. However, Diane points out the good that has resulted from Haley's ability.
Later, Diane decides a fresh start is needed for herself and Haley, and she chooses Inverness, Florida. Someone asks her "Why Inverness, Florida? It's such an obscure town." That got a laugh from the audience.
Diane and Haley move to Inverness. Haley adjusts to this way too easily. They meet their neighbors, Michelle Parsik and her kids, Ashley and Carl. Michelle is a news reporter at Inverness 5, the station that covers all of the news in Citrus County. Yeah, bullshit. We don't have a local newscast. We have a local station, WYKE-CD (channel 47), a low-powered digital station that offers a mix of religious and general programming - but no local newscast. Our news is covered by Tampa. I guess the writer created this fictitious station, because he wanted a reporter character, and a newspaper reporter simply wouldn't do.
I should note the acting quality of the kids varies wildly. Carl's actor is surprisingly good and funny. The actor that played Haley's cousin in North Carolina, by contrast, is godawful.
Anyway, the legend of Kate Kensington lives on with numerous alleged sightings over the decades. Needless to say, Haley starts having visions of Kate.
One night, an officer of the Inverness Police Department is patroling the "historical district" of Inverness. The old courthouse (which is now a museum) is seen, and so is the Valerie Theater. This got a laugh from the audience, and it was definitely a surreal moment. How often can you say you watched a movie in the theater that was depicted in that same movie?
Here's another artistic liberty by the film's writer/director/producer: Despite being one of two incorporated cities in the county, Inverness doesn't have its own police department. It relies on the Citrus County Sheriff's Office (which is also mentioned in the film, but it's unclear if it's depicted in action, perhaps in the past). The uniforms and patrol cars are half-assed, merely saying "Police" and not mentioning Inverness at all (although I don't think the law enforcement agency was named at all in the film).
Anyway, the cop finds a vagrant wandering around the nearby Hills of Rest Cemetery, which I'm surprised to learn is real. The sign in the movie looks fake. Anyway, Hills of Rest is in neighboring Floral City (despite its name, it's not an incorporated city), so the film is squishing the geography a bit. I'm not sure why Hills of Rest was chosen as Kate's fiance's resting place, since Inverness has plenty of cemeteries. Maybe there's a historical reason behind it. I dunno. IMDb lists both Floral City and Orlando as filming locations for the cemetery scenes.
Anyway, the cop tells the vagrant, who claims to be out on his nightly walk, to confine his walks to the "historical district" (no one calls it this, by the way; the sign reads "Historic Downtown Inverness"). Before the vagrant leaves, he sees Kate and takes a picture. At least, I think he's the one that does it.
The picture winds up on the front page of the next day's edition of the Citrus County Chronicle, which is our actual newspaper, and they even got a prop front page made for the film.
That morning, the DJ of the (fictitious) local radio station, Dandy Dave Wright, discusses the article and the legend of Kate Kensington and takes calls.
Haley, Carl, and another schoolmate (I forget her name) go to the local library (which would be Lake Regions Library, I guess, although it isn't named, but I assume the scenes were filmed there) to investigate Kate's disappearance and the subsequent sightings. Yeah, no, there's no way that three elementary school kids would be researching a local ghost legend if it's not part of a school assignment, and they certainly wouldn't be going to the library to look through books and (way-too-detailed and convenient) video archives from the 1940s. One of them goes on Google and searches for Kate Kensington, and she then goes to some truther website, which is such a great lesson for kids, ain't it?
Um, let's see. There's also a nighttime scene where another police officer (played by the woman that introduced the film) busts two teens for driving through Hills of Rest Cemetery. Before that happens, the boyfriend, Marc Trento, has to take a piss, and the girlfriend, Angela Tilly (I think that's her name), sees Kate while he's away. When he gets back, she just wants them to get out of there.
There's also Michelle reporting on the Kate Kensington sighting and interviewing kids.
Haley eventually abandons her research, not wanting to have anything more to do with Kate or the visions that she's receiving (which includes being present for moments in Kate's life in the 1940s). Carl and the other girl decide to continue, and they go to Hills of Rest Cemetery to search for Kate.
After a lengthy vision of seeing Carl and her other friend in danger, Haley tells her mom and then goes off on her own. Diane calls Ashley and has her check on Carl and the other girl, who aren't there. Diane calls the police, realizes Haley is missing, and then goes off in search of her.
Haley goes to Floral City United Methodist Church (I'm not sure why there, since there are closer churches in Inverness, unless that was the only one that agreed to let them film) to pray for guidance, and here's where the film gets preachy again and loses any thin semblance of realistic dialogue. Up to this point, the film's dialogue, particularly for the children, was unrealistic. You can tell an adult wrote the screenplay. The kids don't talk like normal kids; they talk like adults, using an unrealistically impressive vocabulary (that no one calls attention to). In the church scene, though, Haley recites an entire psalm in prayer as she asks God for guidance. Then a minister shows up and discusses Haley's problem with her. He basically tells her that her clairvoyance is a gift from the Holy Spirit, and she shouldn't be afraid of it (this surprised the heck out of me).
Diane shows up (somehow), and she and Haley hug it out. I might have missed some dialogue, but Diane then convinces Haley that there's no one else there. I think the film was trying to make us believe the minister was Jesus. There was no other reason to cast someone that looks like a biker. Anyway, it turns out that the minister was just sitting in another row and listening in, and then he stands up and gives a scene-chewing blessing (I seriously expected him to vanish after this).
By the way, the church is actually headed by a female pastor (who doesn't wear a robe or collar).
Diane and Haley head for Hills of Rest Cemetery, where Carl and the girl believe they've found Kate, but it's actually a mentally ill woman that's also dressed in white (I believe this wasn't forecast in the slightest). She chases them with a knife, and they exit the woods. Diane, Haley, the police, and others are waiting. A cop gets the woman to drop the knife at gunpoint, and he cuffs her and puts her in the back of his patrol car. Haley (and probably everyone else) see Kate. Haley gives her an empowering, spiritual speech, and then William's ghost (dressed in his service uniform) comes out of Heaven to take her with him.
The others hug it out. The End.
So the morals of the story? Suicide is okay, and freaky-deaky psychic powers are awesome!
After the movie, the woman from earlier as well as the guy that played the DJ brought a lot of the cast up front. The writer/director/producer waved from the balcony behind us. We were told to tell our friends to come and see the film. Kate's dress and William's service uniform were on display in the front-right corner of the theater, near the stage.
We then lined up to choose one of two movie posters (either Kate or Haley; I chose Kate) and have the cast autograph them. One of the girls complimented me on my Zelda shirt.
This morning (Sunday), the morning after seeing this movie that represents my county, while at work (Walmart), I was informed police were outside the store, confronting a trespassing drunk woman that was no longer allowed at the store. Later, I watched as a redneck dad hit his little daughter and then threatened to "slap the shit" out of her for crying. He dropped an f-bomb for good measure. Citrus County, y'all!
So now I'll discuss various aspects of the movie.
Technical Specifications: 16:9 HD. Probably digital, not film. It looks like a made-for-TV or Netflix original movie. Sometimes, the camera moves ever so slightly during still shots.
Audio: The music is too loud and overpowering at times, and sometimes it's used inappropriately, such as loud, pounding music playing during a scene in which Haley finds a forgotten computer printout on the floor under her bed. There are three original songs according to IMDb, although I remember hearing only two. The opening theme is a country song that tells the legend of Kate Kensington, and it was surreal to hear Citrus County name-dropped. The closing theme (they didn't play the entire closing credits, so maybe that's where the third song was) was some Christian song.
Setting: It was nice to see a movie filmed and set in my county, but Inverness and Floral City were the only acknowledged locations. My town and all of the other places went unmentioned.
Acting: Clunky and unnatural. The actors' delivery is painful at times. They sound like they're reciting their lines, and sometimes they stumble over their lines (sometimes correcting themselves) and keep going. I felt embarrassed for the actors at times and sometimes avoided looking at them on the screen. Retakes. Learn to do them.
Dialogue: Unnatural. I kept thinking "Kids don't talk like this!" or "No human being talks like this!" - particularly during the church scenes, which consisted of a lot of Bible quoting and Haley in emotional turmoil.
Script/Editing: Repetitive and redundant. How many times do we have to hear William telling Kate that he loves her? Or Kate listening to the radio broadcast of the Pearl Harbor attack? How many times do we have to see flashbacks to moments from earlier in the movie? A lot of trimming could be done.
Pacing: Lathargic. I checked my cell phone while waiting in line for the poster. It was 9:32 PM. Assuming the movie started on time, it was probably a bit less than two hours long, but it felt like three hours. Goddess almighty. I saw the guy seated in front of me check his watch.
Editing: Generally competent, but I sometimes got lost during the flashbacks/visions.
Audience reaction: applause but not cheers.
My final thoughts? I don't regret seeing it. It was an interesting and possibly once-in-a-lifetime experience. Does it have its problems? You better believe it. But it also has a surprisingly non-judgmental message (for a Christian film) about psychic powers and suicide, which I appreciate and agree with. Will I fanedit the shit out of it if it ever hits home video? Hell yes.
Teasers and trailers:
