Review of Starry Eyes

STARRY EYES (2014) **1/2 Alex Essoe, Amanda Fuller, Noah Segan, Fabianne Therese, Shane Coffey, Natlie Castillo, Pat Healy, Nick Simmons, Maria Olsen, Marc Senter, Louis Dezseran. Affectively chilling yet relatively predictable horror flick about a naive young actress in Hollywood (Essoe gives a tremendous performance out of a tricky role) whose blind ambition gets the best of her when she is offered a too-good-to-be-true role of a lifetime (and then some) with horrific end results. The somewhat scattershot screenplay (does it want to be a quasi-satire/metaphor about careers in show biz or a nifty demonic monster movie?) by filmmaking team Kevin Kolsch and Dennis Widmyer has a hit-and-miss factor namely the expendable (yawn-worthy) supporting cast of characters (the actors do the best they can in paper-thin cookie cutter archetypes: i.e. the ponderous filmmaker wanna-be; pretentious poetry slam hipster; the bitchy frienemy) yet arguably makes up for it in spades in the final act with some gruesomely awesome graphic violence (kudos to the make-up and visual effects of Hugo Villasenor and Matt Falletta, respectively) and a spooky score by Jonathan Snipes. Think ALL ABOUT EVE via ROSEMARY'S BABY if you will and look more for Essoe as a star on the rise worth checking out in future endeavors.