Jay, a widowed husband and his little daughter, who he hasn’t been able to connect with since her mother’s death, are forced to seek refuge in their small convenience store when a strange disease starts spreading in the city. This new infection causes the people to suffer from an extreme itch that causes them to hurt themselves and whoever is near them, losing their mind in the process.

At first, the store seemed like the best place to barricade themselves and wait for the chaos to blow over, since the emergency services are declared non-operative until further notice, and a martial law is imposed, where any person in the streets showing signs of the disease will be shot on sight. However, Jay and his daughter will soon discover that among the other people locked in the store with them is the menace that anyone can succumb to the new infection and become a lethal problem.

This is the premise of “ITCH!” the new film directed and written by Bari Kang (Lucky, Scrapper), an apocalyptic drama that recently premiered in the “Dances with Films NY” festival in New York.

While the premise can sound like a new version of similar films like “The Mist” or an episode of “The Walking Dead”, Kang does a great job delivering a familiar story with his own twist and merits, with interesting characters, with few but very effective special effects, an a great use of its run time, with a solid steady pace that increase the tension little by little.

Without doubt, this film can be an inspiration for all future filmmakers. I don’t think Kang had a lot of budget in his hands for this movie, but I also have no doubts that he used all his resources as far as he could, and the result can be felt. You can see a lot of heart was in this project where Bari Kang not only directed, but also wrote the script and played the lead character.

Something I found interesting is that in every scene where there was blood and gore, the image turned all scratchy and worn out, like in a Grindhouse film (For quick reference, think of Robert Rodriguez’s “Planet Terror”) while in the rest of the film the image is clear and in more traditional format. This is not something I see as negative nor distracting, but it made me wonder if I should take this film as an indie film or a more mainstream one. It probably won’t make a difference to most of the audience, but for me it was an odd choice.

Fortunately the camera never exaggerates with its free hand style and we can always notice what is going on in the scene. I always thank the creators for this, because a lot others overuse the “shaky cam” style just as a way to cover for bad action choreography or an issue with the special effects and I find it not only distracting, but also VERY annoying. Another thing I liked a lot was the music. I liked how it augmented the tension in several scenes and was pretty much all the time on-point.

All the adult characters on screen have their secrets and demons to conquer, and as you might imagine, some will surface at the worst time possible. This gave some of the characters a moment to grow and earn some type of redemption, however, this also brought some details in the script that I thought collided with other information given previously. This is more noticeable in the backstory for Miguel, an employee in Jay’s store, who with his niece tried to create an extra layer of drama and tension after finding themselves locked in the store. There were a couple of things that were not very logical to me, and did not make too much sense. I cannot say more due spoilers, but as an immigrant myself, it was something that stood out to me, but probably won’t bother most of the audience.

And this also brings me to another thing that I felt hurt the film. In concrete, I am referring to some of the acting.

There were some performances that honestly I found BAD. I don’t like to focus too much on the negatives, especially when I am reviewing independent, low budget films. But I also cannot ignore when there are lines of dialogue and deliveries that feel FLAT and emotionless. In this case, this happened in several scenes that required tension, desperation, anger and more emotions. Again, due spoilers I can’t say when it happens, but when you see this film (and I recommend that you see it) you will know.

There were some lines where I felt that they were improvised by the actors, not only because they made little to no sense, but also because they felt unnatural (and this cannot be attributed due to a language barrier). I am sure that if someone OUTSIDE of the production could have read the script, they would pick them up right away and how they stand out (in a negative way) in certain scenes and suggest some changes, but, as the film says a couple of times, “The damage is done.”

Normally, I can leave aside some details like bad acting, bad special effects or bad editing as long as the film does not commit the worst cardinal sin: Being Boring. Luckily “Itch!” kept me engaged all the time and I liked it a lot, but I felt that those bad performances hurt the final product. I am aware that this film did not have a huge budget, nor stars with big names attached, and surely the team used all their resources to the max, but still, I think that I needed to mention that problem too.

This is Bari Kang’s first effort in the horror genre, and I think he did a great job. “Itch!” is a great example of how you can deliver a very good film without a great budget, big stars or fancy locations, and I hope this inspires more aspiring creators to do their own projects too.

I highly recommend you seek this film when it is available or playing in a festival near you.

“Itch!” Bari Kang’s third film (also written by him), produced with Monica De Oliveira. The cast includes the talents of Bari Kang, Olivia Kang, Patrick Michael Valley, Ximena Uribe Vargas and Maria Ventura Lucas.