Three brothers find the hard way that no conspiracy theory could prepare them for the worst night of their lives. There is something dangerous lurking in the skies, but it does not come from outer space. 

“Falling Stars” is the new film from Gabriel Bienczycki and Richard Karpala, coming to theaters and VOD on October 11th, and it brings a tale of brooms, corpses and curses. 

Set in an alternative reality where witches are not really just a myth or something that grown ups use to scare the young so they learn to behave, we meet a trio of brothers celebrating the first night of the harvest season. In said nights, rumor has it that you can see some falling stars in the sky, but these are not in fact celestial bodies from outer space, but rather witches descending to the ground in search of victims.

This is dismissed to some degree by Adam and Sal, the younger brothers, but Mike, the oldest one, seems to know better. 

When Mike discloses that one of his friends actually shot and killed a witch the year before, the trio gets excited and convinces said friend to show them the corpse. Even when they knew the rules for dealing with witches (either dead or alive), some lines are accidentally crossed, and the brothers find themselves being hunted by a mysterious dark force that threatens not only them, but anyone they come in contact with. Thus, starting a race against time, to stop the curse before the next sunrise.  

I really dug this film. Although it took its time to get the main plot going, the pacing was steady and once trouble begins, the tension never lets go for the rest of the film. The runtime barely passes the 80 minute mark, but although I was never bored, I could not avoid feeling that this could have worked better with some minutes cut and as an episode of an anthology series like “Creepshow”. 

Sure, you could have expanded the runtime with some dialogue or long contemplating shots, but I think the charm of “Falling Stars” is that it goes to the point and avoids a lot of cliches. Still, the movie has some scenes that I felt not contributed much to the story, and could be removed.   

I liked very much the idea of Mike (the older brother) knowing (and believing) the lore of the witches.So that when the corpse is accidentally desecrated, he immediately knows they are now in big trouble and tries to fix it. I was very pleased that we got this fresh approach instead of the cliche we have seen tons of times that when bad things start to happen to the main characters, they are in denial and try to find a “reasonable explanation” for more than 20 minutes of the film. Even worse when they spent half of the film doing research or finding the wise person that will (most often that not) assist them and die in the process. There is none of that here. 

I found it interesting that some of the lore and the history of this place (and the witches) were explained through the character of Barry, the radio show host and his partner. I would not mind seeing them in another project, and they could be used to expand this universe with another creature or a sequel. If you take into account that this town has a tendency to have people disappearing without a trace, there could be room for more paranormal mysteries.

We get several scary and tense moments in the film, but all of them are done with smart camerawork, nice sound effects and great acting. The film has NO GORE, nor violent  explicit scenes, and honestly, it does not need them. Clearly there was not a big budget behind this project, but you can see that any budget the creators had, they employed it very well. 

I could say more, but I want to avoid spoilers, so I’ll just recommend you to seek this film when it gets released in theaters and VOD on October 11th.

The film was directed by Gabriel Bienczycki and Richard Karpala, who also wrote the script. 

In the cast we have Piotr Adamczyk, Orianna Milne, Diane Box Worman, Andrew Gabriel, Rene Leech, Shaun Duke Jr., Greg Poppa, Samantha Turret, Steve Gelder, Lonny Curtis and J. Aaron Boykin