Eight Films to Die For, a group of films that After Dark would release limited around the United States for a two week period yearly, actually had a few gems out of the group. Some of the more famous that have become cult film fans favorites include The Hamiltons, Lake Mungo, Dread, and Mulberry Street to name a few. However, there was a little scene one entitled Ritual from 2013 which was actually a pretty good film that co-host Phil listed as one of the top 20 best horror films of that year. Since, director Mickey Keating has had three more films released in a two year period. In 2016 he released festival flicks Darling and Carnage Park. However, in 2015 he released a little film called Pod that Dark Discussions decided to critique.
When Martin leaves a voice mail for his brother Ed to stay away and don’t tell anyone where he is, Ed meets up with their sister Lyla, and the two head to Martin’s remote Maine lake home to find out what’s wrong. When they arrive, they discover Martin has gone off the rails. Paranoid, scared, and most certainly dangerous, he begins ranting about a government conspiracy about experiments done upon unwitting soldiers. Now, having tried to go off the grid, Martin now believes that he’s being followed and in danger of being killed. Ed and Lyla try to decipher the rantings of their sibling.
Written and directed by Mickey Keating, the film stars genre favorite, Lauren Ashley Carter as Lyla, probably first noticed by horror fans in the sleeper hit Jugface. Dean Cates plays Ed while Brian Morvant, who plays Martin, easily shines as a disturbed person that may or may not be telling the truth. Listed as a top twenty film by Dark Discussions last year, co-hosts Abe and Phil take a look at it more closely.