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Cast: Cody Heuer (The Shoe), Rebecca Ramon (The Violet Blaze Chronicles) and Einar Kuusk (Chasing Ponies)
Director: Jérôme Cohen-Olivar
Three YouTubers, each with their own inner demons, visit the mythical town of Casablanca. With their viewership down, they get invited to attend a satanic ritual and soon realize that maybe all their audience wants is to see them die.
'The 16th Episode' tells the story of three youtubers, Helen who is the host, Mark who helms the camera and Einar who is the audio expert. Together they run a youtube channel called, Permanent Residents where they travel to different countries to show their audience what it like in other cultures. Their latest adventure did not do as well, they had a 26% drop in viewership from their last adventure so when the opportunity comes up for the crew to go to Casablanca they jump on the opportunity in hopes to get their channel back on track.
But once they arrive in Casablanca their moods change and Mark and Einar begin to argue more over little things. You sense that their strange behavior toward each other might be a sign that something is going to happen.
And it does when they meet a local "guide" who invites them to a wedding. Once there Helen participates in a ritual that will change their lives forever.
To be honest I wasn't really expecting much from this little found-footage movie from Writer/Director, Jérôme Cohen-Olivar but I was taken in right from the start. The film takes a little time to introduce us to the main characters and to give us some background on all three which will be important later when the shit hits the fan.
After the wedding Helen begins acting a strange and bleeding from her nose a lot and after that the film turns into a full-blown possession film. And if that wasn't enough somewhere around the one hour mark a major twist is tossed at us which changes everything. It also brings with it a lot more tension, suspense and creepiness.
One of the things that caught my eye about the film almost immediately was how well it was made. For an Indie film it rivals anything Hollywood could produce. Another thing that made the movie so good was the cast, Rebecca Ramon is amazing as Helen, she does a fantastic job transitioning from a normal young lady into something possessed by an Arabic Jinn. Cody Heuer is also very good as Mark, the film has some humor in it and his character provides a good bit of it. And last but not least Einar Kuusk is terrific as the audio guy and someone that knows something about Helen's past that becomes important later.
'The 16th Episode' is one of those gems that has everything going for it. After watching it you are going to want to tell all your friends about it. This is a damn good horror film that grabs a hold of you right from the start and it doesn't let go until the credits begin to roll. 'The 16th Episode' will be in Theaters, On Demand and Digital on June 28, 2019. If you are into horror then I recommend you check it out, you will be glad you did.
Released by Gravitas Ventures
**** Out Of *****