I like supporting independent film. Not necessarily student film, or a gaggle of shorts, but filmmakers who manage to rally a crew and cast together. often picking these titles at random without guidance results in a wide range of results, but now that I get requests for coverage, I get screeners for films no one is really paying attention to. Case in point, wellwood, a creature feature starring Oscar nominee Keisha Castle Hughes.

In the PR email I got for this, it mentioned the reality that often horror films that fall off the obvious path have a hard time attracting attention. That’s true. The old days meant you had to fight to get your film into theatres, which meant a distributor, and then get VHS tapes made, and somehow convince a rental chain to put you on the shelf. But, with the internet, not only did we gain platforms like YouTube and Vimeo, but Video on Demand blew up, and streaming services looking for content became more prevalent. it is easier now to get people to check your movie out than it would have been fifty years ago, if you were trying to do this independently.Last year, Hundreds Of Beavers found fans literally by seeking them out. Social media campaigns. Who needs distribution? Well, for every beaver, there are a hundred films you never knew existed. And one off those films stars the Oscar nominated leading actress of Whale rider.

the plot is simple. A couple goes to an air B&B, an alien crash lands, the boyfriend in this couple captures the alien and ties it up in a shed for experimental purposes, some rather pleasant cops get caught up in this, and we eventually have a creature feature. the catalyst, which is just thrown in, is that the girlfriend in this couple (played by Hughes), is dying and the boyfriend thinks this regenerating alien may be the cure. The low budget sci-fi film is using practical effects, which should never be discounted.

the acting is fine. i actually thought the cops were nice people, so this film lacks that one character everyone loves to hate and can’t wait to see get killed off. However, I felt nothing between this couple, because we aren’t given much lead from them. they are just showing up, and they have very little chemistry that makes this scenario make sense. It would have been better to establish them more, so we can understand the desire to do anything to save her life.

the bigger problem is the lack of audio description, which is super common in screeners. however, this is currently available on video on demand services, where no one has audio description listed for it. It likely doesn’t exist. Hollywood has counted out the blind community a lot, but the weirdest place to count them out is in the horror genre. Streamers like AMC Plus/Shudder and scream box don’t have audio description, and indie horror movies like this routinely land without available audio description. The first Winnie the Pooh Blood and Honey film only had a text-to-speech audio description track, and then they never described the sequel.

On facebook, there’s this one big community for audio description. everything. Not just film and television, but live theatre, sports, events, museums, theme parks, anywhere audio description could be used. The only spinoff audio description community I’m aware of, are blind and low vision fans of horror, who created their own group just to discuss this one genre. It is so heavily ignored by Hollywood, but truthfully has a real shot at pulling in this demo. So, that’s another reason why I review films like Wellwood, is so that maybe someone will take notice.

The last hurdle, is that without audio description, I can’t really grade wellwood. it also exists right around the middle, where I could go fresh or rotten, thumbs up or down. It isn’t so obviously amazing, nor is it painfully terrible. It has qualities, but it also has faults. I truly would need to be able to connect all the dots to register this on any scale officially. Should you watch this? if you’re sighted and you like indie sci-fi films, maybe. If you need audio description, you should probably pass, or at least wait till it is on a streamer that is either free (like Tubi) or one you subscribe to.

Fresh: 6.0/10 Of Audio Description