The first film I covered in this blog series, Oculus, was the stuff of subtle, creeping horror. Today’s film is much more overt, featuring a showdown between man and beast. I have to credit a friend and reader, Eric Stanley, with introducing me to it.

Last year Hush won acclaim for its portrayal of a deaf-mute author enduring a cat-and-mouse game against a psychopathic killer. For my money, though, Late Phases both provides a more interesting setup and scenario, as well as deadlier antagonists.

Ambrose (Nick Damici) is a Vietnam vet facing old age and a retirement community he’s been involuntarily sequestered into by his son, Will (Ethan Embry). To add to the fun, he’s blind. Other than a dog at his side, he’s a man out of place in his surroundings. His new neighbors don’t know what to make of him, he’s defiantly curmudgeonly in the way he interacts with others, and he brushes off attempts at friendship. Nick Damici is a chameleon, by the way. In Stake Land he plays a character much younger than this, and I didn’t immediately recognize him at all.

The film doesn’t waste any time setting up the dire stakes for our protagonist, inflicting an immediate, personal loss on him. After that, it’s up to Ambrose to piece together a deadly conspiracy and organize his defense. Hampering his efforts are the typical suspicions leveled against the elderly and eccentric. I mentioned Silver Bullet earlier. A common thread in genre films–even in fantasy–is that the children are wise to a threat the adults in the room seem determined to ignore, because of who is warning them. I can think of half a dozen movies, from the Goonies to Pan’s Labyrinth, which use this trope.

Late Phases inverts that plot device and in doing so casts a critical eye on our treatment of the elderly. In this, it has something in common with both Gran Torino and Bubba Ho-Tep (and I’m pretty sure that’s the first time those two films have been mentioned in the same breath), but Late Phases is, in its own way, much more bleak. When you factor in very nasty looking and original werewolf designs with a heavy emphasis on practical effects, this becomes a film definitely worth a look.