Welcome Back, After Dark! (4 of 4): Suspension (2015)

Five years since their last batch, 2015 marks the return of 8 Films to Die For, now with a new partnership with 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment! 

And making this return more special for me is the fact we got half of the line-up packed with interesting slashers, so, for this 4-part review, we will be looking at these new masked terrors bodycounting their way through the festivities that is After Dark Horrorfest 2015!

So without further delay, let's get hacking! This is...

Suspension (2015)
Rating: ***
Starring: Ellen MacNevin, Sage Brocklebank, Kylee Bush

Being the daughter of a man who committed something unspeakable at her town, Emily finds herself constantly bullied at school and her only refuge from this world is a comic she is drawing chronicling the bloody escape and rampage of who appears to be a masked slasher.

This one night however, she and her younger brother are left home alone while their mother works an extra shift and her bullies (as well as a few friends) attend a rowdy party, seemingly unaware that the same slasher from Emily's comic has somehow made his way to reality and begins slaughtering anybody unfortunate enough to be in his way.

For most part, Suspension plays like your average slasher littered with surprises and delivering everything that a bodycounter should from the splashy red graphic novel-esque killings to the high-octane stalk-and-chase sequences featuring a killer who somehow can teleport away from being shot. The story is an interesting case as it has a chaotic direction, jumping back and forth to what could be all in our lead's mind and what could be happening for real. Realities soon blur and in a turn similar to the underlooked I, Madman (1989), a fictional character turns out to be real.

Unfortunately, I have do have nitpicks and most of it would be the execution of the story itself, particularly how the reveal was handled. Without spoiling much, those with a keen eye and a sense of continuity can tell the reveal a mile away thanks to some gimmicks used here, the sub-plot of Emily drawing a slasher comic contributing the most thanks to some filming tricks indicating which might be real and which is not.

Eitherways, Suspension still works as a slasher and while the ending is predictable, everything else is spot on as a bloody B-grade horror flick.

Bodycount:
1 female impaled to a meathook, gets a ridding crop shoved down her throat
1 male stabbed with a pitchfork, bled to death
1 dog killed
1 female knifed on the chest
1 male repeatedly shot, knifed
1 male knifed on the groin
1 male knifed on the neck
1 male shot on the head
1 male repeatedly knifed, throat cut
1 female hacked to death with an axe
1 male seen brained with a hammer
1 female hacked to death with an axe/brained with a hammer
Total: 12