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The Horror Zine Review

Lamp Post Lane

A Film by Rick Jansen

Director: Rick Jansen
Actors: Alyssa Jansen, Marje Warner, Jamey Duvall, Corey Jansen
Studio: Treehorn Films, LLC
Format: DVD and blu ray
Language: English
Release Date: Fall/Winter 2011
Run Time: 57 minutes
ASIN: n/a

Lamp Post Lane

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Lamp Post Lane

A Film by Rick Jansen

Review by Scott Urban

In Lamp Post Lane, the heroine's English Teacher tries to spark a flicker of interest from his apathetic students. So he poses some questions from Shakespeare’s Hamlet: “Is it worth the effort to know the truth?” and “Can you know the point at which you begin to go mad?”

Alyssa Featherston (Alyssa Jansen) is an eighteen-year-old forced to change homes and schools midway through her senior year. Her mother was recently murdered, and her father’s job keeps him away from home for weeks on end. Alyssa must care for her aging grandmother (Marje Warner), who is consistently slipping deeper into dementia. She hasn’t made any new friends, and her boyfriend is hinting he may want to date other people. As if all of this weren’t enough, Alyssa begins to notice strange, unexplained sounds in the house at night. 

Her grandmother and various visitors suggest raccoons are getting in the crawlspace. But when Dixie, the family’s Schnauzer, disappears after Alyssa discovers a vagrant’s camp in the woods out back, Alyssa is certain something more sinister is going on.

The film’s title seems to deliberately echo George Cukor’s 1944 classic Gaslight, in which Ingrid Bergman’s character, Paula, is slowly led to believe she’s going mad. For the majority of that film, Cukor toys with viewer’s expectations—Paula might really be insane, or she could be a victim of her husband’s machinations. In Lamp Post Lane, there’s no such ambiguity. Alyssa is portrayed as being too level-headed, too sensible, for the viewer to question her sanity. Although sometimes frustrated, she deals with an undesirable situation with mature aplomb. When she hears sounds, there’s no doubt something’s there.

The bulk of the film rests squarely on Alyssa Jansen’s shoulders; the other roles are little more than cameos. Luckily, Alyssa has some solid acting chops. With her fresh, heart-shaped face and natural pluckiness, Alyssa brings resilience and empathy to the character of a young lady in difficult circumstances with whom the audience can identify. The other actors don’t come across quite as well but again, their roles are minor.

Michael McCormack deserves special recognition for his original score. A throbbing, industrial overture establishes an alienating, disturbing tone. Atmospheric crescendos heighten the suspense throughout the remainder of the film. 

Viewers looking for gore, blood splatter, or nudity will not find it here. There’s some minor violence, but nothing the kids haven’t already seen on a premium channel. 

Rick Janseon's Lamp Post Lane is the first release from Treehorn Films. With a running time just short of an hour, Lamp Post Lane doesn’t demand a huge investment of your time, and you might be intrigued enough to check out future offerings from Treehorn Films.  I’d welcome another feature with Alyssa Jansen in the lead, but I’d also like a story that delivers on the promise of her strongest line in the entire movie: “What happens next is supposed to be a surprise.”

See the movie here:

http://www.lamppostlanemovie.com/

About the Filmmaker

Rick Jansen

Rick Jansen

Rick Jansen was born in Heidelberg, Germany while his father served in the U.S. Army. When he was ten years old he saw the film Jaws which solidified his love for the cinema. At age twelve he used his parent's Super 8 camera for the first time to produce his first short film. In the mid 80's he wrote and directed several shorts which received numerous awards including a first place award in the 1986 CEMA Student Film Making Contest and the 1987 Cinemagic Short Film Search. His short film Wishes helped get him gain admission into the University of Central Florida Motion Picture Division in the early 90's.

He is currently a Motion Picture Instructor for a performing arts school in central Florida. He has continued to direct several short films over the years and in 2010 made his feature film directorial debut with Lamp Post Lane.

About the Reviewer

Scott Urban

Scott Urban

Scott H. Urban is a freelance writer and poet living, appropriately enough, in North Carolina's Cape Fear region.  His dark verse appeared in the collections Night's Voice and Skull-Job (Horror's Head Press); his most recent chapbook, Alight, from Shakin' Outta My Heart Press, appeared last summer. In collaboration with Bruce Whealton, Scott's vampire poems appear in the e-book Puncture Wounds (Word Salad Productions). His fiction has appeared in print magazines, horror anthologies, and online zines, including, most recently, Lost Worlds of Space and Time Volume 2, and The Witching Hour. With Martin H. Greenberg, he co-edited the DAW anthology The Conspiracy Files. As editor, he recently compiled Jean Jones' poetry collectionThe Complete Angel of Death (Skull Job Productions) and memoirist Ryan Miller's Circle of the Heart, Voices of Comfort Dreams (Elephant Showcase).

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