THE FIANCE opens up with a group of film makers running away from something terrifying and from that moment it never lets up. From writer/director Mark Allen Michaels comes a monster movie with bite adding more intrigue than terror to a film that manages to draw blood from an otherwise predictable scenario.

 

On the night he is about to propose to his fiancé, Michael (Dallas Valdez) learns his bride-to-be Sara (Carrie Keagan) has been attacked by a Sasquatch. Unlike the building mountain of bodies that the beast has left behind, Sara succumbs to the rage of the monster and as she arrives for the proposal, the evening turns into something Michael could never have prepared for.

 

The film is of an unfamiliar structure and as it begins through a creature feature it intermittently flits between a love story and gangster move, sometimes this works, others it doesn’t but in the end it all makes sense.  As the film progresses we learn of Sara and Michaels relationship and Michaels involvement with the wrong side of the law, this character development would have been effectively placed as an opener as the films pace between brutal horror film and TV movie romance isn’t always convincing.

 

Yet when the film plays to its horror nature, THE FIANCE is nasty and brutal. The cat-and-mouse chase between Michael and Sara turns sour rather quickly and is the films strongest moment. Both Carrie Keagan and Dallas Valdez screen presence makes this film, one which could have done without the hard-to-believe-on-a-low-budget back story. There are some wince-inducing moments in THE FIANCE and the effects are pulled off well with enough blood to keep even the hardened horror fan happy with the leads all fingers and toes.

 

Mark Allen Michaels feature may not hit the mark from start to end but sticking with THE FIANCE delivers one of the most intriguing and original horror films this year and from a relatively tight budget manages to prove his stronger moments are in blood drenched horror than that of a GOODFELLAS follow up.