Good afternoon, House of Madness soldiers:
We all have a past, and in that past are things that I'm sure we're not proud of, and wish we could get a do-over. That time you had a Roman candle fight with your pals, panicked when you saw a car, threw it in a hedge, and set old lady Cassidy's lawn on fire? Yeah, I bet you wish you could go back and play that one differently. What about that time you were throwing mudballs at passing cars and hit that motorcyclist who then proceeded to call the cops, and they searched for hours while you laid motionless in the mud like Arnold Schwarzenegger in "Predator"? That was probably a mistake. The time you were driving home and got the tickle in your intestines, got cocky and drove past the gas station because you thought you could make it home in time, and proceeded to fill your drawers with freshly prepared poop? What a disaster. Of course, all of these scenarios are fictitious, and any resemblances to my childhood or my friends's childhood are strictly coincidental. As for the cast in "Brooklyn 45", their past doings are a little more complicated than the examples above, and I'm not sure they can be atoned for at all.
It's just after Christmas in 1945, the war is over, and a group of lifelong friends and colleagues are gathering together at the request of Lt. Col. Hock (Larry Fessenden). One by one they gather in his home, starting with his best friend and second in command Major Paul DiFranco, followed by chief interrogator Marla Sheridan (Anne Ramsay), her husband Bob (Ron E. Rains) and finally sharpshooter Major Archibald Stanton (Jeremy Holm). As the group spends the early parts of the evening reminiscing and catching up, there are whispers about Hock's well being as he's dealing with the death of his wife Susan just a few weeks earlier by suicide. As he begins his speech thanking their coming, Hock goes right into how he misses his wife, and pulls on the heartstrings of his friends. Before they know it, they're all sitting around the table holding hands, and Hock is beginning a seance in order to speak to his recently deceased wife. As the closet door bulges with force, the troop of friends finally start to believe in what they're seeing as Susan's arm reaches up from the center of the table, which causes them to break the circle, and all Hell breaks loose.
As the friends try to gather their wits, the closet door finally busts open and a bound and gagged woman named Hilde (Kristina Klebe) emerges. Once they get her talking, she immediately raises suspicions, and the entire group spirals downwards in a wild game of who dunnit, and fingers are pointed at even the most unlikely candidates. The group of lifelong pals soon realize that they may in fact not know each other as well as they thought, and have skeletons hiding in their closets that have been peeling flesh for decades. Does Hilde have the biggest secret of all and is the key to solving all of this, or have they all lost their minds because of their previous misdoings, and are about to be forced to atone for their past sins? Regardless, they can all take solace in the fact that the war is finally over.......or is it?
Madness Meter: 6.2/10
NB
