Afterdark Horrorfest’s contributions have been hit and miss admittedly. Although I enjoy a tradition of a cache of films that annually give us a new helping of horror, Afterdark’s offerings more closely resemble SyFy faire more than anything else. This last grouping has had some gems, Husk being among the most noteworthy. SO it was with little enthusiasm that I went into Seconds Apart, an evil twins picture that looked part Omen, part Dead Ringers. Fortunately Seconds Apart bypasses the temptation to be either of those films and instead marches to its own sick, sometimes disturbing beat. The end result is very well Afterdark’s first real, mature entry that shows us just what the brand may be capable of. Seconds Apart follows Seth and Jonah Trimble ( Gary and Edmund Entin), two twins that from the start appear to have a very strong and terrifying grip on their high school peers. After the twins are placed at a party where 4 of the school’s star football players meet a grisly end after an impromptu game of Russian Roulette, detective Lampkin (Orland Jones) pursues the boys, realizing along his quest that their power might be more than just psychological. Psychological is the operative term here as the thriller explores the demented sadism of the sociopathic Trimble twins. The real treat here falls squarely on the shoulders of the Entin brothers. Quite possibly roles that these two were literally born to play, both Gary and Edmund Entin are able to convey a familial closeness that is so eerily intimate and at times disturbingly sexual that every scene the two occupies easily rivets you to the following frames. It is this performance that takes Seconds Apart and quite frankly puts it so far ahead of the other Afterdark films that it threatens to nullify even their best entries with its craft and tone. Yes, it is literally that atmospheric of a film. My only complaint with Seconds Apart is that from the first interaction of the twins with Blooms’ character, we get the overwhelming feeling that he is horribly outmatched. Whether intentional or not, it is so apparent that Bloom seems hardly a threat to the two that his character and performance is quite simply undermined by the intensity of the pair. Again, I can’t stress enough that this movie is OWNED by the Brothers Entin. Able to sit confidently on the same shelf as movies such as the Bad Seed and Dead Ringers, it is qualified further by superb directing from filmmaker Antonio Negret and a lush haunting score by Lior Rosner. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
