Brooklyn 45 is a supernatural thriller directed by Ted Geoghegan about a group of military veterans holding an impromptu séance in the parlor of a Brooklyn brownstone at the close of World War II.
The movie is set just after World War II. Five people gather for drinks at Clive "Hock" Hockstatter's house. Clive is a recent widower who is still mourning his wife, who recently died by suicide. Hock's grief leads him into a dark place...and drags his friends with him.
This film provides examples of:
- Absolute Xenophobe: Aside from Marla, all of the cast treat Hildy like a Nazi just because she's a German immigrant. An undead Hock demands she die regardless of innocence.
- Ate His Gun: After reaching out for Susan's arm and unwittingly ending the seance, Hock grabs his pistol and blows his brains out.
- Bittersweet Ending: Extremely bitter. Half the cast are killed because of the seance with the rest traumatized by the events. The only bright spot is that the survivors are forced to confront their war crimes and move on from the trauma of the war with Archie deciding to stop running from his past and turn himself in. They also might have killed an innocent woman due to their Germanophobia and fear.
- Boom, Headshot!: Bob kills Paul and Hildy this way.
- Closed Circle: Everyone is trapped in the parlor until they make a decision. When Archie begs to be let out even if it's to heaven or hell, the doors open to reveal the children's shelter he bombed completely blocking the door.
- Dynamic Entry: Hildy bashes down a closet door and falls out with her hands and feet tied.
- Fingore: Marla does this Hildy during her Advanced Interrogation, piercing her fingertip with a needle. Paul later gets this with Bob accidentally shooting off his fingers in a panic.
- Ghastly Ghost: Susan makes an appearance to accuse Hildy of murdering her.
- Marionette Motion: At one point Hock sits up and begins violently bashing his face into the table. Blood splatters all over the walls. When he finishes, his face is squashed into an *entirely new shape* and his teeth are hanging out of his mouth.
- Mutilation Interrogation: Marla, who interrogated spies during the war, interrogates Hildy about her possible Nazi ties, holding a long, thin needle in her hand for incorrect or delayed answers. The needle ends up in Hildy's thumb.
- My Death Is Just the Beginning: Hock's death kicks off the supernatural events of the plot.
- Quieting the Unquiet Dead: The friends attempt to finish the seance to lay the dead to rest and open the door. It doesn't work.
- Sanity Slippage: Hildy accuses Susan of this. Hock fell into this after his wife died and everyone else starts slipping after Hock kills himself and the seance goes wild.
- Shell-Shocked Veteran: All of the cast are clearly haunted by the war to varying degrees. It later turns out a lot of them engaged in some serious war crimes and haven't grown past their hatred of Germans. The seance forces them to confront their past, admit that the Nazis are gone, the war is over, and they have to stop living in the past.
- Shoot Out the Lock: Attempted by Archie.
- Spooky Séance: Hock leads one to attempt to talk to his deceased wife.
- Suicide, Not Murder: Susan accuses Hildy of staging her death to be this.
- Technical Pacifist: Bob. Paul picks at him constantly for it.
- The Paranoiac: Susan became this at the end of her life, accusing Hildy of being a Nazi spy. It's unknown if she was right or not.
- The Unreveal: No one finds out if Hildy is a Nazi or not.
- Vengeful Ghost: Susan is one. Hock becomes one after his death.
- Villain Protagonist: All of the characters are war criminals who committed various atrocities during World War II, including killing non-combatants, torture, and illegal orders.
- Your Approval Fills Me with Shame: When Paul praises Marla as the finest woman the American military has ever known after she does Advanced Interrogation on Hildy. She dismisses his praise, clearly disgusted what she had to do.
