by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
C Rated PG-13 84 min
Since there is a new generation of 14 year-old girls who are viewing horror flicks for cheap thrills, Hollywood moguls have jumped on the bandwagon of funding nouveau horror films. A gaggle of new directors are vying to helm these movies to get some experience in a genre that has such a textbook history. The latest trend is to use A-list actors with marquee recognition to star in these el cheap-o’s, such as Jennifer Connelly starring in Dark Water et al.
Take a pair of Asian writer/directors, Danny and Oxide Pang with Hong Kong ghost story roots, then hire Kristen Stewart, Dylan McDermott, Penelope Ann Miller and John Corbett, and bang-zoom this generic horror picture was greenlighted.
Never mind that the entire script is a patched together string of horror cliches gleaned from dozens of horror movies that have come before – horror is horror. The Pangs tried to revive the genre with some original touches. Ah yes, but it didn’t work. For we pundits, the only excitement left is counting the glaring cliches and anticipating the fright moments.
Yes, we had better get used to it, because Tinsel Town is on a binge of making new horror films in production for future release. The films are cheap to make and have a stable market–mostly teenagers on date night. It seems that no one cares about the derivative nature of these movies as long as they make money and provide steady work for name actors between television series, such Dylan McDermott, who plays Roy Solomon. He is a downsized executive that had been out of work for two years, and used his savings to buy an old farmhouse in the country and become a farmer. He knows nothing about farming.
The house is right out of Psycho, with a tragic history. Immediately, savvy viewers will think of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Amityville Horror, The Shining, The Birds, The Others, and even The Sixth Sense. A whole family was brutally murdered in the house–a fact that the real estate broker left out of the sales pitch.
Roy’s wife is happy to be making a fresh start. However, her 14 year-old daughter, Jess (Kristen Stewart), hates the whole idea of moving to the sticks and communing with nature. The toddler, Benny, is a budding medium like his sister Jess. Both of them see dead people.
The crows are pesky devils flying into the basement and dive-bombing the family. Just when Roy is getting the tractor running, a stranger, Burwell (John Corbett), appears to help Roy. Corbett is decked out to look like the classic lowlife, with his unkempt long hair, fu-manchu mustache, and toting a shotgun to scare the crows away. Sure, he’s seems okay. He’s a hard worker and is respectful of the family. But just based on his demeanor, viewers know this guy is going to be trouble. When the crows attack him, he flashes back to when he was the head of the family.
Jess begins seeing the murdered family members who are appearing to her to warn her. He brother sees them also, but he just points to them like they are playmates. Jess’ parents think she is mentally unstable and needs help. She has some terrifying experiences inside this creepy old house with planks for floors. Of course, she goes into the basement where the murders took place, and scary things happen. Cue muddy effects and ghostly arms reaching out to grab the living.
The Pangs must have written this script using a computer program template which included a maximum number of cliches. They love to go with the cheesy fright zing, accented with a big sound, but they didn’t build the tension slowly and deliberately like in the horror film The Shining–a Stanley Kubrick classic. Part of the suspenseful terror of the story is watching Jack Nicholson’s character gradually go stark-raving mad. Of course, in the Pangs’ scenario, no one is watching the toddler Benny as he goes wandering down the dark hallway where the ghosts are waiting. Come on, it’s right out of Close Encounters. Jess’ raging hormones, combined with her discovery that she is a medium, has alienated her more than normal.
The subtext of the Pangs’ story is about teen-angst exacerbated by second sight. Jess does find a casual boyfriend in town, and he goes along with her, but viewers can tell he’s not into it until the spirits attack him. Teens relate to these tortured characters and their horror is a metaphor for their adolescent alienation from the adult world. So, get your ghost groove on; there are a slew of these grade B horror films coming down the pike.
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