James Tucker issues us a gang of thugs who terrorize an innocent family. That’s it. There’s nothing here that hasn’t been done before, and on the same budget nonetheless (thus we aren’t even granted better photography or special effects this go around), i.e. Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, Michael Haneke’s Funny Games, or Ruggero Deodato’s House on the Edge of the Park, ad infinitum. Ope, scratch that. Tucker does tweak the long-past-retirement-aged premise with a supernatural bent but this merely supplements for the omitted raping which preceded everything else we witnessed in Craven’s landmark effort.
It is well known that if you must retread, you’ve got to bore through the rut with at least a bigger tire in order to have any effect whatsoever. After The Last House on the Left, little has been done to improve the formula with the exception of David DeFalco’s Chaos, which turned the visceral nature of the villains and their crimes up to an unbearable eleven while adding a bit of character complexity in for good measure. Obviously, Tucker doesn’t even humor the notion of turning down this side street, nor does he take any route for that matter aside from the inclusion of a witch-like Aunt (Marty Gargle) that serves little purpose outside of being the token twist on what is otherwise known as, in Stephen King’s terms, s.s.d.d. (“same shit, different day”).
I’m not quite sure which is more distressing, the insult of the premise as being entertaining at this day and age or the unrepentant nature of the cast being a group of twenty-something kids who decided to make a movie as they were subsequently cast as either “protagonist” or “antagonist” due, apparently, upon the number of visible tattoos each person possessed (the head-slapper here being that even the “innocent” have some suspiciously placed body art).
Now wait a minute, hold it. No, we aren’t being subtly greeted with the notion that the two factions aren’t that far removed from one another any more than we are being served with a morality tale where the bitchy daughter, Debbie (Elizabeth Cooke)–who takes her mother, father, and aunt for granted–learns to more readily appreciate her (un)loved ones by the end of the day.
So, here you have it: Stereotypical gang comprised of two guys (one of which is a Steve Buscemi stand-in) and one girl (with porn-quality adornments for salability), a nuclear family with a single daughter, three topless women, one lesbian kiss, a witchy aunt, and a Halloween mask being passed off as scary. The only thing which could be viewed as terrifying outside the possibility that James Tucker will continue making films is that the aforementioned Halloween mask was actually an animatronic monster designed by the Monsters in the Closet special effects company. Seriously, if your horror treatments come across as last minute convenience store purchases for the last day of October, you might want to consider a different career. But hey, look on the bright side, if you hurry you can car pool with Tucker down to the unemployment office.
-Egregious Gurnow
- Interview with J.R. Bookwalter - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Andrew J. Rausch - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Rick Popko and Dan West - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Director Stevan Mena (Malevolence) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Screenwriter Jeffery Reddick (Day of the Dead 2007) - January 22, 2015
- Teleconference interview with Mick Garris (Masters of Horror) - January 22, 2015
- A Day at the Morgue with Corri English (Unrest) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Writer/Director Nacho Cerda (The Abandoned, Aftermath) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actress Thora Birch (Dark Corners, The Hole, American Beauty) - January 22, 2015
- Interview with Actor Jason Behr, Plus Skinwalkers Press Coverage - January 22, 2015
