There’s so much crap out there – and this film’s UK distributor Lionsgate is as guilty as purveyor of it as anyone – that it’s still something of a revelation when a straight to DVD horror movie turns out to be a whole better than crap. This directorial debut for erstwhile actors Jonas Barnes and Michael Manasseri is a well crafted, scary flick that neatly riffs on expectations, changes tack to a surprising degree at least twice and turns into a gory, tense latter-day spin on THE OMEN. Some of the scares in the early going are standard, clichéd hand-on-shoulder stuff, and the premise, once it has revealed itself, might have been more dynamic as a short (it has the feel of a superior TALES FROM THE CRYPT episode complete with flippant black humor and ironic twists), but it’s still a cool little sleeper.
Very cute, virtuous 18 year old Sarah Thompson (a perky 30 year old actress who could conceivably still be a teenager and looks a lot like a younger Jennifer Garner) leaves home for college and ends up sharing a room with a multiply pierced, hostile stoner. She gets a part-time job as a babysitter for a nice couple with a little boy (Kai Caster) who’s a little strange : he eats blood-drenched raw meat from designated, labeled tubs in the fridge and is seldom seen without his cowboy hat. Thompson’s major concern during one long scary night of sitting, however, would appear to be the dagger-wielding, bald, disfigured stranger lurking outside, seemingly intent on getting to her at any cost.
Several times you may think you know where this is going, but Barnes and Manasseri have fun yanking the rug out from under the noses of the audience. A pre-titles sequence strongly suggest yet another post-HOSTEL torture movie but, when the plot gets into gear, we’re in a suspenseful, nervy reworking of the woman-in-peril prologue of WHEN A STRANGER CALLS, complete with jumps, home invasion and a plucky lone babysitter terrorized by a mysterious older man.
The film’s triumph is its reveal that nothing is as it seems, and it pulls off a terrific (if slightly guessable) midway turnaround – revealed in a clever, amusingly throwaway fashion – that takes the story into a whole new direction. There’s a lot of fun to be had from the out-there nature of the twist, particularly as it comes after around 45 minutes of straight-forward (if effective) stalk and slash melodramatics.
Caster is creepy as the almost-silent kid (his most-used word : “Hungry….”) and dark comedy is garnered from the deadpan reactions of his “parents” as they calmly and patiently strip the flesh off the bones of a captured young woman. The flick is also scary when it needs to be – the first half in particular ramps up the intensity impressively – and doesn’t stint on the red stuff, with a nasty bit of SAW-era sadism involving hooks through ankles.
Thompson is a highly appealing heroine who figures in a neat, circular ending capping this tidy low budget horror nicely. Technically sound, the movie is well acted and shot, with a cameo by Scott Spiegel and a small role for an uncharacteristically normal Bill Moseley as an ill-fated police chief.
– Steven West
- 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
