What boggles me in respect to David Kann’s third feature, Prison of the Psychotic Damned (PPD), is that–as a director, by definition–he should be the epitome of control. As such, how Kann shot a film in Buffalo and managed to fashion a work of horror with less-than-admirable special as well as makeup effects leaves me truly daunted, especially considering that–aside from the city being home to the artist–Kann’s alma mater, the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, is the same as Cory Cudney. Cudney is not only a famed artist in his own right, but a notable horror aficionado. Personally knowing the artist and his penchant for anything horror atop his humble, good nature in regard to helping up-and-comers in common fields of interest, the fault for such poor research is to ultimately fall in the lap of PPD’s head honcho.
Granted, the work is a very low-budget affair, yet creativity is the mother of invention as we have seen countless times, especially in the horror genre. Yet, outside of the setting and score (the latter not by Kann), there is literally nothing of redeemable value contained within the film.
PPD centers around “the terminal,” a 17-floor railway station that has been abandoned for over 30 years. Enter, five psychics (only one of which exhibits or even mentions being such during the course of the film) looking for spooks. Sound familiar? Indeed, the pen behind the equally vapid Ice Queen, David Williams, sacrilegiously lifts his plot from Robert Wise’s classic The Haunting and relocates it to Buffalo Central Terminal on the city’s east side. On par with the storyline is the trite aggregation of characters, scratch that, caricatures, each and every one fervently competing for the title of “Most Annoying.”
As the audio inconsistently fluctuates from blaring to a rasp whisper, actors are caught on several occasions realizing they have missed their cue. However, it cannot be said the plot is predicable for the audience is unable to successfully wager who will survive and who will perish. The unfortunate catch is that we aren’t made to care. It should come as no surprise that a large portion of the film is unintentionally humorous (the inversion of intended effect is frequently the consequence of poor storytelling, i.e. B-movies’ accidental entertainment factor), which makes the overt jokes posited by the filmmaker all the more insipid for they, regrettably, deadpan.
The film is not a complete loss however. The score by Mars is intriguing, so much so that I look forward to hearing more from the composer at a later date. Sadly, his talents were entirely wasted in the trite, amateurishly produced, constructed, and shot feature that is David Kann’s Prison of the Psychotic Damned. To his credit, it is not as if Kann doesn’t possess talent, it just isn’t for directing. His impressive track record includes having a hand in the art and special effects of such films as James Cameron’s Titanic, James Hickox’s Children of the Corn III, Louis Morneau’s Carnosaur 2, Paul W.S. Anderson’s Mortal Combat, and Chuck Russell’s The Mask, among others. For our sake, Dave should stick with what he’s good at.
-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
