Much like Tim Burton and Danny Elfman, Matt Damon and Ben Afflack, Martin Scorsese and Robert De Niro, David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, the name of Lucky McKee is synonymous with Angela Bettis (and vice versa). In 2002 the duo sent shockwaves through, not only horror with McKee’s highly original May–a contemporary recasting of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein–but all of cinema as Roger Ebert attempted to get the young actress nominated for an Academy Award based on her revelatory efforts. Sadly, the next film in which the two would be main players in their respective roles–McKee’s highly anticipated installment in the first season of the Masters of Horror–was the daunting disappointment and irrefutable low-point of the charter series. With Roman, the two switch roles, creating a fascinating scenario for audiences as interested parties hypothesize upon how the purported follow-up to May will unfold given the new dynamic as McKee is lead as Bettis helms the lens.
The only reprieve from Roman’s (Lucky McKee) mundane life occurs everyday at 5:31, the exact time when an unnamed cohabitant (Kristen Bell) of his apartment complex retrieves her mail. Perplexingly, the young beauty is playfully attracted to the introvert, the ill-fated chemistry of which resulting in unintentional murder. Three weeks hence, a new, highly eccentric resident named Eva (Nectar Rose) becomes infatuated with her male counterpart as they attempt to reconcile their secrets while nonetheless continuing to sponsor a relationship.
I am fortunate enough to have an editor who is a proponent and shining example of Free Speech for, aside from our agreement that McKee houses, not only directorial capabilities (however wavering), but proves with his depiction of Roman that he has a fallback career as an actor. Barring this token bit of critical harmony, I am otherwise befuddled by what Horror Bob, as well as most other critics, see in the film. From every other conceivable angle, the feature is atrocious, beginning with the cinematography, carrying through to the forced storyline, and finishing with the D.O.A. soundtrack, which proves that McKee and Bettis need to revert back to their original roles as respective director and actor.
Granted, Roman has thematic similarities with May, namely its motif of necrophilia by way of a social outcast’s appreciation of such in the aesthetic abstract. However, as the film unfolds, the direction in which the narrative could logistically take is either/or. Unfortunately, the most satisfactory note which Roman could conclude is almost plagiaristically akin to its forerunner’s finale as the feature’s other narrative option is eschewed in favor of a conclusion which is trite and overtly disappointing. In Bettis’s vain attempt to avoid the rut of its paterfamilias, she jars the narrative steering wheel, forcing the storyline’s to waver uncontrollably and, understandably, Roman winds up careening into a nearby ditch.
Amid the amateurish cinematography and novice direction (one anticipates that the film would, at minimal, remain steadfast given the fact that McKee’s directorial prowess was at arm’s reach at all times during filming but, alas, it seems as if McKee kept his distance or Bettis stubbornly kept to herself), the first-time director sets out to provide a Lynchian/Polanski world of the surreal where everything is strange and alien, from the stagnant, existential environment to the people enclosed within. However, where the aforementioned masters of cinema fascinate us with their odd caricatures, the Bettis irritates, our annoyance further frustrated by the soundtrack which, though posited in an effort to juxtapose the proceedings, instead offsets the filmmaker’s visual tonalities.
Analogous to the poor performances by almost the entire secondary cast is the fact that Roman never professes to be a horror film proper. It houses horrific elements yet posits itself as a thriller. Sadly, with its proposed itinerary, the feature fails to instill concern in its audience for the main character as the tension involving a man hiding a corpse is diluted by, of all character choices, the introduction of a necrophile (again, by arbitrarily making the feature a follow-up, Bettis ties in May’s overriding theme in at all the wrong places and at the wrong time as the story barges in directions it does not merit or even feasibly belong). In short, when Roman could miss, it seems as if Bettis set out to do just that with only McKee unwilling to oblige.
In the end, Angela Bettis’s directorial debut, Roman, accomplishes one thing: It establishes that McKee’s artistic abilities are not solely limited to operating behind the camera. Aside from this, the production fails to interest, entertain, or offer anything of value as Bettis spends more time avoiding the trailblazing efforts of her lead actor’s renowned May than she does creating and fashioning her own unique vision. Fortunately, though a failure, at least this is not a ill-fated end for the involved parties, merely a proving ground which declares that McKee and Bettis’s original dynamic of director and actress respectively should be reprised and, for all future efforts, maintained at all costs.
-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
