This one came in without any background information whatsoever; just a DVD-R with The Doors written on it, slipped into a paper envelope. There’s not much online either. So, I guess we’ll just have to watch it to find out what it’s all about…
“This is a story of how one deplorable act of violence caused my existence to come crashing down.” This narration continues over a shot of a heavyset gentleman, Jinx (Dan Bailey), sitting on a lakeside park bench. The scene moves into a parking structure, where Jinx pulls a pistol from his glovebox and tearfully places the barrel under his chin after staring at a photograph of a woman and child.
But he can’t seem to pull the trigger; and as he hesitates he sees another man watching him from across the parking level. Cautiously he moves away, looking over his shoulder as he heads for the stairwell. As he does so, the second figure steps after him.
We next find ourselves in a blue-lighted nursery room, Jinx looking with despair into an empty crib. The shadowy figure from the parking lot appears again to frighten him, and suddenly things go dark. From underneath a door we can see that a fire has started in an adjoining room, and upon opening that door Jinx finds himself in a woodland area, following a leaf-strewn path.
Soon it’s dark, and Jinx is walking down a city street. He comes across the shadow man, who we can now clearly see is Jinx’s double. The doppelganger imparts some sinister words to him, and our man moves on. Walking through dry deserted streets festooned with glowing snowflake decorations, Jinx comes to a stately old church and goes inside.
And then we’re shown the reason for his midnight wandering.
Rather unfulfilling and lacking in imagination, this film follows a trend set by others in that you can see the oft-used ending coming before the movie is even a third of the way over. And even then there are questions still left unanswered.
With all of the melodrama and void, doubly expressed in the interminable fades and the anti-hero’s senseless roving, it’s almost as if someone took the filler space out of a larger film and crafted it into one long nine-minute excerpt. The nighttime Christmas ornament scene is a good one, glowing with ominous beauty, but it’s really the only one; it actually stands out and makes sense in the blurry context of the rest of the film.
Written, produced, directed, edited, and with “sound design” by Kenneth F. Smith, it’s surprising that he didn’t also cast himself as the protagonist. A point for brevity, but that’s about it.
– Tom Crites
- 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
