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April 30, 2003Quite possibly the worst movie ever...
Late yesterday afternoon, I attended a test screening in Los Angeles for a movie that will hopefully never see the light of day. Even a straight-to-video release is too good for this tripe. In agreeing to watching this film, I forfeited my right to mention it by name. Our handlers told us before they started the screening, it was a criminal offence to videotape or audio record what we were about to see. Oh, how right they were. As the guy in the row ahead of mine said as he walked out twenty minutes into it, "I’ve farted more creative stuff than this."
My girlfriend and I were fortunate enough to be part of the 20-person discussion group after the movie, where we got a chance to explain in greater detail why it sucked. And it was fortunate, truly, because we needed to put our two cents in and experience that catharsis after watching such trash. When they’re trying to pull together a screening audience, they usually look to fill those seats with a cross-section of society, playing blackout bingo with all possible income brackets, ages, and ethnicities. Such was the case last night, and to a man, everybody thought it sucked. Even the punked-out coffee barista with enough tongue and lip piercings to affect the clarity of his speech was let down, and that’s a guy who gets a kick out of having parts of his face impaled.
In a sense, it’s a shame that I can’t mention the title; it was the coolest part of the movie. There’d be no point in my naming the actors, since they’re nobody you’ve ever heard of—and if their success in Hollywood is to be in any way determined by the success of this movie, you never will. The director, for whom remaining nameless is an undeserved luxury, also saw fit to write the script, provide the music (if incessantly traipsing over the same five or six keys on the synthesizer can be considered providing the music), and co-produce. M. Night Shyamalan can get away with directing and producing his own script. A good movie needs to give its audience an original concept or characters you can care about, and Shyamalan provides both. The director of last night’s train wreck cheated us on both fronts.
Three utterly unlikable amateur bank robbers and an annoying mother-daughter duo end up in a spooky house in the middle of nowhere. The obligatory silent killer steals his first victim’s do-rag—a fashion accouterment worn for no other reason than to be stolen by the killer, it would seem—and wears it over his face for the rest of the movie. The director had enough shame to eschew a hockey mask for his villain, apparently, but not enough not to rip off Jason in nearly every other respect. The killer moves silently and never speaks, but all that stealth is undone by the fact that the soundtrack damn near pulverized my eardrums every time he suddenly appeared. At one point, I was fully expecting him to pop out of the front door and blast his prey clear off the porch with his pure sonic might.
What else? The annoying single mother spends a good portion of the film tied up with duct tape. When she’s not writhing and moaning orgasmically (trying to escape her bonds or, barring that, enjoy her time in captivity, I suppose), she’s inexplicably asleep. Or magically appearing behind shut closet doors. It’s worth mentioning that the killer, while possessing no qualms about gutting other intruders like a newly-caught fish, seems to have a problem with murdering anybody trussed up with duct tape. Maybe he’s just too distracted by her moaning and writhing to off her.
This movie just made me mad. This is the sort of tripe that gets made when a person is too paranoid or power-hungry to relinquish any of the creative say-so, and then steadfastly ignores any sort of advice they’re given. The director probably sat in his screenwriting class, refusing to integrate or even consider any of the constructive criticism that undoubtedly rained down from all sides. The plot and dialogue were banal and derivative, and the sooner the characters had bled out, the better. There wasn’t an absolute vacuum of talent; the cinematography was very nice. I assume the director of photography owed the director a sizable favor. If not, I’d say that the reverse is certainly true now. Also, the back-story was touched upon for about three minutes right near the end, and from what little we got, it had definite potential. Had the director looked anywhere else for input but his bathroom mirror, maybe that part of the script could have been developed and served as its backbone. As it was, it just went to show that even a broken clock is right twice a day.
I feel better for having gotten all of this off my chest. If the director has the gall to try and release the film theatrically, I’ll repost this journal entry as a warning to anybody who might have otherwise gone and seen it.
Posted by patrick at April 30, 2003 02:09 PM
CommentsWow, your description of the director actually reminds me of somebody we had in our screenwriting class at UCR! Let me guess: does the hero of the story have the same name as the director/screenwriter? I wonder what that guy is doing these days?
Posted by: Mad Monarch Voards at May 10, 2003 09:49 AM
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