Scott Glosserman, dir; Glosserman & David J. Stieve, screenplay (director/writer debuts for both)
Nathan Baesel - Leslie
Angela Goethals - Taylor
Robert Englund - Doc Halloran
Zelda Rubinstein - librarian
Notes: literate screenplay; opening - killer's eye view, watch waitress dump trash, here a noise, see a figure standing in the distance, door to diner close, she runs to the front--this is all a set-up, and even the closed door has been planned. Cut to a news reporter talking about the small burg of Glen Echo, that someone has contacted the tv station saying that Glen Echo will be next famous town. Taylor asks, "Who are these men? How do they do they do what they do?" talking about three serial killers from Springwood, Crystal Lake, and Haddonfield. "20 years ago a boy supposedly possessed by evil, was taken by a frenzied mob and thrown over the waterfuall where he perished." That boy has since grown and now claims he--Leslie Vernon--will be the next famous serial killer.
Documentary fashion--at first.
Taylor & cameraman go to Vernon's house, and they knock on the door, they look around outside, and Vernon jumps out and startles them, and he laughs, and he takes them inside his house, and he lets them see his pet turtles ("very feng shui" she says). He has an extensive library, mostly manuals, textbooks (Grey's Anatomy) and books on majgic tricks, he even plays a card trick on the cameraman. Taylor interviews him, and he says he doesn't plan to terroize innocents, says it's up tho her to understand the mind of a madman. He takes 'em to his old house where he'll reappear this year to scare the kiddies who dare each other to approach the house.
He takes Taylor to the orchard behind his old house and tells a story of it being haunted, that if one goes to the orchard when the moon is full or some such malarky, that if one digs in the ground, one will find it wet with blood. Silence. He then tells her he's just kidding. What a loon! He then shows her part of his karate-training regime, stating, "You gotta be able to run like a freakin' gazelle, without gettin' winded. Plus, there's that whole thinkg where you're walking, and everybody else is running their asses off. You gotta keep up. It's tough man; it's tough."
He then describes his methodology to her, as if he were on a corporate planning committee, examining the stages. First there's the location, then there's the target group. "Target group," Taylor asks. "You mean victims?" Leslie responds, "Potaytoe, potahtoe." He tells her then he must find a survivor girl from among this target group, and that she must be a virgin. Taylor asks him how he can tell, and he responds with, "How do the swallows find Capistramo?"
If, by now, you haven't laughed at this dialogue, then you won't like this movie. However, if you--like me--laugh at the satire, then you'll love it. I laughed out loud several times, waking my my wife in the process. After that last aforementioned line about the swallows, my wife woke and asked me what was funny, and I repeated the line to her (without telling her the pretext), and she told, sure that we'll get some Capistramo the next time we go to the grocery store, and that I can have it next week for lunch. Folks, you just can't make up material that rich.
The movie holds numerous other witty little satirical jabs and random, humerous non-sequiters, and I don't want to give more of them away (though I will note that Leslie's got a great joke when he's in the stacks in the library, so pay close attention there). The film, alas, wants to have it's serial killer and eat it, too (eww!), as about half-way through the movie starts to evolve into a horror movie proper, with the satire and mockumentary aspects falling to the wayside. Actually, this doesn't hamper the movie all that much, because the actors are so successful at playing their parts straight and honest, that we begin to like the characters, and we begin to shudder in anticipation and suspense when things start to go south for the characters. I wish the movie would have kept the laughs rolling while still churning out the traditional plot, but it doesn't. I guess the temptation to give in to cliche and formula was too strong (though I must say that the moviemakers handle these scenes with almost as much aplomb as they handle the satirical first half).
Again, the actors here are top notch, and the two leads I've never seen before, though after looking at imdb, I see that they've both logged in several hours in network television crime drama. Goethels plays the intelligent girl-next-door-gone-to-college type with natural ease, and Baesel's Vernon is a hoot, mixing some aww-shucks charm with some goofy, pleased-with-himself eagerness, all underscoring the satirical nature of the movie. Without Baesel's loopiness, the film wouldn't work at all.
The coup for a small-budgeted movie such as this is finding great supporting character work, and they find it in spades here. Robert Englund (Freddy Krueger) plays a cop who's obsessed with ending the evil in this town ("We've found our Ahab!" Vernon shouts), and he plays it both aping and honoring the late, great Donald Pleasence who played oh-so-similar a role in John Carpenter's Halloween. Zelda Rubinstein (the little lady from the Poltergeist films) succeeds here, too, masterfully using her voice and inflection to suggest depths of horror from just a few nondescript lines. Best of all, there's the old warhorse Scott Wilson (The Ninth Configuration, The Right Stuff, The Exorcist III, Dead Man Walking, Pearl Harbor), who gives a teeming, ferocious energy to his witty lines and actions, giving the film some good ol' humor mixed with a bit of danger that makes his scenes just crackle.
If you liked Scream, then this one might be right up your deserted alleyway. It's less loud and obnoxious, and the actors aren't as precocious, and it doesn't have the in-your-face soundtrack that it's spiritual predecessor did (though it might not be quite as sharp or as observant...and it doesn't have Drew Barrymore, either). For those of you who like your humor sharp instead of broad, then this one you'll enjoy all the way through, even to the end credits.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment