I have kept my eye on this film for a while. It has been in some lists of horror to watch. On top of that, it stars Dominic Monaghan, who was in “I Sell The Dead” with the great Larry Fessenden. This is directed by Carles Torrens, who directed Apartment 143 and apparently did a short for ABCs of Death 2, but was only a finalist. Apparently, there is an ABCs of Death 2.5 which has the 26 finalist submissions, so that is something for me to find. Really, just call it part 3.
As for this film, it’s complicated at times, lots of role reversals. I’ll set the stage for you. Seth bumps into Holly on the bus one day and knew her from school, and he starts crushing on her, even obsessing. He gets advice from his co-worker, Nate, who he works with at an animal control type job. Nate encourages Seth to be more confident because Seth is most certainly not that. Seth goes to the restaurant where Holly works and tries being confident, but is over aggressive, in way over his head, and makes shit uncomfortable. She gets mad at him, he sends her flowers anonymously. She thinks it is from this ex, Eric, that drunk dialed her the previous night. She meets up with Eric at the bar where he works to talk about the flowers. Seth comes along outside, and he is too aggressive again, gets attacked by Eric, but he gets Holly’s journal.
Seth gets this great idea to build a cage, break into Holly’s house, sedate her, kidnap her, and put her in a cage. Oh yeah, the cage is in some hidden area in the building that he works. So that shit happens. We find out that Holly is a tad psycho, and Seth is psycho. They keep mindfucking each other until the end.
I won’t spoil it any further. Either this sounds like a good premise or it doesn’t. I like the idea. It reminded me of a film called Honeymoon (Luna de miel), from 2015, not to be mistaken with Honeymoon from 2014. Here’s the thing, I was bored far too often in this one. The twists and turns happened, but they weren’t all that great, for me at least. I found myself easily distracted during the film, and that always concerns me. If a movie is good, I pay attention. The ending is a real, well if you’re a veteran horror viewer, not at all surprising. For the uninitiated viewers, the ending may be a pleasant surprise.
I can honestly see some people go as high as maybe a 7 or as low as a 3 without overreacting because millennials think everything is epic. Goddamnit, I keep telling myself to stop being an old curmudgeon, but it is fucking difficult dealing with the overreactions of today’s youth. This is a mixed bag for many viewers. More torture would have been fun, for me at least. More murder could have added something. Nudity could have gone a long way for this type of film.
I really thought the best thing about this was the performances of the top 4 players. Props to Dominic Monaghan (Seth), Ksenia Solo (Holly), Jenette McMurdy (Claire), and Da’Vone McDonald (Nate). I also think that Sean Blakemore as the detective was really good. This is why you can’t reasonably give it too low of a score.
Rating: 4.7 I just don’t think I have any real rhyme or reason to rewatch this one. It was well done, but zero replay value in my mind. Good concept, but missing key ingredients to make it memorable.
All the pictures used in this blog are for review purposes. They are the property of:
Please go find a copy and support the creators.
Finally, I am doing a GoFundMe to help pay for the costs to keep 9deuce.com up and running. I don’t make any money off of the site. I do it because I love it, but it is expensive at times, and I had to recently renew for 3 years. So I am asking any of my readers to consider donating if they have the extra funds. If you don’t, I get it. It would mean a lot to me.
https://www.gofundme.com/keep-9deucecom-alive
