Director: John Carpenter
Cast: Amber Heard, Mamie Gummer, Danielle Panabaker, Jared Harris
Have I Seen it Before: No. I acquired it during one of my flea market runs for DVDs. Had it not had the Carpenter moniker on it, it would have never occurred to me to watch the film, much less own it.
Did I Like It: Without going into too much detail about the movie itself, as I finally watched the movie, I knew without any shred of doubt that I would never watch it again, thus it immediately went not on the shelf my standing disc collection, but instead on the pile of DVDs to be sold or donated somewhere.
Want to know more about the movie? The plot is barely non-existant, and the twist ending has the unusual distinction of feeling cliched, tacked on, and not actually mean anything in favor of one more jump scare in the film’s last moment. It’s barely an hour and a half, but feels much longer.
Carpenter hasn’t really made a good film since arguably In the Mouth of Madness (1994) and undeniably since They Live (1988). He had taken a ten-year break before coming back to direct here, He has yet to direct anything since, and I think that’s probably the right decision. He lost interest in making great films a long time ago.
But the elements that would have made this a diverting way to spend just over an hour weren’t even there. The film makes pretty good use of the wide screen format, but long gone are the days of his collaborations with cinematographer Dean Cundey. He didn’t even do the score. A thorough disappointment all around.
Is it sad or sort of okay if a once-great director just runs out of steam one day? I for one think that’s fine. The sentiment surely doesn’t save this film, but no one can take away the fact that John Carpenter made Halloween (1978).
