elliotspencer [Celluloid 11.21.07] movie review horror slasher



Year: 2007 (DVD)
Release Date: November 27th
Director: Greg Stechman
Writer: Greg Stechman
IMDB entry: IMDB
Review by: elliot spencer
Rating: 5 out of 10
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Key Characters:
Det. Jeff Starken (Marcus D Shelby)
Det. Tori Carter (Sheila McClay)
Amanda (April Potter)
Janelle (Krystle Ferrin)










The Overview:
Based on true events this story follows a detective though an investigation of four women that were murdered in Northern California in the late 1990's. We watch as this tortured ex-soldier is pulled farther into a place of strange disappearances and horrific killings of young women. As it begins to totally and completely absorb him we wonder if he will make it out of this dark place and even find the killer he and his partner have been trying to hard to find.



The Story:
The film opens with scenes of US soldiers getting tortured by their enemies in Desert Storm. Shortly after that we are taken to a scene where a man is kissing a young good-bye as she is leaving her house for the day get on her way to work. Before arriving at work she comes across a man that seems to be having car troubles. Fortunately for this man, she knows all about cars and is willing to help him. Unfortunately for her, he has other plans for her and has no car troubles at all. You see her struggle for a moment and we cut to the next scene where we see out main character in a US hospital recovering from his injuries from overseas.



The man that had kissed the young lady good-bye is now standing in from of a mirror. He has scratches on his face. After eating a few pills and looking at himself in the mirror he turns to reveal that the woman he had kissed good-bye; the woman he had reported missing, was now in his bathtub and tied with duct tape. She has fear in her eyes as he pours an unknown clear liquid from a glass container all over her. The camera cuts out, and as it fades in we see the man again but this time he has blood on his rubber glove clad hands. We are left looking at the body of the woman with a note written on a piece of paper on it sayin 'Threading Over Dark'.



The story progresses and we learn that the killer is killing women that have been sexually assaulted. Detective Jeff Starken and his partner continue their pursuit of the killer, and as Det. Starken is getting pulled deeper into this morbid case we see that his home life is beginning to suffer as well. He has a pregnant wife at home who fears that something bad will happen to him and their she is feeling great distance between them growing. Hopefully he will be able to finish the case soon and get on with his life.



The Rating:
I found it hard to review this movie. At first I wanted to give it a really low rating because the story was really not told too well and left many questions unanswered that were (in my opinion) pertinent to the story. On the other hand it did have some of the most realistic splatter gore I have seen since Cannibal Holocaust. The gore was quite impressive, but this movie really needed more than that to make it a film that you can watch from beginning to end and not ask yourself, "What is going on anyway?".

In the end you understand everything, and it all makes sense. That is common in many films today, but this film seemed too chopped up. It was only after watching in all the way through that I understood exactly what was going on, and even then there were scenes in the film that contributed in no way whosoever to the story.



I feel that this film is one that you should have in your collection if you want to have a movie that you can pull out and show some friends a few scenes just to shock them. If you want a film that you can sit down and enjoy from start to stop with a good story, then you should probably pass. All in all it was an ok film but I feel certain parts were underdeveloped and left me, the viewer wondering why certain things were even in the story. I think that it deserves a middle of the road score, hence 5/10.

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