Open Water 2: Adrift

Open Water 2: Adrift
Starring: Susan May Pratt, Richard Speight, Jr., Niklaus Lange, Ali Hillis
Directed by: Hans Horn

Style: Survival Horror
Blood and Guts: 1
Fright Factor: 3
Laugh Factor: 0
Weapons of choice: The ocean
Overall rating: 3 out of 5

A group of high school friends now grown up decide to spend a day out on the ocean courtesy of the yacht owned by their friend Dan. He brings a new girlfriend Michelle, while Amy brings her husband James and their new baby. Amy also conveniently brings her fear of the ocean, which she has had since her father drowned when she was a child. While out on the boat, everyone goes swimming except Amy. Dan decided to help her get over her fear of the ocean by pulling her into the water. The only problem is this leaves nobody on the yacht except a baby, and nobody thought to deploy the ladder.

The strength of the story lies in the fact that safety is always just out of reach. None of the characters can get high enough to pull themselves back on board, and a series of schemes each fall short. In fact, the movie gets quite a bit of drama out of people floating through the ocean. Each of the actors show quite a bit of range as they turn on each other. However, it feels as if the friends start panicking too early, probably in part to condense the story. They are barely in the water an hour when they act like they are on the verge of murdering each other. This is an instance of being larger than life is overdone. It's jarring in the film, and once they have reached that level of fear, there isn't much farther that the film can go. The film's best moments are when the characters aren't afraid but are taking turns emotionally breaking each other down because it is the only way to deal with the fear.

Also, for those looking for a film like the first Open Water, there is very little similarity other than it is about people trapped in the water. Whereas Open Water was about surviving against the ocean itself, Adrift is more about surviving the fear the ocean inflicts upon us. The title Open Water 2 is used more to link it in the audience's mind. It was probably a separate film before the marketing department got a hold of it.

Finally, there is the ending. I don't want to spoil anything, so I won't speak of the specifics. However, I really have a problem with films that abandon all the work it has done up until that point just to try and throw ambiguity into the mix. Clearly, the director wanted to spark debate, but it doesn't come off as a clever or smart choice. Instead, you have an ending that will have people griping about how the story remains unfinished. You can be ambiguous if the story is finished being told, but this is not the case for Adrift.

Adrift has some good moments of drama and character interaction. There are hints that this film could have been good. However, as the director's first big film, his inexperience in storytelling shows, and the film cannot hold itself together no matter how hard the actors work. This movie is probably good for a lazy Saturday afternoon, when you might be able to overlook its failings to appreciate the drama it contains.

Terrible Thursday: Lake Placid 2

Lake Placid 2
Starring: John Schneider, Sara LaFleur, Sam McMurray, Chad Collins
Directed by: David Flores

Style: Creature Feature
Blood and Guts: 2
Fright Factor: 1
Laugh Factor: 4
Weapons of choice: Firearms, biting
Overall rating: terrible

Anytime your town suffers from an attack by some giant killer animal, odds are that you should just nuke the entire town afterwards and start from scratch. Why? Because there are always offspring, and these offspring will inevitably seek revenge, even if the people from the original incident pass on appearing in the sequel. This brings us to Lake Placid 2.

Once again, giant killer crocodiles have returned to Lake Placid. Once again, the sheriff (Schneider) and Fish and Wildlife Services (LaFleur) must do battle with these killers to save a town too stupid to move away from the lake, even though people continue to disappear there for years. Throw in an ornery old woman, who happens to be the sister of the ornery old woman from the first movie, and a big game hunter (McMurray), and you have yourself a race to see who can be the last one chewed on.

For the most part, this film is terrible from beginning to end. All of the characters lack any sort of enthusiasm or intelligence at all, to the point that the first ten minutes talk about how everyone is vanishing on the lake. One character even strips off her clothes and goes diving in her underwear, and she is the EPA / Fish and Wildlife person. I was hoping for some sort of skin infection to punish her with. Everyone else has one goal and will ignore all sorts of rational thinking to achieve it. For example, the sleazy reporter is led to the edge of the dock and left there as an old woman runs away, yet he fails to be suspicious.

The crocodiles are decent but look so out of place. All of the violence is from people writing on the ground pretending to be eaten as digital blood and croc mouth surrounds them.

To give you an idea of what this film is like, the characters just happens to have a grenade launcher lying around. And then, they try to not use it as much as possible. Terrible.

Lake Placid

Lake Placid
Starring: Bill Pullman, Bridget Fonda, Oliver Platt, Brendan Gleeson
Directed by: Steve Miner

Style: Creature Feature
Blood and Guts: 2
Fright Factor: 2
Laugh Factor: 3
Weapons of choice: Firearms, biting
Overall rating: 3 out of 5

Lake houses are generally seen as peaceful places, especially if your lake is called Placid. However, if people suddenly start disappearing or showing up in pieces, that is usually a good sign to move to a city where all you have are lunatics and not giant savage beasts.

Alas, someone has to deal with those creatures once you are gone. That someone is Fish and Game officer Jack Wells (Pullman), sheriff Hank Keough (Gleeson), and paleontologist Kelly Scott (Fonda). Together they must find a way to deal with the giant crocodile, as neither lake nor land are safe from this hunter.

Overall, this film falls on the favorable side of the comedic horror line. There is enough of the bickering between the different leads and with an eccentric crocophile played by Oliver Platt to keep the movie clipping along. As for the horror aspect, there are never any truly suspenseful moments, but the movie can be forgiven for that as nothing ever feels really weak or out of place. The creature effects add a sense of realism to the movie, as the CGI blend they are using isn't half-bad. All too often a movie like this will put together a junk creature with bad special effects, but this film managed to get it right.

As for the violence, the film barely squeezed on an R rating. yes, there are a few mutilations, but most of it feels like something you would see on a late night movie on TV with a few extra seconds of gore added to tip the scales. Normally, this wouldn't be a problem, but the movie also doesn't have the suspense factor to back it up. All of the tense sequences feel tired, with other films doing it better.

It is hard to fault a film like this, as it delivers exactly what it promises up front: a well-paced, fun adventure with a giant killer crocodile. The reason this film isn't better is mostly because to never achieves anything beyond that good time. A movie like this that can provide a great time is what makes something into a cult classic. As it stands, Lake Placid doesn't have the snappy script or originality necessary to be one of those movies that everyone tells their friends about. It's fun, but don't expect much else.

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon

Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon
Starring: Nathan Baesel, Robert Englund, Angela Goethals, Kate Lang Johnson
Directed by: Scott Glosserman

Style: Mockumentary Slasher
Blood and Guts: 3
Fright Factor: 2
Laugh Factor: 3
Weapons of choice: All sorts of pointy things
Overall rating: 5 out of 5

Everyone has a dream growing up. Some of us want to be astronauts. Some of us want to cure cancer. But for Leslie Vernon (Baesel), he wants to be remembered as the next great serial killer. He enlists the help of a college documentary crew to record the preparation for his rise as a serial killer, and even allows them to attend his night of carnage. However, lead reporter Taylor (Goethals) doesn't want to stand by while people die. Can she stop Leslie's quest for infamy, or will she be just another tally on his knife handle?

Every once in a while, a horror movie comes along that truly understands the horror movie experience. It understands that audiences usually have seen a number of the slasher films and have high expectations and standards for what constitutes a scary film. In this case, the film is about what goes into being the perfect horror villain. The first half of the movie is all about preparation and setting the stage for the night of carnage, and the film goes so far as to acknowledge its roots outright.

The selling point of this film is Nathan Baesel. He brings charisma and enough sly humor to the character that we overlook the fact that he is brutally murdering people. We sympathize with his quest for perfection, even if it is slaughter. There is one moment where Leslie is sitting in the dark waiting to begin, and he is so overjoyed that his plan is about to become reality. The humanity of that moment is heartfelt and genuine, and it is such a rarity among the horror genre.

The second half of the movie plays out the way any other slasher film would, except because we have such an attachment to both the killer and the film crew, their conflict carries us through to the end. We've already been told what will happen, and so when the crew interferes and changes the game plan, we are surprised anew. Even if those surprises still follow the clichè, they feel new to us because we have been guided the entire way.

Everything about this film shows much planning and forethought, as well as an understanding of how horror films function, and the result is one of the best horror films to come around in a few years.

The Strangers

The Strangers
Starring: Liv Tyler, Scott Speedman, Gemma Ward
Directed by: Bryan Bertino

Style: Cat-and-mouse Slasher
Blood and Guts: 3
Fright Factor: 3
Laugh Factor: 0
Weapons of choice: Knives, firearms
Overall rating: 3 out of 5

There will always be people who take joy in other people's fears. People who like to make others squirm for no other reason than it is different. These are the people that come knocking at 4 a.m. James (Speedman) and Kristen (Tyler) have traveled from a friend's wedding to James's family vacation home. James was recently shot down proposing to Kristen, so the entire evening is already in the trash. Then three assailants in masks begin to terrorize them, first just appearing and disappearing, and each encounter grows more menacing. Surrounded and trapped, James and Kristen must find a way to escape before it is too late.

This film has all of the elements necessary to be a very solid horror film. The director clearly knows how to utilize slow-burn horror where danger is left in clear view without anything happening, leaving the audience to squirm and anticipate. If the audience doesn't know what is going to happen, they work themselves up about it. There are several long shots of the intruders walking around the home, not even chasing the protagonists, and it is chilling to watch. The violence is kept to a minimum except for a few graphic events, to the point that a bit of editing could have taken this one to a PG-13 rating. As a result, the actors are left to convey the terror the characters are feeling, and they do an excellent job at that.

The problem with this film, however, is that the suspense soon becomes a one trick pony. You can only have the intruders menace the characters for so long before it becomes repetitive. An intruder sneaks up on a character, is within striking distance, and then vanishes when the character turns around. This happens constantly through the movie, and it soon becomes clear that the intruders are more interested in toying with them than actually inflicting harm on them. It is here that the movie tips its hand too soon. The moment you realize that there is no real danger until the movie moves into its end game, the malice dissipates. It starts to become a cut-and-dry stalker film, not helped by the fact that it starts to follow all the conventions of those films. Every foiled escape ends exactly how you would expect it to the moment they announce the plan. Every "twist" is an element seen in other horror movies from the 70s and 80s.

Finally, there is the ending. Without going into too many details, it can be said that if you have seen enough of these types of films, you will probably know what is going to happen. Sure, the movie never pretends to be anything other than what it is, but at the same time, any suspenseful horror film worth its salt will give you a payoff equal to the amount you have sweated away on the edge of your seat. Anything less is cheating, and this movie cheats. After the movie, I left thinking, "Well THAT just happened..." but there was little satisfaction in the experience.

In the end, the film has a great sense of style and suspense, but that only lasts as long as the menace does, and for this film, it runs about a half hour too long. If this had run as an hour long horror movie, it would have been great. Since it doesn't, I was left feeling that this film has been done many times before, and usually with more skill. See the remake of Texas Chainsaw Massacre to see menace done right.