HORROR 101 WITH DR. AC
CONTAINS SPOILERS!
Not exactly a favorable review...but I am an equal opportunity poster and believe everyone has the right to their opinions.
Chained (2012)
(1st viewing)
d. Lynch, Jennifer (USA)
One shouldn’t even attempt to view this tale of a taxi driving serial killer (Vincent D’Onofrio, looking primed to reprise his Private Pyle character for Full Metal Jacket II: More Jelly Donuts) who “adopts” the nine-year-old son of his latest victim through a realistic lens. Instead, engage it as a twisted, sinister fairy tale, one that exists in an alternate storybook universe where bad men do bad things, children exist in peril, years flash by as needed, and events occur simply because that’s how the story goes. (To do otherwise proves an exercise in frustration and exhaustion at the amount of disbelief suspension required.)
D’Onofrio’s hulking, mumbling menace is a puzzling construct; one wonders how this lisping, inarticulate, intellectually-emotionally-socially stunted creature has eluded capture for decades. (The venerable actor renders a lived-in performance, to be sure, but one that always feels like a performance.) Likewise, our young abductee’s (played by Evan Bird and Eamon Farren at different stages) character never changes, remaining quietly, defiantly human in the face of inhumanity. Considering how much screen time Lynch gives to flashback sequences of emotional and sexual childhood abuse to justify his captor’s madness, one wonders why “Rabbit,” as he is renamed by D’Onofrio, resists a similar path so clearly laid out for him to follow.
But then again, we wonder about a lot of logistical things as the weeks, months and years drift by – a final climactic twist the biggest head-slapper of all – and I wish that the fairy tale approach had been made clear from the outset.
Just whisper “Once upon a time…” during the opening credits. You’ll thank me later.
BLOODY UNDERRATED
MILD SPOILERS
This past weekend at Fantasia I was lucky enough to catch the world premieres of two excellent – and very different – horror movies, and even luckier not to have suffered any nightmares after the fact. Seriously, between these two films there are lot of scares to go around – and while neither film is showing again at the festival, each is definitely worth the trouble of tracking down if you’re ever in need of a fright. It’s covert cannibalism versus serial slayings in this, our penultimate Fantasia Faceoff.
(excerpted)
Chained
Directed by Jennifer Lynch
Written by Jennifer Lynch, Damian O’Donnell
U.S.A., 2012
105 min.
Can there be such a thing as an apprentice serial killer? When nine-year-old Tim gets kidnapped by Bob, a taxi driver, and enlisted to help him keep track of his various murders, that certainly seems to be where things are going. Tim grows up in Bob’s fortified farmhouse, enslaved and alone, watching murder after murder take place… and as he grows into a willful young man, Bob expects him to be an avid pupil.
Intense, claustrophobic, and highly dialogue-dependent, this is the kind of movie that could be performed on a stage with little modification. There’s so much emphasis placed on the shaky dynamic between the shackled Tim and his captor, and the stunning performances make this dynamic all the more compelling. Vincent D’Onofrio keeps Bob walking the thin line between completely deranged and nearly sympathetic, even as the character commits horrifying act after horrifying act. A skeletal Eamon Farren maintains a similar balance as he portrays the older version of Tim, keeping us guessing as to whether he’s taking Bob’s lessons to heart or not.
Interestingly, some of the strongest scenes in this film are the ones that inject something other than horror into the proceedings. There’s a darkly comical moment where the two play cards with the photo IDs of Bob’s victims that will stick in your head for sure, and even an oddly romantic scene involving a victim-to-be that I won’t describe further except to say that I don’t think anything remotely like it has been filmed before.
All told, Chained is a fine, fine film, thoughtful even as it covers some very dark – and occasionally gory – material. Jennifer Lynch has put together something truly remarkable here: a character-driven horror film that would be less horrifying if it placed less emphasis on character. See what I mean this October, when the DVD hits the shelves – and in the mean time, get the details on Chained over at the Fantasia website.
