The teacher (Johnathon Schaech) gives overly sinister looks and acts like a Charles Manson wannabe. He wears a black golf cap, tweedy sport coat, and needs a shave. He looks intensely at you when spoken to without saying a word. Only in movies do psychos dress and act this way. In real life, the only guys who dress and act this way are directors and bloggers of horror films. I admit I did wear a black golf cap before seeing this movie. Now I realize it does make you look like an oddball if you're not golfing, so that's it for me. I'm happy to say I haven't worn a tweedy sport coat in years. I do still need to shave and blog more often.
When Donna finally realizes she's being stalked again, the action is chopped, but not in that good, horror-chopped-up sort of way. The camera keeps shifting, never staying long enough in one place to scare or cause a seat-jump. The opening few minutes promise much but deliver little, and I won't pin all the blame on the PG-13 rating requirements. All the action is homogenized around those imaginary commercial breaks, and starts and stops with little tension or visceral involvement. It's all glossy slick with no blemishes to worry about.
It all goes down in a lavish hotel with beautiful young people who don't worry about recessions or social inequities or our out of control national debt. The police are adequately inept to help increase the body count, but Detective Winn (Idris Elba) goes through the motions well enough, and Elba does a good job in spite of the character he's written into. When Donna is practically left friendless, I imagined how different this might have been if I wrote the script.
First thing I'd do is change Polly Pureheart Donna into a black-haired Goth with punky attitude. Perky Goth Donna flirts with her chem teacher (or maybe lit teacher is better: they like tweedy jackets, too), and going too far, regrets it. He goes nutz when she calls it off and can't hold a test tube without breaking it just thinking of her. So now there's her guilt and his feelings of rejection adding to the terror. Guilty terror with feelings of rejection is always great for building tension. To stay alive, she's forced to make nice with the vixens from hell--the envied, fashion-conscious, hip girls at school who despise her Ubergoth ways. Her Doom Cookie boyfriend finds out all about the side fling and joins the chem teacher and both go after her and her newfound friends. Much collateral damage ensues, add lots of blood.
Article comments
1 - El Bicho
I am surprised you of all monsters would have a problem with closets.
"I do still need to shave and blog more often."
Certainly the writing. It's been too long since your last post. However, the Van Dyke makes you look distinguished.
2 - ILoz Zoc
Hi El Bicho: funny, but I hadn't thought about that. Good point. I'll be more sensitive next time. Maybe a little more horror in those closets would have helped.
And yes, it has been too long. I will definitely be doing more writing for BC. I miss the old homestead.
3 - Jenaee Johnson
My prom was nothing like this.
4 - ILoz Zoc
Jenaee,
And that's a good thing, I hope.
5 - Angeline
I loved this movie so much, I took my sister to see it and after the movie. We were scared shitless. and we really really were scared, because after the movie we went outside and the parking lot was completely empty, and a car alarm went off and nobody was around,. Like how f**ded up is that...Well we were waiting for a taxi to arrive. a car stops. and all they were doing is staring at me and my sister. i can personally say it freaked us right out. Then after we did find out that it was to guys, but they were still watvhing us. and trying to make me and my sister get in the car with them...we kept saying NO NO NO