Acolytes
2/4
Starring: Sebastian Gregory, Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Joshua Payne, Joel Edgerton, Michael Dorman
Not Rated (Probable R for Strong Graphic Violence and Sexual Content, Language and Drug Use)
Here's a helpful hint for everyone who wants to live until their natural death: if you suspect someone of being a serial killer, don't try to blackmail them. If that sounds like obvious advice to you, imagine how hard it is to care about the fates of three boring teenagers who decide not to follow this piece of common sense. Admittedly, they do try to do the obvious and call the police, but still. If you find a dead body in the woods, that doesn't give you license to do something so stupid. Get the cops attention any way you can. Lead them by the hand if you have to. But don't blackmail the killer into doing your dirty work for you. It can only end one way, and that's the way you don't want it to end.
With three protagonists that are this lacking in common sense at the center of the plot, the movie is essentially sunk. It's next to impossible to care about people this dense in a movie that wants to be taken seriously. Granted, horror movie characters are never Nobel Prize material, but this is inexcusable. Unfortunately, the idiocy of the protagonists isn't the only problem with this film. The editing is terrible, and the characters are constantly ahead of the viewer.
Three best friends Mark (Gregory), Chasely (Lawrence) and James (Payne) are walking home from school one day. For reasons that aren't immediately clear, Mark and James are nervous because a guy named Parker (Dorman) has been released from prison. Then (after a sudden and obvious cut) Mark spies someone digging in the middle of the woods (what Mark is doing there and why isn't ever made clear). The three of them decide to go back and dig up whatever the guy was burying there, and discover (gasp!) that it's a dead body! They call the cops, but for reasons not convincingly explained, they don't want to give their names. But after doing a little sleuthing on their own, they discover who the killer (Edgerton) is (giving credence to the possibility that the police are just as dumb as they are, and therefore actually giving them anything short of a neon sign and fireworks show above the killer's house probably wouldn't have helped matters). In what is probably the most moronic act in film history, they call the killer and threaten to turn him in unless he offs Parker. Of course, this doesn't go as they had hoped since the killer isn't one to back down.
To its credit, the film does a few things right. The cinematography is decent and director Jon Hewitt manages to create a few decent jump scenes, one of which literally made me jump. That doesn't outweigh the mistakes the film makes, like the editing or the lack of compelling protagonists.
They say that editing can make or break a picture. That may be true, but it wouldn't have done much for a film about three "heroes" who are not only stupid, but boring. None of the three leads is capable of holding our interest, much less our sympathy (nor do they act in ways that a normal human being would, but considering the premise, I guess that went out the window once the movie started). Mark, the lead, is so dull that the other two are actually interesting next to him (but they're less interesting than a plaster wall). Joel Edgerton could make a compelling villain, I suppose, since he's got the looks and the voice to sell it. But he's not given anything to work with. Surprisingly, Michael Dorman is lacking as well. Dorman was very good in "Triangle" and "Daybreakers," but he's not cut out to be a bad guy.
As if it weren't bad enough, the film lacks a decent editor. The film is littered with jump cuts, and the characters are constantly ahead of the audience. I hate it when the characters talk about things that they know and we don't. It's like, "What the hell are they talking about? How do they know this person, and when did that happen?" There are times when the film looks like a Paul McGuigan movie, whose every film is guilty of this.
Ultimately, the best that I can say about this movie is that it's not that bad. It's a snoozer, but it's not bad enough that you want to put a foot through a TV.
Starring: Sebastian Gregory, Hanna Mangan Lawrence, Joshua Payne, Joel Edgerton, Michael Dorman
Not Rated (Probable R for Strong Graphic Violence and Sexual Content, Language and Drug Use)
Here's a helpful hint for everyone who wants to live until their natural death: if you suspect someone of being a serial killer, don't try to blackmail them. If that sounds like obvious advice to you, imagine how hard it is to care about the fates of three boring teenagers who decide not to follow this piece of common sense. Admittedly, they do try to do the obvious and call the police, but still. If you find a dead body in the woods, that doesn't give you license to do something so stupid. Get the cops attention any way you can. Lead them by the hand if you have to. But don't blackmail the killer into doing your dirty work for you. It can only end one way, and that's the way you don't want it to end.
With three protagonists that are this lacking in common sense at the center of the plot, the movie is essentially sunk. It's next to impossible to care about people this dense in a movie that wants to be taken seriously. Granted, horror movie characters are never Nobel Prize material, but this is inexcusable. Unfortunately, the idiocy of the protagonists isn't the only problem with this film. The editing is terrible, and the characters are constantly ahead of the viewer.
Three best friends Mark (Gregory), Chasely (Lawrence) and James (Payne) are walking home from school one day. For reasons that aren't immediately clear, Mark and James are nervous because a guy named Parker (Dorman) has been released from prison. Then (after a sudden and obvious cut) Mark spies someone digging in the middle of the woods (what Mark is doing there and why isn't ever made clear). The three of them decide to go back and dig up whatever the guy was burying there, and discover (gasp!) that it's a dead body! They call the cops, but for reasons not convincingly explained, they don't want to give their names. But after doing a little sleuthing on their own, they discover who the killer (Edgerton) is (giving credence to the possibility that the police are just as dumb as they are, and therefore actually giving them anything short of a neon sign and fireworks show above the killer's house probably wouldn't have helped matters). In what is probably the most moronic act in film history, they call the killer and threaten to turn him in unless he offs Parker. Of course, this doesn't go as they had hoped since the killer isn't one to back down.
To its credit, the film does a few things right. The cinematography is decent and director Jon Hewitt manages to create a few decent jump scenes, one of which literally made me jump. That doesn't outweigh the mistakes the film makes, like the editing or the lack of compelling protagonists.
They say that editing can make or break a picture. That may be true, but it wouldn't have done much for a film about three "heroes" who are not only stupid, but boring. None of the three leads is capable of holding our interest, much less our sympathy (nor do they act in ways that a normal human being would, but considering the premise, I guess that went out the window once the movie started). Mark, the lead, is so dull that the other two are actually interesting next to him (but they're less interesting than a plaster wall). Joel Edgerton could make a compelling villain, I suppose, since he's got the looks and the voice to sell it. But he's not given anything to work with. Surprisingly, Michael Dorman is lacking as well. Dorman was very good in "Triangle" and "Daybreakers," but he's not cut out to be a bad guy.
As if it weren't bad enough, the film lacks a decent editor. The film is littered with jump cuts, and the characters are constantly ahead of the audience. I hate it when the characters talk about things that they know and we don't. It's like, "What the hell are they talking about? How do they know this person, and when did that happen?" There are times when the film looks like a Paul McGuigan movie, whose every film is guilty of this.
Ultimately, the best that I can say about this movie is that it's not that bad. It's a snoozer, but it's not bad enough that you want to put a foot through a TV.
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