The Haunting of Alcatraz

1.5/4

Starring: Tom Hendryk, Chris Lines, Helen Crevel, Mark Topping, Marcus Langford

Not Rated (probable PG-13 for Violence and Language)

In a strange way, movies like "The Haunting of Alcatraz" are a comfort to me.  No matter how many movies I see or how good the year's line up is, there is always going to be a healthy crop of grade-Z dumpster fires like this.  A dive in the discount bin or streaming services will lead me to a seemingly endless quantity of candidates for my annual Bottom 10 list, which will certainly include this lame excuse for a horror movie.  If only watching this movies wasn't such a drag...

Charlie Schmidt (Hendryk) has come to Alcatraz with the goal of obtaining a job.  He's all but begging the Warden (Topping), although he has his reasons (one of the stipulations of his trust fund is that he get a normal job and a good recommendation from his boss).  The Shakespeare-quoting Warden, after insulting Charlie's college education and his loaded family connections, hires him.  Then he meets his co-workers, Al (Lines) and Gerry (Langford).  They're all on D block, the punishment block where they send the worst of the worst and put them into solitary confinement.  What the Warden didn't tell him is that D block has a sordid history, and he's going to have to solve the mystery to stay alive.

This movie is really lame.  It's badly paced, poorly written, and has almost no plot.  To be fair, ghost stories like this are a lot of smoke and mirrors.  But the difference between a good ghost story and a bad one is that is that the director creates an illusion where the story can take place.  That doesn't happen here. Very little of what happens is credible.  Actually, very little happens at all.  Maybe that's why the film seems to never move forward.

The acting contains more wood than a bonfire.  Tom Hendryk is nice to look at, but he is rarely convincing.  His character is more than a little thick, which does not help matters.  He does have some nice chemistry with Helen Crevel, who plays the nurse he falls for.  Like him, she can't act very well either.  The only characters of any interest are Al, whose every word drips with a sinister energy, and the Warden, whose domineering presence made me pay attention.

There are some decent scenes amid the garbage, and even a scare or two.  So it's a step up from painful.  And when compared to other 2020 horror movies like "The Grudge" or "The Lodge," it's watchable.  But there are other, better movies that you can see this year.  Leave this one in the discount bin.

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