The Seventh Day

 1/4

Starring: Vadhir Derbez, Guy Pearce, Stephen Lang, Brady Jenness, Keith David

Rated R for Violent Content, Disturbing Images and Language

Good horror movies keep you on the edge of your seat.  They generate a sense of terror and dread.  You fear what comes next while cursing yourself for watching it.  Bad horror movies are a waste of time.  Rather than camouflage the holes and inconsistencies necessary to make a scary movie work, they exacerbate them.  With a movie like "The Seventh Day," it's impossible to ignore how dumb it is.  Not to mention boring.

"The Seventh Son" is your basic buddy cop story, only instead of the boys in blue we have priests.  That Father Peter (Pearce), the veteran of the duo, is bitter and sardonic and acts like he wandered in from "Training Day" should give you an idea of how shaky the film starts out.  And it gets worse from there.  He's paired with the new recruit, Father Daniel (Derbez), out to prove himself.  Of course, the nasty Father Peter doesn't think he's up for it and repeatedly leaves him hung out to dry in order to prove it.  All the while they have to prove that a young boy (Jenness) accused of murdering his family was in fact demonically possessed.

Guy Pearce is one of those actors who can and will take on just about any role.  He can play an uptight cop ("L.A. Confidential"), a man with no short-term memory ("Memento"), a malicious priest ("Brimstone") and a gay drag queen ("The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert").  His range is astonishing, and no matter what the role, he nails it.  How he has never been nominated for an Oscar thus far is beyond me.  Perhaps the problem is that he doesn't have the best of luck choosing roles.  "Lawless" was a bore, and "The Rover" was a pretentious pile of doggy doo.  Still, like other top flight actors, he's always arresting to watch even when the movie sucks or he's phoning it in.  Here, both qualities are true.

Even though he is absolutely not trying here, he's the best thing in it.  His co-star, Vadhir Derbez (son of the Mexican comedy star Eugenio Derbez), is practically invisible.  Father Daniel is a complete bore, and that's mainly because the guy playing him cannot act to save his life.  Nor is he charismatic enough to stand out from the furniture, for that matter.  Stephen Lang is unrecognizable as the archbishop, but he only has a handful of scenes.  And I wonder what drew Keith David to appear in this stinker for just one scene?  Then again, the actor did a one scene cameo in "Lost Treasure of the Maya," so maybe he's like Christopher Walken and simply enjoys acting so much that he'll appear in anything no matter how bad it is.

It would have been intriguing, if nonsensical, to have the stars of a mystery/horror flick to be priests instead of, say, cops or journalists.  Or the wrongfully accused.  But the movie is just so boring and stupid,  the story is poorly told and ineptly filmed, and it probably wouldn't scare a five year old.  I guess the interrogation scene at the juvenile detention center is a little eerie, but Pixar has made creepier scenes than that.

"The Seventh Day" is one of those movies you forget the day after you see it.  Although I will have to make a mental note to include it on my Bottom 10 list at the end of the year.  It was never going to be a good movie, but the fact that it couldn't even bother to be good trash is just insulting.