This thriller from the director of no less than 3 Hellraiser sequels (Rick Bota) starts out well enough but quickly becomes tiresome.
Lindsey Shaw of ‘Pretty Little Liars’ and ‘The Howling Reborn’ stars as Sylvia Potter, a projectionist at a local indie cinema who falls for the new boy at school, Lucas. Her best friend Dayln (the chick with 3 boobs from the ‘Total Recall’ remake who is coincidentally also one of the naked lesbian chicks from ‘Wrong Turn 4’) hates him and her life-long pal Harry (Jean-Luc Bilodeau from ‘Trick ‘r Treat’) who is so obviously totally in love with her gets bent out of shape about it. At the same time, a local girl has been missing for a few months and her friends want her to think it’s her new boyfriend who is behind the disappearance. Which it might be. Fingers are pointed. Secrets come to light. Will you care enough to find out the truth?
I wanted to like this. I’ve been a fan of Rick Bota since his work as a DP on ‘House on Haunted Hill’ and ‘Valentine’ before he became a director in his own right and I’ve followed his work closely (even those 3 Hellraiser sequels) over the years. He’s worked on shows such as ‘Mimic’, ‘They’, ‘Kiss The Girls’, ‘Vampire Diaries’, ‘Supernatural’ and ‘Harper’s Island’ so he knows what he’s doing in the horror/thriller genres.
I blame it on the slow script. The film looks the part and the competent cast act the part, but the story is dull. Too much time is spent on the minutiae of the characters everyday lives that it becomes almost like a kitchen sink drama. I’ll admit that by the time Sylvia finally decided to take her knickers off for Lucas after much will she or won’t she indecision, I was fast-forwarding to the conclusion and surprise surprise, it played out exactly as I had expected.
OVERALL SUMMARY
This is a well-shot, glossily packaged teen thriller but if you really want to see a good thriller watch ‘The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’ again instead.
