Ashley Greene is a young drifter who has fled from her mum after discovering she lied about the existence of her father, whom she is now hoping to find. She runs into the seemingly nice Peter Mooney, a local handyman, who quickly charms the panties off her…literally. After a night of passion, Greene tries to leave so that she can resume her search for her father. Mooney declines to let her leave, acting quite a bit different from the night before. Before long, Mooney’s mother Barbara Niven (whom he is also having incestuous sex with!) clonks poor Greene on the head, and she is promptly taken down into the basement. When she wakes up, she finds another young girl there, in much worse shape than she is in. Clearly this isn’t just a one-off thing for Mooney and Mommie Dearest. And just wait until the real Man of the House (Stephen McHattie) comes home! It would appear that Greene’s only hope is if the concerned father of the other missing girl happens upon their whereabouts, but he’s well behind the 8-ball, it seems.
This Canadian horror flick directed by Lee Demarbre (whose “Jesus Christ Vampire Hunter” is a film I really need to see, fast!) is very nearly the good, solid modern horror film I’ve been ploughing through a sea of dreck in search of. It’s a mixed bag (and some mightn’t even consider it true horror at all), full of implausible character behaviour and the usual irritating “Saw”-inspired production design (not to mention the murky blue-green cinematography), but it sure is different. There aren’t a whole lot of truly different horror films out there these days, but this is one of them (A mixture of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and “Flowers in the Attic” is the best comparison I can come up with).
A lot of people will find this incest-heavy film really problematic, but I at least welcomed its uniqueness, not to mention its brisk pace. Canadian veteran McHattie (a mixture of Christopher Walken and Lance Henriksen) is clearly the best actor of the bunch (though his first scene with Greene is strangely anti-climactic), but Mooney is genuinely credible as a sick freak who can pass for normal to the outside world, and when he does show his true colours, it doesn’t come off as forced. Lead actress Greene is fine…on several levels. However, her decision to hold back on the nudity really makes no sense in a film where her character climbs into bed with a guy within ten minutes of having met him. So that means she’s failing to give us the gratuitous part of the gratuitous sex scene. What sense does that make? And her character sure does some implausible things after that. I mean, after she’s been taken down into the cellar and tortured, why on earth would Greene bother having a chat to her captor about her personal life? I know kidnap victims don’t have a whole lot of options but either she’s way too chummy with the guy or he’s a total dummy. These scenes also prove to be a little stagey, too.
I could rip on the film for featuring characters in their 20s when I’m sick of such protagonists, but as the film goes on, we learn that these aren’t your average twenty-somethings by any means. Overall, it’s got some problems, but here it is, a Canadian horror film that doesn’t suck. Wow, that hasn’t happened since “Ginger Snaps”, maybe?
OVERALL SUMMARY
There’s some really disturbing stuff in this, and good film or not, you’re unlikely to shake it off immediately afterwards. That’s gotta count for something, I think. It’s certainly worth a look if you think you can stomach its disturbing themes.
