He's sad because the poster is more cool than the movie... |
Let me start this review by stating
every ounce of my soul wanted to like The Tenant, an indie flick from
Reel Dreams. And to be fair, the film was not a total flop. There
were some (for the budget) impressive gore effects that actually
surprised me when they came up. But a horrible script, horrible
pacing, and quite possibly the worst acting I have seen in ages kept
this from being a recommendation for anyone other than those who just
wanna give the little guy a break.
... and even then...
The film opens with a midnight delivery
by Jack Rymer (played by Bill Cobbs... the only reason I know the
character's name is thanks to IMDB for the record) to Dr Newman
(Randy Molnar). The delivery? A bunch of heads. We get a little
glimpse of the rather insipid writing-- why is Jack surprised by the
delivery when he is the delivery man? That's a bit like me giving you
a cheeseburger and then saying “wait, holy shit, is that a fucking
cheeseburger!??”
At any rate, we learn the reason Dr
Newman is buying heads is to study them. We immediately have a mixed
bag of effects-- while some of the skin peeling our doctor does looks
realistic enough, once we see the faces of the decapitated heads,
with their stiff plasticine appearance, believability just takes a
swan-dive. He pokes their eye-ball juices for... well, it isn't
exactly made clear how pocking a decapitated head leads to science.
We are just expected to bite down and buy that, yes, poking at dead
things with needles can lead to huge medical breakthroughs in
genetics.
Which... for the record, the script
states later is unheard of about thirty years previous to present
day. No, I'm not talking about dead-head science. I'm talking about
genetics. Apparently to the writers, genetics was something that
nobody had heard of thirty years ago.
Well, it's no dead head, but... I suppose it could still be used FOR SCIENCE!!! |
Who wrote this, a goddamned twelve year
old?! Actually... I ... wouldn't at all be surprised.
Flash-forward about 45-minutes into the
film-- yes it takes that long to establish what is going on
approximately 28 years in the past-- and we have learned that the
doctor's experiments were injected into his wife's growing fetus by a
jealous lab assistant (credited as Ms Tinsley, played by a very stiff
Sylvia Boykin-- again, I don't think her name is ever spoken out
loud. Or maybe I just didn't care.) This is one of the least
believable parts of the script. Ms Tinsley's character is atrocious
and unnecessary, and when I say that the actress is stiff, I'm not so
sure it is really her fault. The logic of the character is just
wretched. First, she is jealous of the doctor's wife (that part is
the extent of what I can believe) but this shortly follows by her
approaching said wife (“Olivia”, another torturous character
played by Georgia Chris...) to tell her, “stop stopping your
husband from scientific experiments on dead heads! He's a genius!”
While not an exact quotation, this is actually the logic of the
confrontation. When Olivia (understandably at this point) refuses to
let this crazy Ms Tinsley anywhere near her pregnant ass, the
assistant promptly does what any jealous bitch would do-- injects one
of her unborn twins with crazy... dead... head... juice.
For science!
Ugh. But sadly, it gets worse boys and
girls!
So, after all this, Olivia gives birth
... for some reason at the mental asylum where she works with her
husband. And in a glaring error of conflict of interest, her husband
has been the only doctor she has seen, and is also the one delivering
the babies. In a mental asylum. Because that makes fucking sense.
Wouldn't you want your child to be born in the same place people
probably shit themselves and throw it? I do apologize for the
insensitivity, I am sure there are some truly sad and broken people
in a mental asylum, but its hard to deny that it isn't exactly the
best environment to be popping newborns.
OK. So, that's the first 45 minutes
summarized. Oh, the babies? Yeah, one is born healthy and fine, the
other everybody looks at and screams. And of course, Olivia dies from
the burden of delivering... seemingly otherwise normal babies in a
normal delivery. Seriously. There were no complications, both
babies pop out and its like her character was just, “fuck it, this
movie is too horrible, I don't want to live anymore,” and promptly
dies.
I can't really say I blame her.
The doctor raises both children, and
apparently tries to kill the... dead-head injected one. We see this
through the eyes of the baby, as it watches from its gated cage/crib,
the doctor hanging over with a teddy bear and a gun.
Cut to an exterior shot where we hear
the gun go off, never knowing if he shot the monstrous baby, or
committed suicide simply to avoid having to suffer through any more
wretched illogical scenes.
Yeah. This is the FIRST 45 minutes. And
like I said, it gets worse... after the gunshot, we cut to modern
day, with a group of people we never seen thus far breaking down in a
rainy road. We learn, thankfully through subtle exposition (probably
the only subtle thing in the film) that this is a bus filled with
deaf children, with a driver who is an ex-con named Jeff (played,
surprisingly entertainingly, by J. LaRose, though still suffering
through some of the most god-awful dialogue I've ever heard), a
teacher of some sort (Liz, played by Aerica D'Amaro, who looks so
eerily like the lady who plays Olivia I thought for a moment it was
the same actress), a hearing-capable couple (Rob, played by Justin
Smith, and... whatever his girlfriend's name was, whose part is too
small to bother trying to dig up), and a handful of the
aforementioned hearing-impaired children. After their van breaks down
and the ex-con is warned not to swear (seriously, I'm not making that
part up), they decide to spend the night in the most likely of
places, an abandoned asylum.
Hello? Good writing, I know you must be around somewhere... |
It also should be noted that Liz, to
catch up the viewer in case they might have missed the insanity in
gathering a group of vulnerable children into an asylum, tells Jeff
that she has heard 'stories' of the old asylum.
Fuck it, they go there anyway, because
it is either that or a rainy night in a van. So, they break in (after
all, it couldn't possibly be property owned and operated by anybody,
that would be too inconvenient), and after everyone walks in, the
doors slam shut. For... some... reason, because that is the most
obvious failsafe to any asylum, that a thick plate of steel slams
shut when you break into it.
I'm sure all modern mental health
institutions have such security features, active even long after the
place has been abandoned. Oh, and speaking of which, it should also
be noted that nobody ever really explains why
the place is abandoned. It apparently just is.
Because... well because it fucking is.
So, as
it turns out, this asylum is occupied by the dead-head twin (tada, he
wasn't killed by his doctor-father, which ... means, as you learn by
the end of the film, that the doctor shot at what apparently turned
out to be the cockroaches on the ground...) who kills people. Yup.
And apparently this has been going on for awhile, because the group
find old blood in the asylum.
The
rest of the film is a chase back and forth between the halls of the
asylum, which apparently either has many rooms that look alike or ...
not many rooms at all. This blooper I can't really push too hard, as
it is probably a function of the obvious low-budget, but sometimes it
seems almost like the director had Scooby Doo in mind, with the
characters running in and out of what few rooms there are, the
monster chasing behind them.
And might I add that, with a few exceptions, he bursts into a room, and they all make it out safely (after a bit of struggle). Then, they wait in a room for awhile, decide it's not safe to stay, and then leave for a room to find the monster again.
It's
like hot-potatoe or something. And it gets old.
After
awhile of this, the film throws a few twists at you that make little
to no sense. I won't spoil them here, but pretty much everything
that they threw to the story besides “monster smashes room” made
me scratch my head.
When
the film closes, you are left feeling that what you watched was
essentially two movies that didn't fit-- the story of a man of
'science' (head-poking) and his mutilated new science-baby, and the
story of a group of vulnerable children trying to make it through the
night in a dangerous environment. The second story is obviously the
more interesting, and in all honesty, the film could have been the
stronger for just saying, “you know this science prologue? Yeah.
Fuck it, let's just start with the children, it doesn't make any
goddamn sense.”
Even
then, it wouldn't have been good
per se, but would have at least had room to improve, perhaps by
focusing more on the tension of the children trying to find their way
through a dangerous maze, not sure of what lurks around the corner.
The
'children' by the way, respond to the monster mostly the same way one
would if they stepped in something funny. They look disgusted/scared
for a moment, then shrug, and move onto the next room. There is no
focus on their fear, no build-up of tension as they make it from one
room to the next, they just sort of... bounce back and forth, and
what might be fear registers to the audience more as annoyance. You
can almost hear them think to themselves, “goddamn it, is this
monster ever like... going to fucking leave us alone? I just want to
take a goddamn piss.”
The
film has its moments; like I said, there are a few special effects
that are better than they have any right to be. I did say a few,
because there is also a handful that are so atrocious it makes one
wonder how they crept into the final cut.
Is it
so bad it's good? Not quite that either. There are moments where you
chuckle to yourself (mostly during the 'dead melon as a lever for
science' prologue), but for the most part, it actually just kinda
hurts to watch. Especially considering the issue of children in
danger never really feels as taboo as it should. I mean, some of the
kids fucking die, but there is no gravity to the moments. Those alive
just sort of say “oh shit” and then run.
Let me
say that again, just so it registers: some of the kids die,
and the film doesn't exploit the gravity of that situation, instead
making sure to push through to the next beat. It is the absolute most
baffling decision the filmmakers made, with the retarded genetics
prologue coming in a close second.
Overall,
like I said at the beginning, I wanted to like this film. Something
about the obvious low-budget made me want to say, “yes, the little
guy triumphs,” but no... no, he doesn't. This is a bit like
watching the little guy jump unto the basketball court with gusto,
only to be absolutely fucking creamed
by his opponents.
And
then kicked.
And
then he gets up and finishes the game anyway. You have to admire him
for finishing, but damn, if you got creamed that badly, just... walk
away man.
Walk
away.
This
film gets a 20%. A portion of that is because, thankfully, some of
the female actresses were easy on the eyes. Another portion is that
some of the performances were alright (which is high praise in
comparison to the rest of the film). Overall, though, the film is an
absolute mess of plot-holes, unnecessary exposition, and
frustratingly (for lack of a more tactful word) stupid
concepts. Seriously... dead eye juice makes killer babies if you
inject it into the fetus? And this... is supposed to be science?! At
one point, a character is even told she has committed a felony BY
A COP, yet in the next scene she
wanders home with her groceries.
Just
like this film-- breaking laws, such as those of logic and good
taste, goes unpunished. And when I say 'good taste' I don't mean that
they break taboos in an interesting and vulgar way-- the film would
have gotten a better rating if they did so. Sadly, the writer and/or
director just do not have the common sense to take some of the film's
more interesting concepts-- such as a group of hearing-impaired
children in a dangerous setting, how can you not feel bad for the
poor kids?!-- instead focusing on things that just do NOT work.
FOR SCIENCE!
20%.
And
that's being generous, I am sorry to say. I hope the filmmakers
learn their lesson and their next endeavour gets more attention
before being thrown into production.
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