So it was a boring thursday evening... oh you already know that... So I start channel surfing - why? - to see wht movies are playing and ended up seeing a lot of SRK (I told ya) - and suddenly I am looking at the beginning of a scary movie... decide to forget all n make myself comfy... Fridays are when they screen scary movies but I am not complaining. Once in a way the Gods can be Krazzy 4 me. There is something known as the Gore Instinct, which actually has nothing to do with Al Gore, that indicates one's abilities in accurately identifying type of movie (thriller, horror, gory, et al) I think I have it and have honed it to sooper levels and so even though I don't know the name of the movie, I know it is scary.
It starts like a normal teenage movie with a cute looking gal, Jill Johnson (Camilla Bell), who has been grounded (no phone, no car) because she ran up an amazingly huge cellphone bill. She also has to take up baby-sitting to repay her folks. The baby-sitting assignment is at a fantastically architected house which looks like a perfect place to shoot a scary movie. The couple, whose kids Jill is baby-sitting, are on their way to a dinner and are planning to follow it up with a movie. They plan on coming back only by midnight. They show her around the house before they leave and tell her not to disturb the kids who are asleep. They also provide her with a list of phone numbers that she could call, which includes funnily enough - 911. The house has motion sensor lighting which adds to the thrill and a black cat a la Salem from Sabrina the Witch series. The only other person in the house is the maid who will leave in a while.
The best part of this movie was that it did not proceed as expected. The total number of dialogues that the man on the phone utters are 3. There is very little blood and gore in the movie - probably b'cos it is PG-13. In most thriller, scary movies, one tries to jump ahead of the situation and come up with some amazing guesses on who the killer is. For instance the killer maybe:
- Her dad, who wants to kill her so the insurance would pay for the cell phone bill,
- The father of the children, who wants to kill the children as he is one of those serial killers who kill kids
- Jill's boyfriend, who wants to scare her because he wants her to feel bad but the plan turns bad and he ends up killing people,
- Tiffany, who kissed Jill's boyfriend, who wants to kill her because she wants the boyfriend for herself,
- The maid, who wants to kill the children because she wants to marry the father of the children or maybe wants to kill Jill so she can marry Jill's father ,
- The son in the guest house whom no one sees, who wants to kill the kids because his father no longer cares for him and spends a lot of time with his new wife and kids.
- Etc etc...
Only in this movie - that whole guessing game does not work... the killer is some other guy whom we do not meet until the last 20 mts. And just so the guy who played the role does not feel too bad, they have almost a 5mt close-up shot of him and his scar, near the end of the movie. You spend the entire 5 mts wondering if you know the guy, did he have a blink-miss role which you missed but it wasn't. I think the scar was added to his left cheek, in the last minute, to differentiate the murderer from the other male characters who are also seen only for 5 mts.
I enjoyed the movie for exactly these reasons. Also, the ending was very apt... I have grown tired of seeing the villain, bruised, broken, almost dead, but ready to scare you one last time... the ending was handled quite differently and well. Catch it for a non-bloody, scary movie that is maybe not the scariest you have seen but definitely a must-see.
No comments:
Post a Comment