Morning Person

 

Live, die, repeat is as good a premise for a horror movie as any. 

Sadly the underlying film doesn't always live up to that.

Quick Plot: Bobby is a sloppy musician trying to make good with his higher class girlfriend Jules. Having made quite a few mistakes in their relationship, Bobby has high hopes that a seaside vacation to a quaint New England island bed & breakfast is just what Jules needs to finally forgive him.

The inn is far from five-star hospitality and the town's best assets are its arcade and empty souvenir shops, but it's all just enough to urge Bobby on to a romantic surprise proposal in the middle of town square. Jules' acceptance is interrupted when a hooded figure slashes her throat, breaks Bobby's neck, and sends them to the next morning at the titular 6:45.

Bobby awakens with full memory of the previous day's events, but to Jules, it's simply part two of their vacation. For any audience who's seen Groundhog Day or the dozens of cheaper films it inspired (all usually Hallmark Christmas-related or horror), we know the drill. This cycle will continue.

In Bobby's case, it seems to happen hundreds of times. He attempts to adjust his and Jules' activities, but nothing works. 

Also, he doesn't seem to try very hard.

6:45 is clearly a low budget affair, and I'd give it a certain measure of leeway if it was a first or second film. But writer/director Craig Singer has been working for over 20 years. He's responsible for the low energy Dark Ride and the fairly interesting, lower profile Perkins' 14. 6:45 shows a steep downward slide.

The leads do what they can to make the characters' relationship click, but Bobby is simply the worst, and that's before we get to a final act that would be infuriating if the film was worth raising any kind of blood pressure. I was on board for the slow opening because it felt like the film was going somewhere. Unfortunately, once it cycled through its repeated day a few times, even the filmmaker seemed to lose interest. Montages fill in a good chunk of running time, only for the story to take an abrupt, nasty turn complete with, for no reason other than for the crew to show off some skill, a man putting his grubby hands into an open bloody scalp.

High Points

This is not a great showcase for any performer, but as Jules, Augie Duke manages to emerge as a very natural onscreen presence

Low Points

It's just a pity she's in this slog of a mean-spirited film

Lessons Learned

Cuffs happen when you punch locals

Always keep the talons tamed

When checking into any questionable hotel, remember to first check the soap

Rent/Bury/Buy

You might be surprised to hear me say that I don't recommend 6:45. It's both mean and dull, which is just about the very worst adjectives any movie can claim.

A Perkins' Dozen

Quick Plot: In 1999, fourteen children were abducted in the town of Stone Cove (and yes, you will constantly hear "Stone Cold" in your head and everything is better that way).

Ten years later, the town has mostly moved on from the tragedy, with only policeman/grieving father Dwayne Hopper still trying to solve the case. While this has done little help his marriage to the unhappy Janine or parenting of the teen rebel Daisy, it looks like on a fateful night exactly a decade after the disappearance of his son, Dwayne may have met the man responsible for his pain.

While covering the overnight shift at the local holding cell, Dwayne catches the eye of a mysterious prisoner named Ronald Perkins. Something is off about the self-identified pharmacist. Is it that Dwayne has never met him, despite them both being lifers in such a small town? That much like the man who took his son, Perkins seems to be missing a finger right where young Kyle once took a bite? Or that he's just an incredibly creepy dude who is obviously, without a doubt, the man responsible for Stone Cold--er, Cove's pain.

Hopper asks one of his off-duty pals to investigate Perkins' home, a secluded ranch with a very mysterious basement. As you might guess, those fourteen children reemerge, having been caged, abused, and injected with a steady supply of PCP and other drugs.

What follows is an interesting take on ye olde zombie trope, as Perkins' victims raid Stone Cove, tearing its citizens apart with their own bloody hands. As he tries to take charge, Hopper finds himself torn between protecting his town and not further punishing fourteen insane teenagers (one of whom is his own son) who can't really be blamed for their own actions.

Perkins' 14 is director Craig Singer's followup to Dark Ride, and it's a full traveling carnival better (I think that's how math works, right?). The story itself comes loaded with a nice balance of conflict, as our monsters easily have our sympathy for the abuse they've suffered. While none of the characters make ANY smart decisions when it comes to surviving the night, it's easy to consider the fact that if you were being chased by 28 Days Later-ish creatures, you might not be thinking too straight either. 

It's probably for the best that our characters lack fundamental survival instincts, since the gore on display is one of Perkins' 14 strong points. We get our fair share of disembowelments, all done with gloriously juicy practical effects. I would have preferred to actually see most of the action, but bad lighting seems as common as poor cell phone service in the realm of 21st century horror. 

High Points

From a storytelling point of view, the whole setup (which was apparently submitted via a web contest by Jeremy Donaldson) is strong, and Richard Brake's Ronald Perkins is chillingly villainous in his clean-cut evil

Low Points

I can forgive the film's low budget for some of the rough lighting choices, but the actual geography of some of the more intense sequences is muddled and poorly defined, thereby muting the tension

Lessons Learned

When it comes to not-quite-zombie zombie movies, animal activists are always the worst

Affairs are always improved with warm champagne

Best thing about filming in Romania? The creepy eastern European children's parks, of course

Rent/Bury/Buy

I watched Perkins' 14 via HBO Go, so if you have access to that, it's certainly a decent way to spend 90 minutes of your time. After Dark's 8 Films to Die For typically have mixed results (the same series that gave us Lake Mungo and Mulberry Street is also responsible for Tooth & Nail and, you know, Dark Ride) and this one falls fairly squarely in the middle. The fresh premise probably deserves better treatment, but for a straight-to-DVD (remember those?) zombie-ish movie, it ain't bad. 

The Carnival Is In Town

Because of its doll head poster and carnival setting, I’d always meant to watch Dark Ride.

And now I have. So now life is fully open to so many more possibilities...

Quick Plot: Five awful college students decide to drive to New Orleans for spring break, taking a detour to New Jersey (because GPS wasn’t quite all there in 2006) and spending the night in a carnival dark ride that once hosted a sadistic serial killer. Naturally, said sadistic serial killer is residing in a mental asylum run by equally sadistic and far stupider orderlies whose abuse offers him an easy exit back to his killing grounds. 

No, you haven’t seen this movie before.

Well, I mean, of course you sorta have.

Directed by Craig Singer, Dark Ride is, well, it’s a slasher set in a funhouse and not unlike The Funhouse or many another horror flick set in a funhouse. Our cast is led by Meadow Soprano as a rather unremarkable final girl trying to figure out her relationship with an on again/off again boyfriend. Ashley Tisdale’s sister is her blond friend/early death fodder/partner in slut-shaming the friendly blonder hitchhiker they pick up. Also on board is Patrick “The Sandlot” Renna as Bill, the token fifth wheel/film geek with some confusingly ridiculous secrets of his own.

It’s hard to muster much enthusiasm when discussing a movie like Dark Ride because the movie barely has enthusiasm about itself. As the token frat jerk, Alex Solowitz is the only cast member to offer anything interesting onscreen, so that’s a minor problem. The overall tone can’t seem decide if it should be serious or silly, and the story seems to not even want to tell itself. The logistics of our killer conveniently escaping from a mental institution the same time that--

Wait:

The only reason I go this deep into the plot is that Dark Ride just doesn’t have much else to talk about. Since I’d rather write about messy storytelling than a woman being slaughtered while giving a dude oral sex, allow me to spoil away.

Bill, the geeky friend who wouldn’t really be the rest of our cast’s friend in real life but is required on the trip since movies have a nerd quota, is revealed to be none other than the little brother of Dark Ride’s raging maniac. Which would make sense if said raging maniac brother’s escape was planned for the same night when Bill’s caravan ended up in the out-of-the-way dark ride. But so far as we see, both were done by chance. Considering the wrap-up isn’t even wrapped up with any kind of satisfying resolution, it’s hard not to think Dark Ride was written as it moved on the tracks. 

Which, actually, don’t really exist inside the dark ride of the title. Customers visiting this attraction are apparently supposed to walk through miles of unclear path with no discernible way out. I don’t know about you, but from 1985 on, I don’t know that I’ve ever gone through a haunted house without having the illusion killed by a glowing “emergency exit” sign. But again, maybe things were just, well, DIFFERENT...in 2006 New Jersey.

High Points

While the geography of the actual dark ride doesn’t quite add up, there’s certainly some interesting imagery and effective production design going on

Low Points

Aside from the rather ridiculous machinations of the plotting, Dark Ride suffers from serious tonal confusion in just how seriously it wants to take the death of its characters. Some of the gore is over the top and silly, while other deaths seem as if they’re meant to be taken with great gravitas

Lessons Learned

In the early 2000s, going to New Orleans was considered retro

Unless you're Danny Trejo, no orderly in a mental asylum is ever not a sadistic bully

Shit old towns are the best

Feeding raw steak to an insane and weirdly muscled vegetarian is like giving spinach laced with crystal meth to Popeye if Popeye were, well, you get it.

Rent/Bury/Buy

Eh. One could do worse with a breezy 21st century slasher than Dark Ride, but that’s about the highest compliment I can give. So, you know, that. 

Sometimes these reviews just THAT themselves.