The Legend of Lucy Keyes

MARCH 3, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, HAUNTED HOUSE
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

In 2004 my best friend told me that they were filming a movie called The Legend Of Lucy Keyes in the downstairs part of the house she was renting (she had the top floor). So I went down and watched a small crew do their thing. It wasn’t terribly exciting, but how many people do you know have had a film shot in their house? Five, six tops.

And yet, it STILL took me over a year or so from its debut (on the Lifetime network, which should be the only clue you need to know that the film is crap) to finally watch it.

I should have waited longer.

Less a ghost/haunt movie than a drama about real estate shenanigans, it’s a real piece of crap either way. And as a former Massachusetts resident, I was offended. The family acts like they live in the middle of nowhere, “in farm country” or something. Yet we are told flatout that the town is Princeton, MA, which is roughly 10 miles away from Worcester, one of the biggest urban cities in the state. That is hardly in the middle of nowhere, and certainly not farm country. But whatever. They have moved to town so the husband can develop wind power for the town. If you are a windmill fetishist, this is the movie for you. There are more shots of windmills in this movie than there are shots of anything cinematically interesting. But there’s some opposition from some old woman who declares that the land on which the windmills are to be built (yeah, they are not built yet, so why they cut to windmills every now and then is beyond me, and certainly beyond the film’s location) is historically sacred. Way to ramp up the excitement.

Every now and then, Delpy remembers not to use her French accent, so there’s something. And if anyone understands why the big set piece of the ghost scaring the little girl is shown twice, once at the beginning of the film (before we know who these people are, or even see a production company logo), and again in context later in the film, they are a better man than I.

Also, I guess the human villain's neck is made out of balsa wood, since it breaks from a 2 foot fall.

Apparently the film won the audience award at the Independent Film Festival of Boston. I can only assume no other films were in contention.

What say you?