Furnace

JANUARY 8, 2008

GENRE: GHOST
SOURCE: DVD (STORE RENTAL)

Every now and then I see a movie that leaves absolutely no impression on me (something you can probably tell from the accompanying review). Furnace is one of those movies. Hell I even rewatched parts of it just to see if I could get anything out of it, but no. My note page is blank, and there are no extras on the DVD I can use to help me.

I should note that the director is one William Butler. Butler was a familiar face in late 80s horror movies, getting killed in Leatherface, Friday the 13th VII, and the Night of the Living Dead remake. He has shifted to directing/writing in recent years, and this is his 2nd film as a director (he also wrote Return of the Living Dead 4 and 5). He is a source of amusement to me, because one year at a Fangoria convention he sat in front of me and my friends and was obnoxious as hell. Seems like a nice enough guy though.

Anyway, the film is sort of a Ring wannabe (the chick that played Samara in Ring Two is in it, as a normal character, and I should note she is fucking cute as hell), just not as interesting. Nothing about the film is bad on a technical level (the HD looks pretty good, in fact), though the editing is pretty bad in spots (there’s a scene of a character holding a gun on another and I can’t even tell if they are facing one another or the gun wielder is behind the other guy). The acting is sufficient, with a couple of rappers (Ja Rule and Paul Wall) mixed in with B-movie kingpins like Danny Trejo and Michael Paré. And poor Tom Sizemore is also on hand, doing nothing to help us remember that at one point he was one of the most interesting character actors in Hollywood. This makes him 0-4 in Horror Movie A Day land, though this film, bland and forgettable as it may be, is certainly better than Bottom Feeder or Ring Around The Rosie (the other one is The Relic, which is slightly better than this, mainly because I could remember it the next day.

I really wish I could write a more interesting review. But seriously, the movie is like a fucking vacuum. I actually have it on in the background right now as I write this, and I’m still at a loss to come up with anything worth mentioning, good or bad. The movie is just... there. I can’t even think of anything to screenshot.

Oh wait, there is one thing. The fucking climax is during the end credits. The movie ends, the credits roll, and then suddenly, the final scene, which involves the death of a major character, begins to play alongside the credits, as if it were a blooper reel in a Jackie Chan movie. So yeah, if you check the film out, make sure you keep watching for a bit during the credits, or else you’ll miss out on some primo Sizemore screen-time.

What say you?