The Attic

DECEMBER 28, 2007

GENRE: CRAP, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

I don't even know who sent me The Attic. It came sans press notes or any sort of information at all. The mailing address just had the PR company that handles lots of outlets, so that was no help. I don't even know if I was supposed to review it for this or Bloody D. Well at any rate, whoever sent it should be tried for war crimes.

The terribleness of the film was made even more excruciating by the fact that I was actually somewhat excited to see it. It was directed by Mary Lambert, one of the few female horror directors of note, thanks to the Pet Sematary movies and the slightly-better-than-expected Urban Legend 3. Also, it starred not only John Savage, but Catherine Mary Stewart (who young BC crushed on from Weekend At Bernies) and the lovely Elisabeth Moss, who was on the highly missed Invasion for a few episodes. All in all, I expected something at least on par or above the quality of your average DTV movie.

But no. This is the type of movie where you can't even begin to understand why it was made, or how it attracted the talent (as C-list as they may be) that it did. There's no point, no originality, and certainly nothing even approaching suspense or scares. No, the film is largely comprised of scenes with little to no sort of cohesion or narrative flow between them. A scene will end with two characters at odds with each other; in the next scene they'll be completely fine. The main character, who has been seeing a Doppleganger outside (that's pretty much the extent of the plot, by the way), will say "I am staying in here until someone believes me!" when no one has given her any doubt, about anything, in the previous few scenes. At one point, they cut to a cat running down the stairs, despite the fact that at no point before (or after) was it established that they even OWNED a goddamn cat. And making matters worse, that's pretty much the whole scene. Daytime, stuff happens; nighttime, a cat runs down the stairs; then it's daytime again. The cat is never seen again. OK.

Like Devil Times Five, the film's screenwriter gave himself
a role as a retarded man. You can make the joke.

In terms of offering the viewer any sort of reward for sitting through all this crap, let's see... one throat slashing, not too bad. And then... oh wait, no, that's it. There's a few shootings and a wholly off-screen sex scene as well; both are even lamer than they sound. The other 80 minutes are just Moss yelling or whining about being agoraphobic and some nonsense about a forgotten twin. And the "twist" ending of the film pretty much invalidates most of the "action" in the film anyway.

And what the hell is the point of this? It's kind of hard to tell from one image, but when you're watching it (if you are unfortunate enough to do so), it's obvious that the guy is green-screened into the shot. But why? It's a fucking house! They couldn't put him in the house (or even A house, it's not like anyone would notice if the decorations on the wall changed) to say his dumb lines? Lucas at least composites people into other planets or alien deserts and things like that, not a standard Victorian living room.

Oh well, at least it was anamorphic.

What say you?