DVD Release
What do you get when you take an ultra boring, utterly fright free “horror film” script, add three of the main actors from Rob Zombie’s House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil’s Rejects, slap on a fancy (and totally unrelated) DVD cover and release it direct-to-DVD through Lionsgate?
Michael Feifer’s A Dead Calling. My God…what a fuckin’ snoozer.
No joke, this was so goddamn boring and uneventful that I was very close to applying A Clockwork Orange clamps to my eyes in order to keep myself awake and watching. What was Feifer thinking? Did he truly believe having Sid Haig, Leslie Easterbrook and Bill Moseley in his film would somehow turn his cinematic lullaby around?
A Dead Calling is packed with plot potholes, the acting was all over the place and characters were inconsistent. To top all of that off the film is so incredibly predictable it’s insulting. I’ve watched episodes of Pokémon with my 9 year old that kept me guessing longer!
Rachel Beckwith (Alexandra Holden), a big city investigative reporter, is savagely attacked in her apartment one night by a masked assailant. Her boyfriend Brian attempts to fight off the intruder but ends up with cold steel in his belly and dies in Rachel’s arms.
Months later Rachel is on the recovery and staying with her parents George (Sid Haig) and Marge (Leslie Easterbrook). Things begin looking positive for Rachel again and she even takes a job at the local television station in town. Her boss, Stephen Javitz (John Burke), decides to get Rachel out there on a story revolving around the architecture in town. It’s a fluff piece but Rachel accepts the story and heads out to get a jump on things.
The first (and only) home she visits is the old Sullivan estate. The old joint is surrounded by a massive chain link fence and it’s locked up good. Luckily Rachel comes across a hole in the fence so she makes her way into the home through the back in order to get a look around the old place. As she slowly begins to investigate she becomes aware of somebody else in the house with her. Heading upstairs to check out some of the commotion she witnesses the brutal murder of a woman by a knife wielding maniac.
Has the maniac spotted Rachel? Could he have seen her watching him commit his horrible deed?
Before things get too hectic, everything just vanishes. Could the scene Rachel witnessed have been real or was there something else going on in the house?
Not one to be scared off easily, Rachel makes her way back to the house…over and over…with her boss…without her boss…with the police present…without the police present. *YAWN* She even buddies up with a dopey paranormal investigator that’s been dead for years!!
It’s just as Rachel figured, there had been a murders committed in the building! The original owner Dr. Frank Sullivan (Timothy Oman) was a local town doctor and savage sadist! Not only did he botch operations but he murdered people in a secret room in his basement!
Is the female ghost in the Sullivan home really reaching out to Rachel; calling to her for help? What can Rachel do? Is this murderous escaped convict tracking Rachel and Javitz really Frank “The Butcher” Sullivan? How and when did he escape prison and what has he come back to town and his home for?
A Dead Calling will have you bored out of your gourd long before you get “A Dead Ass.” I’m sure if asked, the director would make some sort of half-hearted excuse about this film being a “supernatural thriller” and how it’s about more than just scares. I probably could accept that too if it had ANY scares at all! Hell, I would have been okay with the fact that this film had no scares if it had just been a bit more…well…thrilling. It wasn’t. This was neither thrilling nor scary.
If there was anything positive to say about this film it would be the following…
1. Alexandra Holden is hot.
2. Bill Moseley is truly underrated.
3. Leslie Easterbrook has an amazing rack.
I suppose most of the above doesn’t really come off positive enough to warrant a rental but I wouldn’t recommend renting this anyhow.
For starters, how is it we see the “ghost” of Frank Sullivan twice in this film when he’s not even dead?! Is this spectral Frank some kind of “supernatural snapshot” constantly re-committing crimes of the past while the real, living Frank still murders the living?
I could do nothing but shake my head as Rachel and her boss “discover” Frank Sullivan’s “hidden” torture/autopsy room! I mean, years prior a reporter dies at the foot of the basement steps not any more than a few inches from this secret room and NOBODY spots it? The Sullivan family is murdered in this home and this room isn’t discovered by crime scene investigators scouring the house for evidence? There was…what…like 9 wooden slats nailed over the “secret” room’s door? C’MON! Lame!
I won’t even get started on the relatively “fresh” looking body discovered in the secret room! Fer Christsake the body was supposed to be over 28 years old! The goddamn thing should have been withered up like a dehydrated monkey!
There’s more I found aggravating…trust me. Sid Haig underacted…Leslie Easterbrook overacted to the point of insanity and there was absolutely NO chemistry between Holden’s Rachel and Burke’s Javitz.
A Dead Calling was a bland, lifeless, scareless exercise in “let’s turn a profit” horror filmmaking that’s cluttering up the market. Apparently, Feifer feels he’ll have more success with his crapfests if he snatches the actors Rob Zombie used for his own films so keep an eye out for Priscilla Barnes, Michael Berryman and Kane Hodder in his upcoming Ed Gein: The Butcher of Plainfield.
