In the history of films, there are a few strong indicators that a film has a good chance of… how to phrase this… sucking. There is of course the bumped release date. Refusing to give advance screenings to critics is another strong indicator. The words ‘Directed by Uwe Boll’ are practically a guarantee that you’re about to waste two hours of your life.
And then there’s the ‘3-D’ tag oh so cleverly inserted into the title. Has any word in a title ever provided such a strong hint about the upcoming quality of a film? Let’s review, shall we? Amityville 3-D. Jaws 3-D. Friday the 13th part 3(D). Spykids 3-D. I’m sure somewhere out there someone may treasure these films as lost classics. I am not that person, hopefully neither are you.
The irony here is that the industry itself is starting to strongly embrace 3-D for enhanced viewing performance. Real-D Cinema has a deal to have 3-D projection systems in place in over 3,500 theatres by 2010, and honestly, this is the kind of move that Hollywood needs to make if they wish to fight off the file sharing monster that is eating into their profits. Do you want to see Iron Man 2 on a grainy little three inch video with horrible sound or do you want to see it three stories high in stereo sound and in 3-D?
If you picked ‘A’, please slap yourself. Hard.
Filming the movie in the new 3-D technology is apparently quite stressful for the crew in question, as the rigging and lighting for filming in 3-D is borderline insane. All hope is not lost for the film, however. Jensen Ackles (Dean Winchester of Supernatural fame) and Jaime King (Goldie/Wendy from Sin City and Sin City 2) have signed on for the primary roles of Tom Hanniger and Sarah. Additionally, the film is being directed by Patrick Lussier, a horror film veteran with credits including Red Eye, The Eye, Scream 1, 2 and 3 and Mimic. Let’s hope he takes that rather large pool of experience and sidesteps the 3-D curse.
The synopsis for the film currently states that Tom has returned to his hometown ten years after he caused a mining accident that claimed five lives and caused the only survivor to remain in a coma for ten years. Tom returns to town, and in true horror story form, the people suddenly start dropping dead with horrible cases of ‘axeinthefaceitis’. The townspeople naturally blame Tom, as they’re still angry about the mine incident from a decade ago and the gruesome deaths are a little suspiciously well timed. Only Tom’s ex Sara, now married to the town sheriff, believes Tom when he claims it wasn’t him. The bodies will pile up, the tension will mount, the killer will be revealed, and this will probably gross about $20 million before it heads to video. Let’s all just hope that Ackle’s agent is somewhere in that body count. (Scott Lumley/BOP)
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