Film Review: TANGLED (2001)

Love is a tangled web of lies and deceit in the film Tangled (2001) which stars Rachael Leigh Cook as Jenny Kelley, the woman that both David and Alan (Shawn Hatosy and Jonathan Rhys Meyers, respectfully) love and will do anything for.  When David is taken into custody after being hit by a car in the middle of nowhere, he tells Det. Anne Andersle (Lorraine Bracco) how he got to where he was by telling her how it all started with his meeting of Jenny.  Jenny and he develop a quick friendship as they have some of the same classes at school but when his childhood friend Alan shows up at a party they are both at, everything changes.  Alan is immediately smitten with Jenny and they start a love affair that turns David upside down but he knows what type of womanizing man Alan can be and soon realizes that his fears may tear Jenny apart if she discovers the truth.  

 

Love hurts in this film as both David and Alan try their best to win over Jenny even as it continues to tear her apart until there is a breaking point and the three find themselves down a dark path in which none of them will survive unscathed.

This is a slow burning thriller as it takes its time to develop the characters and their relationships to one another and their descent down a dark road.  This kind of thriller works because all of the actors do such a great job bringing their characters to life.  The screenplay is by Jeffrey Lieber (with a screen story by Lieber, Michael Shapiro, and Shawn Simmons).  The film is directed by Jay Lowi who does a great job keeping the film focused on these three characters for most of the running time of the film.  There are a few twists and turns that keep the story fresh and unpredictable.  I very good film for those looking for a young adult thriller.

Film Review: THE SACRED (2009)

A group of students on a trip to ancient Native American land are about to get more than they bargained for when they cross into sacred land in The Sacred (2009).  Several anthropology students and their friends are doing a thesis paper on the site where another class of students had been killed years earlier.  When they fail to heed the warning of the local Native Americans about visiting the land they soon come under mental and psychological attack where their sins from the past come back to haunt and try to kill them one by one.  

 

This actually has a pretty decent premise.  The story is by Sharon Reed who also shares screenplay credit with director Jose Zambrano Cassella.  It does a great job setting everything up and introducing all the characters but falls apart for two reasons – 1) you never once believe any of these characters are anthropology students nor believe they would just nonchalantly go to a location where the last students all died under mysterious circumstances and 2) the film crumples under your standard “stalk ‘n slash” scenario during the third act.

This being said the production values are very high and the makeup FX are really good and it is in fact entertaining in that basic horror film way so at least it’s not a complete wash.  It’s an inspired choice to use Native American mythology as it is not used as often as it should be.  There are a lot of great stories out there than can still be told as they have a rich culture of legends and myths whose surface is barely scratched here.

Film Review: ROSEWOOD LANE (2011)

Going back home is never easy especially for radio psychiatrist Dr. Sonny Blake (Rose McGowan) whose father just died due to an accident in which he fell down his basement steps supposedly in a drunken stupor.  Now Sonny must come to grips with the memory of her father, a man she partial hates.  This is starting off point for the tense thriller Rosewood Lane (2011) in which Sonny moves into her father’s home only to realize that nothing is what it seems in the neighborhood especially in terms of the local Paperboy (Daniel Ross Owens) who suffers from a medical condition which leaves him without white pupils in his eyes giving him a haunting dead stare and look.  Where she see a rare medical condition her neighbors see pure evil as Sonny will soon find out when the Paperboy becomes fixated on her. 

Whenever she turns he seems to be to the point that he can be in multiple places at the same time and soon she starts believing that maybe he is pure evil and that he had something to do with the death of her father.  It’s only a matter of time before the Paperboy’s advances become deadly violent and she soon believes that her own life is in danger.

Written and directed by Victor Salva this is a tense thriller similar to his previous film Nature of the Beast (1995) and just as thought provoking as both films pit two strong characters against each other in a battle of wills.  I’m not a particular big fan of McGowan but she does a really fine job in this film and has an equally supportive cast in Owens not to mention Lin Shaye, Lesley-Anne Down, Ray Wise and Lauren Luna Velez.  This is a very satisfying thriller with several twists that I wasn’t expecting.  A very enjoyable film.