The Frightening

Well written, well acted, well photographed, well directed but absolutely hideously edited horror film. Good editing should be invisible. It should never call attention to itself. The editing in THE FRIGHTENING makes the film unwatchable. There are these absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary flashes of white every two seconds. This makes watching THE FRIGHTENING about the same as experiencing Chinese water torture. What were they thinking? Brinke Stevens makes a nice cameo appearance, and the lead actor who plays her son is very good. I can't believe a director as accomplished as David DeCoteau would give his movie to an editor who made the film an unwatchable experience.

Although the plot looked like something a 13 year old might concoct with his buddies, there was a suprisingly erotic touch to this movie. From the leather clad boy in the opening sequence to the loving shots of Matt Twining's golden body one would think that this was designed for an avant-garde audience. If this were the intent, it would have been a nice touch to see the blonde girl bind Matt's wrists and ankles when she forced him to his knees in the dream sequence. The costume designed could have put her in a nice dominatrix outfit and she could have proceeded to give Matt a nice beating for having intruded on her little session with the underwear boys. Given the goofiness of the rest of the movie, replete with too-red blood and monotone lines, a little s&m in the basement would have made the movie far more watchable.

A teenager haunted by visions of accidently killing someone during a wrestling tournament moves to a new town w/ his mother (Brinke Stevens) to get away from it all. At his now school though a series of murders have been occuring and it looks like he could be next.

What is frightening about this film is that it was made and got a pretty decent release into video stores. It totally lacks any character development, its gore and fright scenes are poorly excuted, and it seems like more of an excuse to show cute, well toned young men parade about in their boxer briefs then an actual movie. And by the way, the final twist is as lame as they get.

Rated R; Graphic Violence and Guys Running Around in Their Boxer Briefs

This isn't as bad as some reviewers would have you believe, but it's still not good. The story is borrowed from half-a-dozen other movies, though there are a couple of decent plot points that are semi-original. The flaws are numerous: bad acting, bad slasher FX, and very bad script. The only one who impressed me was the main character's mother, who was suitably subtle in her role. The FX are just laughable, and whoever thought up the costumes for the killers was just not putting any effort into it. Of course, the actors were all burdened with lines that make it evident that the writer(s) put TOO much effort into them. (What 17-year-olds talk like that?) But even with these flaws, the story unrolls at a reasonable pace and the movie makes progress towards the final resolution in a determined and dogged fashion. The end itself makes you feel a bit cheated.

If you have nothing better to do on some late night, this is an acceptable slasher movie. But just barely.

It's fine not great but fine. Is there really that many people out of high school that pay to see these movies because for me once I was out of high school I had no reason to remind myself about the stupidity that is centralized on people who are in the lucky sperm club born with money and good looks that immediately fade. I really only wanted to rip this one thing but was forced to type a certain number of words. So at what point was it in fashion for non strippers to wear the extreme fish net top and the what I can only guess is an environmental disaster in terms of making as well as a biodegradable nightmare in the form of pants. I know every generation has the combination of bad music/horrible hair/and clothing that you didn't realize at the time that some adult made with the sole purpose of embarrassing you like they were when they purchased parachute pants, wore a mullet which is turned into a skullet and they now design clothing with only one purpose - REVENGE. I'm guessing that the actor wearing this age specific tonsorial (thank my mom for the word of the day calendar for having to look that word up) nightmare coupled with a shirt repurposed from something to gather food has one purpose going to every garage sale he see's to find copy's of his shame and bury the physical embodiment of a combination of teenage angst and the mistaken belief that all attention is good attention. This movie is everything most of us hate about growing up and what better way to illustrate this accurately then have impossibly attractive 25 year olds wearing clothes that were utilitarian bedroom they were fashion. This did make me search for my swatch search and destroy all evidence of the time I started dread locks as a suburban white kid and my collection of useless single gloves.