The Hamiltons

"The Hamiltons" has a great premise, and the ending of the film is inches from being extremely satisfying. On its own, an excellent ending...it's getting there that's the problem with the film.

The fundamental flaw of "The Hamiltons" is that it's caught between being a serial killer film and a family drama, and unlike "Suburban Nightmare" - which was similar, also an indie, and much better in my opinion - "The Hamiltons" refuses to commit to its characters. It wants you to empathize with them at the same time it paints them as violent sociopaths. In doing this I found the ending disingenuous, and most of the movie was simply too scattered.

There ARE strong points to the film. The main character, Francis, is easily the most well-developed character. Although he gets too whiny and, frankly, useless at times, he's able to make the transition into action with aplomb. His relationship with one of the women being held in the cellar of the house is particularly well-written and potent.

The problem is that the movie feels forced to bend to genre conventions, and in doing so it makes the other three members of the family unsympathetic in the extreme. The characters of Wendell and Darlene are written well as sociopaths, but the problem comes when the film wants you to identify with them and accept them as part of this family, and you can't imagine why anyone would love them even if they WERE family.

The film is worth watching, but the script really could've used another run through editing to work out the kinks.

I saw this film at Cinequest, the San Jose Film Festival, in March of 2006. The Hamiltons is a movie with writing and directing credit going to "The Butcher Brothers". I think this is a name we will be seeing more from in the future. They've managed to put together a good old-fashioned scare fest, with some very powerful shocks along the way, all while using very basic gore and makeup effects.

The movie is about a group of grown siblings, whose parents have died, who are living together as a family unit, trying to be a "normal" suburban family. But they have a terrible secret. Part of that secret is that they abduct and kill people (mostly lovely young women). The rest of the secret is what keeps us involved throughout the mayhem that follows.

They've managed to create an atmosphere similar to Texas Chainsaw Massacre, without being quite so gruesome or so unrelenting. Mixed among the powerful killing and torture scenes are scenes of banal domestic dysfunction. They are obviously big horror fans and sprinkle the movie with references to the movies genre fans love.

My only complaint is that they overindulge in camera tricks. Some of the tricks are very effective. In the pre-credit scene a woman is killed, but the violence occurs in a series of extremely rapid cuts (I'm guessing maybe 3 per second) which keeps us from quite seeing what's happening. This allows our bloody imaginations to do much of the work and keeps us from noticing how simple the make-up effects are. I would like to have seen them use this technique again, but instead they went on to try every camera trick they could think of.

The youngest brother is camcording much of the family action, he says for a school project. This gives the directors an excuse to have many square-cropped, bouncy scenes, with jagged edges around the objects and low resolution. Other scenes are grainy with a shot-on-videotape-in-poor-lighting look. Much of the movie is in high-resolution, beautiful 35mm. Then, even more distractingly, they start mixing up the resolution and cropping mattes, so that we get a high resolution square shot, supposedly from the camcorder, so the actor can look good in close up. There's a couple of scenes where the shot alternates between two actors in dialog and one of them is shot in the grainy tape-look format while the other one is in high-res 35mm. Nearly all of the violent scenes are augmented? by quick-motion, tracers, vibrating cameras, or something else to add impact not present in the action itself. I'm sure they had fun playing all these camera games. The problem is that it draws us out of the story. I spent much of the movie's time thinking about such things, instead of wondering what they were going to do to those poor girls next. There are a few soundtrack scares, but they don't overdo this.

If it ever gets released, I'll want to see it again. The camera tricks do not make the movie unwatchable, they're just distracting. It's a much better movie than a lot of low-budget horror and it left me with the kind of feeling I get from the old 70s and 80s slashers, but it's not as graphic.

This was a very interesting film. I'm not much of a horror/slasher fanatic, but I can appreciate a good story line. This one has a pretty decent plot behind it, but something was lost along the way. I enjoyed the way it was shot--with the younger brother's video project changing it up a bit from the norm. The family includes a set of twins and I think the relationship between the two of them is pretty bizarre, but actually it added a lot to the film. The character Lenny keeps us interested throughout the whole movie, trying to figure out who/what he is, and that was a totally off-the-wall twist. Francis is a relatable character--young teen full of questions and despair, and his development throughout the story was worth observing. It's definitely a strange one, but I got a real kick out of it. I especially like the ending sequence(s) where they start to explain themselves..totally weird. I recommend it, if nothing else, just for the laughs.

Plot

Trying to move on with their lives, and keep their family together after the untimely demise of their parents, the four Hamilton siblings are left all alone to fend for themselves. At first glance, the Hamiltons seem like an ordinary family, and they will do everything in their power to adjust to their new neighbourhood; however, troubled Francis' video camera reveals that there is more to the grieving newcomers than meets the eye. After all, is it normal to keep people captive in your basement

Cast

Nobody I was familiar with.

Verdict

I made a booboo, I watched The Thompsons first, I didn't realize it was a sequel! That I quite enjoyed so upon booting The Hamiltons up I was fairly excited, whoops that was another booboo.

The Hamiltons focuses on this dysfunctional vampire (Of a sort) family. The trouble is the film is cheap, looks cheap, sounds cheap, is cheap and though I watch a lot of indie movies and am generally unphased by this The Hamiltons came across unforgivably so and was very distracting. I wish it had distracted me more then I might not have noticed how terrible the rest of the film is, it's lifeless, it goes nowhere, the characters are wretched and the narration is so tacky it takes you away from what you're watching (But not in the way you'd want).

This isn't a vampire film, this is barely horror.

Rants

Let me be clear, I'm not overly fussed about budgets. A few years ago I remember watching one called Rednecks vs Aliens? I think. It looked like it had been recorded on the oldest VHS recorder imaginable and by someone who was having a seizure from start to finish. But this didn't matter because the film was oddly enjoyable. I don't care about budget but I've always said, keep in line with your budget. If you have a three figure budget, don't make a movie about aliens invading earth.

Breakdown.

Ugly Lifeless Poorly made.

Another one of the eight films that was part of After Dark's Horror Film Festival, "The Hamiltons" is an intriguing little horror film/twisted family drama that will have you interested and disgusted at the same time. This independent horror film focuses around a family of four, consisting of three brothers and a sister, their parents both deceased. Francis is the youngest, who is withdrawn and spends most of his time filming his unconventional life with his camcorder. Darlene is a wild goth girl with an attitude, and her twin brother, Wendell is a bit of a tough guy and a ladies man. David is the oldest, the "man of the house", who is struggling to take care of his siblings and deal with being a homosexual. The Hamilton family may seem like a basically normal bunch on the surface - but little does anyone know, they also kidnap innocent people and tie them under their house and proceed to murder them.

Interesting premise, eh? I thought so myself. Far from your conventional horror flick, "The Hamiltons" contains one of the most twisted suburban families you'll see on screen. The story itself is pretty original - well, at least I can say I've never seen a film quite like this before. The film balances itself out, teetering on the brink between a horror/crime film and a psycho family drama. Script-wise, the film is really quite impressive. It has a few faults here and there (this would mainly be the trouble finding any sympathy for a couple of the characters of the family, when it seems the writers were poking at that), but overall the writing is clever and keeps a couple of important plot-twists pretty well hidden until the appropriate time to reveal them. It does drag it's feet a little during the middle of the film, which could have been a problem - luckily it isn't necessarily uninteresting because the character interaction is really compelling.

The acting here is surprisingly good, the leading actors are mostly unknown (besides Brittany Daniel of "Club Dread" and "Joe Dirt", who has a small role in the opening scene of the film), but I thought everyone performed well and the characters were pretty believable. The film is shot in a strange fashion, and it gives it an almost documentary style, which puts the audience in the moment. The picture is very bright and clear - it captures a realistic effect. There are a few shaky, jittery camera movements, and while I felt they were over used in some areas, they add a nice effect to the film. The big revelation near the end of the film was near genius, and the conclusion is almost perfect. I won't spoil it for you, because it would essentially ruin the biggest plot twist of the movie.

Overall, this is an interesting little flick with some great things to offer. It's not your typical horror movie at all, so don't expect one - but if you want to see a different type of horror film (a little slow moving, but heavy on character development), check it out. It's not a perfect movie, but I thought it was pretty good. If you thought your family was different, wait until you see "The Hamiltons". 7/10.