guitarcarl

A cast of very real ordinary people do much to overcome an underdeveloped and poorly written script. Even though the cast tries hard to make lemonade out of lemons the story ultimately sours. Several of the characters show tremendous potential and there were relationships that could have been developed to success, why the writer and director went the way they did is hard to understand. A few better plot choices possibly could have allowed us to see into a realistic view of rural America. A really interesting scene between a boy and his mother had me on the edge of my seat, but it was never really resolved. The scene built powerfully and then ended with a startling grab in a dark field. The story did that several times, start moving with some intensity and then crash into a cheap thrill. The climax wonders aimlessly through poorly arranged gore vignettes. By showing to much to fast and the lack of budget for decent visual effects what little credibility the cast had built up was wasted. I was reminded of "The Blair Witch Project" in which the director relied on talented actors to build suspense and mystery. It remains one of the scarcest and successful independent horror films ever made and not a dime was spent on fake blood and rubber masks. I still wonder if the actors could have done much better if the director and writer had gotten out of the way here. In the end the movie make no effort to resolve at all. The plot resolves no more in the end than it is explained by a corny narration in the first moments of the movie. If you are really looking for a good independent horror film let me suggest "Salvage" instead. Performances by Chris Ferry and Lauren Currie Lewis will knock your socks off.

I guess I would have understood this more if I had known the movie actually had almost nothing to do with the real Black Dahlia murder. It's a completely fictional story that makes no attempt what so ever to answer any of the many questions surrounding the actual Black Dahlia murder.

There has to be literally hundreds of factual stories surrounding this murder that would have made for a vastly better story line. It was so complicated I had trouble remembering who was supposed to have done what. The connections between characters were unnatural. The chemistry was stretched and strained. The movie does not work on so many levels that it would be difficult to comment about them all.

There are some really terrific movies that cover true crime in a dramatic way, for example "In Cold Blood." The difference is that in the case of movies like "In Cold Blood" the fictional aspects of the script are in place to build pace and to condense complex events so that viewers can draw conclusions accurately with out making the movie last forever. However, "The Black Dahlia" does just the opposite. The silly love triangles and complex character associations lead you further and further away from the facts of the murder until it has to take tremendous leaps in story development in the last half hour to sum up a climax that makes almost no sense.

Another thing that bothered me quite a bit about the story was the defamation of Elizabeth Short's character and reputation. She was never known to be in any lesbian relationships in real life. Nor was she in any porn films. There is little evidence that she was nearly so sexually promiscuous. In this way I felt like this poor young woman who was so horribly murdered was simply victimized again by a novel and script writer that were lazy and or untalented. They just danced on her grave to make a buck. Difficult for me to understand that with a case that is loaded with good story possibilities without making the victim into a slut.