Final Draft

First of all... "Final Draft" is not really a horror movie even the burnt creepy clown on the cover and in the trailer might suggest that. If you are in for some classic Clown-Horror kills this might be way wrong for you. The movie is really slow paced and basically just taking place in about 3-5 locations. It deals with a writer named Paul who dreams of an idea for a horror movie script which a friend of him rushes him to finish on a tight deadline of 18 days to get a movie deal for it on a meeting he arranged. The main actor played by Dawsons Creeks James van der Beek is a rather introvert guy and I think James captures his psychological dilemma very well. To deal with his writers block and finish the script without distractions he lets his friend lock him in his apartment for the 2 weeks. From here everything plays in a large, dark and rather empty apartment in a creepy industrial building where Paul hacks on his keyboard desperately trying to finish his story. When he mixes in too much of his personal experiences reality and his story begin to meld together. Beside the main actor I really liked the editing and little use of music which made the movie interesting. Its often hard to grasp whats real and whats imagination since the editing is strongly jumping in time, inter-cutting other sequences and lagging in sound. I think there are some real cool ideas in the script in how the characters Paul puts in his script to be killed by the clown for how they made his life harder start appearing in his apartment and talking to him typing their demise on his keyboard.While Punchy the clown rather acts on the sidelines he delivers his punches in a raw and untypical fashion. Final Draft could really be a great movie if it didn't stretch so much. Its really way to slow and could have been way tighter. There are so many fresh ideas in the script and editing its a shame that the suspense wears off after a while. If you like psychological Movies with horror and drama elements you sure should give this a try even if the movie has its flaws... especially the sound mixing which is way too low in the dialog and the unexplained cuts to events outside the apartment and not related to Pauls script or history put me off a bit.

A depressed writer (with some inevitable personal problems dictated by the Universal Movie Law) strives to complete a screenplay and has himself locked up in his flat above a garage by an actor friend. Needless to say, writer's block hits him hard and the characters from his past - wife, school bully, deceased brother and a Stephenkingesque 'clown after sundown' among others - jump at the chance to perform their hallucinative act to the poor man on the brink of sanity.

With nothing too brilliant or original to flag, this cheapie still provides some frights and might evoke some thoughts if you happen to be the thinking type. The main character is likable enough to keep the interest in his downhill life alive, but it still is a one man film about a one man's story, and if the inner struggles of a writer in a block don't make your heart beat double pace, you'll regrettably find this film to be a very slow moving, somewhat predictable and repetitious. At times it's also a bit complicated, as the multi-leveled past comes alive in random samples through the writer's hallucinations.

As indie flicks go, this one is quite neat and worthy a look. The problem is, all this has been done before, better and with much, much more money in the budget.

What we have here is a story of a young screen writer suffering from psychological disorders who locks himself in his apartment, in a desperate attempt to complete a script for a film after a long break from writing, while struggling with many inner demons. This theme of artists facing deadlines while dealing with some sort of great inner turmoil has been done countless times, so needless to say, for it to be effective here, they would have had to bring something new or creative to the table. There really is a lot of potential with this subject, as it's very interesting see a screenplay writer under huge pressure slowly unravel. As a writer, let me say that when under extreme pressure, or having spent long amounts of time alone writing, its really NOT uncommon to begin talking to oneself or acting things out in the room. The real question this film puts forth is where is the line between method and insanity, where is the persons breaking point, and at what point do the mere illusions and acting become reality if you're in a particularly unstable state of mind.

The final cut of this movie has many problems with it, and foremost being that marketed as a horror film, the horror is more or less non existent. You have an evil clown who pretty much doesn't do anything but stand and look evil, and tonnes of side characters hallucinated by the main actor who bicker back and forth with him, until one by one they are done away with on screen while all the long, the viewer KNOWS it's fake anyways. The director simply was too inept and uncreative to come up with anything creepy or genuinely scary enacted out. EVEN IF it was all just figments of the main characters imagination, it could have been creepy or scary just in its mere conception, and here stems the rest of the film's problems.

I first saw portions of this film on the space channel, and quite unusually for me, with random films I catch on TV, I badly wanted to get a copy. The scene that impressed me had the main character delivering a long very well written monologue to the camera, raving about the strife he had with his ex girlfriend. It was very powerful and gave huge background and insight into the character, and what was really mentally driving him over the edge. An insight which you didn't find in any way, in the version I acquired, as in that version, this scene was cut out, and it's very easy to see why. In fact there were many scenes with the actor delivering monologues to the screen, giving it almost a semi documentary type feel to it in some places, beautifully painting harsh pictures to the audience with mere words. Firstly, its not uncommon to have more than one version of the same film floating around, and sadly this goes to show us that when the producers come knocking at the door, and they DON'T like "the final draft" if you will, but more accurately, the final cut, they have the power to suck any shred of artistic merit out of a film. The space channel version was really a full fledged psychological drama with a great script, and pretty well done too, but the problem is... it was "SUPPOSED" to be a horror film. Worse still, it had a very European feel to it, and English language films with a European feel just aren't marketable to a North American audience. Clearly the material was re-cut and the end result, though competently put together, was lacklustre, and unoriginal. There was quite a lot of swearing also in the TV version unlike in the version I ended up getting a hold of, so unfortunately I didn't get to see the full space channel version because my mother couldn't handle the swearing, and changed the channel.

All said and done, a very tragic state of affairs. The director was able to put together a fairly competent film, but unable to adapt it into a film of "horror" and thus sullying his own name and the name of the screenplay writer with this relatively disappointing film. One example of how competent he was. in some regard, is the scene at the restaurant, where before the writer locks himself in his room, we are given a really clear and unexaggerated glimpse at just the extent of the main character's psychological state and how he is prone to hallucinations, adding a realism which in a huge way sets the stage for the types of things that go on while he is locked away in his apartment, and all in all, keeping the whole thing plausible and not over the top. It is very hard to do this AND deliver true horror to the screen.

Indeed anyone who went to see this film and was expecting a horror film SHOULD be angry and feel cheated, because it definitely is not one. If however you're prepared for a decent fairly unoriginal psychological drama, you might still want to give it a try with the context I've put forth here. It is honestly a decent movie for what it is. If you're interested in seeing a film with a similar plot to this one which REALLY hits home, and hits home hard on all fronts in terms of both psychological drama, AND in terms of horror, you might want to check out another Canadian film by he name of "Deadline" - 1981.

Jonathan Dueck's 'Final Draft' doesn't show us much what we haven't already seen before. The director tries to make it mysterious, suspenseful and ambiguous but not much happens until the last half hour. Darryn Lucio writes and costars. While the premise is interesting, the pacing is at fault. It takes almost an entire hour for the story to take off. 'Final Draft' seems to take much of its inspiration from Stephen King's 'It' and 'Secret Window'. Even though it's made within a small budget, it' quite well-made and the visuals in the last half hour are quite well done. The dark and gloomy atmosphere is The characterization was quite clichéd and that makes the situations less interesting. James Van Der Beek turns in a decent performance as the tormented writer suffering from writer's block and fighting his past but the rest of the cast is uninteresting. So, there is nothing refreshing about 'Final Draft'. It's painfully slow, clichéd and tries too hard while failing.

James van der Beek plays the part well - drifting gently away from his role in Dawson's Creek. Though this sort of film has been done before, the isolation in 'Final Draft' provides a much more difficult part for the lead, which James plays with the candour of an experienced actor. Definitely worth a watch, I would select this title over numerous others in the genre; especially Stephen King's 'It' which is far less frightening. It is also refreshing to see a new film approach horror in a traditional manner - not one of the commonplace gore-fests that are dime-a-dozen in the box office recently. For an indy film, it is definitely a good foothold for all involved; being the director's second film and a first for the writer, who also stars. There were few parts and it might have been refreshing to see some higher calibre actors play the supporting roles, though the parts were all played well. A foot in the door for James van der Beek, who with any luck will land a part in a film with a bigger budget sometime soon.