Deadline

Mmm, a nervy girl with mental problems and on medication, decides on a whim, on hearing that the psychotic ex who's been stalking her has just been released from jail, that the best course of action would be to isolate herself in a huge, spooky, remote house without any transport. The premise alone is illogical enough to make most viewers put this back on the shelf.

But my excuse is that it was on Five in the afternoon and, once I'd elected to give it a go, it was too hilarious to stop watching.

The pace of the film verges on the glacial. Brittany Murphy, looking wan and pretty and rather like a ghost herself, wanders around in some sexier equivalent to pyjamas, wondering how she got herself into this nonsense. It starts to seem like nobody in the whole world ever moved so slowly. I can hear the director instructing her, 'Walk into the room slowly', then urging, 'No, Brittany, slower! Slower!' She sits in a tub and gazes mournfully off to one side. For hours.

It's another one of those films that's predicated on the notion that a previous occupant felt the necessity to video every single thing that ever happened to them and that Brittany's character, rather than finding this nauseatingly narcissistic and tediously self-absorbed, would be sufficiently intrigued to watch all this footage back.

Oh, I forgot to mention that she's a writer of some kind (people who stay in old, spooky houses generally are) and supposedly working to a deadline, not that you would know it. I think this may have been for some time in the next millennium.

If your idea of horror is a few creaky doors and some very weak light fittings, you possibly might find yourself ever so slightly unnerved for a nanosecond. Otherwise, be prepared to find this a scream for all the wrong reasons.

A writer Alice (Brittany Murphy) gets dropped off by a friend at a spooky Victorian house, to be alone for a week to write. Her friend drives off leaving Alice alone to explore the house and as she does she finds mini video cassettes of the former residents, a young couple, going about their daily lives. The rest of the movie jumps between the present, the author in the house, and the past, what is happening to the couple's lives by watching the tapes. Even with the dual story line there is no character development, at all. There isn't a reason to even care about what happens to them. You don't know what their goals or hopes are, or their past. Except in a the simplest of references. Like: "He had a history of depression". So when the movie jumps between past and present you don't even want to even bother to try to and figure it out. And Brittany Murphy has the complete inability to keep her mouth closed. As in, lips together, so it looks like she is gasping for air like a fish out of water. She wanders through the entire movie with eyes bugged out and lips apart, brow furrowed (not literally of course with the advent of Botox) and saying nothing because this takes place in an empty house there really isn't a lot of dialogue. I am wondering what the point of this movie was. I really am. No conflict, mute fish-like characters, no plot really or story...hmm. I gave it a 4 because the camera work and production was decent and the bad acting was due to a sophomoric script. This isn't even a good rainy day desperation I will watch this, because nothing is on cable type movie. And Thora Birch was in this so I mistakenly thought it would improve. There is a last gasp at the end to try to scare you but seriously. After an hour and 10 minutes of nothing it is kind of hard to recover. And these movies with the tired plot line of people who are mentally ill and/or on medication is so old. EVERYONE IS ON MEDICATION. Statistically 50% of the US is, so why this should be significant to any plot is beyond me. In short, watch this only if you run out of Ambien.

Brittany Murphy is Alice, a writer in her early 30's who moves into a spooky old Victorian mansion in order to be alone to work on her book as well as distance herself from a traumatic nervous breakdown. But no sooner is Alice settling in, that the house is getting the worst of her imagination courtesy of strange noises and nightmares. Now Alice, already in a fragile mental state, must deal with that as well as an ex who recently got out of prison.

I found myself enjoying this film much more than I thought that I would've, thanks in no small part to a nice atmospheric soundtrack as well as a surprisingly adequate subdued performance by Murphy. All of this is almost (but not quite) enough to make up for a pretty clichéd and heavily predictable storyline. The late Britt does the most with what little she's given.

My Grade: C

I managed to get all the way through this really poor movie, thinking that at the end the writers would at least have the decency to explain what it was all about. For some reason, movie makers like to leave cliff-hangers where the audience leaves the theater, or walks out of the room at home, scratching their heads and wondering "What the ??? was that all about"? This turkey managed to survive a weak plot and not be Tooooooo bad until the final scene. The writers did not see fit to explain whether Alice was just writing about her own experience and imagining all the videos, or if it was all true and she wrote about what was on the tapes, nor did it really explain why she was scared of being laid on that bed at the end of the show. The true nature of the relationship between her and REbecca was never explained. Were they lesbians? The only thing that ever was explained was Ben. At least she allowed his call where he apologized and told her he'd leave her alone. But, the writers managed to screw everything up by putting in the final scene and left everyone hanging way out in the breeze. Nothing was confirmed or explained. And, the writers left us with a new element of Rebecca on still another video, lying in that bed. I think writers who write scripts with this little explanation should be sued by the watchers and forced to explain themselves, AND THE PLOT!

I'm certain that somewhere in Los Angeles there's a machine that is able to combine random genre clichés and churn out screenplays and storyboards for studios. For a few extra bucks, it will even make casting suggestions. 'Deadline' is a result.

Spending a few nights alone in an abandoned Victorian mansion must be high on most people's list of things not to do. Not so Alice, who jumps at the chance to shut herself away in the spooky old house in order to finish a long-overdue manuscript. Even doors opening on their own, screams in the night, and an abusive boyfriend fresh out of prison can't convince her to seek someplace a little closer to civilization. Hell, she can't even turn a light on when walking around at night. Taking such an implausible scenario as its starting point doesn't bode well, and it can only go downhill from there. Possessing all the scares of an episode of 'The Ghost Whisperer', the complete lack of creativity or originality is depressing.