plushsnail

This film really wants to be a cult-classic midnight movie kind of deal - the sort of idiosyncratic horror film that could be screened alongside D. Lynch, A. Jodorowsky or K. Anger - but it has nowhere near the intelligence, inspiration or panache to pull that sort of thing off. Whereas the best midnight movies seem to spring from uniquely personal visions, this one feels like some people spent a weekend throwing around half-baked ideas, hoping that something would stick. And, while the best cult films feel original and strange, this film feels more-or-less like a generic bit of horror, just without a discernible script. Not worth it.

The writer/director of this film is from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York; I'm from there, too, and I think that this film captures some of the essence of that particular place. Hastings is a small town in Westchester county; it's only about a 20-minute train ride from New York City - that's both good and bad. You see, many of the people who live in Hastings work in the city - because the town is so close to such a big metropolitan center, it means there's not much of an indigenous/local culture in the town itself. Hastings is essentially one big hill - wealthy people tend to live in big houses higher up on the hill; the tiny downtown, the train and the river are all at the bottom, as is a smallish, working-class population, many of whom hold service jobs in town. Hastings can be a very nice place, but if you're stuck there - if you can't afford train fare into the city, if you don't have a car to get to other towns, if you don't even have a ride up the hill - well, it can suck.

So, this film concerns a young man from an upper-middle-class (up on the hill) family, who finds himself living in an apartment down by the water, working as a cab driver. It's a powerful picture of the geographic and class divide of Hastings-on-Hudson, New York; the question is - is this film interesting for people who are not from Hastings-on-Hudson, New York? Well, it's a pretty good movie: there are compelling characters, strong performances and some lovely, low-key cinematography, but the script is lacking - the film suffers due to its forced, exposition-heavy dialog and from its fairly predictable narrative. That said, it also has an appealingly earth-y, personal feel to it; it's too bad that this film never seems to have gotten a proper DVD release - Lord knows there are many, many worse movies that find their way into video stores...