Chain Letter

A chain letter is forwarded to a one kid online, he decides to forward it to some of his friends. Those who forward the chain letter live, those who don't die.

The film Chain Letter went wrong in many places, so many that it pains me to write this review because that would mean I have to remember parts of the movie. Here is a film so boring, unimaginative and down right stupid that it almost doesn't qualify as a horror film. The one and only thing the film has going for it are some gruesome death scenes, yet even those aren't that great. So now that I have that one and only positive out in the open, let me address the numerous issues this film has.

For starters, the script. You should always start with the script, or in this case, lack there of. Chain Letter has a simple premise. People are dying because they don't forward a chain letter. Now, the direction the film could have taken and if they did, would have made it a hundred times more interesting, is a supernatural route. Instead, they went with some cult route that has a killer, deemed The Chain Man, tracking these kids down through technology and killing them with his chains. I had a good laugh seeing this monster type on a laptop.

The story had some interesting bits to it that are only mentioned and never explored. The cult of people who hate technology, is shown to us at the last minute and we never get the chance to go deeper than that. This part could have helped the film if they would actually pursue it, but they thought it would be more interesting to bore the audience to death. Both Keith David and Brad Dourif seem to be trying in their poorly written and underused roles, but even they seem to know they are in a stinker of a movie.

We never got the opportunity to like, or even hate the characters. I would hope that the film would at least make some characters clichéd enough to hate, but not here. These characters were so one dimensional I was surprised they got actors at all. I don't remember a single character from this movie, other than the detective and the teacher (David and Dourif). Sadly the film is too boring to even remember characters enough to hate.

There is no climax. The film has no rising action, it goes from one kill to the next. There isn't even a main character. Once you think it's the female, but then we end up spending more time with the detective. The movie doesn't know who's who or where it wants to go. It's a confusing mess, so much that we get to see the title sequence TWICE. We literally get to see the title of the movie pop up in the exact same manner twice. For what purpose? You either start with the title, or end with the title and go to black. Don't do both, then have a few minutes of random images afterwards. It makes no sense.

The writers, directors and producers have no idea what they were doing. The movie is competently done, but what good is that? The only people who seemed to know what they were doing were the special effects guys, dishing out the blood. The Chain Man is forgettable, this movie is a complete mess and I wouldn't even consider calling it a horror film. Delete this Chain Letter and move on with your life.

I was looking through Red Box the other night when I rented this load of crap. I saw Brad Dourif and Keith David in the credits so I figured it had some merit, wrong. Hey these days torture porn and teen slasher movies are almost passé. Serial killer movies have grown from genre to category next to Drama or Comedy. No one expects too much from any of these genres but this movie manages to out stupid the worst in each of the above genres.

OK, teens get weird chain email threatening death if they don't spam 5 friends with a forward of the email. So real steel chains are literally used to dismember these teenagers if they delete CHAIN letter, get it? It was reminiscent of Hellraiser with all those chains and hooks tearing into bodies but minus the supernatural voodoo that made that movie bearable. First off, there is supposed to be some sort of conspiracy, some Luddite anti technology group that is protesting our loss of privacy via cell phone and internet technology. So why pick 5 random teen agers to kill in a gruesome fashion but with no terrorist demands or media frenzy to promote the cause? In all those teen slasher movies the teens did something or went somewhere they weren't supposed to and the monster had some good reason to kill them, like they just had sex or something. But no real motives here, from a cell of supposed warped Unibomber type geniuses who want to send out a message. Then the conspiracy finds some Leather Face Texas Chainsaw guy to do the actual murders, which makes so much sense. Then, for all the yapping about decreased privacy due to things like cell phone tracking, all the teens were killed right at their homes or in their favorite haunts, that took no technical wizardry past a phone book to track them. Then we have a veteran cop who is supposed to be tracking all this but never once does he call in for any sort of backup as he goes rummaging around empty plant buildings by his lonesome in his town's biggest crime wave investigation.

Finally there is this utterly stupid and gory dismemberment scene that opened and closed the film, literally a repeat. There was no coherent plot and a cheap theme that doesn't even tie the movie together. There was one teen who even forwarded the messages but got wasted anyways as soon as he deleted his copy. It made no sense on so many levels and was simply a cheapest sort of exploitation of an exploitation movie. I also rented & watched "I am No. 4" from Redbox last weekend and that was a turkey too. But at least that one had a coherent if silly and derivative plot.

The movie starts out very well and the whole movie has the golden rules for horror, which most of us have gotten tired of since it makes movies too predictable, and this movie is no exception.

The movie builds up very well and with good pacing. You get the chance to get to know a few of the characters on a deeper level, but nothing to stand up for. The gore is very well made and not over done, that's actually the best about this movie, the killings. The ending was very weak, very predictable and didn't leave you in awe as Secret Window or Identity did.

Chain Letters, we have all received them and we all hate them, and most of us delete them before finishing reading them without thinking about it. That's what makes this movie quite alright on the plot part, it's a nice fresh idea to what Wes Craven started back in '96 with "Scream" (the teenage horror flicks) or perhaps he started it with "A Nightmare on Elm Street" back in '84, depends on how you look at it.

I kind of liked the movie, but it's a one time watch. You should watch this when you're in the mood for a simple flick with minimum amount of brain activity usage, because this is not one to watch when you're actually in the mood for a movie evening with your partner or friends.

I rate this ******

CHAIN LETTER is yet another SAW derivative, this time made with a plot that copies that of THE RING. It involves a viral chain letter that's being spread by the Internet and mobile phones; little do those who receive the letter realise that it's been sent by a masked killer who's ready to bump off those who refuse to forward it on.

Yeah, the plot makes little sense when you look at it like that, so what we're left with here is a series of gory set-pieces combined with a police investigation into the murders. In reality CHAIN LETTER is an excuse for some very gory murder scenes inevitably involving chains, although they're handled quite cheesily and are never disturbing.

That's pretty much all the film has going for it, because the characters are extraordinarily dull and the it also manages to waste the talents of not one but two cult actors: Keith David (THE THING) plays a detective, and Brad Dourif (CHILD'S PLAY) is a teacher. Elsewhere we get Betsy Russell to hammer home the SAW connection while Michael Bailey Smith (THE HILLS HAVE EYES remake) is the hulking but brain-dead bad guy. Other than the fun gore there's nothing going for this one whatsoever.

A well intentioned movie. One that never really feels like it starts until your at the end. Or should I say, "the end?". I feel like this is a director to look out for. The deaths were great and the overall look and feel was really good and fresh. Dialogue and acting could really could have used more help in general. I would say that i would recommend it, but only for the deaths. In all it would have been a great movie had there been a completely different editor and a more cognitive storyline. A lot of buzz words and frantic talking do not a plot make. Oh well. Do yourself a favor and go check out the remake of "I Spit On Your Grave"