Munger Road

On the eve of the annual Scarecrow Festival, two St. Charles police officers (Randall Batinkoff and Bruce Davison) search for a return killer the same night four teenagers go missing on Munger Road.

Let me sum up everything good about this film in two words: Bruce Davison. The man is a legend, from "Willard" on down. That he has had to appear in low budget horror films to pay the rent (or at least to keep building a resume) is a sad, sad thing. (And not unique to Bruce, of course -- Robert Englund, Jeffrey Combs, and everyone else is doing it...)

The part with the kids? Who cares? A bunch of dumb kids, no better than you will find in every other horror film. But the cops, they actually had a bit of an interesting plot going on...

So the first things you have to know about this movie are as follows: 1. It was supposed to have a sequel, but financial backing couldn't be drummed up, so it ends without an ending and will never be finished. See here for details as of 2013: http://goo.gl/Ba1gWH 2. It has all the trite expectations of a teen slasher flick with only one redeeming quality.

Now I am a horror and slasher fan, so I don't generally mind these things. But this one was over the top. Listed in no particular order of irritating:

*While trying to hide from a killer and be quiet, all the teens can do is scream at the top of their lungs.

* While running for help, teens run into an abandoned places where there is obviously going to be no help.

*Cops consistently "break up" even though there's no way any cop in their right mind would do such a thing.

*Somehow a very large city has only 2 cops who both work the night shift, and no one ever calls for backup!

*Cops clearly have no idea how to actually handle a gun as one of them could have shot his own head off several times and neither was holding it in a manner that would have involved any aim throughout the WHOLE movie. Even X Files got this right back in the 90s.

So what't the good part, the story development is well done and atmospheric. We flip back and forth from the teens (whom we obviously know are in danger) to the cops who bit by bit give the story of the killer. It was atmospheric as well and lacked the overdone movie style of giving the whole story of the killer near the beginning so that all viewers have to wait for is the inevitable deaths of most of the cast. This slow development, rather like a breadcrumb trail, allows the viewer to become involved in the story so that the irritating qualities of the teens can almost be passed over.

The other reviewers must be blind, friends or relatives of the writer/director of this film. I've never seen a film of any genre that had so many plot holes in it that it reminded me of a piece of Swiss cheese. Actually, there were two story lines playing out simultaneously that the writer could not tie together to save his life. I kept waiting for the film to improve but then gave up and watched in awe as it became more and more ridiculous and then ended in one huge mess. I kept thinking to myself how did this movie ever get out of pre-production without someone stepping in to doctor the script. I certainly wish I had the 86 minutes back of my life after watching this clunker, and I can only warn potential viewers to watch at their own risk.

"Munger Road" doesn't break much new ground, but it covers the old ground nicely. Two St. Charles students (Trevor Morgan and Hallock Beals) get a video camera so they can go out with their dates (Brooke Peoples and Lauren Storm), to the tracks on Munger Road to check for supernatural activity. The car engine mysteriously dies and the four kids are marooned in the middle of nowhere.

From John Carpenter's "Halloween," director/writer Nick Smith appropriates the escaped serial killer plot, plus pays homage to the opening-scene tracking shot by having a cop investigate a dark house through a point-of-view camera.

Smith also lifts the swinging ceiling lamp effect from Hitchcock's "Psycho" and briefly the making-a-documentary premise from "The Blair Witch Project" which it stole from "Cannibal Holocaust."

So, don't go to see "Munger Road" for originality.

Go to witness how Smith and his young conspirators (including Polish composer Wojciech Golczewski with his edgy, alarming score) transform the sleepy little community of St. Charles into the scariest Illinois town since Michael Myers roamed fictional Haddonfield.

Living in Illinois, I know where "Munger Road" is located but had never heard of its checkered backstory and the rumors surrounding it. Apparently, the story is that paranormal entities haunt a specific location where a Canadian Railway crosses a road called "Munger Road" in a rural area of Bartlett. While this urban legend is relatively small, it still should have a film made in its honor, shouldn't it? St. Charles native Nicholas Smith has written and directed an interesting but relatively bland entry into the paranormal genre of film, yet has accumulated an impressive amount of publicity for the project and has garnered a solid amount of revenue as well.

Munger Road focuses on two narratives (one that could exist on its own, the other one would be difficult to sustain a short film) jammed together. One story follows two local cops, investigating the area after a murderer has escaped from a prison bus and is running ramped through the town. The other centers around four thrill-seeking teenagers, two men, two women, all faceless, as they venture out to the spot I previously mentioned to crack the rumors about Munger Road.

So they do, and once they stop on the railroad tracks, they apply baby-powder to the bumper, shut the car's lights off, and wait as they expect a ghost to push them off the tracks into safety. After that event, once they have gotten video evidence that something did in fact push their car, they realize that their cell phones are now frozen, their car stalls, starts, then stalls for good, and they are stranded in the middle of nowhere in the dead of night. Now the fun begins.

One major problem with the picture is the lighting or lack thereof. The worst thing, I believe, that could happen with a horror movie, next to animal abuse, or a low amount of source lighting, rendering the picture as black, indistinct, and frustratingly unclear. I was reminded of the pitch dark sequences in Albino Farm, which were no help to the film's clunky narrative. Here, the scenes do not happen a lot, but they often exist when the suspense is increasing. Don't even get me started on the lack of character development either. We have dopey guy, nicer guy, skanky girl, nicer girl, and two straight-laced cops. Next.

I have certain admiration for the film in regards that Smith seems like a capable directer, the writing isn't horrendously incompetent, and some of the atmosphere (when we can see it) is chilling and effective. However, Munger Road, unfortunately, could be a sour movie-going experience thanks to three words that conclude the film. I'll leave you with that...

Starring: Bruce Davison, Randall Batinkoff, Trevor Morgan, Brooke Peoples, Hallock Beals, Lauren Storm, and Art Fox. Directed by: Nicholas Smith.