The Unraveling

I am a ten plus year super fan of John Carpenter's The Thing (1982). As such, this review and my opinion of the movie each reflect that fact. As fellow fans of The Thing know, any time you see the words isolated, paranoia and horror, you get a little bit excited by the potential. The best part of the movie is in its buildup. It takes its good time presenting the story and building the tension and suspense, and it keeps patient viewers wondering, but with enough subtle hints so as not to be a snooze fest. The premise is solid, the location is solid, the pacing is solid and there are no stupid character decisions, no forced plot points and no movie-ruining political statements, but the ending is what really falls short and leaves me with mixed feelings about this movie.

I was expecting guys in masks doing some scary killer stuff but what I got was some guy off his nut tripping out the entire film.

Michael, a drug addicted, gets abducted whilst at work by four guys wearing hoodies and hockey masks, he is bundled into the boot (trunk) of a car and taken out to the Californian backwoods. It turns out to be a bachelor party prank played by his friends. This is annoying and misleading because the DVD artwork (British release) shows the four hooded guys looking very menacing and gives the impression that they are gang of brutes. They drink beer, they play pranks and they camp but then, one by one, they are killed by killer/s unknown. Backwoods slasher movies were very popular back in the 1980's and this is a reasonable attempt at being one. But then comes a huge plot twist that completely ruined it for me, quite ridiculous and hard to swallow. Much of the acting is as wooden as the many trees that we see, there are some unsettling scenes of drug use but very little in the way of gore. This movie was never going to be better than average but that dumb ending was very disappointing. Thankfully the running time clocked in at under 80 minutes.

Zack Gold is excellent as the drug-addicted Michael, a junkie unable to quit his addiction despite the adoration of Jess (Cooper Harris), the stomach caressing girlfriend who has little to do except pout smugly for the duration. Her role is to be blissfully pregnant, and that's it: perhaps a waste of Harris's talents.

Michael and his daft friends embark on what appears to be a very unwise caper - jeopardising his job and travelling to an isolated forest to get drunk and argue.

I think what impresses me most about 'The Unraveling' is the acting - everyone plays their part well. The location is also very effective and well photographed. As for the story, well, ultimately it seems less than the sum of its parts and doesn't really succeed as a horror, despite a few lightly creepy moments. As a means of kicking an addiction, it doesn't survive any scrutiny, but it is an interesting premise. My score is 6 out of 10.

It's a rare thing when I give anything labeled horror more than a passing glance. The genre has become so completely oversaturated by teen slasher flicks, soulless gorefests and inferior remakes. Having said that I'd say this film doesn't quite fit any of those labels. Of course there have been enough horrors over the years for a pretty well defined list of tropes to be a known part of the movie-going consciousness, but at least this film attempts something different though it doesn't quite succeed in the end.