100 Feet

100 feet is an openly aggressive film that does well to keep your pulse pounding all the way up to the flat line ending. I enjoyed the idea behind the story and for the most part felt as though it was well portrayed. Several times you find yourself having to stretch your imagination in order to play along but nothing I would consider a deal breaker. I highly appreciated the amount of time and attention spent on the gore effects. On the other side of that coin a little more time and effort put into actually frightening the viewer would have been well received. Sadly this is a film that would have ranked much higher had the ending not brought the momentum to a stand-still. As is, still a decent flick.

When I sat down to watch the 2008 movie "100 Feet" it was solely for two reasons. The first being that Famke Janssen was in it, and the second being that it is a horror movie, of course.

I hadn't heard about the movie prior to finding it by random luck. I didn't even read the synopsis, I just saw that it was a horror movie and saw Famke Janssen on the DVD front cover, and that was all I needed.

It turned out that "100 Feet" was actually a rather enjoyable movie. There was a good flow to the storyline, with little useless scenes to serve as filler. Everything here served a purpose and was straight to the point.

They had some really impressive effects in the movie, and I must admit that it really helped lift up the movie quite well. Especially the scene with the mauling in the bedroom. That was actually some of the most impressive special effects I have seen in a long, long time.

"100 Feet" was driven by a good storyline, but equally so by a rather good performance by the cast. And while they had a rather small cast, there was a bit more resting on the shoulders of the those performing. And I will say that both Famke Janssen and Bobby Cannavale carried themselves and the movie quite well.

This is definitely a horror movie that is well worth taking the time and effort to sit down and watch. And there are some jump scares here and there throughout the movie.

Sadly, 100 Feet, the title of screenwriter Eric Red's 2008 horror starring Famke Janssen, does not refer to the many legs of a giant flesh-eating centipede—a shame, 'cos I reckon that would have made for a far more original and believable movie than this well-acted, but ultimately very silly ghost story.

Janssen stars as Marnie Watson, who has returned home after 752 days in prison for killing her abusive husband; it is there that she is to serve the remainder of her sentence under house arrest, fitted with an electronic tag to restrict her movement to a radius of—you guessed it!—100 feet. As Marnie slowly begins to put her life back in order (painting over blood stains on the wall, scaring homeless guys, screwing the delivery boy etc.) she finds her progress hampered by the very angry ghost of her dead husband, who hasn't quite finished with using his wife as a punch bag.

Red, whose earlier writing credits include the excellent thriller The Hitcher and cult vampire hit Near Dark, clearly possesses some skill behind the camera managing a creepy atmosphere, confidently tackling some complex effects and pulling off a few effective scares, but it seems as though, in changing roles, he's forgotten the importance of a really tight script; glaring plot-holes and lapses in logic blight this film from start to finish! (I'm not going to waste time going into details, but if you're interested, check out the film's message board on IMDb—plenty of other people have listed them for me).

It is thanks to Janssen's presence (she's still a major hottie and acquits herself admirably in her role), and one particularly grisly death scene that had me double checking the DVD's rating (yes, it really is only a 15 certificate), that I'm willing to overlook some of the film's minor problems, but a talented, easy-on-the-eye lead and some nasty gore only excuses so much.

Next time Eric, iron out the uglier creases before going into production and you might have another hit on your hands (oh, and feel free to take the killer centipede idea and run with it—seriously, that would make one hell of a film!).

The movie begins with Marnie Wilson (Famke Janssen), arriving home after being released from an unknown prison sentence, for one year of house arrest. She stabbed her abusive Cop husband to death after he came at her with a knife and she managed to get it away from him to defend herself. She had filed many complaints about the abuse but his cop friends didn't take her seriously. She obviously was found guilty since she went to prison and has now been released to house arrest. The title of the movie - 100 Feet - refers to the distance she can travel. Marnie must always be within 100 feet of the ankle monitor box that hangs in her home. If she goes outside 100 feet, the ankle monitor beeps and she has 3 minutes to get back inside or the police are called.

The movie doesn't waste much time introducing the audience and the lead character (Marnie) to the ghost of her late husband who apparently haunts the house and wants her to pay for what she did. He is violent and takes pleasure in scaring her and physically hurting her - for example, he throws her down the flight of stairs and also hits her in the face. The ghost is NOT invisible.. it's not some force that can't be seen and the fear is supposed to come from the unknown. The movie creates the ghost and we can see his shape/face/body and at times it IS scary. The movie plays with this by having his image pop up with quick camera shots in the dark.

Ed Westwick plays Joey, a young man from the neighborhood who befriends Marnie and is someone who she can talk to and who runs errands for her such as getting books from the library and groceries from the supermarket. Bobby Cannavale plays a cop who was the partner of Marnie's husband. He can't let what happened go and he obsessively camps outside the house to keep an eye on Marnie inside.

Famke Janssen's performance in this movie was fantastic. The actual movie was average in execution and it had an ending that lessoned the film especially with the over the top CGI effects which IMO were just too much in the final scenes (it wasn't a problem for 95% of the movie though) but Famke really stepped it up making the movie almost mesmerizing at times. Her fear and grief and determination were palpable and she really sold the character she was playing. Just a great job from her overall.

I saw this movie last night when it was on SyFy. I happened to flip the channel and quickly decided to watch. I am glad I did. I gave this movie a 6 out of 10 b/c it was enjoyable and well acted but it wasn't brilliant by any means and the over the top ending ruined it a bit for me. I still recommend seeing this movie and there is a really crazy (in a good way) fight scene that is worth checking out.

I thought this was a decent movie. The story line particularly made this title more appeasing to me. A lady kills her husband in self defense after being beaten for years? I like this only because this a real scenario that happens all to often, and the women in punished for it. Even though eventually the husband would probably kill her anyways. I like the fact that she is on house arrest which gives the story a certain twist. The scenes are suspenseful and make you clench your teeth and jump at certain times. The characters are done well and the story moves at a decent pace. There was some really good gore and some particularly scary parts which were also done well. As for the end, what can I say, after all the horror movies that have been made endings are harder and harder to do. This movie was great up until the end, and even the end was not that horrible, it was still kind of bad enough to make me reduce my rating on this movie. All in all, worth the watch, but probably wont be a favorite.