The Curse of Downers Grove

In the small town of Downers Grove, Illinois, there is a well-known curse of one high school senior dying every year before graduation. Chrissie Swanson (Bella Heathcote) fights off football jock Chuck (Kevin Zegers) during a party and gouges out his eye. She has a crush on Bobby (Lucas Till). Her weird neighbor Ian is a friend. Her best friend Tracy is planning to throw a wild party with her little brother. It's days before graduation.

Bella is a beauty with striking blue eyes. Her acting ability is functional. The same can be said of Lucas Till. He's beautiful with functional acting abilities. Zegers is growing into his villain phase although he's too old to play a teen. Actually, Bella is almost the same age but she can play younger. I can do without Tom Arnold even if he does fine here. This sets up a teen horror of some sorts. It's not the highest quality but it does have potential. The major problem is that the premise does not lead to a series of kills. The bigger potential is the mystery but it becomes an action thriller anyways. The 'curse' becomes a side issue and the reveal is not that surprising. The central premise might as well be forgotten.

Okay, this may be based off a book by the guy who wrote "American Psycho" but this was indeed amateurish and humdrum.

What "curse"? Seriously, where was this curse?

The only thing I can give a great performance score for is Kevin Zegers 7/10. The female lead? Holy crap! Did she just finish film school?! She was monotone the entire movie. She was almost painful to watch.

The script? Whoever wrote this movie needs to go back to film school and finish their degree.

This was utter chaos and cheap. There is zero suspense and the plot twist was obvious, to me. This movie was all over. It will certainly curse anyone who watches this with the fact you can't get those minutes of your life back.

I knew this movie was co-written by Bret Easton Ellis but didn't expect much - I really hated the title, the IMDb score for this film was very low (which in retrospect seems really sad) and for a host of reasons I thought it was just a journeyman project for Ellis and it would be some kind of standard forgettable slasher.

The first thing I noticed was that screenplay was very literary and contained a lot of recognizable deliberate sentences and mean humor of Bret Ellis (sometimes it got a little too much, i think meth is mentioned like 3 or 4 times in the first 10 minutes of the movie). Then I noticed how surprisingly good the acting in this movie was. In the end a lot of elements in this movie were familiar but delivered with a slight twist and hence worked for me.

The mix of lo-fi look, acting style, dark humor and menacing atmosphere reminded me most of Gregg Araki movies like "Nowhere" but more plot-driven (another reviewer mentioned some stylistic similarities to "Donnie Darko" and "It Follows", but I think Araki movies are the closest comparison). Araki, of course, was influenced by Bret Easton Ellis and was probably the closest cinematic analogue of his prose.

I think it's a shame that in our age of faceless mass-produced genre movies this one, which has a discernible style, has such criminally low IMDb rating and recommend it.

Not sure why so many gave this movie a bad review and low rating. For me, it was exactly what I expected it to be - a high school thriller, with a good story, credible performances etc. It wasn't what I expected but that was due to the title, trailer and premise of the film focusing on the "curse", when in fact, in my opinion, there is a whole other story portrayed. Had it been titled something other than it was, perhaps more people would have appreciated it more?

The performances from Bella Heathcote and Kevin Zegers were spot on. Other reviewers have focused on their real ages with regards to playing high school/college students but that is par for the course in movies these days.

All in all, an enjoyable movie if you like high school drama.

Every year a senior dies before graduation. This is the curse. A girl living in Downers Grove gets into an auticattion with another student on the lead up to graduation.

This has good production, good characters and great acting. The problem? It is as boring as hell.

The story is one of the most pedestrian I have ever come across. Yet despite its dullness manages not to be believable.

Without spoiling I would say that the supernatural element is very light.

The director and actors deserve more but this is just to dull to contemplate.