Holy crap this movie stars Superman! No, that not guy. And no, not that other guy. Or any of those other ones. This movie stars Dean Cain, from the tv show LOIS AND CLARK.
The story: a small town shariff is dealing with his teenage daughter, worried that she is getting into patrying and boys. At the same time, there are a string of murders in town, at first blamed on a bear, but when his daughter's best friend goes missing from her second story bedroom they know a killer is in town. The sheriff begins to suspect that a supernaturla creature -- a shape-shifter, like a Wendigo -- is responsible and worse yet, combined with nightmares he has been having, that he himself might be responsible for the murders.
So was it good?
Good might be a stretch, but it was okay. It was almost a fun B-movie -- it had a decent monster, some fun teenagers and I like Dean Cain as an actor -- but there are some things holding it back. First, the script. The main throughline of the story is about the investigation into these murders, but it is about as lame of an investigation as you can get. Second, while there are some interesting things thrown into the movie, most are never really exploited -- whether it's the relationship between the father and daughter (she's rebeling, he's afraid of her leaving him like her mother left) or the relationship among the teens (which is pretty generic and screams "chum") or the idea that the sheriff might be the killer himself (he had dreams, so he must be the killer) or the fact that the daughter becomes suspicious of her own father...all these things are thrown in there but never really devloped or explored with any depth. There is never that cool beat to them; there's never that surprise moment. The third thing is that the movie seems to take itself pretty seriously and could definitely find the fun a little more. Even witht he horny teens partying, it's still a pretty stiff movie. A lot of that is because of Cain, who spends the whole movie in serious mode -- I mean, I don't think he cracks a smile the entire time!
There are other problems -- they do the whole "night is really dark" so half the time you can't see what the hell is going on. Yes, night is dark but you are making a movie...cheat! LOST has scenes at night, but they light it enough that you can see what the hell is going on! This also has a problem that we almost never see the monster. I guess that's supoosed to make it scarier (use your imagination...) but in reality after a while you assume it's just this puppet and it makes it look like a joke. They needed just a couple well lit scenes to really show the monster, then let it slink back into the shadows. Instead, we get puppet theater until close to the end. But maybe that was more a problem with the budget than with the filmmakers.
Still, I was surprised by how much I liked it. I would give it a stronger recommendation but for the script problems and the fact that there's a show like SUPERNATURAL that covers a lot of this stuff and does it better.
** SLIGHT RECOMMEND (as an almost fun monster movie) ***
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