Tuesday, August 23, 2011
8213: GACY HOUSE (2010) (a review)
A horror movie in the vein of PARANORMAL EXPERIENCE and BLAIR WITCH PROJECT set in the house once owned by notorious serial killed John Wayne Gacy.
The story: A group of paranormal hunter with a bunch of cameras go to the house of the notorious serial killer John Wayne Gacy to try to record something. They meet with a supernatural element and are killed off.
Was it good?
No. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't good. It has the problem that the whole time you are watching it you feel like you have seen all this before. Between PARANORMAL ACTIVITY and BLAIR WITCH there isn't much left and both of those movies do everything much better. The camera POVs and bad lighting don't seem to help or add authenticity. The characters all feel phony. There just isn't anything really good to recommend it. Maybe if they had made it campier it would have had something different to recommend, but they didn't.
The thing they didn't seem to realize is why those two movies actually worked. They aren't just hand held movies where you don't see anything clearly (although they are that too). They work because both of those movies took things people could relate to and then expanded them with a supernatual element. BLAIR WITCH is about three people getting lost in the woods and then turing on each other. We see the woman is the strong, passionate leader but her decisions make everything worse and the guys get angry and turn on her and she blames herself...all that could have been done without the witch element. The scene near the end where she is alone in the tent and crying would have been just as strong. The supernatural element just helps to elevate the story and make it that much more powerful.
PARANORMAL ACTIVITY does the same. It's a young couple that has a problem with the house. The wife wants to call in an expert, but the husband wants to fix it himself. How much more universal can you get? And of course it just makes everything worse which makes them turn on each other and then bring them together right before the tragic end.
It's just basic, primal, brilliant stuff.
It's the same things that were done in SIXTH SENSE and CLOVERFIELD and countless other movies.
Unfortunately, in this one there just isn't anything. It's random people and running around and oh, no, something weird or a strange figure with no story beneath it.
Still it wasn't horrible. It just wasn't good.
*** AVOID ***
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