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Kids Go to the Woods -- Kids Get Dead. In this film, a group of underage partiers venture into the wilderness, at which time, they meet their Earthly demise.
I don't personally know any of the people behind this movie, but, after watching, I kind of feel like I do. It feels as though I ran into some guy at a comic shoppe who found me so ubergroovy, he invited me to hang with his friends -- who end up showing me the film they made last fall. Sure, it isn't a great film, by any measure, but seeing the whole group onscreen -- portraying different characters -- was grand, and how often do you meet a group who whips up gut wounds and throat slashes whenever they get together?
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So, in my head, I'm sitting in this Ikea-furnished living room, with this new bunch of nifty people, watching this film they labored over, and I don't want to be the killjoy. I don't want to say, "You know, the dream sequence with Casey? That could've been awesome, if only you would've cranked up the zoom and really got in there with the cinematography."
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I don't want to say anything to piss off these new compadres. I want to be friends with them, and maybe hang around long enough to work on the sequel. Trouble is... I'm not actually seated in a new friend's living room. Nor do I actually know any of the people on or behind this screen. So, I'm going to have to be a bit of a killjoy, afterall. However, let it be said: Kids Get Dead has a remarkably endearing quality, and I suspect viewers with a horror heart will walk away with the same impressions (and same reluctance to deride the film) as I have.
Writer/director Michael Hall is cut from a different cloth than many no-budget horror directors of the day. Namely because he's willing to try things. Some of these things work out well... while some... leave me groping to decide what on Earth it was, exactly, he was striving towards. He assembled a likable cast. He then furnished his likable cast with fun, often chiding, dialogue. Then, he rolled the dice. Hall allows his lead actress, Leah Rudick (Casey), multiple opportunities to wax some Janet Leigh for the camera. One scene in particular, when the screen is split between Rudick on the left, slipped into a closet, face fully toward the camera, while The Killer (no, no, really. That's the killer's billing on the character list) stalks the room on the right, comes to mind. What low budget horror allows its lead female ten full seconds of wide-eyed, breathless fright? Kudos to Hall for giving the characters a chance.
When I say likable characters, much of it is in the manner purported by Craig Robinson in Hot Tub Time Machine: "He's an asshole -- but he's our asshole." Two of the three males in the film are little more than sex-mongering twits. But... half the men I know are sex-mongering twits, so, the approach treads familiar territory. Though you would hate them in person, seeing them onscreen, pestering Casey's MMORPG playing brother is a good time. The shenanigans add to the cozy feel of the group -- so much so, the subsequent slaughter is almost an afterthought.
Amid a busty and bloody christening at the start, a cute lesbian (can't have a horror film scribed by a male and *not* have lesbians), humor, and an adorably dimpled underdog, the horror, I'm afraid, was given the lightest shake.
As many good things as I have to say of the quirky dialogue I have equally scathing things to say of the horror. At first, Hall lit upon a wonderful angle to approach the mayhem from. Casey's brother is reading a book of the same title as the film. The cheesy footage of a blonde in a tennis skirt tripping before a gas mask-donning killer is fitting -- it's a teenage boy's imagining of the scene.
One would expect the screws to turn, and the blood to be brutal once reality gets underway. While there are seconds which deliver just that, the whole of the carnage comes up short. So short, in fact... I wonder if some of it was supposed to be humorous. If so -- if the "oh, my goodness -- he just...won't...die" syndrome was supposed to tickle my funny bone, I regret to report it did not. I am untickled.
The Killer, himself, is laughable -- but never did I get the impression I was laughing *with* someone. Are gas masks (not to mention, oxygen tanks) even scary? A pot-bellied man, who can't even breath on his own? The butch didn't kick his ass? Worse -- and this localizes in on the problem -- didn't even try to kick his ass.
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The Killer becomes Rasputin, and Casey dunks herself into a stupid tank. He's beaten. He's stabbed. He's stabbed again. And run over... but not again. By that point in the film, I was willing to completely overlook an outright Jeepers Creepers rip-off, if it meant someone would be doing something halfway reasonable.
I don't want to give away too much, so, I'll try to encrypt this, as to prevent outright spoilers: Two of the kills perfectly embody the film.
1) One of the most masterful kill scenes ever: While having intercourse, a woman has reason to believe what just splattered all over her face was not blood. The setup, the delivery -- even the aftermath -- is fried gold.
2) Which makes this one all the more glaring: A guy *knows* what is going to happen. *Knows* how he is going to die. Uh. And then, he does. There is all kinds of time in between when he finds out, and when it happens. Yet, no booby traps are hatched. No weapons are procured. No keys to vehicles are located, then utilized. There's a deleted scene with this character's name on it -- but you know what? After having to stomach that lack of film dexterity, I'm not going to watch that deleted scene. I am not going to give the DVD a chance to redeem itself on that one. Get it right the first time.
Another avenue Hall explored was of a wrap-around theme. Candy Adams is our Midnight Madness hostess. She's fab. By fab, I mean, even though I haven't a clue what on God's green earth Michael Hall was hoping to accomplish with the Amazon Women on the Moon, spliced in commercial bits and horror hostess (and a puzzling collection of what appeared to be home movie footage of a family on vacation), Mistress Candy is eye candy enough to make it work. (And possibly the only female cast member to have digested a single carb this side of the century. Seriously, is it that A-Cups were cheaper for wardrobe to fund? Or perhaps Hall was just cutting some of the craft services monies by hiring actress who, clearly, do not eat regularly?) Ultimately, the wrap-around adds charm, but never goes beyond toes in the water. Diminished standards entwine with late night (especially hosted) horror fare, and that, I believe is the joke. The hostess and the snippets of commercials was crafted, presumably, to grant Kids Get Dead an excuse to devote twenty minutes of airtime to increasingly preposterous decision-making, and nonsensical situations. Though I enjoyed the quirk, I wasn't sold. Hall and his cast were more than capable of sending that flag to the top of the pole -- there was no reason to cop out.
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So, to review: Fun, Quirk, Heart -- Lousy Ending.
Thinking on it, if after the blood-splatter kill I mentioned above, the film had gone into some burning negative frames, then returned with ten minutes of focus on Candy's fishnet-clad legs, my complaints would be out the window.
Actually, I might just edit together that version -- so when I recommend the film to friends, their fun won't plummet along with Casey's IQ.
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For More Information: http://www.KidsGetDead.com
To Write Nice Things to Angela Mac:
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