HAZMAT (2013)

Studio:       Phase 4 Films
Director:    Lou Simon
Writer:       Lou Simon
Producer:  Lou Simon
Stars:     Norbert Velez, Aniela McGuinness, Todd Bruno, Gema Calero, Giordan Diaz, Tom Stedham

Review Score:

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Summary:

A reality show prank goes horribly wrong when a practical joke turns an unstable man into a murderous slasher.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Stacy and Regina run from an unknown pursuer. Their attacker catches up with them and shoots Regina dead after she stabs him using scissors. Stacy then learns that she is the victim of a prank by the reality show “Scary Antics.” The attacker was really Tim, an actor on the show, and Regina helped set up her friend Stacy for the gag.

Makeup artist Brenda touches up host “Scary Dave” as the crew films the introduction for the next episode. Their latest location is the site of a horrible chemical fire in the sixties. The now abandoned building is rumored to be haunted. Dave introduces Ed, who is in charge of facilities and electricity.

Dave interviews Adam, who is setting up his friend Jacob for a scare. Jacob and Adam were best friends from age nine through college, but Jacob’s increasingly creepy behavior began alienating his friends. Adam’s girlfriend Carla mentions that she would not be surprised if Jacob became a serial killer. Carla’s friend Melanie thinks Carla is merely jealous of the time her boyfriend spends with Jacob instead of with her. Carla mentions that Melanie is turned off by Jacob’s interest in her. Adam, Carla, and Melanie hope that scaring Jacob will loosen him up, as Jacob has been obsessed with the chemical plant since his father’s death.

Brenda argues with Dave about not being able to quit the show for a better opportunity. Dave is resistant to her leaving partly because of his romantic feelings for her. Steven sets up security cameras throughout the hallways for filming. The building’s office is turned into the production control room.

Team Meeting – Friday, 11am – Dave runs through the plan with Brenda, Steven, Tim, and audio technician Gary. Gary asks Dave if he can break the rule about no cell phones being allowed on set because of a situation with his girlfriend. Dave refuses.

The Setup – Friday, 2pm – Jacob arrives with the three co-conspirators. Jacob recounts the history of the chemical fire. Jacob takes a crowbar and camping lanterns from the car trunk. Inside, Jacob insists on breaking into the office, but the others lead him away from the door since that is where the crew is. The production team continues watching them on the monitor.

While the two girls explore on their own, Jacob tells Adam that his father died at the factory. His father also claimed that the building was haunted even before it closed. Adam tells him to stop telling creepy stories because it turns people off.

Melanie reveals to Carla that her real reason for being on the show is so that she will be noticed as an actress. She also accuses Carla of losing her personality every time she has a new boyfriend.

Jacob finds a hazmat suit in a locker and puts it on. He and Adam then reunite with the girls. In the office, Brenda is upset to learn that Steven has been permitted to leave “Scary Antics” for a better show.

Adam breaks off from the others and stages his murder with Tim. Adam screams and Jacob breaks down when he finds the body. Tim sneaks up behind Jacob to scare him, but Jacob kills Tim unexpectedly with an emergency fire axe. The crew watches in disbelieving horror from the control room. Broken from reality, Jacob dons Tim’s gas mask and becomes Hazmat. Dave decides to make an attempt at alerting Jacob’s friends about what happened.

Hazmat returns to Adam and kills him for real with the axe. Hazmat begins disabling the security cameras. Dave finds Adam’s body and is chased back to the office by Hazmat. Dave uses a walkie-talkie to communicate with Ed outside, but Ed cannot hear him. Dave suggests that the girls may end up being a distraction for Hazmat while they wait for Ed.

Carla and Melanie discover Tim’s body. Hazmat kills Carla while she checks for a pulse and Melanie runs away. After an argument about opening the door or using Melanie as bait, the crew opens the office door, which allows her to escape Hazmat.

Ed arrives at the back door, but he thinks he is being played when Dave radios him to call the police. Hazmat attacks Ed with the axe and takes his cooler filled with food and drinks. Dave reveals that the network does not know they are filming. With the building owner not requiring the crew to return the keys until Tuesday, it would be four days until any help arrives.

Hazmat puts the walkie-talkie to Ed and Ed tells Dave that Hazmat will kill him if Dave does not open the office door. The crew is forced to let Ed die to save themselves.

Gary finds a building map. After a discussion, Dave and Steven go to look for the back exit. Dave uses a camera to light their way. He misreads the map and Hazmat is able to kill Steven. Dave makes it to the back door, but Hazmat decapitates him when Dave stops to report his progress to the others via the camera. Gary, Brenda, and Melanie make a break for the front door but discover that it has been barred. They return to the office.

Gary reveals that his girlfriend is pregnant and he is about to become a reluctant father. Following another argument, Brenda volunteers to recover the map so that they can find a way out. She runs back to the office as Hazmat chases her. When the door opens for Brenda, Hazmat is able to kill Gary while the two women escape the room. Hazmat eventually finds them and kills Melanie. Brenda knocks over Hazmat after a struggle. After fumbling with the keys, Brenda finally unlocks the exit, but Hazmat recovers and kills her with the axe.

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Review:

A teaser trailer for “Hazmat” summarizes the movie’s concept in five sentences: “In the 1960’s, the government secretly experimented with chemical weapons.  In 1969, a fire in the lab killed 138 men trapped inside.  Some say the building is now haunted by the men who died.  In 2013, a television crew goes inside to film a practical joke on a disturbed young man.  What can possibly go wrong?”  Quite a bit.  And that includes things going wrong on both sides of the camera.

“Scary Antics” is a faux reality show that snatches ratings by humiliating marks dubbed “chumps” with fright filled practical jokes designed to put some color in the victim’s shorts.  Adam has had enough of his lifelong friend Jacob’s constant brooding and creepy behavior since the death of his father.  Melanie describes Jacob as “dark and really gloomy.”  Adam’s girlfriend Carla adds that she would not be surprised if Jacob turned out to be a serial killer.  In weighing these observations about the disturbed man, it makes perfect sense that staging phony murders in a building Jacob believes to be haunted would be a smart idea, right?  Of course, the prank cracks Jacob completely.  He dons a containment suit and gas mask, grabs a fire axe, and becomes a real serial killer now known as “Hazmat.”

That might be an okay launch pad for a slasher movie, but that is all it is.  “Hazmat” takes a premise and confuses it for a full story.  What passes for a plot is little more than a thin justification for 80 minutes of mediocre mayhem.

“Hazmat” is so upfront about its premise that it feels like a red herring.  The too obvious setup creates an idea that a smarter revelation must be around the corner that could redeem the film before the credit scroll.  A fair slice of time is spent on a backstory for the chemical factory involving the death of Jacob’s father, a disfiguring accident, and rumors of paranormal hauntings.  “Scary Dave,” the host of “Scary Antics,” also has a partly developed biography of tension with certain crewmembers on his production team.

With these threads comes the thought that maybe things are not as straightforward as they seem.  Hazmat wears a mask, after all.  Is it really as simple as Jacob having a screw loose and his personality flips to become a mass murderer?  Perhaps something supernatural is at play.  The facility’s dark history could be having an influence.  Or maybe Jacob was never even the real mark.  Considering the discord behind the scenes, could the crew have set up “Scary Dave” for the ultimate table turn?

None of these possibilities turn out to be the case.  The film really is just Jacob/Hazmat killing the “Scary Antics” cast and crew with an axe, and that is not a spoiler.

For an equally brief moment, “Hazmat” flirts with complicated moral dilemmas when the crew is forced to consider using potential victims as bait and they ignore cries of help in order to protect themselves.  These quick scenes melt into missed opportunities for developing drama as asides glossed over in favor of focusing on the axe swinging frenzy.

The heart of the issue is a roster of personalities so slow witted that they are impossible to root for.  One character makes a break for the back exit in an effort to go for help while the others remain barricaded in the office.  He even makes it all the way to the door.  While any other person would leave nothing but a Road Runner dust cloud by continuing to tear out of the house of horrors, this fool stops in the doorway and talks to the camera so that he can update everyone caught in the control room about his progress.  What he actually does is create the perfect chance for Hazmat to catch up and put a blade in his neck.

No one can find his/her way out of the rectangular building without a map.  And even when multiple characters have that map in their hands, they still read it incorrectly and end up lost.  The only person who is able to navigate the supposedly labyrinthine hallways with any success is Hazmat himself, even though he is wearing a gas mask and is operating in the dark.

The screenplay’s answer for making the victims relatable and sympathetic is to give them the exact same family man status.  “Scary Antics” actor Tim has two kids at home.  Dave the host states that he does the show to support his daughter.  A/V technician Steven twice refers to his two little ones.  Even Gary has a moment to add that a pregnant girlfriend makes him an expectant father.

Uneven performances across the cast and from individual actors rounds out the clunkiness.  Some roles, such as Adam’s girlfriend Carla, are entirely lifeless.  Other performances, including Tom Stedham as Steven, are believable but marred by random moments of stilted line delivery.  Stedham mutters “oh no” as if a drop of spaghetti sauce just stained his favorite polo, instead of in horrified response to witnessing another brutal and bloody homicide.  The performances rarely take the time to emote anything of substance.  If they are not running, hiding, or gasping, the actors simply spit out words to move things along.

Things come full circle when the end credits launch with an obnoxiously throaty death metal song.  This is the moment when “Hazmat” confirms that it has only followed an outdated formula for routine horror entertainment without applying any unique passion of its own.

Review Score:  35

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