KILLERVISION (2014)

Studio:       Brain Damage Films
Director:    Dale Trott
Writer:       S.C. Farrow, Kim Standring Jacobs
Producer:  S.C. Farrow, Dale Trott, Kim Standring Jacobs, Stephen J. Jacobs
Stars:     Damien E. Lipp, Susie Kazda, Katrina Gow, Joshua Dean Williams, Dean Kirkright, James Mason, Aston Elliot, Peter Flaherty, Michael Edward Williams

Review Score:

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Summary:

Traumatized by a devastating car accident, a young man begins foreseeing the deaths of people in his life while watching B-movies.

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

After a party with a group of friends, Preston Brennan insists that his sister Shelby and her boyfriend Jared Dwyer drive home with him. Recognizing that Preston is drunk, Jared offers to drive instead. Preston refuses and Shelby gets in the car anyway. Darren and another one of Preston’s friends also join them for the ride. Preston ends up crashing and everyone in the car is injured to various degrees.

Six Months Later – Jared struggles to cope with losing his ability to read and having to walk with a cane. Jared’s ongoing frustration is compounded by the fact that his mother Donna has begun dating Jared’s counselor Gavin. Shelby died in the crash, but Jared continues having visions of her that she is still with him, although no one else can see Shelby of course.

Jared watches a 70’s horror film titled “The Sandman” with Shelby. After Shelby falls asleep on the couch, Jared watches as the screen flickers and a character onscreen becomes the ambulance driver from the car accident. Jared tries waking Shelby to no avail as a masked man enters the room in the movie and kills the woman. On the news the following day, Jared learns that the ambulance driver was killed in real life in the same manner that he witnessed during the movie.

Shelby suggests that she and Jared watch a movie called “Rattus, Rattus.” Shelby falls asleep again and Jared sees their friend Darren inside the film being eaten alive by rats. The next day, Jared tries warning Darren that he might be in danger, but Darren ignores Jared. Darren dies at the restaurant where he works, and his policeman brother Ryan wonders if Jared might be involved.

At Darren’s wake, Jared gets into a physical altercation with Preston’s friend Markus. While watching the movie “Starship Galaxy One” with Shelby later, Jared sees Markus being murdered, which then happens later in reality.

Gavin makes Jared watch a movie titled “The Shepherd” with he and Jared’s mother. Donna and Gavin fall asleep. Jared watches as one of the movie characters becomes Gavin, who is then murdered by the masked killer. The killer looks at the camera and tells Jared that he will be next.

Gavin dies in real life. Donna overhears Preston and her son discussing their former counselor and learns that Gavin once tried hitting on Jared, but he never told her.

Jared and Shelby watch “The Sandman” again. This time, Jared is the person tormented onscreen, but he snaps out of his vision to find himself holding an ax over Shelby. His mind cracking, Jared ends up butchering his mother when he confuses her for the masked killer.

On the television, Jared sees the masked maniac targeting Preston next. Jared goes to a going away party celebrating Preston’s acceptance into university and finally confronts the fact that Shelby has been dead all this time. Jared realizes that he has been murdering everyone involved in the accident as revenge for her death. Jared stabs Preston and runs away. Ryan follows Jared to the roadside memorial erected for Shelby where Jared is suddenly struck and killed by a passing vehicle.

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Review:

Whenever a teenage party in a movie ends with someone insisting that s/he is okay to drive, particularly after making a fuss about giving up the keys, a timer begins ticking down to the inevitably devastating crash destined to follow.  That is the fate that befalls inebriated smart-ass Preston when his sister Shelby convinces her boyfriend Jared to ignore better sense and get in the car with her brother and two more friends anyway.  A bit of ill-advised horseplay later and the countdown hits zero, resulting in a wreck that injures everyone involved to varying degrees.

Jared takes the biggest beating.  Six months later and Jared’s hopes of attending university are crushed by the fact that he has lost his ability to read while gaining the need to walk with a cane.  Jared’s limp is joined by a perpetually sullen frown, compounded by his mother beginning a questionable relationship with the counselor assigned to his rehabilitation.  Perhaps worse still, Jared is trapped not just in a dismal personal life, but also inside a world of seemingly eternal gloom.

Save for Jared’s girlfriend Shelby, “Killervision” is populated exclusively by characters either depressed or depressing.  Jared moans at his mother for dating his counselor.  Mom bitches back about Jared’s excessive drinking.  The teenagers’ friend Markus starts fistfights without clear motivation.  And even when Jared is merely offering a potentially lifesaving warning, his mate Darren tells him to get lost.  Grumpy, pushy, and angry are fitting descriptors for the people of “Killervision,” as everyone is preoccupied with complaining, bullying, self-loathing or some other state of generally unenviable misery.

It’s no wonder that Jared’s preferred form of escapism is through the TV via his favorite genre movies.  The premise of “Killervision” is that the B movies Jared watches take on new life when the monitor flickers and onscreen characters are replaced by people Jared knows.  Jared watches in horror as a masked killer slaughters friends, family, and acquaintances associated with the accident, only for Jared to discover the following day that the same person died in real life via the manner foreshadowed on his television.

This is the first inkling that “Killervision” might have something fun in store for the viewer.  Films such as “Popcorn” (review here) and “Matinee,” among others, have made memorable moments from featuring made-up movies within the movie, sometimes creating better scenes than those in the main film itself.  Except these particular clips aren’t parodying or purposefully emulating cheap genre knockoffs.  They are cheap genre knockoffs.

All of the movies Jared watches are shot with the same modern camera and with amateur actors, giving them no semblance of being from a previous decade at all.  For a “Star Trek”-themed clip, the only set decoration is a metal-frame monitor stand like the one your schoolteacher wheeled out when showing an educational video to the class.

It’s unsurprising that the retro clips are unconvincing, as “Killervision” is cheaply produced all around.  Jared wears a head scar that looks like it came from a cellophane bag off a peg at the Halloween store, and the family dinner table is jammed against a wall with a curiously-placed curtain hiding whatever that room actually is off-camera.  But the B-movie interludes are the primary creative hook for the story, and they don’t do anything to increase interest in the film, much less read as authentic period pieces.

“Killervision” has two pathways it can take towards turning into an engaging film.  The first is as a suspenseful mystery, except “Killervision” has no chance of working as one.  The summary alone is familiar enough to have even the most inattentive viewer certain of who the killer is and what is really going on as soon as the plot is underway.  For the story to come off as clever, it relies on a reveal that is transparent immediately.  I’d go into detail explaining why it never comes close to pulling the wool over anyone’s eyes, but in the unlikely event someone can still be caught off guard by the supposed twist, I’ll refrain from risking a possible spoiler.

I was willing to give the movie the benefit of the doubt that it knew its reveal wasn’t fooling anyone, and might try to impress in other ways instead.  Then an “all the clues you’ve been given thus far” montage confirms that “Killervision” does in fact fancy itself as a mystery, when it is never puzzling in the slightest.

Its intrigue spoiled, “Killervision” can still function as a psychological thriller.  Regrettably for the filmmakers, they simply do not possess the expertise to make it compelling in this regard, either.  Characters are dour, plotting is languid, and attempts to inject meaningful drama stumble into walls as much as Jared.  Asides involving Jared’s estranged father, for instance, don’t fold back into the core story in ways that add substantial overall value.

“Killervision” is a flawed concept for a thriller, although it is not necessarily a bad one.  Even though a sanity-questioning protagonist solving serial murders is not a fresh idea, roping in B-movie interludes could have made for a promising angle.  Director Dale Trott and his fresh from film school cast and crew put in sincere effort, but their ambition outweighs their resources and skill set.  I’d see a future effort from Trott and his companions, but they need to develop a better understanding of scene structure and cinematic staging if they ever want to pull off genuinely inventive psychological horror with gripping drama and shocks unannounced via telegraph.

Review Score:  35

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