100 Feet

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Horrorphile - July 2009

100 Feet

July 30th 2009 00:51

I’ll try not to waste too much of your time or mine with this review. Writer/director Eric Red has had a very patchy career. Personally I think he’s rested on his writing laurels, chiefly too excellent screenplays; The Hitcher (1986) and Near Dark (1987), and hasn’t managed to reach those giddy heights of dramatic intensity ever since. His werewolf movie, Bad Moon (1996), which he also directed was a promising, but ultimately disappointing lycanthropic affair which suffered greatly at the hands of American censors, not too mention a curious, but not altogether successful narrative perspective.

100 Feet (2008) is the first movie he’s directed since Bad Moon, and it shows. If you don’t count the re-write/remake The Hitcher (2007), this is also the first movie he’s written since Bad Moon, and it shows even more. What the fuck’s he been doing for the past twelve years?! He’s been quoted saying “I love horror movies because they have such tremendous energy, and a lot of them don't go far enough. I've attempted to give my pictures a real human level.” Well, he’s botched that attitude up something chronic with 100 Feet, a truly dreadful piece of filmmaking.

100 Feet Famke Janssen and Bobby Cannovale

Famke Janssen as Marnie and Bobby Cannovale as Shanks

The movie is essentially a vehicle for Famke Janssen who stars as Marnie Watson, a woman who’s been convicted of killing her policeman husband, Mike (Michael Paré, in an utterly thankless role), in self defence. She’s done some time, but is now had her sentence deferred to house arrest, so she’s delivered back to her brownstone in Brooklyn, NYC where she has to wear an electronic ankle bracelet and cannot move beyond one hundred from the base unit which is padlocked at the top of the stairs (and, very unnecessarily, sports a large flashing red light). Her escorting officer, Shanks (Bobby Cannavale), also happens to be her dead husband’s ex-partner (as if he’d be in charge of her!), and he’s pretty embittered.

Ed Westwick as Joey

Turns out Mike’s ghost is dwelling in the house and is dead set on making Marnie’s life a misery. He’s a very violent apparition with a face that is either a pale white or blood red mask of rage. Marnie is thrown around like a rag doll, but usually only ends up with a small bruise or a slight graze (despite the severity of the supernatural assaults). Mike wants bloody revenge, but Marnie wants to stay in the house, so it becomes one hell of a domestic battle. Throw into the mix a handsome young man Joey (Ed Westwick), barely out of his teens, who starts by delivering Marnie her groceries, but ends up in her bed (of course), and brief appearances by Marnie’s older sister Frances (Patricia Charbonnneau), and a priest (Kevin Geer), who immediately makes confessional demands on Marnie.

Argh! Eric Red what have you put me in?!

Joey feels Mike's wrath

This is a ludicrous script and I’m amazed it got given the green light, but as the credits rolled I was given a bit of a heads up; all the interiors (and the movie is almost entirely set within Marnie’s three-storey apartment) were shot in Budapest with a Hungarian crew, with a handful of New York exteriors (no doubt shot with a second unit). This “co-pro” deal was probably the only way Eric Red was going to get his movie made. Perhaps Famke Janssen signed on because she really liked The Hitcher and Near Dark? She’s certainly done herself no favours here.

The tedium sends Famke to sleep

There are too many annoying things about this move too bother mentioning, suffice to say I was groaning ten minutes into the movie (the opening sequence of Marnie traveling in the back seat of the cop car was the only half-decent sequence, and that aint’ sayin’ much at all!) The special effects were very dodgy, many of them badly staged. The one good gore moment almost seemed out of place with the rest of the movie, as it was so graphic.

100 Feet Bobby Cannovale and Famke Janssen

Eric adds pyrotechnics in to liven things up ... but it's too late mate

To fans of The Hitcher and Near Dark, and to a lesser degree, Bad Moon, don’t waste your money or time with 100 Feet. To use a fittingly bad pun, your best move is to keep your distance from this crime against the horror genre.

Here's the trailer which makes the movie look a tad better than it really is:

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Posted By: Bryn - Category: movie reviews

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Comments

19 Comments. [ Add A Comment ]

Comment by JohnDoe

July 30th 2009 13:51

Film & TV on DVD

Damn.....Damn, damn...

I so love Red's films, even the schock that is Body Parts. hell the western movie he did with Mickey Rourke (The Last Outlaw) even had some twisted charm.

Kathryn Bigelow (near Dark) reteamed with him for Blue Steel which is not a good movie, but even that I enjoyed on some levels...

100 feet however sounds troublesome, though i will watch it...hell I even watched Cohen and Tate and Roy Scheider couldn't rescue that one.

Comment by Bryn

July 30th 2009 23:29

Horrorphile

JD, I expected you'd be first up here. Yeah, this was a MAJOR disappointment. I've never seen Cohen and Tate, nor The Last Outlaw. Blue Steel was utterly forgettable. Body Parts I may have seen years ago, but can't really remember. The VHS cover art I can though. The question is, what has he been doing for the last 12 years?! The other thought that springs to mind is, I think he shot his load with The Hitcher and Near Dark and lost his mojo at the same time. Bad Moon is okay (I know you love it though), but it felt manhandled by executives.

Comment by JohnDoe

July 31st 2009 00:22

Film & TV on DVD

According to imdb he was did a comic book or graphic novel called "Containment:" in the last few years

A couple of quotes

"I want to give evil poignancy instead of making it straight-out monstrous. People aren't black and white. They live in gray areas, and I like giving my heroes and villains different shadings."

"I love horror movies because they have such tremendous energy, and a lot of them don't go far enough. I've attempted to give my pictures a real human level."

Comment by JohnDoe

July 31st 2009 00:28

Film & TV on DVD

Here is an slice from an interview with bloodydisgusting.com that answers the question

BD: What exactly took so long for you to return to filmmaking, and to the genre (we missed you!!)?

ER: It can take a long time to get films made, and then it can happen very quickly. During the last period I should mention I wrote and developed many of the scripts that are in my pipeline now, so it wasn’t exactly non-productive.

read the interview HERE

Comment by JohnDoe

July 31st 2009 00:33

Film & TV on DVD

And here is a bit of interesting trivia. Click on the quote to see the source of the info.

FATAL CAR CRASH
"Red was determined to be at fault in a car accident that caused two deaths on May 31, 2000. After the accident, Red apparently picked up a piece of broken glass and slit his own throat. He was taken to the hospital under an alias and released weeks later. No criminal charges were brought, but a jury in a civil suit found that he had acted intentionally. The suit, which awarded over a million dollars to the families of the two men killed in the accident, was appealed to state and federal courts which confirmed the original jury finding."

Oh, and another slice of the bloodydisgusting interview lets us know that he plans to delve into to of my favourite genres, Vampires and car chase movies -

BD: According to the IMDB, you’re back with a vengeance and have another two films in the works, NIGHTLIFE and STOPPING POWER. Can you talk a bit about those?

ER: “NIGHTLIFE” is a contemporary vampire story that is a front burner project of mine that looks like it may go soon.

“STOPPING POWER” was an original script of mine in production last year in Berlin with Jan De Bont directing and John Cusack starring, budgeted at 60 million. Intermedia’s financing fell through the second day of photography and they pulled the plug. I may get the script back and direct it myself, see if Cusack is still interested. It’s a big hi-octane car chase thriller but DeBont had it way overbudgeted. I can film it for 20 million, which is how it was written. A car chase action thriller would be a fun change of pace from horror.

Comment by JohnDoe

July 31st 2009 01:50

Film & TV on DVD

You can thank me later for all the comments

I just found a complete article in the LA Times about this car crash incident...it falls under the category of strange and downright weird.

Read the LA times article HERE

Well I guess that partly explains his absence from cinema....lucky not to have ended up in a padded cell

Comment by Bryn

July 31st 2009 03:41

Horrorphile

JD, whew. Just read that long LA News article. My God ... I'm surprised he even still has a career ... He sounds mightily disturbed. Yes, that 12-year gap has been explained. I had read he'd made a graphic novel, but had no idea about the "manslaughter" incident. Sounds like the man has been suicidal for along time.

Comment by Natalina

July 31st 2009 04:50

My Life My Muse
Beta Girl Blog

The tedium sends Famke to sleep

That caption made me laugh out loud!

I cannot stand Ed Westwick, so I'd skip the film based on the fact alone that he's in it. I hate his permanently pursed lips and lemon sucking cheeks...I hate his prettiness and his awareness of his prettiness... I don't like him and I don't like his face!

Comment by Bryn

July 31st 2009 05:22

Horrorphile

August 1st 2009 05:42

My Life My Muse
Beta Girl Blog

Hahaha! At least I don't hit below the belt!

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