Dark Touch (2013)

"In a remote town in Ireland, eleven-year-old Neve [sic] finds herself the sole survivor of a bloody massacre that killed her parents and younger brother. Suspecting a gang of homicidal vandals, the police ignore Neve's [sic] explanation that the house is the culprit."

If you're silly enough to read any other horror blog except mine, you'll probably see a lot of people praising how cerebral "Dark Touch' is and how it's meant to have a big message about the trauma caused by child abuse or some such unhappy horseshit at the heart of it. What a load of crap! I wanted it to be a ghost story, especially as the official IFC Films synopsis suggests a haunted house, so let the hate commence!

For those of us who can see through the fluff and arty-farty edits, "Dark Touch" is nothing more than a slow-paced clone of Stephen King's "Carrie" and "Firestarter", but it's set in the Irish countryside to make it look better. Give or take a few more disturbed children, it's kind of like how "Wake Wood" (2011) was a rip-off of "Pet Sematary" (1989) in a similar location, and it sucks just as much.

Nice cinematography using every method of filming from handheld camerawork to tripod-mounted long shots doesn't make up for the story being boring as buggery apart from two lush moments of goriness. Once you've seen them, it's not worth waiting for more unless clichés such as exploding windows, treading in broken glass with bare feet, or laconic little girls with Asperger's Syndrome float your boat. Even if they do, the cheap CGI fire effects will probably sink it.

Among the lameness, adults being pinned to walls by kitchen tables or chests of drawers against their thighs is a recurring theme in this movie which has very little to do with anything other than being another cheap and easy effect. I think it happens three or four times, but it may be more. What the significance of these repetitive scenes is, I have no idea. It can join the list of questions I have such as why does the hotter-looking mother suffer from bouts of tinnitus every time little Niamh throws a tantrum? And what kind of dyslexia causes the name Niamh to be pronounced "Neeve"?

"I'm a firestarter, twisted firestarter."

As Irish horror movies go, "Dark Touch" isn't the worst I've ever seen, but it's not even close to being up to the same high standard as "Dorothy Mills" (2008). The creepy atmosphere promises more than it delivers, and the eclectic mixture of regional Irish accents (which range from mild to harsh and unintelligible) cause it to be only a donkey or two short of another "Rawhead Rex" (1986). Having said that, I do quite like "Rawhead Rex" in spite of Clive Barker disowning it, and I'm not even sure if it has any donkeys in it anyway. If it didn't, it should have done. But I've digressed.

The acting in "Dark Touch" is fine given that character development is almost non-existent, and Swedish import Charlotte Flyvholm has a filler part as a heavily pregnant school counsellor to justify the Swedish financial investment. Out of all the characters, she stood out most for me by being the third pregnant blonde that I've seen in a movie this week, the other two being Detective Inspector Sarah Clayton (Joanne Froggatt) in "uwantme2killhim?" and Barb's mother also called Sarah (played by Chantal Quesnelle) in "Curse of Chucky".

Since there's unlikely to be a theatrical release of "Dark Touch" near you, it's available for half the price of a cinema ticket through the various VOD services. At $6.99, I think it's still way too much for a pre-pubuscent "Carrie" clone, and you'd be better off saving your money for the official "Carrie" remake in a few weeks.

Behind the Walls 3D (2011)

(AKA "Derrière les murs")



"In 1922, a young novelist goes to the countryside to write her latest book and falls victim to terrifying hallucinations and nightmares."

With everyone else frantically writing about "Paranormal Activity 4" today, I thought I'd provide an alternative in the form of "Behind the Walls 3D". It's not that I recommend it over "Paranormal Activity 4" in any way, but I've waited a long time to say something about it, and it seems appropriate for my "Hallowe'en Countdown".

Let me just forewarn you that I generally love French horror movies. I usually don't care how bad they are or how much of their stories make absolutely no sense. Having said that, I really don't have anything good to tell you about "Behind the Walls" because I barely had the patience to sit through it. "Behind the Walls" is, without doubt, one of the most boring movie experiences ever unleashed upon the unsuspecting public.

The warning signs were there before I even started watching the DVD. Just about any movie which is directed and written by the same people tends to be a low-budget abomination, and adding 3D on top of that almost always guarantees a turd. I hoped it wouldn't be so, but I was proven right on both counts. In spite of "Behind the Walls" being the first French live-action feature shot in 3D, the sparse 3D moments add very little to a story which is handled so ineptly that it almost makes no sense at all.

From the promotional blurb and French websites, I mistakenly believed that "Behind the Walls" was going to be a period version of "Half Light" but with an even more attractive actress in. Superficially, "Behind the Walls" and "Half Light" both deal with the loss of an author's child and that same author retreating into an isolated place to write her next novel. That's where the similarities end.

"Behind the Walls" isn't really a ghost story or a thriller except that it has elements of both which are used as confusing red herrings. The unfurling drama is mainly about our author, Suzanne (Laetitia Casta), mixing drugs into her drinks and getting crazier while the local villagers blame her for all their troubles. When a couple of their daughters disappear, it reminds them of the last outsider who came to live in the area and a series of unsolved child murders. It sounds a lot like "The Reflecting Skin" too, doesn't it? Trust me, it isn't.

The only reason to watch "Behind the Walls" is to ogle Laetitia Casta. She was a Victoria's Secret model before becoming an actress, but you can't really hold that against her. She can actually act a bit although she's a bit dour-looking and far from perfect. Depending on the angle she's filmed from, she's also reminiscent of several Hollywood actresses whose names I can't quite remember. In other words, she's a "type" rather than a star.

The French are such great copyists, and they know what sells. Even Laetitia's love interest in "Behind the Walls" is an "Antonio Banderas type" by the name of Thierry Neuvic. Again, he's not a bad actor, but you won't see him outside of French cinema or TV either.

You might as well give up on the plot since all the good stuff involving an underground lair which Suzanne's cat, Zola, accidentally discovers is quite unimportant except in how it highlights the state of our heroine's mind. When Suzanne moves her typewriter to that spooky place to write her Lovecraftian novel, of course, it's very creepy and full of supernatural shenanigans, but it's all in her head.

Everything is about coincidences, people jumping to conclusions with the minimum of circumstantial evidence, and ignoring what is right in front of them. That is except for the local pervert/mid-life crisis guy who becomes dangerously obsessed with Suzanne, and, of course, her Antonio Banderas lookalike boyfriend who gives her a gratuitous diddling before setting off to play detective in another village.

One scene which reeks of plagiarism (however unlikely it may be) is when Suzanne is in a bathtub surrounded by rats. Although the old porcelain bathtub reminded me of the posters for "Slither", Teeth" and "What Lies Beneath", the scene obviously owed most to the first of these and simply swapped alien bugs for a horde of rodents.

Without spoiling the ending for you (as if you'll ever be silly enough to watch this anyway), let me just say that my overwhelming thought when the credits came up was, "What the bloody Hell did I just watch?" I've tried to put it together for the purpose of this review, but I may be completely wrong about what the directors, Julien Lacombe and Pascal Sid, were trying to achieve.

"Behind the Walls" has some beautiful locations, is nicely filmed, the sparseness of the setting works in its favour, and the costumes are spot-on, but it lacks a cohesive and involving story. It's not a traditional ghost story, and it may have a deeper meaning about French national guilt or some such tripe which is way above my head, but it's just as likely to be only a badly made movie.