Resolution

Saw Resolution, an interesting cross-genre horror film. It's very very light on the scares, opting for slow tension and eerie spookery instead. The idea is that this skinny guy handcuffs his junkie friend to a pipe in his house (ala Black Snake Moan) to detox cold-turkey. They engage in some Judd Apatow-style banter. The junkie, I feel, was written for Seth Rogan or somebody. Anyway, the skinny guy begins finding mysterious video tapes (ala Cache or Sinister) depicting murders, weird video tapes, even creepy email attachments. There's also the junkie friend's dealers and some sinister Native dudes. It quickly becomes apparent that this is not just about the detox.

The film is satisfyingly resolved, but never quite nails down what the monster is. It's a very interesting twist for a film that always seems about to fall into cliche. All of the elements of the film I feel I've seen before. The grainy VHS tapes, the bro-y banter, the mysterious maybe-ghosts-maybe-monsters. I feel like the film started out as a comedy-horror and then went in a post-modern direction once the writer realized he didn't have an ending (ala Adaptation.)

So I feel this was kind of a weak film. It was too wishy-washy for my taste. It goes in an interesting direction in the end but I feel it would have been better if it made a harder choice about what kind of film it was starting out to be. I imagine he writer coming up with fumes and polishing the resultant turd. The movie is not terrible but I feel like everything interesting about it has been done before and better. Sometimes an interesting film can be built out of old parts but, for me, this film didn't do that. It is worth a look though.