June 16, 2015
The Crawlers
This movie is basically the scene from Evil Dead where the tree gets possessed, expanded upon with the same Italian gusto as Troll 2, but without trees sexually assaulting anyone!
The plot unfolds something like this: Josie is returning to her sleepy country hometown after a stint of living in the city. She returns to find her high school flame still carries a torch for her and the whole town is waiting for them to get back together. The town also seems to be experiencing a series of strange deaths that no one but the young will-they-won't-they couple notices. No one that is except one of the nuclear power plant's technicians, but by the time he gets all the pieces put together, it will likely be too late.
Totally a high schooler, not a 35 year old: We've run into many movies that feature adults playing characters that are supposed to be high schoolers. Grown men shave their sideburns above the tops of their ears (creepy), grown women smack gum and roll their eyes, and they all hop, jump, and skip every where they go because they're not adults, they're teenagers. Sometimes this works, or is necessary even, but mostly it's PAINFUL to watch. This movie's "teenagers" fall under the painful-to-watch category. Though no one comes right out and says how old the young couple is, they imply fairly heavily that they are quite young. The sheriff won't listen to them because he “remembers them from high school”, the couple talks about high school in every other scene, they even mention that Josie skipped town when she was only 16 indicating that she's now maybe 20. The lengths they go to convince us they're young makes us believe the actors are probably in their thirties.
Reasons to watch: A sheriff that refuses to listen to anyone. Exponentially better and better tree kill scenes. Effects and acting that will leave you with that “if they can do it, why can't we” feeling. Plot holes filled by “eureka” moments that come so far out of left field they seem like ideas fed to the actors by PAs off screen who are reading ahead in the script. And obviously, trees killing people!
Great, or unintentional: There are several scenes that leave us wondering if actors are trying to get the audience to pick up on some kind of subtext, or if it just seemed that way because they were actually just very awkward.
A double feature that may or may not be amazing: The Crawlers and Squirm.
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