Some movies just take you back. “Identity” came out in 2003, when I was in high school. At the time, I was really beginning to become a serious film buff, with my love of horror sucking up a lot of brain space. I was a “Fangoria” subscriber and this flick called “Identity” got a big feature in the April, 2003 issue. (The cover spot was, unfortunately, occupied by "Dreamcatcher.") It was sold as an Agatha Christy style whodunit with a slasher edge, the big studio break from the writer of the "Jack Frost" movies. I was intrigued and, upon seeing the flick on DVD months later, found it to be solid. That was a long time ago — nineteen years! — and I haven't thought about "Identity" much since then. Gosh, I wonder if it holds up...
Ex-cop turned limo driver Ed Dakota is driving his client, washed-up actress Caroline Suzanne, through the Nevada desert. During a torrential storm, he strikes a woman in the road. He drives the wounded woman, her nervous husband, and their quiet son to a seedy, roadside hotel. The storm strands more people in this location: A sex worker on the run after stealing from her john, a newlywed couple with some serious problems, and a cop transporting a violent convict. Soon, Caroline is found violently murdered. After another body shows up, it's discovered hotel keys are beside each victim, counting down from 10. Ed tries to uncover the killer, before it's too late. Meanwhile, an imprisoned serial killer received a mental health screening miles away...
As a screenplay, "Identity" is clearly inspired by "And Then There Was None." The isolated characters being picked off one-by-one, the killer leaving a taunting clue behind each time, with a nursery rhyme appearing throughout — William Hughes Mearns' "Antigonish," in this case — are all clearly inspired by Christy. While not as ridiculous as his "Jack Frost" scripts, Michael Cooney pumps up the premise with as much melodrama as possible. Nearly everyone is a red herring. The hotel owner is ridiculously sleazy, antagonizing the former hooker for no reason. The married couple argue about details that will not be important later. Both the cop and the killer he's transporting are scheming and untrustworthy. The method of murders include a head in a washing machine and a decently tense stabbing from the other side of a door, pushing this whodunit into slasher territory.
Even if "Identity" is deflated by its own narrative juggling, the film at least assembled a hell of a collection of character actors to bring its suspects to life. John Cusack stars as Ed, suitably snarky in the role of a disgraced man looking for forgiveness. Cusack is pretty subtle but most of the cast go for glorious theatrics instead. John C. McGinley is fantastically jittery as the exceedingly nervous husband. Jake Busey is fittingly devilish as the convict while Ray Liotta has the right attitude as the cop. Clea DuVall gets some dynamite screaming in the one half of the newlyweds. John Hawkes, as the bigoted hotel owner, manages to make a character that probably would've been unlikable otherwise into colorful comic relief. Amanda Peet essentially plays the final girl and has all the qualities you look for in such a role.
La Llorona
When I think of Mexican horror flicks, my brain immediately goes to attempts to replicate the American monster movies. Whether that be in the classy atmosphere of “El vampiro” or in flicks where luchadores fight Aztec mummies and vampire ladies, they are films following in the same gothic traditions that started in Europe. Yet Mexico is a place rich with folklore and mythology all its own. The tale of La Llorona, the weeping woman who abducts children, has spread far and wide but its roots are in precolonial Mexico. It is unsurprising then that Mexican filmmakers would take inspiration from this story for the country's very first horror film. Wikipedia gives “Dos monjes” the credit but Ramón Peón's “La llorona” predates it by a year. Lost for decades, the movie was recently given a restored Blu-Ray release.
It is the fourth birthday of Dr. Ricardo de Acuna and Ana Maria's son. That night, his grandfather warns him of a family curse. Many years ago, Ricardo's ancestor fathered a son with another woman while planning all along to marry another, richer woman. When she learned of the deception, she murdered their child and then killed herself. Now, it is said, her spirit roams the land as the Crying Woman of Mexican lore. Ricardo dismisses the story as superstition but begins to change his mind when his grandfather winds up dad and his son goes missing. Soon, a conspiracy and legend that dates back to the Mayan empire is revealed.
This is an interesting point to make, showing that human's convictions are realer than ghosts. Yet it's also a bit disappointing. “La Llorona's” best scenes are devoted to the ghostly visions of the titular spirit. The film is at its spookiest when Ricardo, despite his logic and reason, is still a little spooked by the legend. He grabs his son and carries him to his wife's bed, concerned about the boy's safety. The scene right before that one, devoted to an unidentified pair of arms lifting the boy up, are intriguingly tense. To see that the movie's villain is actually a person in a black hood, looking like a bad guy from a cheesy serial, is underwhelming. The ghost scenes are strong, so it's disappointing to see the movie stray from them so often.
“The Crying Woman” is also obviously an early sound movie. It's musical score is limited, mostly devoted to the same melodies appearing a few times. The cry the sound designers came up with for the ghost is also not quite as bone-chilling as I think they hoped for. The camera work is a bit awkward, the pace is slow, and the performances are stagey. There's no denying that the film is steeped in Mexican culture, with its repeated close-ups of a Mayan ring and deep folkloric links. Ultimately, the film is probably most interesting as a historical artifact, the first attempt to make a Mexican horror movie. Even if it sometimes feels like the filmmakers were a little afraid to commit to the ghostly elements. [6/10]
After two duds, I finally found an episode of the nineties “Outer Limits” that's not half-bad. “The New Breed” concerns Dr. Stephen Ledbetter. He's invented nanobots that can rewrite human genetics on the fly, essentially providing a cure for cancer and any other disease. His backers at the university are reluctant to move into animal testing though. Shortly after proposing to his sister, Stephen's best friend Andy receives some bad news: He's diagnosed with likely terminal cancer. Desperate, Andy injects himself with the nanobots. At first, the results are incredible. His cancer disappears, he doesn't need glasses anymore, he has more energy than ever before. However, the nanobots continue to “improve” his body, leading to terrifying physical mutations.
Like the previous installments of this version of “The Outer Limits” I've seen, “The New Breed” is preachy and obvious. The narrator puts too fine a point on the episode's moral early on, talking about how we mustn't sacrifice our humanity in exchange for scientific advancements. Once Andy was talking about how great his life is, as he's engaged and tenured at the university, I knew he was going to receive a fatal cancer diagnosis. Before the opening credits even play, Stephen is comparing himself to God, outraging the dean of the university. That marks this as a clear “Frankenstein” variation, with that age-old moral of man overstepping boundaries in its hubris and meddling in God's domain.
I think “The Tell-Tale Heart” was the first Edgar Allen Poe story I ever read. This is probably true for many people, as it was included as part of my grade school English class curriculum. Like much of Poe's work, it has a distinctively cinematic quality that calls out to filmmakers. In 1941, Alfred Hitchcock's protégé Jules Dassin – before making classics like “Rififi” and “The Naked City” – was allowed to make a short adaptation as a test-run. The film follows the general outline of Poe's story: A man is driven to murder an old man with a cloudy eye, attacking him in the middle of the night. He places the body under the floorboards and hears the dead man's heartbeat. When the police investigate the next morning, the beating persists and force the man to confess to his crime.
While the synopsis of Poe's story is maintained, Dassin's “Heart” removes much of the story's ambiguity. The original text doesn't even specify if the narrator is male or female, much less his relationship with the murder victim. In the film, the main character is a young man in his twenties, living with the elderly man as his ward. While Poe outright stated that the old man was never cruel to the narrator, here the old man physically and verbally abuses the boy. Dassin foregoes any sort of voice-over, so none of Poe's prose is translated to the film. Considering the words are what draws the reader into “The Tell-Tale Heart” so much, it definitely causes this nineteen minute adaptation to loose something.
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