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| DIRECTED BY |
| John Carpenter
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| STARRING |
| Sam Neill |
| J�rgen Prochnow |
| Julie Carmen |
| Charlton Heston |
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Horror films work best when there is a convincing level of believability to them; at least for me anyway. Otherwise, I find what unfolds to be more frustrating or laughable than frightening, and the fact that this film�s plot structure is based upon tiresome clich�s only made it worse for me.
The fact that the film begins with a flashback annoyed me, but I continued watching nonetheless. And before it�s all over we�re hit with another clich� � that everything we saw was simply a part of John�s imagination! So none of what we just saw really had to make sense anyway. And we�re never even told how he thought such an elaborate, exasperating plot up either � a dream? We can only assume that, but I didn�t really care at this point anyhow.
The film has some interesting satirical elements � taking shots at both obsessive readers and greedy publishing houses. But what proceeds is mostly silly and formulaic horror. John�s mind concocts a boring Stephen King-wannabe mishmash of a story about a megalomaniacal writer who drives a town to evil and this is depicted through stupid grotesquerie. Among the few bright spots are some of the montages (the early �hand through the glass� sequence is well done) and some of the special effects (the page-tearing-through-time scene with Prochnow is impressive.)
It�s a notch above standard fare horror on the IQ scale but hits too many bumps and inconsistencies along the way. For instance, why does John have the enthusiasm to find out about this secret town and then suddenly he starts playing the �doubter� role? And Julie Carman was an unfortunate casting choice � she�s not only a poor actress but also she�s quite unattractive, yet she�s given a sex symbol role. And the film�s final message � basically stating that we should listen to society�s madmen � is awfully dumb.
