Well hey, never thought I'd review a fairly recent movie at any point. Did Nicole Brown Simpson's death touch more nerves than Sharon Tate's? Am I a firm advocate for O.J. Simpson being tied to the murders? Actually this entire movie was uploaded to YouTube, so I figured I'd take a look at it while I can.
Part 1: The Downfall
It may be too soon to make this analogy, but I have a feeling nothing will change that idea.
Daniel Farrands is to horror what Seltzerberg (Jason Friedburg and Aaron Seltzer) is to comedy, producing egregious material that brings out the worst in the genres they're trying to work with, for Seltzerberg, it's parody, for Farrands, it's making horror stories out of real life murders.
Both had their starts in some way, aiding in the production of other films and getting into making their own later on down the line. For Seltzerberg, it took two movies before they got their foots in as directors, through selling the screenplay for Spy Hard and creating Scary Movie. For Farrands, he wrote for Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers and produced two lesser known horror films, The Tooth Fairy (not the one starring The Rock) and The Girl Next Door (also unrelated to the one you already know about) before getting traction through producing various documentary pieces related to horror icons.
Both of their films had been incredibly received, but Seltzerberg not only made their money back in their heyday, they were able to keep up with major studios for a while (20th Century Fox/Regency and LionsGate) before they dropped off, with many of their films getting distributed through VOD distributor Ketchup Entertainment (the only exception was Best Night Ever which got released through Magnet Releasing, and there they got help from Jason Blum of all people.)
For perspective, Farrand's second directorial effort was released through Saban Films, who'd ordinarily sell the project to a major distributor though it never happened. For this one, it wound up getting released through Quiver Distribution. Never heard of them? I'm willing to bet it's one of those pay and release deals.
Point is, when shit parody directors can do better than you and keep up with Hollywood... fuck it, not even your day job would want your crusty ass back.
Part 2: The Movie
One thing I noticed about this movie is that it was produced by nearly the exact same companies that produced The Haunting of Sharon Tate. 1492 Pictures can be traced to Farrands, and god knows what the numbers are supposed to mean, while Green Light Pictures can be traced to Eric Brenner and Lucas Jarach, though no certainty can be given to ETA Films.
His films were bankrolled by Skyline Entertainment, all three of them. Contractual perhaps. His latest two shitheaps were sold through Voltage Pictures, a more mainstream name when it comes to indie cinema, but somehow more depraved than LionsGate. Also the American equivalent to Odex in terms of cease and desist orders.
The Amityville Murders never had a major distributor, with Skyline holding onto it, The Haunting of Sharon Tate was the closest Farrands had to a major distributor, Saban Films, but the film did so bad that he is basically blacklisted. And like Seltzerberg before him, when the cinemas reject you, Video-on-Demand is all you have left.
Quiver Distribution is a relatively new player in the VOD distribution field. I'm not gonna write off their entire catalog, but it seems they're willing to take whatever distribution deals they could (unless it's a pay to distribute service.) Along with this, they also distributed The Fanatic (reviewed by Chris pisses himself Stuckmann)
I'm going into this without having any prior experience with the actors, so whatever complaints I may lob at the film, it won't be out of shock over how far the actors sunk. The film stars Mena Suvari as Nicole Brown Simpson. On a visual basis, she does look close to Simpson, and whoever played O.J. in this looks even closer.
Nick Stahl also appears in this, though I don't recognize him, I ironically remember the last film people remember him from, Terminator 3, which thankfully isn't the worst Terminator movie anymore. He plays Glen Rogers, the Casanova Killer, more on that later.
Part 3: The Movie for Real
Through insight on what editing software they used to cobble this movie together (that's the least natural TV static I've ever seen,) we see a montage of news reports dedicated to black violence, I was thinking they'd go for an alternative universe where O.J. would be portrayed as an advocate for ending black violence, but after three clips it goes into his football career and hook up with Nicole.
In The Haunting of Sharon Tate, you could pick up on scenes that drag on for too long because the movie wouldn't clock in at a desirable time, I'd either call this padding, or a representation of how black celebrities are abandoning other people of color through their fame and success. Hey about Glen Rogers...
Spoilers, he's portrayed as Nicole's killer. It's not said explicitly, but why bring him up in something related to O.J.? Okay sure he was suggested as a potential suspect, but no credible evidence had surfaced. If anything, I think Farrands was pressured into using a white killer to avoid being called racist, but wouldn't you want to give negative attention to African Americans that deserve it, that run their race into the ground?
After the most unconvincing jogging I've ever seen, we get the implication something bad would happen thanks to music driving us to feel that way. For music scores, and laugh tracks while I'm at it, they're more counterintuitive than you think. Have faith in your audience to let them feel what they want, build up suspense, let the content materialize in their heads. Why not have Whole Milk Simpson just be walking along and when he gets close, BAM, he kills the girl, we're caught off guard. Here, it's like okay he's gonna kill her, just get it over with.
If it was meant to be a chase scene, all it does is make Whole Milk seem like yet another robotic horror antagonist. I'm guessing the departed was Sandra Gallagher? His only slay anywhere within California? Anyway, I've expected some hammy knife jerking and screaming and cheap blood splatter effects, but it cuts to black for five seconds and we get the title, brought to us by Final Cut Pro. I can do something similar, watch.
Then we get our first look at Nicole and... she has that western mom look to her. Is it good that the actor resembles the departed if the director can't muster the best performance out of them? Anyway, we see them celebrating her kid son's 35th birthday, set to a cheap rendition of Moonlight Sonata.
Out of the gate, one issue I have with this film is how straight it's played. Nicole sees a weird car, and in the back of my mind I'm thinking, oh, this'll be a fake out with O.J. emerging with no harmful intentions, with the suspense being an indirect clue to his intentions, but no, it just goes away.
The only twist I got so far was learning that the Kardashian name went as far back as the early-90s, going by Nicole's relationship with Kris Jenner. As far as acting goes, I've been desensitized to it due to seeing it so many times. Either that or I suck at singling things out, well aside from stiffness. But there is one thing I caught, and it's the affair between her and Ron. But as mentioned before, thanks to the implication that Glen Rogers would be the killer, and that jogging scene at the start and the fact that O.J. is only tied to the murders of Nicole and Ron, I think this'll be glossed over.
"Hey Nicole, I'm totally not bitter about the divorce."
Also Farrands blew so much of the budget that he had to rent a tripod, scenes feel shaky as hell. Also, show don't tell is only in effect half of the time, suddenly Nicole's been in therapy, then again I know nothing about her. We get a hollow fakeout, where O.J. is stalking Nicole over the divorce, though in some way it'd make it obvious he would be the killer, which he isn't in this movie, but they really want to hammer in that fakeout. I'm looking for good fakeouts, thank you.
As the party breaks out, we get the scariest scene in the movie, Daniel Farrands' credit. But then we get a slow burn for nothing. Perhaps the film was establishing another suspect to Nicole's murder, a brick. It just murdered the window to her car.
Anyway, next day, shirtless jogging (it's Ron, gotcha.), and then we meet someone who happened to be in the area, I mean Glen Rogers. Through some clunky dialog (and it's through Mena), we set up Glen's presence in the house. He's doing work as a painter and overhears an abandoned remodeling job Nicole set up.
It's never fun when you understand what direction the film would take and who would be slayed, you're left with wondering how long it'll take. All of this occurred in about 16 minutes. Anything interesting happen until then? Well for some reason I don't hate Nick Stahl as Glen Rogers, I mean he doesn't stand out but he seems to be an iota better than Mena. They do crack a joke where he says his name is just Glen and Nicole calls him that. I haven't heard that joke as often so I wasn't off-put by the quality of the joke, just how poorly it was stated.
I'm getting a flashback to a Phelous review I watched, The Time Machine I Found at a Yard Sale. Just know both that and this movie contain scenes involving orange juice, that was just painful padding, this is just awkward at best, and goes on for just a bit too long. Only thing keeping me from skipping ahead is that Nick Stahl's awkwardness is endearing for me, it indirectly gives the killer he's playing a sense of humanity, laying the seeds for the ultimate betrayal.
And they continue on with the "just Glen" business, I mean unless the name Glen Rogers was easily traced to the Casanova Killer.
A therapy session occurs which is meant to throw more shade at O.J. and set us up for a twist. Since this is based on something that actually happened, you're bound to lose no matter what direction you take with it. To make matters worse, you know how much the "Friendly stranger" set-up has been done? It feels like a compromise, like he said "I'll use an alternative suspect as the killer, but I'll still establish motives that led to O.J. killing her in real life." As an aside, along with various materials related to the death of Sharon Tate, there're more than enough things related to O.J, now granted, alternative perspectives weren't common with them, and this may be the first, but with so many cards down it's hard for anyone to take a different perspective with an open mind.
The most they do for suspense is bog standard out of perspective shots, if they lead nowhere or are carried out in a straight-foward fashion, they're meaningless. A dog appeared early on and I expected to see its mangled corpse (and it's another callback to that other Farrands flick.) I hoped for something to catch me off guard, and it came in the form of Mena doing her first take on a scene following a look through ransacked tax return files. People joked that O.J. would be a fan of this movie, but would he be willing to reinforce claims that would drive people to concluding he did the murders?
Ron becomes more "in your face" and involved, and I have the feeling they're trying to throw a curve ball at us. But since he died in real life, the illusion is lost. I guess he's just genuinely trying to comfort her and it comes off like he wants to up her dependence. This favor is given to Glen who encourages her independence just for the sake of trust.
Well into this, nothing pops out aside from a question, does Faye Resnick sound like a chainsmoker who's perpetually drunk? I can at least attest to her using cocaine, something shown early on in the film. Also sex scene, drawn out and all.
It leads to her finding Glen ranting while naked and getting threatened, but due to a number of 911 calls, she is given a 0 degree shoulder and foreshadowing to her death, and since she died in real life, it's essentially a glorified "no duh" deal. We then get a stalking scene, and look who's here. O.J- Glen. Oh, and O.J. appears in this too, well this movie's O.J., just briefly. Scratch that, it's someone who looks like him nowadays. Wouldn't be surprised if he got O.J. to cameo in this.
Then it leads to the most tedious chase sequence I've ever seen. Just know it lacks excitement. She goes to her neighbor for help, said neighbor being how she met Glen in the first place, and she turns out to be an unrelated victim of Glen. We even get a flashback to Glen's encounter with Candace (or whoever I don't know), where they struggle to imitate a struggle as Glen kills her. And it should've been a flashback, it was just an implication that he was coming to get her.
Then... ghosts. Nicole has a nightmare she is attacked by a ghost, simulating her fear that she'd get killed or is facing a warning. Spirit-related warnings, reminds me of that one girl who dreamed about getting murdered... Also Nightmare on Elm Street rip-off in the climax of the nightmare. At least Charles Swenson and whoever created The Brothers Flub had experience with the company who had their style, but all Farrands has is a documentary based on the films. Is this any worse? I think Farrands wanted to go "hey look, I can make it look like my character's floating.", plus I think he may've had the hots for Mena to have it go on for so long.
Back to therapy, she essentially gives a recap on that night with Glen and hereafter. This typically works better when the scenes are show with what's discussed, and to happen at once, not just showing the scenes and explaining it close to the end. What we get from this is some philosophical message, which surprisingly isn't as forced as what was seen in The Haunting of Sharon Tate, but it goes back to a recurring deal with Nicole, where everyone's telling her to be independent.
Then we get a play of Little Red Riding Hood. Is this more foreshadowing, or is it another time waster. No, O.J. actually attends the play, and we get a confrontation afterwards, leading to her taking that step to independence. Plus we get the idea that O.J. and Glen share a link. The latter's been referred to as Charlie, I don't know if that's trivia rooted in fact, but... yeah I don't know.
After some more foreshadowing... and a German lullaby, you may be thinking, where is Ron in all of this? Well Nicole left behind a pair of glasses that belonged to her and he decides to bring them back to her personally. But it just so happens that O.J. is at the restaurant and Ron gets the memo to hide. Also Sandra actually did get referenced as a murder victim, she was the one in the bar, and he also killed Candace. Ron then arrives, and the pieces come together for the murder to take place. I want so bad to have been wrong in my assertions Glen is the killer.
Someone comes by, and like Farrands' previous flick, it's long and gruesome. We get the inexplicable one glove at the scene and then... news footage. This covers O.J.'s trial and reveal as non guilty, plus we get insight to the toxicity of African Americans (they also vied for R. Kelly for perspective.) Then Glen Rogers, and contrary to my hopes, he's treated as the killer.
We also get an answer to the Charlie business, where apparently O.J. claimed he was around during the murder in question, and we get the idea Charlie was Glen, but of course, split personality. As the credits role, we get a 911 call detailing O.J. attempting to escape to Mexico, even though this was shown during the late news montage. The call was made by Nicole, and we hear O.J.'s mad ramblings. But the damage is done
Part 4: Through My Eyes
I could forgive this film for its portrayal of real life events if it handled it well. But it didn't. With padding and cliches, the negative reviews can deter directors and writers from trying it out themselves, because no matter how good the end product turns out to be, people wouldn't see it because Farrands' turd stains pop into the back of their minds.
How could this have worked better? Well abandon the "based on a true story" schtick and do a psychological thriller, where what would be O.J. and Glen are replaced with manifestations of her repressed frustrations with her lover and her darker desires. As an elevator pitch.
Or you could've just made a movie about Glen Rogers, heck, if I were generous, why not make movies about serial killers, just don't touch the BTK Killer, its been done.
Part 6: Conclusion
This movie did nothing to keep my attention. Anything that seemed like a setup for something scary was ruined by telegraphed scenes preceding it. There's no suspense when you know the character's gonna die at the end, it's idiotic as hell to try and treat Glen like he could've killed her and Ron, among other surface-level faults. Toward the end of the movie I began to feel tired, this is the first movie that nearly put me to sleep.
Though where does this stand compared to The Haunting of Sharon Tate? Well this film is more boring than the other one, but at least the craziest thing they've done here was rely on an alternative killer. But as a result, nothing more stands out about this movie. Interesting fact, I wrote the review as I watched the movie, I was that afraid it'd leave my mind when I finished it and went to do the review and suddenly I wouldn't know what to say.
I wasn't scared, there weren't any corny moments that keep my interest, everything felt like a slog.
This movie is the equivalent of watching a movie that has been spoiled, the fun you would've had watching it is ruined by you expecting the details to happen, and that's a key detail for films based around killings. If it focused on the killer, people'd get more insight into their motives and how the crime was done. This was just based on a better known murder with a better known murderer behind it.
I'd rather watch the Jacob's Ladder remake, I'd have more fun seeing what they changed. I'd rather watch Catwoman, I actually enjoyed it as a kid. I'd rather watch Star Kid, I'm an adult and I can handle the outdated practical effects. I'd rather watch I Know Who Killed Me, its twists are more plain than blatant. I'd rather watch the live action Cat in the Hat movie, it's better than what some jaded child-holders have you make it out to be. I'd rather watch Hulk and Spawn, faulty effects mean shit to me. I'd rather watch Little Nicky and Eight Crazy Nights, and I don't even hate Adam Sandler, I recognize he makes poor movies but I hate his haters even more. I'd rather watch Kangaroo Jack, okay my reasons are thin since I haven't seen it in a while but I'm bound to have a better time seeing it again.
And that rounds out my guilty pleasures. Since nothing is listed on Farrands' IMDb indicating something is in the works, he's either given up or doesn't want people to see his next project.
Good lord am I sleepy...
