When people...and movies...snap.

by Ed Owens

It's low tide for the horror genre. The days of the straight-up horror film are apparently behind us, long forgotten in the wake of the post-modern juggernaut that was Scream. Since the appearance of Wes Craven's loving ode to cinema's most underappreciated genre, horror films and their makers have felt the need to wink at their audience, to remind us that it's all a game at the precise moment when they should be letting us stew in the primal fear they have (hopefully) evoked.

Low tide indeed.

This doesn't mean there aren't contenders. Take Frailty, for example. Bill Paxton's directorial debut is, for the most part, a return to the traditions of Southern Gothic that seeks to stand on the shoulders of its predecessors. Fenton Meiks (Matthew McConaughey) shows up in the office of FBI Agent Doyle (Powers Booth) claiming to know the identity of the God's Hand murderer, a serial killer so named because of his tendency to leave notes claiming that he is acting as God's instrument. When asked how he knows, Meiks relates a story from his childhood, that of Meiks' father (Bill Paxton), a widower (his wife died giving birth to Fenton's brother, Adam) who wakes one night after a startling vision: demons walk the earth disguised as people, and the boys' father has been chosen to destroy them.

The majority of the movie is a series of flashbacks, focusing on the two boys and a father who may or may not be crazy. All three performances are wonderfully suited to the material, with Paxton playing against type without devolving into mere scenery-chewing. The real find is Matthew O'Leary as the young Fenton. He handles some extremely difficult (and, speaking as a father, troubling) material with a grace and ease seldom found among more accomplished actors.

As a director, Paxton shows a great deal of maturity, allowing the film to move at a simmering pace that wrings the most out of the material without letting the audience drift. The credit has to be shared with cinematographer Bill Butler, who brings Brent Hanley's story vividly to life. The three work very well together, pulling off scenes that are genuinely creepy and deeply disturbing without the smug self-awareness so prevalent in today's horror offerings.

But the end result is bittersweet. The film's resolution piles one absurdity on top of another until the movie implodes. The successes of the film's first hour and change are all but undone by the time the credits roll, leaving behind little more than a burned-out shell of what used to be. It's hard to say precisely who dropped the ball. (Do you fault Hanley for writing it or Paxton for filming it? At least Butler's images remain constant.) But drop the ball somebody did.

Frailty comes so close to being exactly what the horror genre so desperately needs, an honestly spooky story about the monsters that lurk in the shadows, a story that ends with a "boo." Too bad Paxton and crew ended theirs with a punchline.

Changing Lanes, on the other hand, is one big punchline, a film that expects you to swallow a series of events so implausible and absurd that you may find yourself laughing when you're supposed to be gasping. When hotshot law partner Gavin Banek (Ben Affleck) has a fender bender with recovering alcoholic/estranged ex-husband and father Doyle Gibson (Samuel L. Jackson), the two part on less than amiable terms, resulting in an increasing spiral of vindictiveness as each man tries to one up the other in a moralistic game of "Make you flinch."

The film is being touted as an intelligent thriller, one that allows its characters (and the audience) to ponder the morality of its characters and their actions. However, I found it to be less of a meditation than a force feeding: the film introduces supporting characters for no other reason than to allow them to deliver contrived monologues spelling out for the more comatose members of the audience the various moral dilemmas faced by the two antagonists; Banek and Gibson are not so much developed as yanked back and forth, flip-flopping more than the fish at the end of Faith No More's Epic video (they come across more as having conflicting personalities than personal conflicts); and Roger Michell's direction is so heavy-handed, it seems to be competing with Chap Taylor's screenplay for the title of Most Obnoxiously Obvious.

There's a moment when Ben Affleck's character, deeply troubled and confused (as evidenced by his furrowed brow and drooping demeanor) wanders into a church just as the Good Friday mass begins (cue cross, sermon on redemption, etc.). That moment also happens to be the precise moment I stopped even trying not to laugh, chuckling to myself and rolling my eyes. By the time the film reached its gloriously contrived end, I was in tears, though not for reasons the filmmakers might have wanted.

©2002 Ed Owens
CineScene