Runtime: 90 minutes
Release Date: August 9, 2013
Rating: NR
Director: Nick Lyon
4closed opens with a realtor preparing a walk through of a newly foreclosed home. Somehow, all the doors in the house lock at the same time, and she can't escape. A dark figure comes out of the shadows and brutally murders her before she can get out.
It then jumps to a family out shopping for a new home. Since I can't remember the names, I'll just use their real names. James Denton and his wife Marlee Matlin need to find a new house for them and their daughter Christina DeRosa. After looking at multiple homes that are too expensive or too small (for three people, WTF?), they finally find the house of their dreams. The realtor tells them that it was a foreclosure that the bank foreclosed on after the owner died. They fall in love and decide to move in right away.
When moving day arrives, they find Jamie Kennedy waiting inside. He tells them that it's his house and shows paperwork that backs up his claims. The police can't do anything until they straighten things out, so the family move into a hotel. Marlee's dad, Paul Sorvino, makes it clear that he isn't happy and has them move into his large house.
Jamie's lawyer drops the case when he learns that his mother left everything to a bunch of charities. I don't think the writer really understands how foreclosures work. If she owned the house, the bank wouldn't foreclose on it, but the movie wants us to believe that she owned it and just left it to a charity. He moves out, but as soon as the family moves in, things go wrong. James, who is a recovering alcoholic, suddenly discovers rumors swirling that he started using again, and poor Christina discovers that her new online friend really isn't who she thought it was.
4closed sounds like some awful and cheesy movie, but damn if I didn't like it! There's something nice about seeing Kennedy go back to his roots. The one thing I kept thinking when I saw Scream 4 was that I wish he somehow could have appeared or that they would at least mention him. With his scruffy beard and crazy eyes, he really does seem like someone who could hardwire a house to obey his commands and live underneath a home with no one knowing.
This movie plays like one of those cheesy horror films that landed straight on video during the 1990s or even the 1980s, but there's something almost refreshing about that. The movie doesn't go all out with the blood and guts, and most killings take place off screen. It asks you to think about how those killings happened in your own mind. It also has a number of things that you know will happen, like Christina making a new friend online. You know that it isn't really that cute guy from her new school, but you also can't wait to see what happens or how she learns the truth.
4closed could easily be just another forgettable little film from The Asylum, but there was something about the movie that I really liked. It's easily one of the better movies from the company that I've watched recently.
No comments:
Post a Comment