Movies
Gone
“Every single character is such a vacant red herring without any semblance of human logic or emotion that I almost felt myself sliding into uncanny valley. Watching ‘Gone’ is like watching the world’s dumbest person play the world’s worst RPG side mission… it just chooses to be lazy. It chooses to be boring and bad. With so much in its corner you would think it could provide at least one single entertaining moment, but it willfully declines. And that is unforgivable. It chooses to take your money without the effort or intent of living up to its end of the bargain.”
I’m going to give it to you guys straight, with as little writerly affectation as possible, just to hammer home my point. I don’t want you to think this is some linguistic exercise or some kind of insult gymnastics. I’m not trying to be mean and I’m not trying to be clever about it. I just want to tell the truth, give you my opinion as a critic and move on with the rest of my life.
Gone is perhaps the worst film I have seen theatrically. At least in the past 10 years. I’m literally trying to find a precedent for a film I’ve enjoyed less and I can’t find one. I almost suggested Doom (I know – not even a remotely similar film) as an equivalent but at least that one had those stupid POV shots that were so hamfisted they couldn’t help but be entertaining. Gone does more right than Doom, and is a worse movie because of it.
How did this happen? I guess people weren’t paying attention. There are some surface elements that make this seem like a good movie if you’re not really watching it. It’s slick and well shot, so much so that I have to assume this is the reason the film wasn’t aborted during principal production – I’m sure the dailies looked fine. If you popped over to your friends house for a drink and they were watching this on mute, you might even wonder if you’d interrupted their enjoyment of some kind of stylish thriller. But you wouldn’t have. I’m not sure how the script got through development, perhaps it was just formatted correctly and didn’t have too many big speeches and that was enough.
The film is so bad that it manages to hinge on a strong central performance – a performance that Amanda Seyfried actually delivers – and still be utterly without merit. Seyfried, an actress I like, is Jill – the young woman determined to rescue her sister from the same kidnapper who tormented her the year before. The problem is, all of the local police (and pretty much everyone else in Portland OR) think Jill is crazy. Since everyone believes that she’s nuts she has a bear of a time obtaining help in any legitimate way and is forced to lie, connive and steal her way towards justice.
She goes from person to person, inventing a set of lies for each one that’s tailor made to produce from them the information she needs. But the film never establishes any of the components of the circumstances that she’s willfully obfuscating, so we never know (or care) if she’s lying or telling the truth. The film wants us to doubt her sanity along the way – but we need to care about it first and we never do. We’re never even remotely invested in this escapade. Every single character is such a vacant red herring without any semblance of human logic or emotion that I almost felt myself sliding into uncanny valley. Watching Gone is like watching the world’s dumbest person play the world’s worst RPG side mission.
I mentioned earlier that this is the worst film I’ve seen theatrically in some time. Is it the worst film period that I’ve seen in this time period? No. It’s true that I have many several DVD screeners, several in the past six months even, that are worse than this film. But even your sh*ttiest, most bottom of the barrel, direct-to-DVD releases have moxie or gumption – even if it’s just the slightest motivation for existing. There’s something to be said for a failure that at least has the charm of someone who was trying, someone who was passionate at getting their story out but just didn’t have the talent or resources to make it happen. Gone is different.
Gone has talent and resources at its disposal – it just chooses to be lazy. It chooses to be boring and bad. With so much in its corner you would think it could provide at least one single entertaining moment, but it willfully declines. And that is unforgivable. It chooses to take your money without the effort or intent of living up to its end of the bargain.
A contemporary reimagining of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story Herbert West: Reanimator is on the way, and Deadline has unveiled the first look at the new Herbert West and the pathologist drawn to his orbit.
Adam Simon (The Haunting in Connecticut, “Salem”) and Tim Metcalfe (The Haunting in Connecticut, Kalifornia) penned the script. The original screenplay and storyline come from Jade Sandberg Wallace.
Michael Grossman (“The Originals”, “Pretty Little Liars”) directs.
The new images introduce star Joseph Morgan (“Vampire Diaries“), who plays “brilliant surgeon and scientist Herbert West, who is obsessed with creating a serum to reanimate the dead.” Katie Cassidy (Speed Demon) stars opposite as the pathologist with a troubled past who joins his efforts.
Together, they prove that conquering death may be the ultimate sin against life itself.
The film’s official synopsis: “As a child, Herbert West watches his father Peter reanimate his dead mother Judith in a secret basement lab — only for Judith to mortally wound Peter and nearly kill Herbert before Peter shoots her. The trauma leaves its mark on Herbert, but so does one final image: his mother’s finger, twitching after death. Thirty years later, Herbert West is a brilliant, secretive surgeon still chasing his father’s obsession.
“Pathologist Kate Locke arrives in town and is drawn into his orbit — first through a spark at a hospital fundraiser, then through his secret lab, where he reveals a serum capable of reanimating severed tissue. Kate, hiding a dark past of her own, is thrilled rather than horrified, and moves into West’s mansion to work alongside him. Their early experiments on a cadaver succeed only briefly. West concludes that dead tissue is the problem — they need something fresher.”
Supporting cast includes Scott Aiello, Ira J Amyx, Randall Newsome, Emma Reinagal, James D. Bryce, Kathryn A Bentley, Jack Lancaster, Amy Holland Pennell, John Pierson, Mindy Shaw, Eric Dean White, Tristan Wilder Hallet, Adrienne Lamping, Aaron Crippen, and Drew Patterson.
Makeup artist Jeff Lewis (“Star Trek: Voyager,” “Star Trek: Enterprise”) and cousin Roger Lewis are heading the production via their newly established Woodlake Entertainment.
Lovecraft’s short story, first serialized in Home Brew magazine in 1922, is the first among his works to mention the fictional Miskatonic University. It was most famously adapted into a 1985 horror movie from Stuart Gordon, starring Jeffrey Combs as Herbert West.
Herbert West: Reanimator is set in Alton, Illinois, where production is now underway.
Herbert West: Reanimator. Photo credit: Matt Lief Anderson
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