The Attic Expeditions
Behold, the “high concept” horror movie that failed. Too bad, ‘cuz this one had promise. Despite my initial misgivings about anything featuring Seth Green, I didn’t want to do yet another zombie flick this time. In a world, where nothing is as it seems…. I picked what sounded like an old-fashioned “scary/haunted/evil sanitarium” flick. What I got was “OMGWTFBBQ! REALITY IS LIKE, ALL TOTALLY SUBJECTIVE, AND STUFF!”
Premise: 2/5
Hey, I’ve got a cool idea. Let’s make a wacky movie that falls somewhere between Jacob’s Ladder and Groundhog Day. Let’s top it off with an ending that fails to satisfy, qualify it as a “twist ending” and let simmer.
Okay…I guess if nothing else I can tell you some of what it’s all about. Trevor Blackburn, the main character, wakes up from a coma to be told by a doctor that he’s been out of it for the last 4 years, and on top of that, he’s in an institute for the criminally insane. Apparently, Trevor killed his fiancee in “a magickal ritual gone horribly awry.” Dr. Ek wants to send him to a halfway house of sorts so that Trevor can get used to daily life before being released (thanks to Ek’s new procedure, he thinks Trevor’ll be just peachy after a while). Once Trevor gets to the “House of Love” (the aforementioned halfway house), he has to work out what he’s forgotten about his life before waking up and what really happened between him and his girl.
Weirdness ensues, as naturally there’s more to the “House of Love” than meets the eye. For one thing, it reminds Trevor an awful lot of where he used to live, and for another, one of the other crazies there is convinced that if she ever stops writing, the whole world will stop—thing is, Trevor’s pretty damn sure that he’s already written everything she shares with the group. And to boot, there’s a chained up box in the attic that he seems to have some strange connection to. Things keep getting worse from there, as soon a couple of the other people end up murdered and Trevor starts really wigging out.
He's got a black magic woman.
Cast: 4/5
It’s so weird when you get a movie where the supporting cast are all much better than the lead. Seriously, Andras Jones, who plays Trevor, is such a tool and, as the Brits would say, utter wanker that I really was hoping bad things would happen to him. I got tired of his weak acting skills and thin whininess, to the point where I almost felt like fast-forwarding to the next scene with Dr. Ek in it.
Dr. Ek, in case you were wondering, is played by Jeffrey Combs, whom I hope you might’ve seen in any of the Re-Animator movies (also, IMDB tells me he was the voice of the Scarecrow in the Batman cartoon and “The Question” in Justice League?). He’s got the super-intelligent and damnably evil doctor/scientist thing down pat, and he’s always fun to watch. He has a literally mad charisma that kept me watching.
Shockingly, Seth Green’s also not too bad in his role as the paranoid and rambling Douglas, one of Trevor’s allies in the House of Love. He’s a bit like the poor man’s version of Brad Pitt in 12 Monkeys, only with less spazzing. A little less irony would be appreciated, but he’s still pretty good in the movie all the same.
Ted Raimi’s also in this flick, as Dr. Coffee (our go-to guy for observing the “behind the scenes” work that Dr. Ek’s doing), and he’s okay. In typical Ted Raimi fashion, he ends up this poor put-upon loser, so you should get a grin out of that. And I’d be utterly remiss if I didn’t mention that Alice Cooper’s also in the movie, although it’s not more than maybe two minutes worth of screen time. He’s pretty hilarious in that two minutes, though, as a chronic runaway from Ek’s Asylum. Best line=”I only ran away because I saw the cab—I’m on the medication and, I think the dosage might be too high, because I think it’s making me shrink…” As he gets led away by the orderlies he screams “MEASURE ME!!” and it had me cracking up for several minutes. Alice Cooper, you are, and will always remain, my hero.
Do not stare too long into the spoon, for the spoon stares also into you.
Cinematography & Special Effects: 3/5
Ehhh….it’s all pretty throwaway, really. The director’s one of those guys, I guess, who think that nothing in a movie should ever stop moving. Whether it’s constantly moving the camera around the area being filmed, or scenes where the actors are constantly walking back and forth, or an obnoxious combination of both, you’ll find very little at rest in this movie. And usually that’s fine—I guess it was being used to try to keep the viewer as disoriented and off-balance as Trevor by not really allowing a lot of stability of motion—but with the frequency of the effect, it can get tired kind of fast. Later on in the movie, as the mysteries are starting to get unravelled (or are they???), there are scenes from the beginning which are, shot-for-shot, exactly the same, but with something different about them, whether it’s different dialogue, a slightly different action, or angle. Part of me wants to say, “Hey, that’s pretty neat” while the other part of me wants to say “DAMMIT, I GET IT ALREADY!” There are also some cinematic weirdnesses that I particularly enjoyed, like the chest in the attic with a staircase in it, leading down into—a wide open forest area? Fairly nifty stuff.
Special effects are also eh. Any time they show blood, it’s usually this bright red waxy stuff (which there may be a meta-retarded reason for, but I just don’t give a damn) and there’s just nothing good about that. There are, however, a couple really cool effects that I liked a lot. They’re not even anything big, just relatively simple stuff like, when either Dr. Ek are lighting up a cigarette, instead of striking a match, they just hold a match and it somehow strikes itself (and no, it’s not an editing mistake, it’s very blatantly something else). There’s also a couple scenes of Trevor getting really pissed off, pounding on doors to get answers, and when he gets angry enough, lightbulbs in his area explode, though he never seems to notice. It’s the little things that impress me sometimes.
Have you ever killed a puppet just to watch it die?
Popcorn Factor: 1/5
Man…this movie just isn’t that fun, no matter how you look at it. It’s definitely not a slasher flick, nor is it a creeping terror kind of deal. It’s trying to be a head trip, and it’s only barely effective at its very best. Seth Green’s kind of amusing, as I mentioned before, but he’s in almost every scene and comes perilously close to wearing out his welcome. Whenever there was a Combs scene, though, I did find the glaze lifting off my eyes…heh…maybe it’s just because of Re-Animator, but this guy always commands my attention and alerts me that something interesting is happening, so at least he and Ted Raimi kept me awake and alleviated some of my irritation with the general goings on that the movie inflicted on me.
Really, if you want something trippy and creeptacular, you’d do far better with Jacob’s Ladder or Angel Heart. Instead of tying anything up or even leaving cool ambiguity, The Attic Expeditions just leaves you confused and annoyed.
P.S. – The music in this movie is about the most inappropriate to the scene and just generally awful that I’ve ever heard. To quote a fellow Critic: “It stinks.”