seeitwith.me random outbursts of cinema appreciation

Town Creek (2009), aka Blood Creek – Twitter review

Why the Twitter Review prefix in the title, you wonder? No, this won't be a review summed down to 140 characters. This is in fact, a request I got several times from followers on twitter. If you check the sidebar of this site, you will notice my Twitter feed to which I try to post every movie I watch. The goal is to write at least some kind of a followup to what I have seen. It might be a rant on what I was doing at the time, or it might be a full fledged review of a film.

Some 3 or 4 months ago I stumbled upon a cute looking iPhone game - Canabalt. Ever since then I have been playing the crap out of it, unable to put the phone down. I play as soon as I wake up, before I go to sleep, while I'm waiting in line somewhere or just have some downtime. And although I am not even close to the top 100 players in the world, I manage to find great pride when I tweet my latest result, only to see that I am still kicking ass compared to some of the folks on Twitter. Like all the best things things in life, Canabalt hits the nail of success on it's head with the most crucial feature of them all. Yes, it is fun and addicting, beautifully designed and features an easy enough learning curve. But what makes it so brilliant is it's utmost simplicity. There are no button combinations to learn, no secret passageways to uncover - just run and make sure you jump (by pressing anywhere on the screen) over the gaps in between the buildings.

Too bad no one told Joel Schumacher and his writer David Kajganich how simple can be better. I'm not saying here that simplicity is allways the key (hell, the super-complex Cache was briliant, but that had Haneke at the helm), but if you are out to create a fast paced, light, popcorn horror with a team that's obviously not blessed with too much talent, know your limitations man!

For me to retell the plot of Town Creek would be doing it a grave injustice, as I wasn't paying much attention to the film after the first half hour. I was busy playing Canabalt. However, I did keep an eye out on the film in case something remotely interesting happened. No such luck. The story starts of in the 1930s with an ominous Nazi scientist arriving in the US to study the occult rune stones left there by the true conquerors of The New World - the Vikings (the Nazis won't have any of that Chris Columbus wishy washy). Jumping forward to the present, the film fills some time with a string of uninteresting characters, who we never get to see again, but yet have to meet, only to find out that there's someone missing. That someone is played by Dominic Purcell, imprisoned (guess this guy will never get to play a free man) by the frozen-in-time family harbouring their slightly obnoxious Nazi houseguest.

I want to stop now for a minute. Please, look at the trailer for the film.

Man was I giddy when I saw it. Yes, it looked like a C-production. Yes, I hated the cast. Yes, it could be any of the dozens of other Lionsgate straight to DVD features. But come on! It has Nazis! Dead Nazis! In fact, zombie Nazis! Have you seen the zombie horse?! How cool is that? Unfortunately not cool at all. What happend to you, Joel Schumacher? Admittedly, his career isn't of the envious kind, what with the absurdley horrible The Number 23, the completely irrelevant The Phantom of the Opera and the huge WTF instance of Tigerland. Yes he made the critically hated, but still very entertaining (I might even say supperior to the Nolan films - more on this later perhaps) Batman Forever and Batman & Robin, but he's also shown brilliance in 8mm, Flatliners and The Lost Boys.

But you know what? Town Creek is boring, not terribly exciting, and has the lamest possible ending available from the cliche book. Schumacher is now 71 years old. I say, you deserved it Joel. Go out there and make whatever you want. We will still love The Lost Boys. I'm off to watch 8mm again. Thanks for that.