Alone With Her

SEPTEMBER 1, 2007

GENRE: BLANK FROM HELL, PSYCHOLOGICAL
SOURCE: DVD (OWN COLLECTION)

You gotta love that as apparently every horror fan in the world was in theaters watching a relatively big budget film with all the potential and resources in the world at its disposal turn out to be a total bore, I was watching Alone With Her, a film made for less than I make a year (that’s the REAL scary part) and starring Tom Hanks' son and the girl from that god awful My Boys show. The film managed to do all the things Zombie’s film failed to; namely: be suspenseful, disturbing, and take time to develop a goddamn character or two.

Storywise it’s your standard “Boy meets girl, boy becomes obsessed with girl, boy forces himself into her life” movie, but that’s not a concern of mine. The film is presented entirely via fixed angle cameras that the main character has placed around the girl’s apartment, or from another camera he has hidden inside his shirt button or something. So while some of the plot developments are pretty standard for the psycho stalker genre (pretends to like her favorite band, her best friend distrusts him, etc), the presentation is unique and near flawlessly implemented, which more than makes up for it. And more importantly, we get to know and care about the protagonist.

Also the ending not only surprised me, but also left me unsettled. Last time a movie did that? No idea, but it sure as hell wasn’t during the Horror Movie A Day period. Kudos to writer/director Eric Nicholas for doing what 200+ other horror movies have failed to do (which is, scare me).

It's a damnable shame this one didn’t do too well in its VERY limited theatrical run, but hopefully the DVD is doing well. Highly recommended!

P.S. the DVD includes an inferior alternate ending that some of you might prefer.

What say you?

5 comments:

  1. Wow, way to take a crack at your readership, BC! "There's a totally crap ending on this thing that those of you without my erudition and taste might like better, you Philistines!" ;)

    I keed, of course.

    As for me, I like endings with puppies. And string music. And a slow dissolve through clouds. Esp. in the serial killer genre.

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  2. Hahahah that is my reaction to all the folks who prefer the theatrical ending of Halloween. "I'd rather the most significant character of the film other than Michael just gets randomly killed, and then we watch Michael smash around his home for a full 10 minutes, rather than end the film on a somber note that provides a fitting end to the character arc of Loomis." :)

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  3. i saw this at newbury and almost picked it up, but i wasn't sure.. i will definately check it out.

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  4. oh man I watched this movie a while back and it was pretty disturbing.

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  5. It was a pretty good movie, one of my top 20 , really. And yeah I agree that it really feels good to enjoy this unique film while the mainstream feast on lame ass zombie movies.

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