By Melissa Antoinette Garza
This film upset me much more than I expected it to. Initially upon renting it, I didn’t expect anything. I figured it would capitalize on the Bates name and most likely be a predictable whodunit. Nonetheless, I had seen every other non-torture porn horror film Redbox had to offer, so I decided to give it a watch.
I began watching it on Wednesday night with my husband and the first fifteen minutes seemed to have a certain momentum. It wasn’t stellar by any account, but it was something that I figured was worth watching with my brother Geno. He has an affection for low-budget horror movies so I stopped it and held onto the film until tonight.
Sadly, the last half hour killed any hope the movie had at being watchable. The film surrounds a spooky hay ride/haunted house called The Bates Motel. Our protagonist Agnes (Jean Louise O’Sullivan) saw her friend Lily (Aleksandra Svetlichnaya) catch fire and die while performing a stunt one year before.
Agnes has not gotten over Lily’s death and believes that foul play was at hand though we’re never really told why she suspects that. Also, the man who was in charge of the stunt was sent to prison, and for some reason Agnes is not satisfied. Once again, the audience is left in the dark.
Understandably, Agnes suffers from nightmares and flashbacks constantly. Sadly, she has let the grief push her down a self-destructive path including drug use and constant job loss. Her father Dan (Robert Haag) who is also a police officer disapproves of her choices and worries about her. After speaking with his priest, he decides the best way for her to get over the past, is to work at the place that traumatized her. He gets her a job at the Bates Motel and at first, she refuses. After thinking about it and considering she may get closer to the truth about her friend, she agrees.
Most of the characters are bland and interchangeable. Worse than that, they all seem like outlines of characters rather than developed players.
For example, Junior (Zachary Fletcher), who is the son of the owners at Bates Motel is more of a caricature than a character. He’s portrays the dumb southern farm boy. If given something to work with, I think Fletcher actually has something to offer acting-wise. He’s basically a poor man’s Josh Lucas. Sadly, Junior was so poorly written that there was nothing to expand.
As expected, deaths begin to pile up, but as the characters are undeveloped messes, it doesn’t really matter to the viewer. At times, it seems that the film is going to build character connections but instead makes brief remarks and does nothing with them. Again, it’s almost just an outline of “who’s who” rather than significant matters like motivation and drive of the character.
One clear example is that a worker at Bates is Agnes’s ex-boyfriend. There is a single awkward exchange, where he’s making out with his new girlfriend, and Agnes calls him a “cretin.” First, I am far from hip to today’s lingo but even I know that no one uses ‘cretin’ anymore. Second, nothing else is said about Agnes’s past relationship. It’s forgotten.
Also, one of the female workers is the ex-girlfriend of Agnes’s best friend Clyde (Dante Zucca) and again other than two very quick throw-away lines, nothing is done with the connection. There’s no heartbreak or any real emotion other than mild annoyance.
Even when their exes are facing death, Clyde and Agnes show no emotion.
Though the directing was terrible, the “humor” was atrocious, the characters were annoying and the acting was below-par, the setting was cool and the story seemed as though it may go somewhere initially.
Rather than go with that glimpse of momentum, the ending is the most ridiculous and infuriating conclusion the writers could offer. Not only is it easy, but it’s beyond predictable. The motive of the killer(s) is dumb, the reactions of the survivors makes no sense. The jump scare or twist that was attempted at the credits was beyond awful. I can’t remember the last time I shut off a film and was this angry.
I will say that though most of the acting was poor there were a few that tried. The man who played Clyde definitely did all he could to breathe life into his character. I believe this gentleman to be Dante Zucca, however he isn’t listed on IMDB nor the film website so I am going by process of elimination.
He unlike most of the other actors didn’t seem as though he was phoning it in. Though there were elements of the character which made him unlikable and lack a certain level of believability and integrity, this was hardly the actor’s fault. All blame lies with the writer and director as it is most certainly because of lack of direction and development.
In the end, it became clear that this was nothing more than an infomercial for the actual establishment. Ironically, I think it’s going to have the opposite effect. I know after seeing this movie, I don’t want to go anywhere near the place – not because it looks so scary but because I want to be spared of the memories of this crappy flick.
There were a couple cameos in here as well that did absolutely nothing. The late Ryan Dunn of Jackass fame had a very bit part in this movie. Though, I feel badly he passed away, I never found him amusing or talented. His scene is one of the hardest to watch. He’s listed only as “angry customer.” The whole shtick is supposed to be a comedic moment where he complains about his burned pizza that took too long. It’s horrible. It’s like a bad Whose Line Is It Anyways segment where the performer is told to act like a mad patron.
To be fair, I never liked Jackass and never saw Dunn in anything other than that. I see he’s listed as The Health Inspector in an upcoming flick called Booted. I can only hope that was a better performance and a more interesting character so that fans have something to fondly remember him by.
As for this film, there isn’t a reason in the world, I would recommend it. I didn’t go in with high expectations. I wasn’t expecting the storyline to be A quality or the acting to be the caliber of Sidney Poitier or Henry Fonda. I was ready to enjoy an overdone plot and accept Paris Hilton and Kim Kardashian level acting. At best, I was hoping for something like Dark Walker (2003), Night of the Scarecrow (1995), Miner’s Massacre (2002) or Dark Harvest (2004). Instead, I paid for an advertisement.
Now, this is the first film that Byron Turk directed. He typically does the camera work for a show called Storm Chasers. I have never seen that show. It doesn’t sound like something that I’d enjoy, but I do wish him with continued success in that field.
Here, It seems that there was zero passion, heart, or thought put into the project. Slashers aren’t the most difficult genre to write. There’s a basic formula. This seems as though it was written by someone who had a distaste and a sever misunderstanding of the genre.
Rather than sincere dialogue that moves the story along, there is basic introductions, unfunny overreactions put in for comic relief and forced conversations that go nowhere. More than the dialogue, the characters went nowhere.
It wasn’t that the characters were empty but rather they were exaggerations of stereotypes absence of any depth. One character was the token Gay guy who’s major scene was hitting on Clyde by offering him a hot-dog and making some other very blatant innuendos despite Clyde being straight and very obviously uninterested. The character’s only other addition to the film was his desire to show his face rather than wear a mask during the hayride. There was nothing else to him. Again, it’s like someone wrote on an outline: “Gay Guy using Hayride job to kick-start acting” and then never got beyond that.
First, making the gay character the most flamboyant and disgustingly stereotypical personification since the Men on Films sketch on In Living Color irritated me immediately. To actually give the character nothing else but that to work with, made it so much worse.
Another horrible attempt at creating a character is Zeke (Shawn Sieger). Zeke is supposed to portray the creepy older loser
who is intended to be a blatant red herring. Basically picture, Pop (George “Buck” Flower) in Cheerleader Camp (1988) Mr. Dante (Roddy McDowell) in Cutting Class (1989), or Artie (Owen Hughes) in Sleepaway Camp (1983). The incarnation of this type of jerk is typically found somewhere in most slashers. Sometimes he’s just a drunk like Martin (Bob Larkin), the gravedigger in Friday the 13th Part VI (1986) whose most remembered for uttering, “Dig him up? Does he think I’m a farthead?”
Other times, the character is nothing but a self-serving pervert like Camp Loman (Christopher Murney) in Maximum Overdrive (1986). They have several different reasons for being such a standard character. Whether comic relief, creating an additional suspect, increasing the body count, or simply adding another villain to dislike, their existence is to be expected and when done right an intricate part of the film. For example, in Sleepaway Camp, Artie reveals himself as a pedophile. He actually attempts to rape the underage main character. When he’s attacked by the killer, there are sexual implications to the motive of the attack. Attempted rape would have been a solid enough excuse for what was done, but once the conclusion (one of the greatest in horror history) occurs, there are new reasons realized. That is what really great horror does. Scenes that make perfect sense in context take on additional meanings when the conclusion is revealed. These characters are often used at a catalyst for that type of layered storytelling.
In all honesty, this has to be one of the easiest characters to write. Put in a few inappropriate comments, have the character check out some of the girls and get fired for sexual harassment and you have a villain with motive. Instead, The Bates Haunting goes for the cheapest and most simplistic way to declare his perverseness. He masturbates while watching a couple have sex. It’s an easy way out and an insult to the audience. Beyond that, he has no further use towards the movie. Sure, he’s mentioned one or twice as a possible suspect but he has no dialogue and no real reason for being there.
Not to mention, that scene brought back horrible visions of Vince Vaughn playing Norman Bates. Remember that jerking off scene? Thanks Gus Van Sant! I will say that as much as I despise this flick, it didn’t bastardize the Bates name as much as the remake of Psycho (1998). Thankfully, they kept their paws off Norman Bates. That said, to put it in perspective, this is far worse than the 1987 TV movie Bates Motel.
Perhaps, one of the reasons I’m so hard on this film is because of my affection for Psycho (1960) and in particular
Anthony Perkins and the character of Norman. Psycho is perfection. There isn’t a moment in that film that is wasted. There isn’t a sentence of dialogue that doesn’t add to the tension, depth and story. I can watch the film a billion times and never get sick of it. Perkins performance is genius. His portrayal of the abused, sympathetic and ever-so disturbed Norman still gives me chills. The magnitude of the character’s motives and disconnect is brilliant. The level of analysis one can do when wrapping their mind over the fact that he is not only innocent and a killer but is a killer almost in agreement with his innocence in spite of the insanity. It is the greatest tale of good vs evil where the answers are far from black and white.
To have anything share the name of such cinematic gold and then bring in character after character that expresses zero emotion and zero personality irritates the hell out of me; and maybe that’s unfair. Don’t get me wrong. Even without the Bates tie-in, the film sucks, but maybe I’d give it an extra half of point if it wasn’t forever linked with Psycho.
Furthermore, it isn’t as though the movie attempts to distance itself from the classic. In one scene, Junior says something to the effect that he is as far away from Norman Bates as one could imagine and to consider him “Normal Bates.” I cringed at that line. I wanted to yell, “Do not bring up Norman Bates in this drivel!”
For gore fans, as for the actual slashing, there’s really not that much. The kills are few and far between. The first three kills are well done graphically but that’s it. There’s no blood or guts. One would actually expect a little more considering it’s a haunted house, but like in ever other aspect – it failed there.
Plainly, it appeared that there wasn’t any effort put into the production. I always want to enjoy low budget horror because typically it means that someone loves the genre so much that they’ll do what they can with what they have to put their vision out there. I’ll usually give breaks to low-budget horror where with mainstream I’d be harsher. I understand the restraints one has when making a horror movie on a very low budget. I can get over bad CGI and lower than average acting. I can’t get over the filmmakers not caring.
Instead, we had cameos of people that have nothing to do with horror and a cast that seems as bored as the viewer. If you want to have a cameo in your movie, try and get someone relevant to the genre. Christopher Lee, Olivia Hussey, or even Lloyd Kaufman. Plainly, if one doesn’t understand or appreciate horror, they should not make a horror movie.
Scared Stiff Rating: 1.5/10
