By Melissa Antoinette Garza
Twixt is a low-budget, artistic and unusual movie written and directed by highly-acclaimed filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola.
Our main character, Hall Baltimore (Val Kilmer) was once a famous horror author who wrote a series of novels about witches. After his daughter Vicki (Fiona Medaris) tragically dies aboard a speedboat, Baltimore’s career takes a nosedive. His wife isn’t at all sympathetic as she via video-cam urges him to turn out another book.
His latest novel failed to find an audience to such a degree that he ends up in a very small town, trying to sell autographed copy of his books at a hardware/bargain book store. It is there that he meets the town sheriff Bobby LaGrange (Bruce Dern). LaGrange writes horror fiction and asks Hall to take an objective look at it. Hall claims to be out of time and declines the sheriff brings up a series of unsolved mass murders that took place right in town.
Hall needing inspiration decides to stay to see if the surroundings can assist. He soon learns that across the lake there is a gang of supposed Satanists. Their leader Flamingo (Alden Ehrenreich) reminds me of the lead singer of My Chemical Romance. He doesn’t say much of anything but is said to be everything from a murderer to a vampire. The Sheriff certainly believes that both Flamingo and his group are guilty for the string of murders in town.
Soon, Hall begins to have strange dreams. There he is visited by a young teenager named V (Elle Fanning) who is desperate to tell him her story. It appears that there was a church going man who was respected by the community. He watched over a group of young children in town, but whenever he shows up V gets tense and appears to both fear him and show anger towards him.
The dreams become odder when Edgar Allan Poe (Ben Chaplin) shows up as the guiding light to Hall. He is there not only to help reveal the murderer but also to assist Hall in properly mourning over his daughter and coming to grips with what caused her death.
Though the film is far from perfect, it definitely has something going for it. The characters are interesting. The acting is fantastic. It’s always great to see Bruce Dern in anything.
Also, it was really great to see Don Novello who I grew up knowing as the hilarious Father Guido Sarducci. I have always loved him and his comedy. Though this role was certainly a more dramatic one, he did well in the part and was quite believable.
There are times, when the movie does borderline on pretentious, but mostly it stays on the side of being artistic and dignified without feeling the need to talk down to its audience.
The presence of Poe is questionable as is the attempted and often forced connection made to his work. Still, I understand the drive to go in that direction.
The storyline was interesting and captivating yet did have a few holes. The ending was a bit absurd but nonetheless, was somewhat unexpected.
Overall, I wouldn’t dissuade anyone from seeing it, but I certainly would suggest waiting to find it in a local Redbox or on cable.
Scared Stiff Rating: 6/10
