Offspring (2009)

I had highly anticipated seeing Offspring, another film adapted from a Jack Ketchum novel with the script actually being written by Ketchum (he also makes a small cameo appearance in the film). The other two recent films that were adapted from Ketchum’s work, The Lost and The Girl Next Door, were both disturbing and extreme, so I was really looking forward to what they did with Offspring. Unfortunately, I was left luke-warm with this film and feel it is the weakest Ketchum adaptation to screen to date.

Offspring has a relatively straight-forward plot…a small New England town and its rural-dwelling residents are terrorized by a group of feral cannibals that are descendants from a lighthouse keeper that went missing with his family in the 1800’s. They’ve been living in the wild on the coast of northern New England and Canada and eating human flesh ever since.

This being a Ketchum-based story you can expect all the usual nasty and uncomfortable violence aimed at women and children, and this film has it in spades. Babies and children get slaughtered, women get brutalized and most of the men end up as gory slabs of meat. There’s lots of gore and blood on display, but it’s never so over-the-top that it becomes memorable. In fact, the only real gory bits that were memorable included the opening scene where a drunken mother stumbles back to her home after a night out to find her babysitter and baby butchered by the group of the feral kids and another scene where a captive woman is “eaten out” in a horrifying way. Maybe I’m just jaded, but while the violence was non-stop it didn’t really resonate with me.

Obviously, this film has its moments of shocking violence (we are dealing with feral cannibals here), made even more disturbing when it’s aimed at or perpetrated by children, but this dark tone is (unintentionally) lightened by the ridiculous look of the cannibal family. From their bushy hair to their ridiculous rags that made them look more like they were emulating the Lost Boys from Disney’s Peter Pan rather than frightening flesh-eating kids. Big points off for making the villains more silly than scary.

Despite the silliness of the costumes, there was one actress whose commanding presence was very frightening, and that was Pollyanna McIntosh. She played the matriarch of the cannibals and her snarling commands and brutal force were probably the scariest of the entire film. It was definitely nice to see such a vicious female villain for once! While the other actors all did a decent job, McIntosh was the real standout. I also appreciated that the female victims were actually resourceful and fought back against their cannibalistic captors instead of just weeping in a corner.

Director Andrew van den Houten did a great job evoking that atmosphere of the isolated and deserted New England coastline. There were a lot of aerial shots of the rocky coastline and desolate forests to show just how a freaky-looking cannibal family and its decedents could survive without detection. I also thought the evocative and sparse score, by Ryan Shore, was absolutely stunning and really made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. If anything in the film created a foreboding atmosphere, it was Shore’s score.

Sadly, there aren’t many scares in the film, just a lot of gory cannibal scenes that quickly get repetitive. Sure, Ketchum throws in an estranged asshole husband into the mix and the ineffectual police, but the real focus is always on the cannibals vs. the innocent family. It just wasn’t enough for a full-length movie and the premise starts to feel stretched thin towards the end. The “psychos-in-the-woods” bit has been done to death, and this is just a slight variation on the Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Wrong Turn, etc. formula. There just isn’t enough originality and uniqueness to the story considering all the past and present inbred/hillbilly/backwoods cannibal movies.

Offspring has its flaws and definitely isn’t for those seeking something completely unique. Rather, it is recommended for Ketchum fans who want to see his work adapted to the screen and to those that would like to see taboos of children killing/children getting killed broken. Regular horror fans may be bored at the repetitive nature of the film and gorehounds will be disappointed by lack of memorable kills (though there are plenty of blood and body parts flung around).

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The Lost (2008)

Hanging out in the woods one night, Ray Pye (Marc Senter) and his two friends Tim (Alex Frost) and Jennifer (Shay Astar) stumble across two women (one who happens to be Erin Brown, aka Misty Mundae, in the nude) camping. After spying on them for a bit, Ray suggests they “pop” them with his rifle. He notes how exciting shooting rabbits is, but says it would be more thrilling to shoot these two innocent girls. Ray gleefully goes through with his plan, viciously shooting the defenseless girls while his petrified friends go along with it as well as helping Ray cover up the crime. They are as scared of Ray as they are enamored of him.

Four years later, the original detective on the case, Charlie Schilling (Michael Bowen), is still convinced Ray is the killer and keeps a careful watch on the womanizing charmer. Meanwhile, Ray’s despotic rule over his friends slowly crumbles as Detective Schilling applies pressure to him and the group.

The usually slick and smooth Ray finally snaps, going on a merciless shooting rampage and taking several hostages up in an isolated house. Can Detective Schilling find him before more people are brutally killed?

More about a group of lost, disaffected youths than about a budding serial killer, The Lost is Chris Sivertson’s film adaptation of the Jack Ketchum novel of the same name. Initially, I didn’t enjoy the film at all, but a few days after viewing it I found it had grown on me a bit. While I’ve never read this particular Ketchum book, his trademark dark portrayal of suburbia/society is evident in the film.

Ketchum’s trademark nastiness is most evident in the opening scenes as well as in the conclusion. The opening scenes capture Ray’s viciousness as well as his ability to manipulate those around him. While the opening scenes start with a bang (literally), the middle of the film feels more like an after-school special about the dangers of peer pressure, abusive relationships, and drug and alcohol abuse than a horror movie. There’s even a large chunk of the film devoted to Ray “falling in love” (obsessing is more like it) over the sultry Katherine (Robin Sydney). Things quickly feel like they are developing into a teen drama with the added love triangle between Ray, Jennifer and Tim. The horror finally kicks in again at the end, when Ray is wronged one too many times and starts brutally shooting people, but it comes a little too late.

Jack Ketchum himself has praised this adaptation (you can hear him on the DVD’s commentary track), but I just wasn’t completely sold on it. It feels a bit too uneven and I know many horror fans won’t enjoy this film. Blame mustn’t be placed on Sivertson, though, who does a wonderful job with the direction. Though his screenplay might be a bit rough at times, it always feels like Ketchum material, examining the nittiest and grittiest underbelly of society.

The performances from the actors were extremely convincing, though I did want to knock some sense into Tim (Frost) and Jennifer (Astar) for being friends with Ray after all the abuse and threats they suffer. Also, while Marc Senter gives a maniacally charming performance as Ray, at times his portrayal felt a little too forced and over the top. Still, he makes Ray into a good-lookin’, smooth-talkin,’ intense guy and really made me believe people would fall for his charisma.

Fans of Ketchum’s book The Lost will no doubt be impressed by this film, but as for the rest of us…it feels a little lacking. Not even a short cameo by Dee Wallace Stone helped to perk things up. The Lost has intense opening and closing scenes, but the rest of the film is lacking suspense, tension or much else to keep your attention except for a few intense performances.

Still, this movie has “cult film” written all over it and I won’t soon forget it.

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The Girl Next Door (2007)

Based on the Jack Ketchum book of the same name, The Girl Next Door tells of the horrors hidden behind white picket fence suburbia in the 1950’s. It is an unflinchingly brutal and heartbreaking film that stays true to the book’s narrative and manages to bring the book’s disturbing scenes to shocking life.

The film begins with every kid’s favorite time of year…summertime! A time of freedom, hanging out with friends and long summer days to do whatever you want. On a dead end street in suburbia, though, the summer of ‘58 will forever change the life of a young boy. David (Daniel Manche) lives next door to the Chandlers. The Chandlers consist of single mom Ruth (Blanche Baker), whose husband ran off with another woman years ago, and her three sons, Woofer (Austin Williams), Donny (Benjamin Ross Kaplan) and Willy Jr (Graham Patrick Martin). They have just adopted their two cousins, Meg (Blythe Auffarth) and Susan (Madeline Taylor), whose parents died in a car accident. Both girls were involved in the crash, and while Meg escaped with only a few scars, younger Susan has to now walk with leg braces and crutches. David and the other boys spend their days lounging around the Chandler house (Ruth has always been a cool mom and lets them drink and smoke). David gets a crush on Meg, but begins to notice how poorly Ruth treats the girls. She verbally abuses them, and things quickly escalate to physical abuse. Woofer, Donny and Willy Jr. quickly join in, and soon even other neighborhood kids are joining in to torment the girls. David seems powerless to do anything, even when things get so bad that Ruth has Meg strung up in the basement, blindfolded and just hanging by her arms. Meg’s torture only gets more and more sadistic and brutal at the hands of Ruth, her sons and the neighborhood kids. Can David do something to help or will he too fall victim to Ruth’s insanity and cruelty?

Book adaptations are tricky to pull off, but The Girl Next Door manages to recreate the intensity and horror of Jack Ketchum’s book. The horrifying events that take place in the Chandler household feel very real and watching the film you are very aware that this could possibly be happening right next door to you. It is, in fact, based on the shocking true story of 16-year-old Sylvia Likens, who was beaten, raped and tortured until her death by an adoptive family and the neighborhood kids in Indiana in 1965.

The real crime that was committed, along with the book that was inspired by it and this film are all examples of how vile, cruel and evil some people can be. The depravity in the film is shocking, and not just because it graphically shows the torture (it doesn’t). It’s the emotion (or lack of emotion) and mob mentality behind the actions of the Chandlers and all who joined in that will really chill your bones. I run a horror review site and I’ve seen some pretty messed up stuff in my day, but the cruelty portrayed in this movie actually brought tears to my eyes.

Director Gregory Wilson films unobtrusively and lets the film unfold before our eyes. The audience is treated as a voyeur, and like David, there is nothing we can do to stop the evil occurring right before our eyes. We are stuck just watching the shocking torture that is happening to Meg and Susan. The direction is so unobtrusive that you actually feel that you are there, a trick that Jack Ketchum also pulls off in the novel.
Speaking of the novel, screenwriters Daniel Farrands and Philip Nutman did a fine job adapting the book and showing the heartbreaking emotions that Meg, Susan and David go through, as well as the hate that Ruth feels towards the younger girls. The confusion and conflict David goes through feels very real and is portrayed quite well by Daniel Manche. Blythe Auffarth does an amazing job in her portrayal of Meg. Meg’s strong will, even through extreme pain, is shown very well by Auffarth. I expect to see great things from this young actress in the future. Blanche Baker also does a great job as Ruth, really making the audience hate her.

My only complaint with the characters is that there wasn’t enough time spent on Woofer, Donny and Willy Jr. Their characters just weren’t fleshed out enough to truly buy their horrific actions. The book paints a much clearer picture as to who each one really is and what drives them to engage in such deviant and disturbing behavior. Still, with the time constraints of a film, I understand that some things needed to be trimmed down and the overall feeling of the book remains intact.

The Girl Next Door is definitely not a film for everyone. When faced with the true horrors of this world as opposed to the cartoonish and larger-than-life slashers and serial killers, most people will wet their pants after watching this film. It is a heartbreakingly brutal look at the vile nature of some humans and is packed with sincere emotion.

It’s also a film that must be seen.

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