Kenneyville (Review)

Kenneyville

Kenneyville (2010)

Directed by Brooks Hunter

As a horror blogger, you'll get a range of indie horror films sent to you hoping that you'll see a breakout movie that is a diamond in the rough. Canada is ripe with horror talent from the Soska Sisters to Jason Eisener. When I read the synopsis for Kenneyville, I have to say I was intrigued: "a local scientist and businessman, has been collecting innocent women for experiments in creating brainwashed assassins."

Trailer looked promising enough and then I watched the whole movie. Well sometimes all you get are rocks. Kenneyville has a damn creative premise, promising characters and set in Canada, it seems unexpected. But the execution is clearly off, the acting pretty cardboard and stiff and the payoff downright disappointing.

What's left is a indie movie that's ambitiously slick for it's own good. I can buy that there are redneck sections of Canada, but government conspiracies and a town hiding one of helluva secret is a bit much. Director Brooks Hunter via the press release says the movie reflects his bipolar disorder and there are metaphors throughout. Clearly if I knew this I'd have probably seen a broken glass of milk as something other than a broken glass of milk. Sorry, I'm not that clever.

Boring Plot-O-Matic

There is something seriously wrong with Kenneyville. When, a young woman, KIM, from Toronto goes missing and police mysteriously drop the case earlier than expected, two private detectives are hired to find her. With undercover aliases, CHARLIE and KELLY head to the small town of Kenneyville for answers after discovering significant clues. Upon meeting seemingly innocent locals, Charlie is brutally beaten and Kelly is ruthlessly kidnapped. Charlie awakens in shock with a new mission: to find and save his partner. We soon realize the horrific truth behind both women's disappearances. ADRIAN BLACK, a local scientist and businessman, has been collecting innocent women for experiments in creating brainwashed assassins. Charlie soon discovers just how deep the rabbit hole goes and ultimately learns which shocking 'mega-organization' has hired Adrian to produce these ruthless killing machines.

Awesome Review-O-Matic

Intrepid reporters/private investigators Patrick and Megan investigate a disappearance of a girl and head to Kenneyville, Canada. As they meet the locals who are fuckin waaay peculiar, Megan is kidnapped and soon joins other women who are systematically brainwashed by the evil Adrian Black. It's up to Patrick and his new found buddy Donovan to come to the rescue.

I'll start off with the little bit of good. The movie isn't just rednecks run amok but actually has a Charles Manson like plot device that makes the opening and the investigation somewhat interesting. Megan (Vanessa Broze) is a bit easy on the eyes looking all Elisha Cuthbert-ish. I began imagining a bunch of La Femme Nikitas all running around this town as Fox and Scully try to uncover this X-File. But somehow all I got instead was some atrocious acting and lots of dialogue filled with exclamation points.

Michael Scratch as Black performs with a twitchy eye and plays his Dr. Frankenstein as best he can. The locals also seem to be over the top and his #1 Victoria (Irena Angeloutsa) is clearly a bit wacky.

Now that I think of it, if the movie is suppose to metaphorically indicate a fragmented mind, I'm sure the characters might all be designed to represent the struggle of person with such a disorder. But clearly, I had no prior knowledge of this and all I came out of the flick was watching stereotypical characters: the heroic dude, the girl in distress, the wacko lady, the subordinate henchmen, the buddy, the evil scientist. There are some scenes that reflect a light vs dark feeling but I could just be reading way to much into that.

Kenneyville is a bit of a drag with scenes of prolonged filler, appetizers to a nonexistent meal. It nibbles on something interesting but never takes that one satisfying bite. The director mentioned: "It is a fictional, fantasy world in which many of the characters, events, sets, and production design represent various stages and elements of transitioning from feeling “normal" to having the world become emotionally paralyzing"

A movie like Identity (starring John Cusack) is similar to this but goes Hollywood generic. But somehow it's straightforwardness of a murder mystery with a twist is more effective and the typical viewer "gets it". With Kenneyville, I can only take it as subtle and I "didn't get it". All I saw were the alluring white slavery angle, redneck Canadian town and an X-File that never got solved.

Not many movies deal with a subject matter like this. Kenneyville is ambitious in that way but when you're making a horror movie, one can only be as simple minded to a simpleton like me. I'm not as you say totally normal, but I pretend to be one.

Nude-ipedia

Nada

WTF moment

Was that an impromptu happy ending?

The Jaded Viewer's Final Prognosis

I was provided a screener from the producers of Kenneyville. Want a different review? Check out 28 Days Later Analysis review of the film.

The Vitals

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Rating:


Check out the trailer.

Soska Sisters American Mary gets a poster

The Jaded Viewer has been covering all things Soska. The Soska Sisters have debuted their poster for their latest feature American Mary. Front and center is the lovely Katharine Isabelle looking kinda coma and tosed. Wait...is that somebody copping a feel?

The tagline is "Appearances are Everything" which is intriguing in itself. This needs an IMDB page stat. In any case, the plot is still mum as the Soska Sisters will wait until we've gotten over our nostalgia Scream fetish to unleash this flick on us.

Here's the teaser in case you missed it. As I loved Dead Hooker in a Trunk, I can't wait for this one.

Hobo with a Shotgun (Trailer)

With the release of Machete, which was based on Robert Rodriguez's fake trailer in Grindhouse we are seeing a resurgence in the exploitation/grindhouse genre. But Machete isn't the only fake trailer that's been turned into a feature length movie.

Yup, Hobo with a Shotgun is also becoming a film.

If you haven't heard of this film, it was made by Nova Scotia, Canadian filmmakers Jason Eisener, John Davies, and Rob Cotteril. It won Robert Rodriguez's SXSW grindhouse contest and was included in Grindhouse when it was released in Canada. The fake trailer itself is awesome. Check it out below.

Now, its been made as a full length film starring Rutgar Hauer! Here be the plot:

A vigilante homeless man pulls into a new city and finds himself trapped in urban chaos, a city where crime rules and where the city's crime boss reigns. Seeing an urban landscape filled with armed robbers, corrupt cops, abused prostitutes and even a pedophile Santa, the Hobo goes about bringing justice to the city the best way he knows how - with a 20-gauge shotgun. Mayhem ensues when he tries to make things better for the future generation. Street justice will indeed prevail.

Here is the official trailer:





It has a Troma-ville feel to it. Very much like Street Trash and Combat Shock. This is true blood and guts filth at its finest. We'll see if it can live up to its fake trailer like Machete did.

What do you think?

A Jaded Spotlight: Maurice Devereaux

OMG! Is this a new feature on the jaded viewer? Hell if I know. All I know is I wanted to spotlight Maurice Devereaux, a Canadian director who seems to be running hot in the horrorosphere.

I'm not going to go into details on his bio (which you can Wikia here) but what I will spotlight are 2 of his movies and a short he directed. The first movie that put Devereaux on my radar was his Fangoria presents feature $lashers$. I actually own this movie on VHS. If I had a VCR, I'd watch it again (alas I don't). I remember it being a little low budgety but the Japan game show slasher premise stuck in my head for well....just being totally off the wall.

Check out the trailer.

His next movie after $lashers$ was End of the Line (full review here) which I ranked #15 on my Top 20 Horror Movies of 2009. It's a good cult gone crazy movie earning a solid 3 spinkicks.

Trailer? Yes please.




Finally, this short below entitled "PMS Survival Tips" gone some acclaim and buzz a few years back. It's a nice little parody of those 50s educational flicks with a horror slant.

Duck and cover the short below.



I'm not sure what else he has in store, but his resume keeps building and creating some good stuff. Canadian horror is in good hands with Devereaux and we should all keep him on our horror radar.