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You know, sometimes I have a hard time wasting my energy on reviewing films.  While this isn't a zero-star clucker, I was not impressed.

The scenery of this motion picture is beautiful.  It opens with chiron over fall foliage of a gorgeous prep school campus.  The actors are pretty and the views are beautiful.  I particularly like the color palette of the outdoors: the school uniforms coordinate with the fall colors, and the redhead siren's hair is a perfect punch of color.  But on to the plot…

This bunch of high school kids plays a game that becomes too much like reality.  The leader of the group, Dodger, is an attractive redhead with no acting skills.  I say she has no acting skills because I think she's just acting like herself.  I saw her screen test and she was dressed like a stripper.  An attractive stripper, yes, but she wasn't trying to get the part based on the merit of her read alone.

About ten minutes into the movie, I realized that I didn't care at all about the main character, Owen.  I think he was supposed to be some sort of British heartthrob but I just couldn't care.  The dialogue was written with the slow crayon simpleness of a George Lucas script, so I can blame not just the actor but the writing.

Several scenes that would normally have really scared me were merely interesting.  They had predictable slasher suspense, with minor-key music and eye-of-the-victim camera work.  This stuff scares me every time.  However, because I was not interested in the plot, these scenes often fell flat.

There is a late plot twist that is interesting.  As it dawns on the character who discovers it, the movie uses a lazy device: showing previous scenes that should have given us the clues.  I often feel that if the scene didn't resonate the first time, then the film maker didn't do his/her job. 

The death scenes are shot in the same flashback, gritty quality of CSI.  Except CSI does it a little better.

Maybe I'm too old to care about teenager-style movies.  Maybe I'm not, and I should just watch one that isn't awful.

[rate 1]