The Girl in the Photographs

"The Girl in the Photographs" centers on Colleen, a grocery store clerk in small town South Dakota who is the unwitting target of a mysterious local who has been leaving photographs of mutilated women for her to find. The series of bizarre photos go viral, garnering interest from an egotistical Los Angeles photographer (Kal Penn) who is also from the town. The arrival of him and his entourage and their meeting with Colleen sets the killer's plans into motion.

This middling contemporary slasher has received most of its buzz from the fact that it was the last project that the late Wes Craven was attached to (he served as executive producer), and had the maestro's name not been on the bill, it's unlikely the film would have seen as much as attention as it has from genre fans. I was excited about the film irrespective of this, as "executive producer' does not equal "writer" or "director," and also because films done in this tradition are rare these days. Opening on VOD and to a small circuit of indie theaters (I caught the film at Cinema Village in New York), the reviews overall have been lukewarm to terrible, so I went into the film with barred expectations–and was actually somewhat surprised by how much I enjoyed it.

While it is in so many ways a conventional slasher thriller, it's also well-shot and decently-acted by any standards. Is it revolutionary? The advent of contemporary horror? Absolutely not. But as a playful riff on serial killer thrillers, it never ceases to be supremely amusing. The production values are high here, and the film benefits greatly from Dean Cundey's cinematography (a frequent collaborator with Spielberg, and the man who shot John Carpenter's "Halloween"). It's flashy and glossy from beginning to end, and conjures the prototypical small-town-in-terror vibe very nicely.

As far as scariness or suspense goes, that is where the film does lack some bite; jump scares surprisingly are not the route taken here, but "masked men lurking in the shadows" is the film's modus operandi. It's ineffective, but what can you do? The muted suspense is possibly the result of the script not seeming to know where it's quite going, but the ambiguous conclusion reifies the apparent confusion in narrative direction, and is quite disturbing in its own right. The performances overall are solid; Kal Penn is appropriately ridiculous as the egomaniacal photographer (whose persona seems to be culled from the likes of Terry Richardson), and Claudia Lee is serviceable as the leading lady despite having an underwritten character. The rest of the supporting cast manages to pull in some comedic elements that offset the sadomasochistic center of the movie, and the dialogue is efficient and believable.

Overall, I thought this was a decent effort, and it is one of the best modern slasher movies I've seen in quite awhile. Fans expecting something revolutionary or on par with the likes of Craven will be disappointed, and I feel that Craven's name on the project may have something to do with the disheartened fans who expected something more than what this film has to offer. In spite of that, "The Girl in the Photographs" is a fun and indulgent throwback to the eighties slasher. It's conventional, but stylish and entertaining enough that I found it worth my time–and maybe that's enough. 6/10.

I was intrigued when I heard about 'The Girl in the Photgraphs' because it had an interesting title and a potentially interesting premise, with a chance of some mystery in the story. The synopsis on IMDb reads: "A bored young woman in a sleepy community called Spearfish starts receiving photographs of brutally murdered young women. Are they real or staged? The culprit is either a serial killer or some creep with a sick sense of humour." Sounds interesting enough - that is until the first scene in the entire movie answers the question, which just so happens to be the only thing the film could have had going for it. From then on it is just an abysmal mess, not worth anyone's time or effort.

There are times where this film can't seem to decide whether it wants to be a horror movie or a romantic comedy. There is nothing wrong with taking the time to make your characters charming and likable but do it within the context of the movie. The uneven tone is so noticeable that it becomes incredibly off-putting and takes away any chance the film has to build any atmosphere or tension. In fact I can honestly say in the entire 95 minute runtime I never once felt the slightest emotion towards the movie. I was never worried for a character's safety, or charmed by the dialogue, or even for that matter got a single momentary fright. There is very little good here. Don't be fooled by a nicely made poster and a misleading synopsis. It's terrible.

This film drowns in monotony as it ultimately leaves the viewer in a literal state of "can they please just kill these people so this film can end" for an extended amount of time, mostly the last twenty minutes of the film. Losing patience to such a degree means that all feeling for the cast has been lost or in this case never felt to begin with, this is obviously a big problem for a horror film when even the fate of the innocent young lead(Claudia Lee) loses importance. Nick Simon fails to create any atmosphere throughout as well as suspense and tension. There may have been a few small jolts of electricity, but they dissolve almost instantaneously.

Despite being well produced, shot and acted with lots of pretty faces and even some nice T&A, this film just doesn't succeed in being what could have been a more engaging horror flick had some serious editing and script adjustment been applied.

But in the end I'm still a horror junkie and I have to judge the overall package against it's fellow B horror competitors and there is enough here to possibly warrant some degree of entertainment for those with the same genre affliction, there were some OK kills and to be completely honest the picture the killers leave for the girl in the final seconds was brilliantly done, though a photo cannot undo the overall average plot and mundane feel to this film.

Though I would not call this a masterpiece, I did find it interesting on the comical side. I know this is a horror movie, but I really could not resist the villains. You have to give it to them, they were a very comic duo. I have to tend to believe that they were the ones who had the true lead in this thing.

Unfortunately, besides that fact, the characters as always in horror movies tend to be painted as being particularly stupid -; especially the blonds. This movie did not fail to deliver on that side. They always tend to make ridiculous decisions. Obviously, I could enumerate the nonsensical actions that many of the actors had (except probably the couple in the bed) but that would make no sense.

I'm not really sure why the police kept staying in denial when it was obvious that somebody was killing people. In the real world, there would have been an investigation and on that side, I feel this was a huge miss by the movie. Nobody would make such realistic pictures of a crime without getting hooked by authorities and to my mind, being fund myself of fashion photography, I'm not sure I've ever seen something like that pass in reality. In that case, how did they miss that part in the movie?

I would recommend this for a quick laugh but nothing really too extraordinary to see there. I did give it a score slightly above the average review scores because I did not find it THAT bad and it was kind of enjoyable at the end because of the some of the very funny or borderline annoying characters in the movie.

It's a nice little nod to Wes Craven, the film's Executive Producer, who died with this being his final film. It probability could have been a better movie if Craven was not suffering from Brian cancer during his involvement, yet it's still not the worse way to end a legacy.

I thought Kal Penn was actually pretty funny as an eccentric artist who goes back to his small town after hearing about a string of murders in which the killer would take pictures of his victims. Inspired to copy the murder pics for an Ad campaign, he meets Colleen, the murderer's muse, and convinces her to become his muse, which the murderer does not like.

It lies somewhere between The Last House on the Left and Scream in the story format, not as good as either, but you can see the total potential for it being that kind of innovative horror film.

I will say that I love some of the kills that where done in this movie. Very old school violent with very little animated blood. I like the bluntness of it, it's been a while since a movie gave me that.

As a Horror fan I feel that The Girl in the Photographs is worth taking a look at.