DVD Review: 'Skeleton Crew' Starring Steve Porter

'Skeleton Crew', a movie that was looking to join the ranks of slasher-film success unfortunately fell very short in this department as we are taken into a very tired and old tradition by first introducing us to a background that we are all too familiar with: an old insane asylum.

The story begins with what looks to be an actual murder taking place when a couple finds themselves in a bad auto accident during a bad rainstorm in front of the old asylum simply known as Silent Creek. (Sounds vaguely a lot like another asylum or town that has 'Silent' in the name, doesn't it). After the frightened girlfriend tells the charge nurse of the accident, she apprehensively invites the young girl in where she meets Dr. Anderson (played by Porter). Anderson is a very odd man that has told her specifically that the asylum halls are not to be wandered due to the many mentally unstable patients that inhabit this place. Of course, not abiding the doctor's warning, the woman sets off to find her boyfriend, who it turns out, may have met an even worse fate as she finds him in the morgue with one arm and one leg missing begging to be killed due to the pain that he is experiencing. Before we can actually see her doing what her beloved asks, there is a shout of 'Cut!' and then the movie actually begins.

The real story centers around a group of actors and their film crew, a mixture of Australians and Finnish, who have rented the asylum in order to shoot a horror film that is based on the late Dr. Anderson's life. Anderson had turned out to be a serial killer that called himself 'The Auteur', who filmed graphic acts of his patients being tortured at the hands of himself and his psychotic charge nurse. These acts, however, were never supposed to never see the light of day as the doctor and his nurse had been executed for their crimes and the films themselves hidden from prying eyes. That was, until on the third day of shooting when the high-strung director of the film actually finds the missing reels and begins watching them as a matter of pre-production research in order to make his masterpiece that much better. However, after watching the films consistently, the director soon begins changing and then becomes utterly psychotic, leaving all planes of reality and going by the name of the same sick and twisted doctor known as 'The Auteur'.

The film quickly descends into a mish-mash of people screaming and dying. The chase scenes as well as the depictions of the gore looked as if the real director and producer may have been trying to take many ideas from many different sources and thrown them into a blender to create this film. I saw a great many scenes that reminded me of other films of this same genre. (in example: '8MM' starring Nicholas Cage, the 'Saw' series starring Tobin Bell, 'House on Haunted Hill' starring Geoffrey Rush and Famke Jannsen, and the 'Hostel' series, just to name a few).

The film itself had the potential of being a good slasher flick, but the acting was extremely substandard and the film made very poorly. As I watched, I found myself merely shaking my head and was asking one large question: Would it have been that difficult to make an original film? The worst part was how I was able to pick out so many of the different innuendos of other films that were not subtle but rather screaming right at me. Though I may be being a little harsh, I found that this film was lacking in so many areas. In my opinion, the true nature of a thriller of any kind, whether it be political, paranormal, psychological, or even horrific is that all of the elements that are used within the script are used in such a way that the film would be able to congeal. There have been many a horror film that has been made in this fashion that were considered B-class cinema, but they had plots that would have kept the viewer at least mildly intrigued. I was actually just about ready to fall asleep half-way through this film and it made me want to shut the DVD off before it ended to its saddening conclusion.

My rating for this film is one star out of five. This is a DVD that is best saved for when there is actually nothing else to watch. Do yourself a favor and find a good book to read and avoid this film instead. You'll have a lot more fun. Trust me.