Maybe Semi-Regular Quasi-Weekly Quick Movie Review

It has recently come to my attention that I do, in fact, have a hobby, and that hobby is movies. I certainly watch enough of them to consider them a hobby and a fair amount of my free time (not actually watching movies) is spent perusing the internet for information about movies I enjoyed or movies that are coming up.

Also, of the five or so people that read this blog, I may have a bit in common with them, as far as movie taste goes. So, presented before you is my first official attempt at reviewing a movie. Let me know what you think...and if you are in anyway interested in me continuing.


You Are What You Eat: The Hamiltons

The Hamiltons had a lot going for it even before I began watching it. The film was one of the movies feature in After Dark Studio's "8 Films to Die For" nation wide horror film festival advertised as movies too extreme to have been released by major studios. On top of this tantalizing promise of extreme creepiness and gore was also an expectation of quality, as it has done very well on the festival circuit, winning both the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and the Malibu International Film festival. A horror movie that critics enjoy is rare at best so I was excited.

The movie features four siblings, who we learn early on have sold the farm where they were raised after the death of their parents. Through the eyes (and camera) of the youngest boy, Francis, who is doing a video project for school, we learn that everything with the family is not as it should be. David the oldest seems to be struggling with both holding his family together and his sexuality. The two middle children are twins Wendell and Darlene who have a "special bond" that separates them from the group leaving Francis to feel alone and isolated. After Wendell brings home random slut #2 and her best friend handcuffing them up in the basement, we are positive that the Hamiltons are not your average neighbors.

All of the family members, except Francis, participate in the torture and apparent blood draining of the girls, which might have been horrifying had any of it actually been on camera. As it is, we are only treated to camera tricks of implied violence through the angsty perspective of the pensive Francis. The sexual problems of David, a side plot involving incest between the twins, and an unseen creature in the basement all seem like cheap thrills added to fill out a rather dull plot. Much of this could have been overlooked had the more important theme of Francis' difficulty with his family's proclivities been fleshed out optimally. Unfortunately, the narrations done by Francis come off as apathetic rather than concerned and sensitive making the tale a rather dreary one instead of the thoughtful take on horror that the film sets out trying to be.

So spend your money either renting a deep intellectual movie about isolation and coming of age or rent a horror movie, don't waste your time The Hamiltons that fails to be either.