Chain Letter. 2010
Director Deon Taylor
Its funny how you can be drawn in with a film, how it can Compel you. How it can fill your heart with love, make your imagination race, turn you on. Deon Taylor's (Nite Tales & Ima Star) Slasher does none of those things.
Ive seen some bad films in my day, but this takes the biscuit. So, There is the usual cute intelligent girl (Madison Baur), 'the token black dude' (Michael J Pagan), the 'Steriod pumped Quarterback' (Matt Cohen), 'The Geek' (Cody Kasch), his 'slutty sister' (Cherilyn Wilson) and of course, the 'rough and ready but really sweet on the inside' kid (Noah Segan, who to be honest, is about 35 years old and you can really tell). So anyway, these empty, souless, stereotypical American teens who live in the stereotypical middle upper-class suburbia in Midwest nowheresville, USA all get a mysterious 'chain letter' email, saying if they don't pass it on they will die. then they do what most people do, delete it (here lies the only thing about Chain Letter that is actually realistic). Then as by magic, they all start to get wiped out one by one. That's pretty much it for storyline. From that point on, what do you need to know? Other than maybe the fact its some big dude who must have really cut himself shaving that morning, as his face is covered in bloody bandages, scared yet? No, me neither. There is a message in the film somewhere, of how Technology is a good thing, but can also be evil, yes, that's right, Evil! So watch out, you could be walking down the street and be attacked by a mobile phone, or be eaten by your dishwasher or even bullied about your weight by a parking meter. Not really, this isn't a Stephen King novel.
As I'm a critic, then I will start with the good points of Chain Letter. The actors were alive, breathing and capable of speech, movement and general motor functions.
Now onto the bad things about this waste of Digital Memory. The acting is awful, and I mean Awful! Keith David (Requiem for a dream, Barbershop) does OK as the Detective , but for the rest of the cast, well, Ive seen better acting performances coming from the bottom of my kitchen bin. The script Is full of its usual cliques and I think was written by Michael Bay, oh, no, it wasn't, but it really is that terrible. The story is The Ring meets Scream and every other slasher film that's come out since. The actual death scenes are dull and are just not a surprise anymore. Chain letter has enough gore to keep up with the 'it must be like Saw' phase we are going through at the moment. The only thing missing from this pile of garbage is a cabin for the teens to be in while they die.
The ending to this turd sandwich is predictable and the only thing that was surprising was the fact I'd managed to make it to the end without ending my own life (it was close, very close).
So to sum up, Chain Letter is a run of the mill slasher flick with nothing redeeming or interesting about itself. I would rather have to bathe Adrian Chiles twice a day, warts 'n all than have to watch this film again.
2/10
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