DVD Review: Behind the Wall
Behind The Wall (2008)
Studio: Monarch Home Video.
Release Date: August 25, 2009
Directed By: Paul Schneider.
Cast: Lindy Booth, James Thomas, Lawrence Dane, Brad Hodder & Suzy Richardson.
Review By: Annie Riordan
Trivia time! What do Castle Freak, The Shunned House and The Beast Within all have in common? Answer: They’re all better than Behind The Wall, a movie which borrows elements from all three and still manages to be the most boring piece of crap I’ve sat through in ages.
Starting off on a semi-promising note, we are introduced to ten year old Katelyn Parks, who has just witnessed the brutal murder of her mother, supposedly at the hands of her father. Twenty years go by and the lighthouse where Katelyn grew up has become the property of the small town where it stands. Discussions are under way at the city hall to turn it into a tourist attraction in a desperate ploy to bring some much needed revenue to the financially troubled town. Katelyn doesn’t really give a shit; she’s washed her hands of the house and wants nothing more to do with it. But the parish priest is insistent that the lighthouse be left alone and Katelyn – with a few scraps of traumatic memories still floating around inside of her otherwise bland skull – can’t help but get drawn into the lighthouse’s mysterious past. When the crew hired to spruce up the place begin to disappear one by one, you really won’t care because, by that point, the film has descended into total idiocy and becomes the cinematic equivalent of staring into a sock drawer.
For the first half hour or so, I was reasonably intrigued: the film builds up a nice atmosphere of spooky, ghostly Lovecraftiness, all fog-shrouded scenery and whispery eerie voices. The lighthouse itself isn’t particularly impressive – the one in The Fog was much better – but hey, lighthouses are always a cool setting for a ghost story.
Unfortunately, this particular ghost story just isn’t all that good. As a matter of fact, it’s pretty fucking dumb. The plot tries for a couple of twists and a few flimsy layers to add to the serious lack of suspense, but it’s like trying to put frosting on a shit cake: it just doesn’t work. Combined with a cast of stereotypical assholish idiots and a script weighted down with melodrama and you’ve got a movie you’d do well to skip, unless you’ve always wanted to commit suicide by boring yourself to death.
Brutal As Hell Rating: 2 out of 5
