Instant Review: Seven Days to Live
Seven Days To Live (2000)
Studio: Lionsgate
Directed By: Sebastian Niemann
Cast: Amanda Plummer, Sean Pertwee, Renee Ackerman, Chris Barnes & Sean Chapman.
Review By: Annie Riordan
Editor’s Note: “Instant Reviews” is our ongoing feature where we watch and review lesser known, or forgotten titles, that can be found through your Netflix Instant account.
I wish to state clearly and firmly that the only reason I watched this film was because it was an instant play on Netflix and I had nothing better to do. I do not recommend wasting a rental fee on this dreadfully unimaginative shingleful of shit. I think I’d be hard pressed to find a single cockroach who would be willing to roll around in this fetid pile. However, besides being free, there was one other very good reason (and one ONLY) that I had for watching this film, and his name is Sean Pertwee. Given the opportunity, I would totally give Sean’s personal pertwee a tug or two…or fifty. I have no shame. And unfortunately, neither does this flick.
After ripping off the opening sequence from 1977’s The Haunting Of Julia, Seven Days settles itself right the hell down into being a cheap and rather silly imitation of The Shining. Ellen and Martin Shaw move to the countryside after the death of their only child, hoping to start anew and deal with their inner demons and all that Self Help shit. Martin is hoping to write a new book. His last two were, apparently, total shit and he really needs a bestseller. Ellen is an emotional mess who begins questioning her already precariously balanced sanity when steamy mirrors, road signs and radio disc jockeys begin warning her that she only has seven days to live.
Sure enough, the seven days turn to six, then five, and so on. The ghostly disturbances within the house become more prominent. Martin morphs into an abusive bastard. Ellen’s inquiries into the house’s past are met with averted eyes and cold silence. And quite frankly, I’ve forgotten how this movie ends because I just didn’t care. I watched it, in its entirety, perhaps three days ago and my memory banks have already purged themselves of it. All I do remember fo’ sho’ is that Pertwee does not get naked, so why the hell did I bother?
This is just awful. All of it. The story, the script, the special effects, everything. Everything but the cast. Amanda Plummer, Sean’s Pertwee and Chapman, the latter of Hellraiser fame? Their performances are just fine, but not even Atlas himself could carry this shit on his shoulders without collapsing beneath its putrescent stink. Perhaps back in 01 this by-the-numbers plot was semi-original territory to tread, but in the wake of such films as The Orphanage and Antichrist, Seven Days is a squashed wad of bubble gum on the Cannes red carpet.
Granted, it’s not as painfully cheesy as Dark House, but it comes a close second.
