planetkiller-blog
Title: 8213: Gacy HouseDirector: Anthony FankhauserWriter(s): None CreditedRating: NRGenre: Horror; Note: There are no credits at all. However, IMDB doesn't even credit a writer. It's totally Fankhauser, though. There's no rating either, but I'd say it's an R. There's some nudity and quite a bit of cursing. As mentioned above, there are no credits or music. The film begins with a plain black screen and a white line drawing of the Junior Police Officer badges the local police bring to grade school students. The text reads that the following is from a “Des Plaines Police Department/District Attorney's Office” case; it's “Footage recovered from 8213 West Summerdale Avenue alongside the remains of the six victims. It has been edited into a narrative for presentation.” There are seven characters in the film. One might think that isn't spoiling too much, because it doesn't say who survives. Only it lists all the victims and the suspect. The suspect is Lena Susan Russell; the victims are Dr. Roger James Franklin, Michael Harry Lewis, Robert James Williams, Gary Elias Goldstein, Janina Marie Peslo, and Tessa Jane Escobar. Thanks, movie. In keeping with the found footage premise, the film begins in shaky cam mode as Dr. Roger Franklin (Michael Gaglio) drives himself and camera man Gary Gold (Brett A. Newton) into a yard. Have you noticed that Gary's last name is Gold despite the file saying it was Goldstein? Then, they talk over the text screens with brief shots of them doing stuff in between. It's really annoying. Gary is really impressed with the house. They meet up with the rest of the team, and there's a bunch of setting up camera stuff that's really boring. Especially since they're really bad at production. The text screens give us all the back story. Which is incredibly lazy. “Are you having difficulty getting exposition in whilst making it seem natural? Forget about it, and use Anthony Fankhauser's patented 'Just Write It on a Black Card in White Lettering' system! Nobody will ever be able to tell you're just phoning it in!” For convenience, I've combined all the cards into one text spiel. It is long. All of this is actually true. However, there is no way this house was built in 1982. It looks at least 100 years old. Minor things like doorknobs and lighting fixtures point at it being much older than that. Also, the house feels like it's been abandoned for more than four years on the outside because it's run down and the paint is peeling. But on the inside, it still looks lived in in places. The bedroom is the most obvious example. There's a lamp on a bedside table, a four-poster bed with a full set of bedclothes, knickknacks, and a painting on the wall. But there's only a rug in the living room. It's very confused. Occasionally, the film shows the time in white on a black background. I'm just going to place the time and then continue with the review as if it's not even there. For the most part. Franklin is really close to the camera and just staring into it as he plays around. I think it's a shout out to The Blair Witch Project, but it's even more annoying than it was in that film. There's no purpose either. There's some padding as they set up cameras and make sure everything works. Get used to the word “padding,” boys and girls; I'll be using it a lot. Eventually, they set up an interview room and begin to interview about what's going on. Mike Lewis (Jim Lewis) and Robby Williams (Matthew Temple) are paranormal investigators who have been travelling the Midwest, looking for activity at several haunted sites, especially those related to serial killers. They explain who Gacy is, making several text screens pointless. Franklin interviews that he's looking for strange phenomena. Then Mike says Franklin is bringing in some excited young individuals whom the team is looking forward to working with. Tessa Escobar (Sylvia Panacione) is a criminal psychology major who is excited about taking part in the investigation. Lena Russell (Rachel Riley) is the camera assistant. Gary interviews that he wants to have a good time. Based on this set-up, one would think Mike and Robby are the experienced paranormal hunters, Franklin is a professor, and he brought in Tessa, Lena, and Gary. Only that's not true. Lena and Gary are always part of the paranormal team. Gary makes reference to things the team has done before, and Lena and Robby are dating. This means the only person Franklin brought in was Tessa. Also, I just noticed that Janina never gets a formal introduction; she's kinda just there. Back in the plot, nothing happens. Seriously. They discuss where they're going to put the cameras; then they run cables. Intercut with them doing this is random shots of things around the house. That's another thing to get used to, because it happens often. And it's always completely pointless. Gary wanders around outside. He tells the audience they're at John “Wynn” Gacy's house and then explains what Gacy did. Again. In case it didn't sink in the other two times. Then, he says that he's a young boy, but he's feeling pretty good despite being creeped out. (Gary and I are the same age; I definitely don't refer to my contemporaries as “boys.”) This is actually important to the plot. Gary finds a creepy ass mask stuck to a pole; it has no purpose to the plot, other than to lull you into a false sense of security that this film might actually be good. There's a random shot of one of the mounted cameras. It's at an angle, pointed at a fireplace. Nothing happens. Outside, Gary films some water stains and explains that nobody has been taking care of the house. Which makes sense because it was abandoned four years ago. He films some more signs of neglect, interspersed are shots of a hallway with a closed door at the end and of a garden path. Nothing happens. Back inside, they discuss how they feel about the mounted camera placement whilst three people simultaneously film each other. Truth in Television! The team does a preliminary sweep of the house, making note of where they're getting spikes due to electrical interference. This is never explained in the film so I'll do it for them. Because ghosts are made of energy, they are supposed to spike K2 meters, which measure energy. Due to electricity being a type of energy, things like lamps and wires can set off the meters, giving false positives. This team has new people (Tessa) on it; couldn't Mike have explained this to her? It would've made him look like he actually knows what he's talking about. Back in the plot, Mike thinks that if anything happens it'll be in the basement since that's where the crawlspace Gacy buried his victims is. Upstairs, Janina Peslo (Diana Terranova) is just randomly there. There's no explanation of where she came from or who she is or what she's doing. Which is a seance. Janina asks the Roman goddess Diana to protect them. The seance is shown through the monitor, which is set up to record from four different cameras. However, as shown later, it's set up to show footage from the mounted cameras and is only to show footage to the command centre; it doesn't record. So we're being shown footage from something that can't show it in the nifty quad pattern we're seeing, can't record, and can't actually receive images from the cameras we're viewing. That's a lot of fail for one shot. Back in the plot, Robby obviously thinks this whole thing is stupid. Janina asks for another individual to join them. There's a shot of the hallway with the closed door at the end. A figure pops in momentarily. However, I may have imagined it since it's a creepy visual and it happens so quickly. Then there's a series of images: an open door, the basement crawl space, an upstairs bedroom. Nothing happens. Then she goes completely nuts. Janina pulls out a white soccer jersey that belongs to her 15-year-old neighbour. She offers it to Gacy, talking about how young and strong her neighbour is. Robby starts laughing, but I'm horrified. Is she seriously trying to feed her neighbour to the ghost? Yes, yes, she is. Even Mike looks freaked out by this. Janina tells the group that if anyone is uncomfortable with this, they can leave. So Robby leaves the room immediately. Janina doesn't even flinch, continuing to talk to Gacy. She is incredibly excited about how Gacy kills people and describes it. He strangled some boys using their clothing. This is actually important later. Something falls in the fireplace, causing a loud noise. Mike bolts. Gary accuses him of rigging it. They devolve into arguing until Franklin orders everyone to calm down. He asks them to be careful and go nowhere alone. There's another montage of shots from the mounted cameras. Nothing happens. And I realize that every single mounted camera is at a noticeable angle. Horror directors are taught to put the camera on a slight angle. Key word here is slight. It's not supposed to be noticeable to the audience. The angle is supposed to rest in the audience's subconscious and be off-putting; if you can tell the camera is at an angle, then I've not done my job. All of these cameras are noticeably at an angle; one is even tilted at a 45 degree angle. Even worse, it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint. One would *never* put a mounted camera at an angle because it makes it difficult to see what's going on. Also, there's a lot of coverage of the same area. Whilst this makes sense in a film, it makes no sense from a narrative standpoint. They have a limited number of cameras and are trying to cover the whole house, which is fairly large. So why would they have two or three cameras in the same room, all covering the same area? They wouldn't. Also, we only ever see them record footage from four mounted cameras (the bedroom, the garden path, the hallway with the open door, and the basement crawlspace), but the audience is shown footage from at least twice that number. So are they only going to review those other cameras after they leave the house? Do those cameras only exist in the cops' imaginations? Back in the plot, it's been about five minutes of mounted camera shots, and nothing's happened. Told you to get used to padding. Upstairs, Lena and Robby wander around; he has the camera. He's very sarcastic about the seance and how safe he feels now that the “moon goddess Diana” is protecting him. On the ground floor, everyone who isn't Franklin is in the dining room/kitchen. Janina talks about how Gacy was a cook. Gary corrects her that he was in construction. She replies that he loved to cook and did so in prison. Mike begins to talk but before he can say a line, the camera cuts away. In the living room on the ground floor, Franklin is watching the quad monitor. Nothing happens so the camera cuts to a really dark room Lena and Robby are entering. They complain about how cold it is. Back downstairs, Janina gives Mike a photo of Gacy's artwork to protect him because the ghost will assume “[Mike is] a fan of his work.” This ghost is apparently really stupid. She repeatedly tells him to put the photo near his root chakra. Which is his cock. I think Janina just wants in Mike's pants. Then the door to the basement, which is behind Mike, closes on its own. Upstairs, Lena and Robby enter the bedroom. Robby calls Lena over to look at the lamp. There is apparently a weird shadow behind it. To me, it looks like a refraction issue. The fun thing about cameras is that they're made up of a series of lenses. This is why lighting always looks different on video and film than it does in real life. It can also cause weird shadows or bright spots. Back in the plot, Lena yells for the others. The screen suddenly goes pitch black. Eventually, I realize it has switched over to Gary's camera, and that group is now running up the stairs to the bedroom. The fact that the weird shadow person only exists on Robby's camera is evidence to my theory, but everybody freaks out. Then Franklin bursts in, which means he's not doing his job of watching the monitors to make sure nothing is happening in another place. He tells them he was looking at that room when Lena and Robby saw their shadow. Everybody who isn't Robby, Lena, and Franklin stay in the bedroom to do K2 readings; the other three go downstairs to review the monitor footage on Franklin's computer since the monitor doesn't record. There's another montage of mounted camera shots: the garden path, the bedroom where most of the group is, and the basement crawlspace. Nothing happens. One would assume these random shots will eventually lead up to something; one would be wrong. Franklin shows Lena and Robby the footage. He saw something different downstairs so he thinks the shadow was a result of the light shining in from the room behind them. Robby agrees now that he can see it on the computer; he wants to attempt to recreate it. That never comes back, though. Lena reminds him how cold they were and thinks she may have felt something. Upstairs, Janina is sitting on the bed in the background with Mike in the foreground. Gary is actually a good cameraman. (I'm not sure where Tessa is during this scene. This is unfortunately a common occurrence with her; she doesn't do much.) Mike is using the K2 meter as Janina chants some sort of spell. Behind her, a photo falls off the wall. They all freak out, and the sound goes weird. They head back downstairs, but the light in the stairway is off. They argue about who turned it off for a bit. Eventually, they decide to head down anyway. Mike tells Gary to be careful so he turns around and backs down the stairs in the dark. Intelligent! In the kitchen/dining room, the light is off and a dishcloth is on the table. Mike freaks out about how great this is. He is way too excitable to be a real ghost hunter. He thinks a ghost may have done it. Mike continues to be excited about how they're getting “great stuff.” Tessa rolls her eyes. Amen, sister. Franklin interviews that they have no definitive evidence yet. Mike interviews that something really bizarre is going on and that they're getting great stuff. I am already sick of “we're getting great stuff.” He's not finished saying it either. Gary interviews that he thinks Mike is trying to freak them out. Tessa interviews that she needs to be skeptical, but she's starting to be creeped out, which doesn't fit with her constant eye rolling outside of the interview closet. Gary complains that everybody is getting hysterical and that's not what he signed up for. Robby interviews they're getting good evidence, but it's being contaminated by everybody getting scared and jumping to conclusions. There's a montage of the mounted cameras where nothing happens. Then Franklin interviews that wants to put the rumours about the house to rest. Um, Montage, did you jump the gun right then? There's another montage of mounted cameras. In the bedroom, the comforter moves, but it's obviously done through a jumpcut. For once, this is on purpose. Downstairs in the basement, Mike is using the K2 meter. Janina interrupts to ask about the crawlspace. Mike tells her they've not checked it out yet. Instead of responding, Janina just looks really bored and wanders off. Mike turns on the digital recorder and starts asking questions. Gary asks him what he's doing, but instead of explaining, Mike just asks more questions. So once again, I'll do his job. Electronic Voice Phenomena, EVP, are noises that resemble speech but aren't intentionally caused. They can be found in static, radio transmissions, and background noise. They're thought to be ghosts trying to contact the living; they're also the basis for the White Noise movies. Back in the plot, Mike keeps asking questions of “John Wayne Gacy [pause] Junior.” Janina wanders around with what I assume is a psychic look on her face, and I realize her over shirt is far more unbuttoned than before. Fortunately, she's wearing a cami underneath. Tessa keeps rolling her eyes. Mike keeps asking questions, and I can't tell if he's hearing things or if his actor is just making bizarre faces for no reason. He asks if there are kids buried in the crawlspace. Cut to the living room. Where nothing happens. Franklin and Lena are looking at the monitor as Robby films them. Franklin thinks the readings are misleading so “the bulbs needs to be changed out.” I'm not sure what bulbs he's talking about, but Robby agrees to do it. There's *another* montage where nothing happens. Upstairs, Robby is alone. Wasn't Franklin the one who wanted them to stay together? He hears a noise and turns around to find the chandelier swinging. A door slams so he turns around again. Then, he calls out for Gary. He continues to move around. He turns around and the door he opened is now closed. There's another noise, and the window is open. This could be creepy, but Robby just seems bored. There's some padding as he wanders around. Then he goes into the bedroom and turns on the lamp, which electrocutes him. There's another montage of mounted cameras. Nothing happens. (Seriously, I'm just copying and pasting that now. Which means I've essentially sunk to the movie's level.) Robby is in the lav with Gary. He's making fun of Robby. Electrocution is kinda a big deal. I know he wasn't zapped too badly, but one shakes for a while afterwards. (I will save you from the explanation as to why. Also, I'll skip the explanation of why I know this, but it was another incident where everyone over-reacted and decided to act like big babies.) Wow. That's a fairly major typo, guys. Franklin and Lena are listening to the audio from the basement. They've found one EVP on it. It legitimately sounds like “Kiss my ass.” Everybody's excited except Janina. She thinks Gacy is going to start attacking them, because when she was bored in the basement, she did a couple of casts. The first one returned a nonsense word that means “Ultimate Power;” the second returned an even stupider word that means “Don't go forward.” Robby thinks that's a good sign so they devolve into arguing. Mike just keeps yelling that he's in charge and everyone should listen to him. Eventually, he calls them all paranoid and says they should ignore the rest of the house in favour of the basement. Never mind the fact (if you count lights and the dishcloth) there have been seven incidents. One in the basement, two in the dining room kitchen, and all the rest in the upstairs bedroom. Mike isn't very intelligent. Back in the plot, Gary tries to say something (possibly what I pointed out), but they devolve into yelling again. Eventually, Mike yells that “kiss my ass” was Gacy's last words. This stuns everyone enough for Franklin to tell them to go ahead with the investigation but be careful. In the bedroom, the comforter jumpcuts its way across the bed. In the basement, everyone is there. Mike wasn't kidding when he said he wanted everyone to concentrate on one room. They're doing EVP and K2 meter readings as Janina does some more witchcraft. Lots of nothing happens. Robby lifts Janina up so she can put her herbs into the crawlspace. As she disappears, Mike starts splitting the team up. However, it's really hard to figure out who's going where as he's just pointing at people who are out-of-frame. Janina returns from the crawlspace perfectly fine, which is a bit of a let down considering how often they've talked about it. Upstairs, the comforter jumpcuts some more. Then the camera cuts to a blue screen. Can I just say this editing makes no sense? Supposedly the police edited this for evidence. Which means all the nothing wouldn't be included as only the bits where stuff happens would be necessary for evidence. From a film perspective, the character building does make sense, but a lot of the other stuff doesn't. Show the comforter moving once or twice, not every five minutes. And all the mounted camera shots of nothing happening is only useful if something happens later on. Back in the plot, Tessa and Gary are in the basement. They're doing nothing important. On the ground floor, Lena and Franklin are looking at the screens as Robby films them. Franklin smacks the monitor around for a bit before complaining that the camera in the bedroom keeps cutting out, which would cause the jumpcuts that are moving the comforter. I was surprised that turned out to be on purpose. Robby goes to fix it. Somewhere on the ground floor, Janina and Mike are wandering around. She's using divining rods and asking Loki to make mischief. She stops and tells Mike that the rods aren't working. Since they're used to find places to dig wells, I suppose they wouldn't. She says a bunch of stupid stuff that I'm not going to repeat because I'm not that much of a sadist. Suddenly, Janina screams and falls. Mike rushes to her side, and she pushes him away, running into the chair in the living room. She's bleeding from where her breast has been stabbed. So Mike zooms in until breast fills the whole screen. This actually has a characterization purpose. So the only thing the film got right was this one bit of fanservice. That's an accomplishment. Back in the plot, Janina admits to trying to banish Gacy, which caused him to attack her. Apparently, asking for mischief to happen is secret witch code for “let nothing bad happen.” I kinda agree with Gacy on this one, movie. Upstairs, Robby wanders alone. Again. He checks out the camera and finds the cable isn't connected to anything. Lena takes this opportunity to sneak up on him. Robby closes the door behind her. Lena doesn't want to do anything because the room freaks her out, but Robby points out its the only room without a camera. Except it can't be because the hallway with the closed door at the end shows five rooms and the bedroom is underneath that camera. I don't remember seeing angles in any of those rooms, and there's not even a monitor for any of them. So there's lots of rooms without cameras, but if they go into one of those, we'll miss out on seeing the sex scene. There's a montage of mounted cameras, which includes Janina talking, but she can't be heard due to background noise. There's nothing happening anywhere in the house. Somehow, the bedroom camera turns itself back on. Which is difficult since the end of the cable is dangling about a foot from where it should be connected. I guess Gacy wanted Franklin to see the sex scene. In the basement, Gary climbs into the crawlspace with the infrared camera. This is another thing that isn't explained. Due to being energy beings, ghosts are supposed to drain heat from the surrounding air making them appear colder, or in this movie hotter. There's a weird shot where the regular camera is filming the infrared rather than us looking at infrared footage. A loud noise causes Gary to scramble out of the crawlspace. Tessa can't tell where it came from so she tries to get some EVP. After a bit, she begins naming victims, which Gary calls a little creepy. Almost immediately after, he freaks out because “something caressed [his] back. That was a little – a little messed up.” Then he curses and runs from the room. I would think the talking and running would happen simultaneously, but maybe the ghost did something after to directly caused the panic. In the kitchen/dining room, Gary sets the camera on the table, and a weird splotch appears in the centre of the film. Tessa talks Gary into going upstairs to the attic to check it out. This kind of stupidity is why people die in ghost movies. They head upstairs, Gary more reluctantly than Tessa. The bits where he walks up or down the stairs really make me nauseous; this is a prime example of that because the camera is even more bouncy than usual. Apparently, the attic staircase is in the bathroom! If this house was over 100 years old, that makes sense, but since it was supposedly built in 1982, it's just stupid. The camera cuts to black, but Tessa is yelling at Gary to wake up. From another angle, Gary is lying on the floor whilst Tessa talks about how he's freezing. Suddenly, there's a noise and running, and I have absolutely no idea what's going on. Gary is sitting next to the fire, wrapped up in a blanket, but he doesn't know what happened. Lena complains to Robby that he scratched her too hard. He doesn't know what she's talking about so she shows everyone her back. The effect isn't bad. Until the light hits her at the right angle, then one can see the glue and plastic edges. Lena sits down in the lone chair as Janina checks Robby's fingernails. They're clean so Lena gets hysterical and announces that she wants to go home. Janina explains she can't drive until she calms down. So she falls out of the chair. Lena's convinced something pulled her out of the chair, but the others feel otherwise. The camera angle suddenly changes to show the fireplace and the audio of Lena storming out played over it. Robby follows her, and they talk. He's holding a camera, but instead we're seeing this from another handheld. Robby wants her to calm down; she really, really wants to just abandon the shit out of her friends. They head out of the house, presumably because of mysterious cameraperson, but that doesn't deter him/her. (I feel like it's Mike just because he's the sort of dick who would do this.) Robby tries to get her to think rationally, but she refuses to go back in the house. As the team interviews, random clips from the mounted cameras of nothing happening are interspersed, including moments when the audio is dubbed over it. Because the cops would take the time to do this. Franklin interviews that they've seen some weird things. Glad he pointed that out; I wouldn't have noticed. Mike talks about how “we're getting some great stuff.” AGAIN. Tessa thinks that whatever is happening should be left alone. Robby calls the phenomena unexplained. Gary is really confused. He doesn't know what's going on or what to believe. Franklin's mounted cameras keep acting weird. He only has one working. The shot of the monitor shows that only camera one is working, and it's showing the fireplace. However, every other shot of the monitor has had camera one as the bedroom and the fireplace as camera four. I guess continuity is too much to ask for. Franklin wants Gary to go down to the basement and pull some cables so they can switch stuff out. Understandably, Gary doesn't want to do it, but Franklin guilt trips him into it. In the back of the van, Lena has the camera in her face. She interviews that she can breathe now that she's out of the house, but the audio and video keeps cutting out. She hears a weird noise outside so she goes to investigate it. She's totally going to survive the whole film! Lena finds nothing so she climbs back in the van. The noise continues as the camera cuts to black. A creepy child begins to laugh as a T-rex begins to roar its displeasure. This seems to not freak Lena out, because she yells for Robby to stop it. Totally going to live. There's the sound of a van door opening, and Lena shrieks as the child starts crying and the T-rex eats Lena. At least, that's what it sounds like. One) what's up with the creepy child laughing and crying? John Wayne Gacy wasn't a fan of kids; he preferred teens and young men. Two) the cops have this footage and still consider Lena a suspect? I know they didn't find her body, but there's a noise that's obviously her bones breaking. Also, the fact they didn't find her is a little confusing. Gacy left everybody else but took her with him. Why? There's another random montage where nothing happens. Gary finally begins to head to the basement for Franklin's cables. Seriously? Does the scriptwriter have *any* concept of time? Franklin would not have tried to convince Gary for a full hour! After about fifteen minutes, he'd have been like “Fine! You stay up here with the stuff; I'll grab the cables!” Gary drops his camera when the lights appear to go out. It's not obvious because the mounted camera has night-vision. Then it begins to move. It's not obvious if Gary has ahold of it, but I believe he's too far away to grab it. There's some odd sounds like someone whispering; to be perfectly honest, it actually sounds like Janina rather than a man or any of the victims. We cut to what I think is Gary's camera, which is showing a completely black screen with a weird red symbol in the centre. There's no reason for that symbol to be there, and it's never explained. It's not a magic rune; it's not the supernatural version of “Kilroy wuz here.” It just exists. The light suddenly turns back on. Gary's camera jerks so he screams, grabs it, and runs back upstairs. I have to pause the movie to keep from throwing up due to motion sickness. As Gary runs to find Franklin, papers blow around. OMG! The serial killer rapist turned ghost has the power of wind! All he needs is four more people, and he can summon Captain Planet! Back in the plot, Gary tries to tell everyone why he freaked out, but they're too busy yelling at each to pay him any attention. I'm not even sure why everybody is yelling. Janina tells them to calm down because Gacy can feed on their high energy, which will make the haunting worse. As they begin to calm down, the lights cut out. Gary yells “It's the weird shit!” Which makes no sense. Robby replies that it's probably the fuses since the house is so old. Yeah, 1982 was an insanely long time ago; no one is alive today who lived in that year. Robby, Mike, and Gary head into the kitchen/dining room in order to go check out the fuses in the basement. Gary finally convinces them to listen to him and tells them what happened to him in the basement. Robby says the wind did it. (WTF are hokey pokey noises? Did the ghost tell him to put his right arm in and shake it all about?) Gary thinks it's starting to get dangerous and they should leave. Robby calls him irrational, and Mike tells everyone to stop yelling. They weren't actually yelling this time, but at least, he's finally starting to act like he's in charge. Gary refuses to go with them, and Robby and Mike descend into the basement to look for the fuse box. Robby calls the house old again, and they can't find the fuse box. It isn't obvious what they're doing because of how dark the basement is. Apparently, the fuse box is in the attic. Robby calls the house old once again, which it isn't. Mike begins to play with the fuse box. Robby tells him that fuses blow all the time in old houses and old houses tend to be draughty, which explains Gary's incident in the basement. And I lose it. You're older than the house, Robby! You were born in 1972; the house was built in 1982! Who's old now, bitch?!? Back in the plot, nothing happens. There's another montage, which amounts to nothing, and Franklin shows Mike and Robby the footage Gary got from the basement, which consists almost entirely of that weird red symbol. The trio decide it's not definitive. Robby wants to do one more sweep of the house in hopes of finding something definitive. (Okay, I give Fankhauser credit for knowing what “definitive” means, but he has used it twice in as many minutes.) Gary, Janina, and Tessa think they shouldn't do it. Gary even asks what happened to Lena. Mike puts his foot up on the armrest of the sole chair in order to give an “uplifting speech.” There's no reason for it, and it looks uncomfortable. Mike says they've got great stuff but it's not enough. Tessa asks when it'll be enough. He yells at them that he wants to do just one more sweep. Janina says fine, but Well, that was abrupt. Franklin interviews that some of the things he's seen are disturbing and he's trying hard to keep a good attitude and scientific mind. Gary interviews that he doesn't know what to believe anymore. He can't tell what's real. Franklin interviews that he'd feel bad if anything happened since the team is made up of great people. Tessa is crying. Mike is just angry. There's no explanation for it, he's just furious. Tessa vows to never do anything like this again. Despite constantly acting like this is stupid and she's not buying into it when she's not in the interview room. Movie, have you ever heard of continuity of character? Robby and Mike discuss why Mike hired Janina in the first place. It amounts to her being hot. Told you the extreme close-up of her breast was characterization. They split up. Mike goes upstairs to sit in front of the open door at the end of the hall and do...something to the camera. He vows to never hire a psychic again; that's probably a good idea since the movie seems to want us to believe that Janina's presence is what brought the ghost. Robby goes into the basement to get “away from the crazies.” Once he gets down there, the weird whispering not!Janina voice begins to whisper again. Robby responds by...spinning in circles and muttering under his breath that he needs to stay calm. He decides to check out the crawlspace despite nothing happening with it once in this whole damn movie. Seriously, if the epicentre of your horror film is the basement, something needs to happen in the basement! I'm not entirely sure what Robby is doing in the crawlspace, but Darth Vader stops by to breath at him for a bit. This freaks him out enough that he calls out and begins to panic. He's totally going to live, you guys! The crying kid and T-rex come back, causing Robby to completely lose his mess and run upstairs. Meanwhile, Janina, Gary, and Tessa are in the attic. Janina wants them to help her perform a spell to send Gacy back to hell. There's a fairly elaborate alter up there with runes drawn on the floor and candles. Movie, stop doing my job for me! Seriously, though, when did she set that shit up? It would've been nice to see that instead of any of the 17 different shots of nothing happening at the garden path. Also, she was never alone at any point, and I'm fairly certain Mike would've been like, “Uh. Watcha doin'?” if he had seen her setting up an alter in the attic. Back in what little plot there is, Janina informs them she'll be doing a “Fireball Protection Spell” to protect them from Gacy. Um, Janina, sweetie, LARP is on Wednesdays; this is serious. She tells them that she couldn't find a black candle so she just wrapped a white one in gaffer's tape; Gary looks at her like she's insane and asks how that's supposed to help. On the ground floor, Franklin just wanders around. He's not doing his job, but he's not doing anything either. Robby is sitting in the interview room with his camera in his face as he freaks out. Oh crap! It's a second The Blair Witch Project reference! Franklin bursts into the room, freaking out, and says he's shutting everything down. He and Robby go to pack up the equipment. Upstairs, Michael is still crouched in the doorway, doing something to the camera. (This is shown through the mounted camera. All this set-up was to show us something happening *with a character in the shot!*) According to the time stamp, he's been at this for 30 minutes. It's not worth it, dude. We'll just fix it in post. He panics upon seeing an image in his camera. Unfortunately, the cops helpfully edited it into the video. I say “unfortunately” because it's (presumably) Gacy in a wife-beater and tighty-whiteys. My immediate reaction was a pained “AGH!” choked by hysterical laughter. It's simultaneously hilarious and hideous. The crying T-rex comes back. Mike is pulled into the door behind him, which slams shut. Screaming ensues. In the attic, Janina is telling everyone to concentrate on their root chakra. What is it with her obsession with the other character's genitals? She tells them to make sure their feet are connected to the wooden floor, which is full of energy. They need to push all their power into the wood and say “May his evil self be his own undoing.” I'm fairly certain they're supposed to be barefoot for this, but I want them to die. They do this for a bit until Gary is actually the only person saying anything, but Janina is doing all the weird spell motions, which I guess counts for something. If she didn't constantly screw up. Janina gets dragged out of the circle, screaming. Then she's suddenly topless. Did Gacy rip her shirt off? What happened to her cami? It was underneath the button-up about five minutes ago. Janina keeps yelling the spell, but Gary and Tessa freak out. This causes Darth and crying T-rex to visit. There's a lot of jumbled shots, until Tessa focuses on unders!Gacy who advances on her. I'll admit that this is legitimately creepy, though, it's undercut a bit by the fact that he's in his underclothing. Do ghosts even need unders? Back in the plot, there's screaming, and Gary bails. Instead of fleeing from the house like an intelligent person, he runs into the bedroom. You know, the *actual* epicentre of the haunting! Why did that seem like a good idea, Gary? He agrees with me and walks through the door. Into the bedroom. He does this a few times, and I'll admit that it's actually creepy. There should've been more of this and less of the whole “There's a path in the garden!” stuff. The mounted camera in the bedroom shows Gary in the foetal position on the floor as a child's shadow runs away from him. Also legitimately creepy. Don't worry, the movie's not going to be competent much longer. Gary manages to make it out into the hallway...somehow. It cuts from him in the foetal position to him walking down the hallway. He finds Mike. Who is in clown makeup. It's HILARIOUS! I had to pause the movie I was laughing so hard. There's another montage. Nothing happens. Other than smashing the momentum of the climax. Seriously? Can the crew not keep anything straight? CONTINUITY, motherfuckers! Do you speak it?!? In the living room, Franklin and Robby are breaking down the equipment when they're thrown to the ground. (Did they not think “Hey, we should tell everybody else we're leaving?”) Gary bursts into the room and is lifted into the air by his hoodie. Told you that was coming back. Then his trousers fly off. It shouldn't be hilarious, but it is. Gary is pulled from the room and into the basement. When Franklin and Robby break down the door, shadows begin to ooze out of the basement. A shadow!person runs away from the door in a hilariously awkward manner. The camera begins to freak out, and underneath the static are shots of a man in clown makeup. This manages to actually be creepy. The camera cuts to black. The cops decided to helpfully add the autopsy reports onto the end of the video. I'm just going to give the important info. Michael Harry Lewis. Age: 35. Cause of Death: Hyperthermia. (Fun fact: this is an extremely elevated body temperature. I bet they meant hypothermia but will give them the benefit of the doubt.) Dr. Roger James Franklin. Age 52. CoD: Asphyxiation. Gary Elias Gold. Age: 23. CoD: Asphyxiation. Pathological Diagnoses: “1 Brain Hemorrhage due to: A. Blunt force to back of skull 2. Asphyxiation due to: A. Obstruction in the mouth and trachea 3. Global lacerations and extensive body mutilation 4. Massive trauma to inner rectal wall and surrounding areas” (GAH! Number 2 and 4 on this autopsy report are far more terrifying than the film!) Janina Marie Peslo. Age: 38. CoD: Asphyxiation. Robert James Williams Age: 38 CoD: Cardiac – pulmonary sarcoidosis. (So he wasn't actually killed by Gacy, which is a bit disappointing.) Tessa Jane Escobar. Age: 31. CoD: Asphyxiation. Then the tape reads, “The remains of Lena Susan Russell were never recovered. A missing persons file is still open. If you have any information as to the whereabouts or status of Lena Susan Russell please contact the Des Plaines Police Department.” and gives the preliminary text screens again. Including referring to a G.E. Goldstein. I don't even care anymore. “Footage Courtesy of The Des Plaines Police Department.” who edited a video for jurors to watch when there isn't a suspect. “(c) 2010 The Global Asylum.” SHIT, this was an Asylum film! They're sneaky like that. 8213: Gacy House is incredibly boring. The vast majority of the run time is made up of nothing happening. This is really sad because the climax showed real potential. In those five minutes, I wrote “that's legitimately creepy” about five times. If the crew had shown that much care in the rest of the film, this could've been on the same level of The Blair Witch Project and Paranormal Activity. That is, terrifying if you have a good imagination and a healthy fear of the supernatural. Instead, it ended up being a confusing, boring mess. Everyone I was watching it with actually left the room due to boredom. I know I've mentioned it before, but the premise doesn't even make sense. Why would the cops edit all this boring nothing into a video that they're not even going to present to jurors because their suspect is missing, presumed dead? The cops wouldn't have gone to the trouble for most of this. (Though, it is kinda brilliant in a fridge sort of way. Why did all the editing suck? Because an untrained cop did it.) Due to the lack of plot, the technical failures of this film really stand out. Simple things like mounting what is essentially a ghost security camera are poorly done. There's also massive continuity issues. Tessa, Franklin, Gary, and Lena aren't a normal part of the team, but Franklin appears to be in charge (despite Mike's repeated claims otherwise), Lena and Robby are in a committed enough relationship to be living together, and Gary makes references to previous investigations. Tessa serves no purpose other than being someone else to hold a camera. I can't really remember her character, which is appropriate because it seems Fankhauser couldn't either. Janina alternates between being creepy (“Here's my neighbour's shirt!”) and stupid (“It's awesome, but it's not.”) And her understanding of witchcraft is laughable. For example, asking Loki to make mischief as part of a banishment spell. Mike is far too excitable to be a real paranormal investigator, and Robby is incredibly unprofessional. There's also the fact that the relatives of Gacy's victims? Still alive! Fortunately, this is a crappy direct to video movie that no one would recommend except as a remedy to insomnia. That doesn't stop it from being incredibly offensive and inappropriate. I know I sound like a hypocrite, but a horror film about H. H. Holmes would be fine; the one about Gacy is squicktastic. The difference is time. All of Holmes' victims have no living relatives who grieve for them. The same cannot be said of Gacy's victims. I don't recommend this movie. There are a few creepy and hilarious moments, but to get to the good bits, one has to sit through 80 minutes of nothing happening.“On March 13, 1980 John Wayne Gacy Jr. was convicted for the murder of 33 adolescent boys. On May 10, 1994 Gacy was put to death by lethal injection. Gacy's former residence, located at 8213 West Summerdale Avenue was demolished on May 3rd, 1979. A house was rebuilt on the site three years later. On June 3rd, 2002 the property was abandoned. The house has remained vacant since. On March 06, 2006 six bodies were found inside the house along with the following footage.”
“We are not calling a friend; we are calling an unknown. We are calling John Wayne Gacy [pause] Junior.”-The World's Most Competent Psychic
“It could be a spirit; it could be Gacy; it could be Loki. I don't know.”-Janina Being Helpful
“Is anybody up here?”-Robby's Death Wish
“It's awesome, but it's not.”-Sense?
“This isn't like our last shoot with the hokey pokey noises and creeps. There's some wild stuff going on.”-Guy Who Was Implied to Have Never Worked With Them Before
Janina: “I've began setting this up.”Gary: “When did you set all this shit up?”
#2010#american#horror#review
