GORE IN THE STORE
REVIEWS BY FANS FOR FANS
5 STAR FAB - 1 STAR RUBBISH

The Hole
Outcast
Outcast
(Second Opinion)
Choose
Resident Evil: Afterlife
Mirrors 2
Puppet Master - Axis of Evil
Deadly Crossing
Death Race 2
The Last Exorcism
The Last Exorcism
(Second Opinion)
The Expendables
The Chatroom
The Garbage Pail Kids Movie
The Twilight Saga: Eclipse
Splice
Peeping Tom - Re-issue
A Town Called Panic
A Nightmare On Elm Street
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed 2
Night of the Demons
Lawnmower Man (Blu-ray)
Siege of the Dead
Psych 9
Big Tits Zombie
Exquisite Corpse
The Collector
The Collector
(Second Opinion)
The Tortured
Zombies of Mass Destruction
Tears For Sale
Higanjima: Escape From
Vampire Island
I Spit On YOur Grave (1978)
Twelve (XII)
Dead Cert
[REC] 2
Mother
Killer Pad
Rin – Daughters of Mnemosyne
Death Tube
Death Tube
(Second Opinion)
7 Days
Death Note
Beyond The Rave
Hunter Prey
7th Dimension
Army of the Dead
Splintered
Basement
Meat Grinder
14 Blades
Manson Girl
The Blackout
The Torment
The Torment
(Second Opinion)
Hierro
Psycho - Blu-Ray
Pet Shop of Horrors
Kaiji:
The Ultimate Gambler
Shelter
Fullmetal Alchemist:
Brotherhood Part 1
The Final
Bubba Ho Tep - Blu-Ray
Picnic at Hanging Rock
Vampire
The Dead
Resurrecting
The Street Walker
The Haunting Of
Molly Hartley
Soul Eater: Part One
Rozen Maiden:
Traumend Vol. One
Bikini Girls On Ice
Diary of a Bad Lad
Satan's Baby Doll
Feast 111
Phobia
A Lizard in a Woman's Skin
Valhalla Rising
City of the Living Dead
Dorothy
Daybreakers
Daybreakers
(Second Opinion)
Harpoon: The Reykjavik Whale
Watching Massacre
Harpoon:The Reykjavik Whale
Watching Massacre
(Second Opinion)
Feast 3:The Happy Finnish
Raging Phoenix
His Name Was Jason
Left Bank
Ju-On: White Ghost/White Ghost
Spiral
Ghost Machine
Stag Night
Bitch Slap
The Descent 2
The Descent 2-Second opinion
Dance of The Dead
Henry Lee Lucas: Serial Killer
House Of The Devil
The Twilight Saga
New Moon
Salvage
Salvage-Second opinion
Dread
The Haunted World of
El Superbeasto
Saw VI
The Horseman
Triangle-Second opinion
Triangle
Cabin Fever 2-Third opinion
Cabin Fever 2-Second opinion
Cabin Fever 2
Stan Helsing
Pandorum
Pandorum-Second opinion
Open Graves
Paranormal Activity
Growth
Growth-Second opinion
Train
Antichrist
Wrong Turn 3
Coffin Rock
Orphan
Sorority Row
Drag Me to Hell
Staunton Hill
Summer Moon
Driftwood
Messengers 2

 

Directed by Hideo Nakata. Starring Aaron Johnson, Imogen Poots, Matthew Beard, Hannah Murray, Daniel Kaluuya. Drama/thriller, UK, 97min. - In cinemas 22nd December.

Teens Jim, Eva, Emily and Mo meet William online through an internet chatroom he has created. Attracted by his charisma and fashionably nihilistic worldview they begin to meet regularly. But William is a damaged goods. Displacing his resentment of his famous and successful mother (the author of a series of super-successful children’s novels) and stepfather into an unhealthy obsession with the darker corners of the internet.

Once William identifies his new friend’s vulnerabilities he begins to play subtle psychological games with the group. When Jim reveals he is on anti depressants due to a childhood trauma William begins an insidious campaign to push the young man towards suicide.

CHATROOM aught to be heralded with some excitement in the genre community, being that it is the new film from director Hideo Nakata who brought us the J-horror classics RINGU (THE RING) and DARK WATER. However after a poor reception at this year’s Cannes Film Festival the finally arrives on UK screens trailing bad festival buzz. Even the film’s financier Film Four has buried any mention of it on their website, suspicious no?

There’s a reasonably tasty idea for a thriller here, but one with some challenges. Most obviously that much of the action takes place on the internet, between characters who do not meet face to face. How will the film tackle this issue? Well whatever solution you can think of it’s probably better than what Nakata and screenwriter Enda Walsh have come up with, which is to visualise the internet as a kind of dirty hotel corridor along which are rooms in which net users congregate to chat. This is a theatrical gimmick worthy of an impoverished university drama society. It’s a device that just does not work in filmic terms. It’s no surprise when the end credits reveal the film is based on a Walsh's 2005 play.

The film’s problems don’t end there. The female characters are horribly underwritten, Imogen Poots’ spoilt little rich girl is unmotivated and shallow, and SKINs actress Hannah Murray’s character barely registers. The performances of the young cast (with the exception of Matthew Beard who plays Jim) feel off.

But the chief issue is a stilted script. Imagine if you will that you have a time machine. Now travel back to the 1950s and describe the internet to a TV screenwriter, ask him to draw a picture of it, nip back to the present, fax the picture to Japan, have it described back to you in Japanese prose, and then run that through Google translator into English. Ta Da, you have the screenplay to Chatroom. Except that you clearly screwed up the date of your return from the past, you left in 1999 you idiot, this is 2010 and no one uses chatrooms now, haven’t you heard of Twitter?

The film eventually trundles its way to a shocking real world climax that is frankly hilariously inept. All it misses is a large clumsy talking dog with a fondness for massive sandwiches.

Sturat Barr.

© London FrightFest Ltd. 2000-2010
__________________________________________________________