Crap After Dark: The Hamiltons

All of the good stuff comes out After Dark, right?  The After Dark Horrorfest started out in 2006 as an odd marketing gimmick.  The idea- see movies that the studios 'wouldn't release.'  That's a half-truth, really.  While I don't doubt that many Studios didn't want to buy and release many of these films, it was not because they were 'too extreme.'  Realistically, these are low-budget horror films with dark content and no stars, usually, to help sell it.  These films don't necessarily 'break the mold' or 'push boundaries'- they're just hard-sells.  In the ensuing years, Studios have even released Direct-to-Video films as part of it, like The Butterfly Effect 3.  To begin this truncated look at some of the early films in the series, a generic sounding movie that doesn't do a lot to prove me wrong.  It's plain, but tries to appear weird.  It's not scary, but insists that it is.  It's plot is not that interesting, but it really wants you to think that it is.  Is The Hamiltons a post-modern, clever horror film that bucks conventions in favor of a unique flavor?  No.  To see why I feel that way, read on...

This is our lead.  He's the youngest member of the Hamiltons.  He's our narrator...for about three scenes.  Most films get that straightened, but not this film.  It's edgy!

The second-oldest member of the clan grabs two young ladies from a dive bar and locks them up in the basement.  Why?  You'll see...

Our hero has misgivings about what the family does.  What do they do?  Despite the fact that he knows and he's our sometimes Narrator, he's not telling.  That's called cheating, movie.

Will he actually be pro-active or just linger about and mope?  This is the burning question raised by this movie.  Wake me when the character develops even slightly.

One thing to know about The Hamiltons is that anyone you see that is not from the family is probably going to die.  Even random characters like this teenage girl who hangs out with the sister...despite her being about 29 years old.

In The End, our hero gives into his blood-lust.  Yeah, I guess they're all vampires...or something.  They have sharp teeth and drink blood, but also walk out in the sun.  One mystery left...

That monster in the closet the whole time- a little kid vampire/cannibal/whatever.  Yeah, saw that coming.  With no repercussions, the family moves on to a new location with a new name.  The End.

Wake me when this movie gets a point!  Let me get this out of the way- there's nothing terrible about this movie.  There's a lot of it that's not interesting, however, and that's the bigger issue.  This movie has very little to actually do.  The ladies are captured very early and just kind of hang out in the basement.  Who signs on for a movie where they stay chained in the dark and whine?  Seems like a loser of a role to me!  One big problem I touched upon earlier is how the movie cheats.  They establish that the youngest kid- that we know of at that point- is the Narrator, but he's also a character.  They don't use the 'Unreliable Narrator' trope- that would be interesting.  Instead, they use the little-seen 'Disinterested Narrator' trope- one that I just made up.  Like the obscure little 'gem' Monster Hunter, this movie plays with the idea of telling you the whole story, but won't.  That film was made as a 'Documentary' made after the fact, but chose to show you all of the events in order.  This means that the movie just blatantly withholds information from you- the jerk.  There's no better way to insult your audience than to just not tell them something because you chose to stick to a silly idea & wrote yourself into a corner.  The Hamiltons, as I said, is not a terrible movie.  It's just a movie with not much to say or do that drags its feet giving you that little amount.  On the plus side, it has a Cop who is even less believable than Asia Argento...

Next up, I take a break from all of this horror stuff to celebrate the site's anniversary.  After three years, do I still have new ideas?  Stay tuned...