20131206: Thriller Review--Lizzie

Lizzie

1. Fundamentals, reception.
1. American live action feature length film 2013, NR, 86 minutes, thriller.
2. IMDB: 2.7/10.0 from 487 audience ratings. Aspect 1.78
3. Rotten Tomatoes: 'No Reviews Yet...' 0% liked it from 56 audience ratings.
4. Netflix: 2.5/5.0 from 88,301 audience ratings.
5. Directed by: David Dunn Jr
6. Starring: Caitlin Carmichael as Young Lizzy, Amanda Baker as Lizzie Allen, Corbin Benson as Dr. Fredricks, Don Swayze as Daniel Allen, Leif Holt as Jason, Cindy Baer as Lizzie Borden, Shawna Waldron as Maggie.


2. Setup and Plot
1. The film starts with back story told in voice over narration with period 1892 articles such as newspapers and photographs.  It then shifts to the present, say 2013, with what is going on with Lizzie Allen, both now and when she was much younger, say six years old.  She has a therapist, Dr Fredericks, who uses hypnosis, not always with good results.


2. Lizzie lives again in the house where she lived when she was a child.  Dr Fredericks thinks something traumatic happened there when she was young.  She's seeing daydreams and night dreams that are rather horrible.  She has trouble remembering her childhood clearly.


3. Ah, she used to have tea parties with a doll that survived the original Lizzie Borden era.  She drinks a lot of wine and watches scary movies with the boy friend, and does not seem able to get her meds right.  Then she sees (hallucinates) herself introducing the doll, Lucy, to her.  Even worse, she sees the Lizzie Borden figure use an axe to kill her younger self.


4. Dr Fredericks of course associates this with childhood memories and an attempt to resolve them in adulthood.  The next day she goes off on the cable guy, has trouble shaving her legs safely, and hears things go bump in the night.  Jason comes in as a masked burglar, and Lizzie does not take it well. Who would?  Jason starts hearing the bump in the night; he gets out his stashed pistol and barely hides it in the living room.


5. Maggie is Lizzie's new neighbor.  She tries to help Lizzie break into part of the basement that the cable guy could not get to.  They fail, but it gets Lizzie more comfortable swinging the axe that Maggie picked out.  Jason manages to get into the basement, where he experiences more bump in the night phenomena.  Dr Fredericks drops Lizzie as a patient, since she demands stronger meds, but will not confront her childhood issues.


6. Maggie turns out not to be what she first said she was.  Jason takes a turn for the worse, and Lizzie feels more and more alone.  That is not the worst of it all.


7. Will Lizze resolve her issues?  Is there something supernatural going on here?


3. Conclusions
1. This film was clearly not well received by the public.  Also, for all the scenes of sharpening an axe on a motorised grinder, they might have tried to get it right.  What was depicted every time was how to dull an axe completely.
2. One line summary: Retelling of the Lizzie Borden story is incoherent and badly assembled.
3. One star of five.


4. Scores
1. Cinematography: 5/10  Dark, generally with low contrast, or slightly out of focus.  There's a bit of camera jump as well.  SFX were laughable.


2. Sound: 9/10 Fine. 


3. Acting: 2/10 Most of the minutes of the show have Amanda Baker alone or in frame.  So the movie sinks or swims with her, and I don't believe her performance.  Leif Holt is pretty bad as well.  Corbin Bernson was fine, but he was not onscreen all that much.  Gary Busey has done much better in other movies.


4. Screenplay: 0/10 The past and the present did not blend well here.  For the movie to work, they did need to resolve clearly and effectively.  The retelling of the 1892 story was not put together well either.  The absurd ending was just too much.