Movie 31: The Curse of Downer's Grove

Wait, written by who?!

Starring: Bella Heathcote, Lucas Till, Helen Slater, Penelope Mitchell, Mark L.Young, Tom Arnold, Keven Zegers.

Director: Derick Martini.

I know nothing whatsoever about The Curse of Downer's Grove.  I had read that it was a new movie out on DVD not so long ago with it's name, but knew nothing at all about it.  So, naturally, I plopped down ten bucks to pick it up at the store because I was in the mood to rock something entirely new.  

Imagine my surprise when the cover says it's written by Brett Easton Ellis, which is kinda mind-blowing and only a little daunting.  Ellis is a mixed bag more often than not, and so now I'm wondering just how this is all going to play out.  I'm assuming self-absorbed nihilism and obsession with status, since that's basically all he ever wrote about.  However, I do recall reading something about Ellis wanting to change things up and have more variety to his life, so maybe this will be something exciting and new.  

To be honest, I'm not terribly optimistic, but we'll roll with it and see where we end up.  

Okay, based on the opening narration it's definitely self-absorbed nihilism.  I don't want to type it all out, but we're almost certainly wandering into traditonal Less Than Zero territory.  Mopey teenagers discussing some local curse where a teenager dies before graduation every year...except our first exposure to it is some idiot climbing around on a water tower and falling to his death.  The kids blame the curse...

Sure, if the curse is stupidity.  I mean, that's hardly Final Destination stuff, where someone dies in an impossible freak accident. That is literally teens doing dumb shit that is likely to get you killed.

I think if I were casting a movie that is, apparently, ninety percent voice-over narration...I dunno, I'd cast a Woman with nice voice.  Bella Heathcote just has this throaty, bland voice...it does very little for me.  Actually, all due respect to Ms.Heathcote, she's actually kinda bland all over except for those piercing blue eyes.  

Hey, at least the main character just laid out the problem with the flimsy premise, which I rather like.  "It's all choices!  Climbing a water tower high, bad choice, bad result.  Going home to work on your paper?  Good choice, good result."  Thank you.  Actually, the main character-despite being a tad pretentious and precocious-is actually not bad.  She's smart, occasionally witty, and very formidable with dumb-asses.  She's got a bit of Daria going on.  The voice-over seems to have dropped, too.  Sadly, our leads do go the party with the dumb jocks who acted like assholes anyway...but, hey, this plot isn't gonna unfurl itself...or at all, it's beginning to look like...

Oh, no...movie...I was not in the mood for a rape tonight.  I mean, it isn't surprising, considering the character involved...oh, snap, she gouged his eye!  Awesome!  I take back everything I said about you, Ms.Heathcote.  Actually, I'm beginning to like some things about this movie.  As the jock/rapist gives chase to the leads, she throws a car battery at their vehicle and causes them to crash.  That's amazing.

I'm also at least somewhat happy to see Penelope Mitchell here, too.  She was fun in Hemlock Grove, and was, well, mostly present in The Vampire Diaries.  She's a pretty good actress, though, so glad to see her getting some play.

The voiceover is getting more tedious by the second...but Heathcote is winning me over.  I'm still finding the movie largely uneven and...well, is pointless too harsh sounding?  I don't mean it harshly, really, but it doesn't seem to have much of a point to make.  We have what is basically turning into a stalker film: guy attempts to rape girl(boo!), she gouges out his eye(yay!), and then he tracks her down(after his Dad, Tom Arnold(uh..yay?)throws him in a bathtub) and gets weird.  Somewhere in there is some sort of curse on the town which, so far, is basically background noise save for the heroine basically dismissing it but kinda wondering if maybe she's next...?  For some reason?  I'm sure it will get more relevant(I hope) but for now it's a pretty simple-albeit it worldly and smart in it's depiction of how to deal with these very real situations-teen drama.  

It should be noted that Ellis wrote the screenplay but it's apparently based on a book.

Apparently our rapist goes to a college that doesn't so drug testing for their football stars?  I know, I probably shouldn't quibble on that out of everything else going on.

It's official, though: I am now on board with Bella Heathcote.  She's giving a fine performance and is, despite the movies general schizophrenia, actually pretty well-written and developed.  While flirting with her garage mechanic beau, she actually blushes.  Like a lot.  It seems simple, but I don't recall it happening very frequently.  

There's a lot of honesty to a lot of the performances, actually.  When rapist shows up again during her date with the mechanic, the mechanic has a very real reaction of concern, confusion and anger all at once.  It's actually a pretty good scene.  This movie is becoming altogether about the realities of having a psycho stalker and not so much evil curses.  That isn't to say it's poorly executed, though...it's actually picking up some momentum.  I'm slightly irritated by the cops complete lack of interest in the case due to the rapists Dad being a former cop...I feel like there's a way past that.  Maybe there isn't.  I dunno.  It just feels like a little bit a cop out (see what I did there?).

I don't know why there are these dumb dream sequences (complete with Native Americans because spooky!) and the continued references to the curse.  The curse means absolutely nothing here.  It's adding nothing to the story in any way, shape or form.  It's not creating the desired sense of doom.  The escalating nature of the rapists antics are creating a sufficient sense of suspense, but the curse isn't helping.

Well, the boyfriend did the dumbest thing in all of dumbonia.  Picking a fight with the psychopath while a gaggle of his friends are around might be the most ridiculous thing ever...predictably, he gets his ass kicked...but, surprisingly, not by the group.

Wait, wait, wait, the guy breaks her younger brothers hand in broad daylight (really good scene, by the way:little brother shows some real stones) with a witness and the cops says their hands are tied?  That doesn't make a lot of sense.  But, oh well, we're past it and now we're getting into some intense stuff at the party.  Little brother gets revenge, boyfriend gets revenge (neither on the rapist, but on the rapists buddies, which is cool enough)...and there's a gun, which kinda eliminates some intensity but I suppose it's logical.  Actually the hand to hand stuff is pretty well done.  This climax is being handled pretty strongly overall.  I'm actually a bit more impressed than I thought I'd be.

Chrissie is just kicking all sorts of ass, actually.  This went into revenge movie territory pretty quickly and fairly seamlessly.  Tons of agency for our female lead, which is excellent.  I'm becoming worried about an unearned downer ending, though...really I am. 

Aww, fuck you, movie!  After all of that, with the main character getting through all of this, winning the day, and earning her happy ending you go ahead and pull a lame-ass bullshit move of the geeky best friend murdering her in her front lawn out of nowhere?  Go. To. Hell.

I do like the song during the end credits.  But I'm in a bad mood now. 

Final Thoughts: Well, up until that absolute bullshit ending things worked themselves out surprisingly well.  It really did mostly come from a place of a revenge/stalker movie despite having the silly curse shit dumped through it...but in the end, that ridiculous nihilism just had to win out in the end with an ultimate statement of "No Justice, just nonsense."  To take a resourceful heroine, who won over the hearts and minds of the audience and fully earned respect, and just take it all away from her for some desire to be "dark" and/or "existential" is basically just the poorest writing you can possibly do.  

Final Rating: Two and a Half Stars.  May have made a three without that lousy ending.