DVD REVIEW: SIMON SAYS
- By Troy Anderson
- Published 09/24/2009
- DVD
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STUDIO: Lionsgate
MSRP: $26.98
RATED: R
RUNNING TIME: 86 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
Commentary
Featurette
Image Gallery
Storyboard Comparisons
The Pitch
Crispin Glover has a killer twin.
Fuck it, stab it, slam it like her name was Lar Park Lincoln.
The Humans
Crispin Glover, Margo Harshman, Blake Lively, Lori Lively and Robyn Lively
The Nutshell
Simon Says is the tale of twins Stanley and Simon. They've noticed a group of five youths venturing into their realm, so this leads to murder and other hi-jinks. The brothers talk like Foghorn Leghorn and the teens only exist to get fucked or get killed. What's so sad about this is William Dear went from directing Harry and the Hendersons to this kind of schlock. It's terrible to see one of the greats fall so low.
The Lowdown
The kids show up in some weird redneck area in the South, where they offer up the dumb shit roster. There's the stoner kid, there's the horny jock and brain dead cheerleader. On the other side, we get the nice girl and the cunt. There's a quick throwback origin for the teenager Stanley and Simon, then we're onto the main story. The main story is virtually a collection of kill scenes where the usual cliches come up. Paintballing deaths, forest mutilation and loss of cell phone signal are to be had.
Simon Says also has a lot of weird choices that made it seem as William Dear was trying to make an artistic horror film. The transfer is plagued by digital noise and poorly shot scenes which desperately try to add a sense of gritty realism. There's also a few call backs to horror movies of the 80s and one semi-clever touchstone to Back to the Future. The purpose of these moments is unclear. Did they really think the audience was going to turn around and get behind the movie because of Zemeckis tinged memories?
The film has its moments. There's a ton of great kills and a handful of tit-enhanced scenes. What made my day was the quick kill for the little white dog. Killing a person is too easy in American cinema, but you've really got to enjoy your work to kill animals onscreen. The level of hand-wringing that such an event can provoke is amazing. When did we hit that point as a country where you can't find true horror in a horror film?
Hopping off the soapbox for a bit, I've just got to scratch my head. The film moves at breakneck speed for its first hour or so, then it just dies. The Final Girl scenes are too much, as Crispin Glover has virtually nothing to act against. I've heard that this film is starting to become a cult hit, yet I can't figure out why. There's nothing here that screams cult following. All I see is Crispin Glover trying to cash a check in the middle of a DTV horror romp.
Simon Says comes to DVD with a standard amount of special features. The A/V Quality is atrocious, as you have a transfer plagued with digital noise. The audio sounds like it was recorded in a tin can that was stuffed up Crispin Glover's ass. What made all of this worse was that the screener disc was in such bad shape that I had to break out my 1997 Panasonic DVD player to find something that would play it. It took 11 players to get this damn disc to work. You made me work too hard, Lionsgate!
The Package
The supplemental material includes some basic featurette about the making of the film. You get a commentary with the cast and there's a rather neat look at the storyboarding process. Though, it's not too hard to see how everything that was planned made it to the screen. There's an image gallery included, but most people don't really care about that. Only the curious should rent it.
You're doing it wrong.
4.5 out of 10
