Five young travelers surrender their freedom and identity to a masked god-like vigilante but not without a fight. Director David Schmoeller and DP Nicholas von Sternberg (yes, son of that von Sternberg!) create a classic horror film thick with atmosphere that wastes little time putting our five protagonists in harm's way, with little need for character building or explanation. Utilizing genre tropes, we already “know” this group of innocents that will soon be victimized by some maniac: the tension is in their torture and will to live, their fight for survival against a seemingly omnipotent abuser. Yet this leads me to an interesting analysis if the film.
Though the film expects us to believe that sheer chance brought the victims to the abandoned roadside property after their car breaks down, I believe another explanation can be gleaned from the tale. Maybe it wasn’t fate or coincidence? Where these five summoned back by their creator by some supernatural or elemental power? In Salem’s Lot, the Marsten House is a beacon for evil, its very bedrock summoning the wicked and depraved to haunt its corridors. Here, the attacker has obvious supernatural abilities utilizing telekinesis to move and create objects and give them life. Where these five just mannequin creations who escaped out into the world without realizing what they actually were? Like the classic Twilight Zone episode, THE AFTER HOURS, where a mannequin assumes the identity of a human being for a short time but must return to the department store in order that its cohorts have their chance at life too, however briefly. But she forgets and becomes haunted by terror and angst, her plastic friends now oppressors stealing her life away. Is Slausen turning flesh and blood into plastic, stealing their lives away, or his he cruelly revealing to them their true identity?
The film is ripe with tension and terror, as DP von Sternberg allows darkness to dominate compositions, devouring the victims one-by-one like a sentient and malignant enemy. The score by Pino Donaggio keeps things slightly askew, to expect the unexpected, and ratchets the fear factor up a few notches. Mr. Slausen (Chuck Connors) is a truly inhuman antagonist (though he may be the only human in the story), because he takes pleasure from the sufferings of his creations. His grinning and weathered visage combined with a gentle voice are offset by his barbarity. He is a clockwork god of flesh and blood, chopped down by his own creation: a woman not formed from his rib, but from his workshop. The five escape back into the world, ageless plastic people in a plastic world.
Final Grade: (B)
