Director: David Moscow
Year: 2018
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Suspense/Thriller
Review:
After a career of nearly thirty years as an actor, David Moscow, who is best known for playing the young Tom Hanks character from Big, decides to step behind the other side of the camera in his directorial debut with the new horror/thriller Desolation. With a theatrical release of January 26, the film starts off his journey behind the camera with
Small-town girl Katie (Dominik García-Lorido, City Island) meets heartthrob actor Jay (Brock Kelly, Pitch Perfect). Jay charms Katie, brings her to L.A. where she falls hard for him. When Jay gets a movie and has to leave town, Katie awaits his return. That’s when everything begins to unravel. Katie is robbed, her keys and wallet taken. When she reports it, the police question and then attack her. Terrified, with no money, and stuck in L.A., she keeps calling her friends at home, but just gets a 'wrong number.' Frantically, she asks Jay to wire her money and come back, but neither he nor the money show. When Katie's hometown newspaper is delivered to her door in L.A., it includes her obituary. And she realizes there is some greater evil at play.
This one ended up being a solid and somewhat decent thriller. It really works nicely at its central premise which is intriguing and wholly enjoyable as the main take on the corruption found in the fast-paced, jet-set Hollywood lifestyle. The glitz, the glamour, the parties and the attention derived from his appearance makes for an enjoyable setup here, especially with the utterly creepy attributes from the apartment building she's staying at and the quiet nature of the tenants that makes for quite a great beginning. With all the weirdness that surrounds her as she continues to stay at the hotel, from the interactions with the priest who lives there to the constant rumblings in the wall and her being unable to contact her friends to the burglary and follow-up abuse that's carried out by the officers, this one definitely feels disturbing at times. That also brings up the frantic and somewhat crazed final half that might be cliched but does offer up some rousing moments to give up a bit to like.
While these work for the film, it does have some major issues. The biggest problem is that the film is way too played out to be this long as the pacing is just utterly atrocious. The initial romance between the two is not in the slightest bit convincing despite them taking up nearly the entire first half of the film and just screams to be a setup as they are such polar opposites from the start that just signals something's not right which really tends to lower the suspense significantly. Likewise, the final reveal is utterly lame and not really worthwhile to wait around for which doesn't really offer up the kind of reveal that's going to end this on a high note. It's incredibly hard to believe that these events play out leading into this cliche revelation that people won't see coming from a mile away which does render this quite lame in the final stretch.
Overview: ** 1/2/5
All-in-all, this is an enjoyable enough thriller that offers some enjoyable moments even though it does suffer from some flaws. It plays more as a thriller than a straight-up horror effort so it's not for those who enjoy that side more than the hardcore genre fans although it remains watchable in the end.
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