Worth Mentioning - He Gave His Life to the Movies

We watch several movies a week. Every Friday, we'll talk a little about some of the movies we watched that we felt were Worth Mentioning. 

Thornton, Paxton, Englund, and star-studded obscurity.

ONE FALSE MOVE (1991)

Billy Bob Thornton is an interesting success story, an actor who has an incredible career even though he has never lost his thick Arkansas accent and isn’t particularly nice to look at – in fact, he often seems to be oozing sleaziness. Which is fine, because he tends to play very unpleasant, sleazy characters. He has been acting on screen since the mid-1980s, working at first in low budget horror movies, TV shows, and oddball indies. The 1991 crime thriller is considered to be a breakthrough project for him, because he not only plays one of the main characters – a very unpleasant, sleazy fellow named Ray – but he also wrote the screenplay with Tom Epperson.

Directed by first-timer Carl Franklin, the story begins with Ray and his cold-blooded associate Pluto (Michael Beach) killing multiple people in Los Angeles while on a quest for cocaine and cash, with Ray’s overwhelmed, out of her element girlfriend Fantasia (Thornton’s then-wife Cynda Williams) watching from the sidelines. Ray and Pluto plan to sell the cocaine to a buyer in Houston, and while they carry out their business deal Fantasia is planning to head to her hometown of Star City, Arkansas to visit family. Unfortunately for them, there was a VHS camera running in one of their crime scenes that picked up reference to Fantasia’s Star City plans, so the authorities know exactly where she’s going.

LAPD Detectives Cole (Jim Metzler) and McFeely (Earl Billings) go to Star City to wait for Fantasia to show up – and while they wait, they work alongside the local Chief of Police, Dale "Hurricane" Dixon. And while One False Move was a breakthrough for Thornton, it’s Bill Paxton as Hurricane who really shines in this movie. Not much happens in Star City, so Hurricane is very excited to know there’s action heading to his town and enthusiastic about working with the big city detectives. Not realizing that they’re laughing at his enthusiasm and small town ways behind his back. But there’s depth and secrets beneath Hurricane’s good-natured yokel exterior, and things take a complicated turn when Hurricane finds out Fantasia’s true identity. Her knew her before she left Star City... in fact, he knew her a little too well, given that he was hanging out with her when he had a wife and child waiting at home for him.

One False Move is a really interesting film that features some very dark, disturbing scenes. Paxton gave some great performances over the course of a career that was cut short when he died at way too young of an age (he was only 61 when he passed away in 2017), and Hurricane ranks as one of his best. The movie didn’t have much of a release and made less at the box office than its low budget, but it has deservedly gathered a cult following over the decades and is definitely worth checking out if you’re a fan of Thornton, Paxton, and/or crime thrillers.

THE LAST SHOWING (2014)

With the Nightmare on Elm Street franchise, Robert Englund achieved genre icon status by starring in some of the most popular horror movies ever made... but the guy has done a lot of work beyond Elm Street, and some of the movies he has starred in have slipped through the cracks here and there. One film he made that he really wishes more people had seen is the 2014 thriller The Last Showing – and I have to agree with him, the movie really is worth seeking out and watching. 

Englund plays Stuart, a man who dedicated decades of his life to projecting movies on film in a British cinema. When the theatre switches over to digital projection, Stuart’s young manager makes him start working clean-up and concession jobs while wearing a silly little hat... a turn of events that Stuart is not happy about at all. He decides he’s going to spice up his life by making his own movie. But rather than write a screenplay and seek funding, he takes the cinéma vérité approach. He’s going to make his own horror movie in the theatre he works in, and the stars will be his manager (not by choice) and a pair of movie-goers he chooses at random: young couple Martin and Allie, played by Finn Jones and Emily Berrington.

Martin and Allie recently met at a Halloween party, and when Allie pulls out two tickets to a midnight screening of The Hills Have Eyes Part 2 during dinner, I’m instantly thinking, “She’s a  keeper.” Never mind the quality of that particular movie. If she wants to go see an ‘80s slasher at midnight, she must be a girl after my own heart. Martin, on the other hand, is reluctant to go and spends the screening complaining about horror movie cliché. It’s his loss. But soon enough the screening has come to an early end and Martin and Allie find that they’re trapped inside the seemingly deserted theatre... and Stuart is about to put them through the wringer.

Writer/director Phil Hawkins did a fine job of crafting this confined space thriller, and while you have to take some leaps of logic to accept that Stuart’s plan work would out in the way it does, the schemes Stuart has come up with do keep the film interesting for its 85 minutes. Englund does strong work as Stuart, delivering a villain performance that is very different from his Freddy Krueger villain performance, and Jones and Berrington also did well with what they were given to work with.

WHISPER (2007)

Another film that seems to have been released straight into obscurity despite having some well known cast members is the 2007 horror movie Whisper – and the actors in this film are so popular, I’m surprised I haven’t heard it referenced at any time in the last sixteen years. I only happened to stumble across it as I was searching for horror movies that take place in a snowy setting.

Unable to secure the $50,000 loan he needs so he can open a diner, Max (Josh Holloway, then in the midst of his run on the hit series Lost) – a felon who is fresh out of prison – and his fiancée Roxanne (Sarah Wayne Callies, who would be starring on The Walking Dead a few years later) agree to join their criminal buddy Sydney (Michael Rooker of Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, The Walking Dead, Guardians of the Galaxy, etc.) and his dimwitted associate Vince (Joel Edgerton of Warrior, The Gift, and the Star Wars franchise) on a kidnapping scheme. Dressed as Santa Claus, Max abducts a young boy named David (Blake Woodruff) from his family’s mansion during a Christmas party, then the team of criminals take him off to a cabin located deep in the snow-shrouded wilderness.

As the police (including Dulé Hill from The West Wing and Psych) try track David and his kidnappers, some very strange things begin to occur in and around that cabin in the woods. Which is surrounded by wolves that seem to be draw to the little hostage. Soon, it becomes clear that David isn’t you’re average little rich kid. He has supernatural powers, which he is able to use to make the situation very bad for his captors.

I’m not saying Whisper is a great horror movie. In fact, it’s rather forgettable; it’s likely to fade from the minds of most viewers pretty quickly. But it’s a decent little flick, and it has a hell of a cast. If you’re a fan of any of the people involved – and I don’t know many who aren’t fans of at least one of the people mentioned in this write-up – it’s worth checking out.

Whisper was directed by Stewart Hendler, who went on to direct the slasher remake Sorority Row, from a screenplay by Christopher Borrelli.