Direct to DVD Goodness
POLLY – The DVD Review
Review by Dane Marti
“Polly want a cracker?” This old phrase floated into my subconscious a few times while watching, ‘Polly,’ a low budget horror movie.
There are a number of elements within this film that make ‘Polly’ better than many other films of this genre. For instance, the structure is unique and laid-back. It has a detached documentary feel, especially during the first twenty minutes, which makes it seem like we’re looking at actual, true-crime images! These first images are striking and haunting. Some look very realistic.
Directed by Jason Hoover, the film makes good use of its low budget. Falling somewhere between: HENRY PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER, HOSTEL, SAW and other movies which, to me, often seem as much like snuff films as anything else, the film’s main character is a psychopath. No surprise there, right? It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to figure this out. One look at his dumb visage and you can figure out that something isn’t copacetic in his old’ noggin.
Played with subtle menace by Brandon Williamson, the acting works well because we don’t expect the nut to play his role in a Shakespearean mode or like Anthony Hopkins in Silence of the Lambs. He isn’t a great actor, but for this film, and the horror audience, he is good enough! The crazy monster here is so blandly normal, with a beefy, flabby body (it seems so many guys start to bloat up as they enter middle age.), that even when he goes on a handyman job in his neighborhood, the woman who needs his help would never fathom in a million years that the ‘nice guy’ is a very sick pervert. This scene is one of the best in the movie. It is subtle, stark and holds the viewers’ attention; something is definitely going to happen, right? I felt it was a well-filmed and suspenseful moment.
Although the start of the film shows a montage of still images of murder and torture, the bulk of the movie’s story details one woman—Polly—who is trapped and tortured in the basement. She is roped to a chair that resembles something out of a Gothic Horror film.
The film isn’t extraordinary, but there are definitely moments of suspense, with a cinematic attention to detail on the director’s part. For instance: Polly is trapped in the psycho’s basement, but unfortunately for her, the weirdo can have ‘fun’ with her whether he’s literally near her or not: Polly has a sharp hook cutting into the back of her head. A wire runs from the hook and up through the home’s floorboards, across the living room floor, finally winding up in the psycho’s hand while sits in a lounge chair, leisurely enjoying some television. Therefore, when he gently moves the position of his hand, it causes horrible pain for poor Polly downstairs– her distant screams can be heard in the background.
I hated the metal music playing in the background. Luckily, it was often in the background and didn’t overwhelm the movie. It felt cliché to me. It was as if the writer/director, the musicians and psycho were all one and the same person. It needed music that complimented and mimicked the inner workings the madman.
To me, the climactic moments of the film are predictable and life affirming, but after such a grim, cinematic character study, there needed to be a little ‘light’ in the basement. The final moments of the movie aren’t as terrifying when compared to what had gone on before. Plus, some of the acting seems a little forced, motivation for certain behaviors do not seem right. Other viewers might disagree with me. If the director had utilized more Hitchcockian camera placement, storyboarding and editing, there might have been more dynamic tension within the final moments of the film. It’s frustrating for me to write this since much of the movie definitely has clever camera placement and an eerie sense of foreboding, with sick menace right out of camera range.
POLLY is available from JABB Pictures
Visit their website HERE
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