SALVAGE

Claire accepts a ride from a stranger who picks her up from work, saying he was sent by her boyfriend Jimmy. After some advances from the driver, Claire gets out of the car and takes refuge in her home, but the man manages to get in and kills her. But it's a nightmare; Claire fell asleep at her workplace. Yet, there's something that doesn't add up—the same nightmare keeps recurring, and the girl starts confusing reality and fantasy. Pedantic, boring, and incoherent. These three adjectives perfectly describe a little film that is as clever as it is empty, a perfect example of how an independent horror film SHOULD NOT be made. "Gruesome", elsewhere known as "Salvage", is the fourth work of Jeff and Josh Crook, two brothers who are usually involved in films that tell the problems of young people immersed in the multicultural underworld of America. This time, with a handful of dollars (about 25,000) and a selection at the Sundance Film Festival in 2006, the two attempt to tackle horror, but it's clear they lack the skills and have no understanding of the genre. "Gruesome" is very short, about 75 minutes, and yet that hour and a quarter seems to last an eternity: watching more or less the same scene repeated several times, lacking rhythm and inventiveness, and enduring mediocre actors saying banalities is really too much. Moreover, the Crook brothers' film has one of those endings so irritating that one suspects the entire film is nothing more than a joke at the expense of the viewer, although the reality probably lies in the duo's inability to give a satisfying conclusion to the messy plot, thus falling into a surprise twist that is not only banal and poorly orchestrated, but gives the viewer the serious impression of having wasted their time. Have you seen those deus ex machina so unbelievable they're stupid and seriously undermine the credibility and the suspension of disbelief for the viewer? Well, "Gruesome" has one of "vaffa..." guaranteed. The actors involved in this film appear very subdued, uninteresting faces in their early stages, and probably with a future (if there is one, cinematically speaking) limited to only indie or TV, starting with the uninvolved and uninvolving protagonist played by the young Lauren Currie Lewis, moving on to Chris Ferry (also the film's producer) who portrays one of the most insipid and boring "villains" seen recently in horror films. The Crook brothers direct with a TV style, never building even the slightest tension, lacking greatly in rhythm, and offering in general a completely anonymous work, moreover disadvantaged by a poverty-stricken packaging that benefits from a very squalid photography. "Gruesome" is therefore a flat, boring, and uninspired film; perhaps someone might be surprised by the - bad - surprise ending, but the fact that the authors ultimately had nothing to say (or if they did, they failed) is the natural conclusion that can be drawn from this work.