After lots of cryptic movie posters all over the walls in theaters, posters that showed two hands holding a letter, posters that wouldn’t tell a thing to the casual movie-goer, after cryptic television teasers, commercials that gave nothing away but still kept audiences shocked with its atmosphere induced images, and after a really cheesy really bad mock-documentary exploring the “The Buried Secrets of M. Night Shyamalan” which ended up being nothing than a promotional program , director M. Night Shyamalan has again kept audiences wondering, has kept the media guessing, and has kept critics talking.
Director John Eyres does manage to capture the appropriate mood for a film with a concept such as this. The set pieces range from grim, to bleak, to bright, to sometimes very sleek, plus he manages to take an old tired horror device: a dark and stormy forest and manages to make it a bit tense with some suspense clearly evident to the audience awaiting the identity of the killer. Jack the Ripper, the famous or infamous serial killer has been fodder for horror movies for decades, and as always is the case, every new movie attempts to put a different spin on the serial killer, attempts to turn and twist, and flip the serial killer into a new movie, but alas, there are very few movies that can take the most interesting serial killer of all time and turn him into a good film.
Once again, the sorely running on empty creatively Hollywood remakes yet another classic, and there’s plenty more on the way. Sorely lacking in tension, suspense, and atmosphere we now see talented actor Rob Lowe as lead character Ben Mears, an author who returns to his home town of “Jerusalem’s Lot” with much scrutiny from his old friends who disagree with his writing. He has a horrid past in the town experiencing a horrifying incident in an abandoned house in the center of town which everyone always conveniently seems to see in clear view from their window.
