Furnace

After just viewing the DVD of THE FURNACE...UNRATED, I suppose I got what I expected - not a whole lot to shout about, but not a complete waste of an hour and a half.

It's got a fairly well known cast, mainly made up of C Listers, Danny Trejo, Tom Sizemore, Michael Pare...and Ja 'Jeffrey Atkins' Rule, where the hell did they drag him up from! (he even has his mug slapped smack bang on the centre of the cover - errr!) - To be fair the acting was OK, could have been a total disaster.

The film has a fairly good atmosphere, just don't expect THE EXORCIST type atmosphere - aim more at the more recent Ghost movies like THE RING. And yet again, what is with this UNRATED tag they keep putting on the covers, there's nothing here that would'nt have been in an 'R' rated version.

I must just finish by saying the make-up effects guys, have done a great job - the burns and gore are actually pretty realistic, just hoped for a bit more on that front.

My advice...whatever you do DO NOT buy this film, unless it's really cheap, give it a rent or wait for Cable/Satellite.

Inmates at the local prison are dying horribly. The local police detective is drawn in to the case after one of the security guards dies (shoots himself) upon going home. Can he, with the help of the prison psychologist, find out what is causing these nasty deaths? And what is in the furnace? I was a bit excited to receive this film. Tom Sizemore? Disposable but fun. Danny Trejo? I'll take him (even though his role here is small and forgettable). I was even more interested because of the involvement of director William Butler, whom I had previously interviewed. To put it lightly, we didn't get along as well as I would have liked. And I really wanted to like his film... but it's not good. I can sum it up in one word: bland. It's the visual equivalent of munching on cardboard. It's slow, the characters are uninteresting and Michael Pare is such a boring lead that I couldn't care about him (and cared even less when he gave his clichéd speech about his lost family).

The film also suffers from a serious woman problem. Let's be frank: when you set a film up with some gorgeous women, throw in a sex scene and label the movie "unrated", people expect to see some skin. Don't get your hopes up. The sex scene has a strategically-placed candle, so you get nothing. And then, one is left to wonder if the main character is blind: he keeps blowing off the smoking hot redhead CSI woman who is interested in him and instead pursues the mediocre psychologist. I speak for every red-blooded male: more screen time for hot women, less screen time for average women. Thank you.

There's a "bad twist" later on. Actually, I don't know if it's a twist or not, but we're given information we should already have known. So, it's either a bad twist or they are insulting our memories and intelligence. As well as our patience, since I suspect many people didn't make it to the end.

The best part of this movie was the special effect used to show the "ghosts". Now, I don't really understand what the deal is with the ghosts... they seem to be unlimited in their travel ability rather than attached to the prison. But nevermind that. The visuals were really cool. They could have been the same old CGI that every other movie uses and frustrates me, but it was something new: a black and white "television static" effect. It was legitimately creepy. So, effects department, my hat's off to you.

This film is avoidable. It's slow, not well-acted (aside from Ja Rule, surprisingly) and adds nothing new to the history of horror. Perhaps with a second viewing I could appreciate it better, but it seems that they took a weak story and stretched it out into a weaker film. You're better off renting just about anything else.

If you like horror movies, here's a good warm-up flick Furnace. It is a mish mash of different ideas and takes on the same things that we have seen in so many other movies. Lets start with the setting, an old prison (wow how imaginative, at least it's not an old hospital, and then continue with the haunting story, a troubled detective and all we need know are some twists in the story that I will leave for you. That being said the movie itself is watchable, that old abandoned section of the prison really looks spooky and the furnace itself is scary as hell. There is that eerie vibe that anything can jump out at any given time, and this is the thing that made the movie good. Actors were mostly C list, with a few exceptions (Tom Sizemore, Michael Paré and Danny Trejo are B's) and they've done their job accordingly.

After a series of strange and mysterious deaths in a maximum security penitentiary Blackgate(what an appropriate name) Detective Michael Turner is called to investigate the case. Although they were attributed to drugs by a Blackgate psychiatrist Dr. Ashley Carter, he senses that something is very wrong. And that feeling increases as he finds out that a recently opened prison block was closed for fifty years because the previous warden was murdered there. It seems that that prison block has a secret that just wants to be discovered and it does not care who is in its path… Check out my review site Rabbit-Reviews for movies that are worth watching, Rabbit out...

There are a couple of things this horror flick has going for it.

Firstly, the story. I have to admit I liked the way they tied Blackgate Prison into the Roanoke disappearances though it could have been a tad bit stronger and crisper - just like the spirit of the dead warden's daughter... The writers, Scott Aronson, William Butler, Angus Houvouras, and Aaron Strongoni add a few twists to this revenge tale.

Secondly, the acting. This is above par, even Ja Rule does a decent portrayal of his character, Terrence Dufresne. The strongest of the cast are Michael Pare, Jenny McShane, Kelly Stables, Tom Sizemore, and Danny Trejo. Since these are all major characters in the film they add both depth and strength.

Unfortunately, neither of these issues could save this film. The major drawback is the direction. William Butler, who directed, does try to add atmosphere and tension but he can't pull it off. The pace is also pretty steady and for this type of story, it doesn't work. It required a more rollercoaster-like form. Faster for the action, slower for the tension, and steady for the rest. Give the audience a ride. It's this tempo and unoriginality in the camera work that makes it more than a little boring at times. Regrettably, even the special effects are so lacklustre they damage the movie. These have to be the worst ghosts-come-spirits ever to be filmed. With a little imagination and ingenuity, this could have been so much better.

I wouldn't recommend anybody buying this film, though if it makes it onto a terrestrial, cable, satellite, or streaming channel and there's nothing else on then go ahead and give it a watch. I would even recommend checking out my Absolute Horror list-come-chart to see where this film places as well as checking out some other films to try.

I can't understand why this is considered "unrated". There was no significant gore, no graphic nudity, no torture....nothing but the typical "R" rated schlock that continues to be churned out by amateur horror filmmakers. Other than about five seconds of the usual boring fake sex footage with the two main characters, there is nothing even really "R" rated in this film. In fact it is a very slow-moving, poorly acted, poorly scripted, tangled mess. The plot is very thin and predictable, the camera work terrible, and it's not the least bit scary. The prison setting (especially the closed-off section) does provide a bit of eerieness, but is otherwise ruined by the above-mentioned flaws. Just another unforgettable movie to throw on the scrap-heap of bad low-budget horror films. 2 stars