The Deaths of Ian Stone

The premise made this look like a distant cousin of movies like Groundhog Day, only that it's more bizarre, and containing an element of gore. Imagine if you wake up but find yourself living a different life from before you slept, not just repeating the last 24 hours. And each iteration actually ends in death, where you feel pain, and knowingly being hunted down. Then you rinse and repeat, with little recollection and little opportunity to figure things out before you get hit again.

Sounds interesting, right? But The Deaths of Ian Stone wasted the premise, and became a very boring movie despite the tense build up. It kept you guessing, until slowly you realize a whole host of clichés start to creep in, especially those pertaining to speeding up the narrative and to provide wholesale, verbatim explanation on things to come. Showing you is not enough, the characters have to blabber repeatedly, and you start to roll your eyes when they beat around the bush for no good reason.

Ian Stone, the titular character, is played by Mike Vogel. A teenage ice hockey jock, things start to go bump for him when he realizes that time will start to freeze, and he finds himself getting thrust forward in time, but not before suffering immense pain from creative death. The only constant that keeps him sane, is the presence of girlfriend Jenny (Christina Cole), who seem to not recognize him in his moment of awareness, as he tries hard to figure out the whos and the whys.

The posters plastered suggest creatures spawned from the imagination of Stan Winston Studio, but to give credit to the plot, it contains something a little more. While you can find little fault with the special effects and Harvester creature design, you will probably laugh at the laziness in costuming, where total rip offs from the Matrix Trilogy were adapted from, with the tight Trinity styled Lycra spandex coming on screen, with the characters' hair slicked back and shades to boot as well.

Of course the theme of love is central to the story (i.e. if you have no theme, you can always fall back on love), as an emotion so powerful it can move mountains and oceans, and with new love come jealousy and envy from those around you, especially from the ones who hold the candle. As mentioned, the movie had promise and an explanation for the strange, but the delivery is suspect, and unfortunately, quite boring. After the first few iterations, you know the idea well has run dry with generic killings, and a whole amalgamation of tools being used concurrently just to inflict pain, but done off-screen. The fight sequences too are terribly bad, with lacklustre punches being thrown around, while brandishing those nicely shaped bladed hands.

The Deaths of Ian Stone is nice to look at at first, but slowly the flaws start to surface, and soon enough you'll realize just how flimsy everything had been put together. Should Harvesters be real, they could feed on the audience's collective fear of the dreadfulness the movie is heading towards. And they will be well fed.

I heard, before I saw this movie, that it was supposedly very much like Dark City. This alone made me actually see it, as Dark City is one of my favourite movies and, in my opinion, not known enough considering how many have borrowed from it aftwerwards.

The idea seemed interesting - One man dies over and over again, only to wake up in a new life. Screams DarkCity right there, but I will have to say that I don't think that's a bad thing.

The first 15 minutes, or so, had me at the edge of my seat, and yes, the first half of the movie is quite brilliant. But when our hero started to figure things out (with a little help from Michael Feast, who always is a joy to watch) the plot started to blur and I found myself playing "spot the movie" instead of paying too much attention to whether poor Ian would make it or not. Because Dario Piana has borrowed a lot. Not that I'm actually bothered by it. In fact, if he had managed to tie it all together in the end, it would have been a beautiful lovechild of Dark City and Jacob's Ladder (and other movies).

But sadly, in the end, the swan became a duckling again, ad it's a shame as this movie had so much potential to be something that I personally would have really enjoyed.

Don't get me wrong, this is not a bad movie, and there are some quite disturbing scenes. It simply feels like they had a lot of grand ideas that they, had no idea what to do with when the clock started to count down towards the end credits.

Even so, The Deaths of Ian Stone is a good second movie from Piara and I'm excited to see what he'll come up with in the future.

Like Lost, and Stephen King's The Dark Tower, the Deaths of Ian Stone does a great job of building up a mysterious story and loads of questions, but sadly doesn't really follow through at the end.

Ian Stone is a ice hockey player that gets hunted down and killed by a strange monster. The next day, he's an office worker who's girlfriend turns into a monster and kills him. The day after that, he's a taxi driver who gets stalked by monsters. The only constant is a blonde girl who turns up in every incarnation. Who is killing him every day and why? And who is the blonde girl?

This was all good stuff up to a point, but when things start being explained, it all becomes a bit ho-hum. Not a bad film, mind, the creatures are pretty good creations, and there's plenty of tension, but I think the film makers were looking towards creating a Clive Barker-like worlds-within-worlds mythology. It didn't quite work. For some reason the baddies all dress like Matrix people. Didn't quite get that bit either.

It's okay, just don't get yourself too excited when watching the first half.

Ian Stone wakes up day after day, only to be killed again and again. He is followed by a group of murderers who disguise themselves, often as important people in his life. And one woman keeps re-appearing that he must protect at all cost: but why is she so important and why do the killers want him dead?

I have seen this film compared to a variety of movies, including "Donnie Darko" (which seems to be a bit of a stretch). My impression was of "Dark City" and to a lesser degree "The Other Side". Regardless, this film does seem to remind people of other films -- which is strange once you realize how completely different this film is from pretty much every other horror film out there.

The downfall of this movie is the fact you are unclear about what is going on and why it is going on, at least at first. Sure, it's not as confusing as trying to read Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" but you will have to have an open mind to get into this, something that many horror fans might not be willing to do. (I freely admit that as much as I love thinking films, some days I just want to see teenagers die in the woods.)

Even after you finally "get it" there remains some mystery. A lot of questions go unanswered that a good audio commentary or a sequel would need to clear up. I'm not sure I'd want to spend much time with either one, though... this film had very little lasting power for me and even less re-watchability. It's deep, romantic and nihilistic to a degree (which I like) but also a bit too dense to become a fan favorite. Yet, as my title says, it really ranks high in the pantheon of Horrorfest options.

I have to praise the special effects and the scenes of "torture". Both were well-done, and not in any way derivative of the other films that I've been subjected to over the past few years. If this film is to be called "low budget" or "independent" (and I believe it is both) then it is setting a standard for others to follow. 2008's Horrorfest will have to release some gems.

I guess I'm suggesting you see this film. I think you'll like it, and even if you never watch it a second time, I think the experience will be worthwhile. All the actors put on a good show as they reappear in multiple worlds (the main character's heroin scene is amazing) and they deserve full credit for carrying this picture.

Ideas are cribbed from the likes of "Groundhog Day" and "The Matrix" (to name just two examples) for this deliberately repetitive horror film. Mike Vogel (the "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" reboot of 2003) stars as the title character, doomed to die and start a new "life" over and over again, until a mysterious "they" can figure out what secret he is hiding from them.

A reasonably interesting story by Brendan Hood (who wrote the 2002 horror flick "They") ultimately suffers from routine, uninspired treatment, although "The Deaths of Ian Stone" is still a notch or two above other features I've seen lately in terms of quality. It suffers from unimaginative looking creatures (not ones that would generate much fright from most viewers), although use of CGI is not inappropriate here. It's not a very colourful picture, yet it is decently shot in widescreen by Stefano Morcaldo.

Vogel gives an effectively grim performance in the lead. He is well supported by two very sexy birds: Jaime Murray ("Botched") as the amusingly named Medea, and appealing Christina Cole ('Suits') as Jenny, the love interest who reappears throughout Ians' various lives. Michael Feast ("Velvet Goldmine") delivers a standout performance as the obligatory exposition provider.

At the very least, "The Deaths of Ian Stone" offers a more ambitious alternative to blander contemporary fare, and it does work better the less you know about its plot going in.

The late, legendary effects maestro Stan Winston was one of the producers.

Six out of 10.