Painkillers

This movie sounds interesting but is just so mediocre. The plot synopsis might sound like a horror movie, but it's a drama, could be a TV movie of the week (back when that was a thing): John's addicted, watch his life fall apart, albeit in unusual circumstances. Never mind that his addiction is a doozy that no suburban rehab is going to fix, the potentially novel setup rapidly becomes melodramatic. The story so desperately wants to say something but in the end just meanders through the paces-John not knowing what to do, his friends not helping him, and help coming from the wrong places.

This movie has decent resources-budget, cast, locations-and does so little with it. Many of the set designs were poor, the costuming was off, the characters were unbelievable because the actors had so little to work with. The poster boasts a "special appearance by Mischa Barton" that's nothing special; her agent must've gotten her a hell of a deal for that billing. This must've seemed like a promising project but it just never came together. It was nice to see Madeline Zima from Californication in another role, too bad it was in this.

The trailer is more exciting than the movie. The plot that goes no where!!! Save your 90 min and watch something.

A surgeon fooling around whilst driving crashes his car, killing his young son. He then suffers from a very rare form of PTSD, the only thing that can stop his violent shaking is drinking fresh human blood! I really do not know what the writer was thinking when they came up with this idea. Yes, it is a different, modern take on the vampire story but a ridiculous one at that. I found the acting weak, as is the film as a whole. It plays more like a TV drama than a horror movie. Thankfully it is reasonably short.

'Painkillers' aka 'The Incredible Shaking Man' has a remarkably novel premise, in that it is an entirely toothless Vampire movie that in actuality is no less pallid than the iconic, blood-sucking Mythos it tries so desperately hard to reinvent! 'Fashionably be-stubbled, Daytime TV Handsome Surgeon' suffers a paralyzing, palsy-inducing emotional trauma after surviving a tragic auto accident, only to discover that this ceaselessly excruciating neurological malady is temporarily assuaged by the consumption of human blood; the steamy fresh, wholly organic, ikky-poo variety mind you, absolutely NONE of that Vegan/hybrid muck, thank you very much!!! On the lugubrious evidence of this anemic, torpor-inducing travesty, one sincerely hopes that the timorous filmmaker's egregious plan to spawn a similarly gutless Zombie movie remains no less stillborn than their execrable concept of an entirely fright-less re-make of 'Fright Night', oh...

The pain start when you begin to watch it and by the end you wished you would have just killed yourself....