Coming to DVD Tuesday, March 17th
Cast:
Mischa Barton as Sam
Deborah Kara Unger as Mary
Cameron Bright as Jimmy
Noam Jenkins as Peter
Shannon Jardine as Maureen
Directed by: Giles Paquet-Brenner
Review:
I offer this up as full disclosure for this review. I was an avid watch of The O. C. Yes, I realize that makes me gay. But I watched it because of one very important reason. I have an unhealthy obsession with Rachel Bilson. Who was one of the stars of the show and was frequently in hot outfits and swimsuits.
So what does that have to do with Walled In? While Rachel was my main adoration, I also grew to enjoy watching Mischa Barton. Sure, sure she had that whole cottage cheese Internet photo controversy and now looks to be becoming one of the members of the Bag of Antlers (Wiki it) club, but back in The O.C. days, she was hot as balls.
So when I saw my DVD of Walled In come in the mail and she was the star, I got a little special feeling as to maybe we’d see some hot moments with her or at the very least some nasty blood-covered moments. Well it did not disappoint in some respects as we get a bath scene, a scene where she has sex, a scene where she’s stripped naked and numerous moments where she is in her underwear. None of which show off the goods, however.
I was also excited because maybe, this would lead to a new career for Mischa. Instead of bit parts on TV shows or having to wade through a variety of stupid romantic comedies, she could be Hollywood’s newest scream queen. Yeah, scratch that. Not gonna happen.
Mischa stars as Sam, a architectural graduate student who is given a demolition job by her father as a graduation present. Unfortunately, the job involves destroying an apartment building that is still occupied by some odd residents all affected by a series of murders that happened 15 years prior where the building’s architect supposedly killed 16 people and walled him into the building itself. Later we learn this was part of some grand scheme to keep the building standing forever as the Egyptians used to do with the pyramids.
The building itself is an anomaly with hidden passages, bizarre hallway structures, a deep pit, labyrinths and eight stories of strangeness. The architect, of course, is alluded to being alive but since they found his body (supposedly) when the building was initially destroyed (and thus how they found the 16 bodies) Sam doesn’t believe it.
Of course, that’s all a lie and one perpetuated by Jimmy (Cameron Bright), a young boy that seems to have an odd fascination with Sam at the beginning and one that leads to an unhealthy obsession. He goes so far as to instigate scare tactics with her such as turning off the lights, leading her to the dreaded eighth floor and filling her head with lies about the building and its founder. Aw, how romantic.
But you see Jimmy isn’t a normal boy. In fact, he’s quite deranged. He not only keeps the old architect (who is indeed alive) in a hole as a pet but he makes him do strange chores that he must follow if he wants to eat and live. The architect also alludes to the fact that maybe Jimmy was the one that walled up all those poor people and blamed it on the architect, who must have helped since he shares the guilt on his face and is altogether just a whack-job and believes the whole bit about the Egyptians.
Obviously, he doesn’t want Sam to leave so how does he get to stay? Traps her in the same pit as the architect after killing her boyfriend. There, Sam is forced to dance, kiss and take off her top (not showing the goods mind you). But it gets better as Sam fashions a bomb out of some drug she happened to be carrying â a sign that those graduate school architecture classes on bomb making really do pay off â and tries to escape by blasting through a wall to another part of the building.
A plan that fails miserably but it alerts Jimmy’s mom, Mary (Deborah Kara Unger), to the fact that maybe something ain’t right in Tuna Town. But instead of doing something to help…she says eh, maybe my son isn’t that evil and just misunderstood and leaves them in the hole to die as the demolition crew shows up to take down the building, burying them alive. I won’t ruin the awful, nonsensical ending but you get the idea.
Walled In looks good and the digital transfer is crisp and clean. As the movie takes place in one building, it was made on a small budget and has that feeling. Mischa is “okay” in the leading role but as a scream queen leaves a bit to be desired. She’s great to look at and Barton fans will totally enjoy it as she is in virtually every scene of the film. But again, she’s not that believable or is she ever really that terrified. But maybe because there isn’t really anything scary. While the atmosphere is cool that’s about it, the scares are more about turning off the lights and being held in captivity rather than real frights.
Extras:
The only extra outside of the trailer is a making of featurette that serves more as a promotional advertisement rather than anything that gives us behind-the-scenes footage. It is complete with a narrator that explains what the movie is about and why we should see it. Which means to me it was originally something that was sent to distributors to see if they would pick it up. It is hard to call it even a making of as we don’t see any actual making of. So I will leave it as a promotional piece for the DVD.
