Now available on DVD
Cast:
Chris Carmack as Sam
Rachel Miner as Jenna
Sarah Habel as Elizabeth
Kevin Yon as Goldburg
Mia Serafino as Rebecca
Richard Wilkinson as Lonnie
Directed by Seth Grossman
Review:
Truth be told, I had completely forgotten that The Butterfly Effect 2 exists. I didn’t pay extremely close attention to the most recent After Dark Horrorfest, so even though at some point I know I saw an ad for The Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations, it was not on my radar.
While I can’t speak to the quality of the second entry in the series, in this humble writer’s opinion the third one is superior to the first. Though it definitely has its fans, The Butterfly Effect is an absurd and often unintentionally funny piece of hokum. The latest is a good example of what a direct-to-DVD sequel should be. It delivers the goods (sex & violence) in an unpretentious fashion.
The plot, such as it is, consists of Sam (Chris Cormack, formerly of The OC), who has the ability to “jump.” Only wanting to use his ability for good, he assists the police department as sort of an outside consultant. He helps them apprehend violent criminals by jumping to the crime scene in order to identify the perpetrator. Meanwhile, he leads a quiet life, spending a lot of time with his troubled sister Jenna (Rachel Miner).
One day Sam receives an unexpected visit from Elizabeth (Sarah Habel). Her sister, Rebecca (Mia Serafino), was Sam’s first love. Ten years prior Rebecca was brutally murdered by a man named Lonnie (Richard Wilkinson) who is about to be executed for the crime. Elizabeth found a diary which she believes exonerates Lonnie, who was having an affair with Rebecca. She wants Sam to find out the truth and make sure that an innocent man doesn’t die for a crime he didn’t commit.
If he goes back to alter the past, Sam will be breaking one his rules. He found out the hard way what happens when he changes the past. When he was a teenager he saved Jenna from a fire but both of his parents died.
Until it completely goes off the rails at the end and self destructs, BE3: Revelations works as well as it does by keeping it simple. There is a little bit of science babble courtesy of a wise, pothead professor, but they don’t go overboard with it. The filmmakers also make an effort to give the fans what they want. There is a hilariously gratuitous and fairly graphic sex scene before the twenty-minute mark. Making this sequence of events even more amusing, after a marathon sex session with a bartender all over his apartment, Sam catches a glimpse of an old photo of Rebecca and suddenly says, “I can’t.” There is also a decent amount of gore, some of which is supplied by a saw. People’s insides are exposed and appendages are severed.
It helps that Carmack creates a sympathetic lead. Sam sincerely tries to be a good guy, and when he finds himself in trouble you find yourself pulling for him. It is also fun to see how what Sam’s world will be like after he changes the past, and BE3 has a healthy sense of humor (including a great MC Hammer bit, which sounds dated but is actually funny).
It is all too good to be true though. After providing solid horror entertainment for over an hour, it becomes totally unhinged. The big revelation is both ridiculous and easy to see coming, if only because there are a limited number of characters and seasoned horror veterans will have no trouble predicting it. You get the feeling no one knew how to end this thing, so they haphazardly threw this conclusion together.
While hardly a masterpiece of horror cinema, BE3 is a respectable effort. With appropriate expectations, it should satisfy any genre fan looking for a little gore and T&A on a rainy Saturday night.
