Christian Slater…. What the hell are you doing?
This movie… this fucking movie actually offended me. I can’t even begin to describe the travesty that is Playback (written and directed by Michael A. Nickles ) . This movie fails by the virtue of having actual potential, yet squandering it in almost every single way. Capturing your soul on film is the focus of this supernatural “horror film,” which can’t seem to decide on a damned sub-genre. So many characters, a pointless subplot, and so many mistakes combined with sub-par acting just kills this “c-movie,” before it has a chance to live.
The plot of this movie is a mess. So a group of teens are shooting a film for a project to present about a killer who used to stalk their town. He had been killed in 1994. This leads to the killer’s ghost being released from footage he had shot during the murder possessing a local teen working at the town’s television station archives. He then proceeds to hunt down the supposed “heir,” for the killer’s soul so that he can continue to live. The problems with the plot abound. My God, the fucking kid who’s killing everyone, has the power to influence people’s minds. He has these people do one task for him, BUT THEN KILLS THEM! WHY?! They never establish that this power is temporary (or ANYTHING about his powers for that matter, ) so why not just make a possessed army and hunt the kid down? Why?! There’s also a subplot with Christian Slater playing a pedophilic cop who peeps on high school girls struggling to control himself. I mean… just… what?!
Performances in this film are dismal, so dismal… Alessandra Torresani, Ambyr Childers, Johnny Pacer, and almost every other actor in the film just suck. They are either as wooden as the table I want to slam my face against after this, or overacting enough to make William Shatner blush. The only redeeming performances in the film are by a wheelchair bound black man who provides the exposition to the films mythology and Christian Slater playing a lustful pedophile cop! I repeat, THE MOST LIKABLE CHARACTER IN THIS MOVIE IS A PEDOPHILIC POLICE OFFICER! That is the quality of writing and acting this film subjects its audience too. Christian Slater is too good for this movie, really. I’m not even a huge fan of Slater, but he’s too good to be in this piece of garbage.
Let me be brief. Camera work was subpar, directing was crap, and the soundtrack was unimpressive. Bottom line, stay away, stay far away from this movie. The film could have been so interesting if they had streamlined the script, but no, we get this fucking steaming heap. One star, and that’s ONLY because of Christian Slater did an okay job with the piece of shit he was handed. This film was just… so terrible…. I need a bath and a smoke after this review…
Here’s the “film’s,” website. Yes, this thing has a website… God help us… God help us all…