So there’s this thing called the Final Girl Film Club. You can read all about it at Final Girl or you can read about in the next sentence: our founder, Stacie Ponder, picks a horror movie. We all watch and review. What fun! What? Fun? Yes!
This week we watched ‘Visiting Hours’, starring one of our most under-appreciated horror movie heavies of all time, Michael Ironside. I don’t care that Shatner was also in the movie and I can barely remember who the woman was. We’re talking ol’ Ironside. Even in a movie based on material this threadbare, he shines like the sun.
To be honest, I really didn’t follow the movie so well, as it didn’t so much hold my attention. And let me balance that by saying I have an affinity for really long, slow movies (2001, Once Upon a Time in the West), so for a movie to not hold my interest, it’s gotta be lacking something, if not a truckload of somethings. But the story goes something like this: a woman, a television personality, is coming out hard on spousal abuse, and Ironside don’t like that none. So he attacks her, putting her in the hospital, then spends the rest of the movie trying to finish her off.
This might even be a good basic premise except for one big problem: the woman is in that hospital for most of the movie. So you have a movie in which Ironside is getting into the hospital, almost killing her, but then being foiled. This seems to happen 1,700 times. I wasn’t completely clear on Ironside’s motivation to kill the woman, though flashbacks alluded to him being sexually molested as a child, which was probably still a pretty fresh idea in 1982. But now? Not so much. It actually seemed kinda funny. And with Ironside spewing intensity all over the screen, who needs this backstory? Just let him be the symbol of the male ego bruised to the point of homicidal brutality. What’s wrong with that? But no. We have to watch flashbacks. Flashbacks that don’t make the movie one iota scarier.
Still… Ironside. You can’t argue with Ironside.
I’d seen this box art in rental stores for years and always assumed that it was about a haunted hospital of some kind. To find out that the actual movie behind that great poster is just a scary Lifetime movie is worse than disappointment. It feels like injustice. Can you make a new movie and use a poster from another film? If not, why not? Plots are re-used with absolute abandon.
To cop Final Girl’s scoring system, I give this movie 4 out of 10 Shatner’s Eating Ice Creams.
Hmmm… I’m not so good at the scoring yet, I think.
Now go read the Girl’s review.
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My car was stolen over the weekend. And now I’m paranoid about everything. Trust no one!
Also, buy The Club.
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You know, when I first glanced at that poster the word that came to mind was “Legos.” As in, the top of the haunted hospital looks as if it was built out of Legos. That said, I kind of like the image.
The movie on the other hand sounds horrible.
Also, you can’t just say your car got stolen and not give up the details dude. That’s like talking about “Dave” all the time and never saying Dave’s last name. Just plain rude.
Not too many interesting details to tell, unfortunately. Woke up on Saturday, looked out the window and there was no car. No broken glass, no nothing.
My first thought: where did I leave my car?
My second thought: did the car roll down the hill?
My third thought: They stole my car!
Luckily it was pretty cleaned out before they took it. And we’d been planning on buying a new car, though not for a while. So this kind of speeds up that process.
Our next door neighbor told us that his car was stolen once (not in the same neighborhood) and he actually found it parked in a parking lot at a mall. He got in and drove off with it. The thieves had put a new radio in it, too.
I’m just hoping the police don’t find it all vandalized and whatnot, because I’m sure it will be vandalized to within a dollar of my insurance deductible.
Bastards.
Nice review, Craig. That poster had me salivating for Visiting Hours for years and years…what a disappointment. If it was anyone but Ironside in the psycho role, I would’ve gouged my eyes out, for sure. I was close enough as it was.
I had my car stolen once, too, right out of a mall parking lot after a night at the arcade and a viewing of The Craft. Such a fine evening! Then my friend and I come out to an empty spot where my lovely car used to be. The cops actually found it about a week later in a Pier One parking lot, fairly close to the Scene of the Crime. The steering wheel had locked and the bastards who took it couldn’t drive it any longer. It ended up costing me several hundred dollars to get it fixed and pay towing fees and whatnots. At least I got it back…I thought it was chop-shop material for sure.
Jerks!
It’s such a bizarre feeling. There’s like a 3 second moment of dizziness that hits as you realize that you are now CONNECTED TO THE CRIMINIAL UNDERWORLD!
Question: does this give me street cred?
Good review…
I agree that Ironsides does a good job as a sweaty, women-hatin’ killer, but he can’t help this snooze of a movie that lacks such chutzpah.
My quickie lil’ review is here:
http://www.fatally-yours.com/2006/04/29/visiting-hours/