Bryce Draper | Through the Shattered Lens

We’re the Millers

They turned us into killers….

Yeah, whatever, dude. Seriously, how am I supposed to take seriously a film that features several scenes of people singing that song?

2024’s They Turned Us Into Killers is a film about vigilante justice. After her boyfriend gets her addicted to drugs and then rapes her with his brothers, Karma (Lauren Francesca) kills herself. Fortunately, she leaves behind an extremely long and detailed suicide note that allows her best friend Star (Scout Taylor-Compton) to know that she needs to track down and kill BJ (Bryce Draper) and his moronic brothers. Star recruits Zion (Brian Anthony Williams) to help her, because Zion’s mother was raped and murdered by BJ’s father (Kane Hodder). Zion later got revenge on BJ’s father and now, he’s going to help Star get revenge on BJ.

So, here’s the thing. This story actually had potential. Seriously, who doesn’t want to watch a bunch of rapists get tortured for their crimes? Unfortunately, the film’s execution is an absolute mess. This is one of those films that jumps around in time, so you’re never quite sure if you’re watching something that’s happening in the film’s present or if you’re watching yet another flashback. One gets the feeling that this was done to try to disguise just how simplistic the film’s story actually is but the end result is more likely to induce a headache than anything else. The film pretty much begins with Star explaining that Karma get hooked on drugs and killed herself. Therefore, there’s nothing really to be gained by then segueing into a lengthy flashback of Karma doing what we just heard that she did. We already know what happened to Karma. Flashbacks are only necessary if they add something new to the story. When all they do is show us what we already know, they feel more like padding. In this case, it feels like rather exploitive padding.

The film is more of a vigilante film than a true horror film. That said, horror icons like Kane Hodder, Bill Moseley, and Michael Berryman all make brief appearances and the scenes where Star stalks her victims definitely owe a bit to the old school slasher films. When the film isn’t busy with the flashbacks, it’s largely made up of scenes of Star taunting her victims while they’re tied down to a table. The torture scenes tend to go on forever, to the point where they again feel more like padding than anything else. And while the film’s victims certainly deserve their fate, Star isn’t particularly likable either. Perhaps if Karma had been her sister, I would have had more sympathy for her. Instead, Karma is just a friend to whom Star wasn’t even close enough to know that she was struggling until she committed suicide.

(On another note, naming the character Karma is way too cutesy. Sorry, movie.)

Vigilante films are always a bit of a mixed bag. Charles Bronson was an effective vigilante, usually because he was trying to either protect or avenge his family. Clint Eastwood was an effective vigilante because most of his vigilante films took place in the old west, at a time when people really had no choice but to take the law into their own hands. I will always cheer Camille Keaton getting revenge on those four rednecks in the original I Spit On Your Gave and yes, that includes that dumbass Matthew. I think the lesson here is that it takes a star with a lot of screen presence and a director who knows how to properly pace a film to make a vigilante film work. They Turned Us Into Killers …. well, it just doesn’t work.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Okay, I know. It’s not Valentine’s Day yet. But it will be soon. 50 Shades of Grey is opening tomorrow and I have a feeling that, come November, there will be hundreds of newborn babies being named Christian and Anastasia. (And, in a few years, they’ll all have teenage babysitters named Bella…)

However, in case you can’t get into 50 Shades of Grey, here’s two other films that you could possibly watch on Valentine’s Day. Much like 50 Shades, they both involve a woman having sex with a manipulative sociopath. The Boy Next Door is still in theaters while Bound has just been released on video.

And they’re both reviewed below!

The Boy Next Door, which was released towards the end of January, was the first film of 2015 that I was really excited about seeing. That’s not because I thought that the film was going to be any good. Instead, it was because I literally couldn’t watch any movie on Lifetime without seeing about a dozen commercials for The Boy Next Door. The commercials promised a lot of cheap thrills and sordid melodrama.

Anyway, my BFF Evelyn and I saw The Boy Next Door on the weekend that it was first released and we had a great time watching it. Though the film may start slow, it eventually becomes a minor triumph of so-bad-its-good filmmaking. This is the type of film that you would normally expect to see going straight to cable but, somehow, it managed to get a theatrical release. Making it all the more fun is the fact that it stars Jennifer Lopez, playing the type of role that you would normally expect to see Jennifer Love Hewitt or Elizabeth Berkley playing in a Lifetime movie.

Jennifer Lopez plays an AP English teacher who has recently separated from her adulterous husband (John Corbett). When a teenage boy (Ryan Guzman) moves in next door and starts standing naked in front of his bedroom window, can you really be surprised that he and Lopez end up spending one night making torrid love? Well, unfortunately, Guzman turns out to be a bit obsessive and, when the new school year begins, he suddenly shows up as one of Lopez’s students. And you can probably guess what happens from there…

As directed by Rob Cohen, there’s really nothing surprising or interesting to be found in The Boy Next Door but we still had a lot of fun watching it, if just because it gave us an excuse to be snarky. Ryan Guzman was undeniably hot and, wisely, Jennifer Lopez didn’t seem to be taking the film that seriously. The great Kristin Chenoweth showed up as Lopez’s best friend and the film’s climax was appropriately over the top.

And, three weeks after seeing the film, Evelyn and I are still laughing about the scene where Guzman gives Lopez a gift, a copy of The Illiad. Looking down at the book, J. Lo says, “Oh! A first edition!” Evelyn and I were just like, “Really? So, that book’s from 760 B.C!?” Seriously, did the character have a time machine?

Now, that would have made for an interesting movie!

If, for some reason, you can’t find a theater showing 50 Shades of Grey this weekend, I would suggest instead watching the Asylum’s mockbuster version, Bound.

(Personally, I would have titled the film 50 Shades of Charisma but anyway…)

In Bound, Charisma Carpenter plays Michelle, a real estate broker who has an unsatisfying sex life and who finds herself regularly being bullied by her boss (Daniel Baldwin). However, Michelle then meets Ryan (Bryce Draper), who is young, handsome, rich, and very much into domination He even has a red room in his mansion where…

Oh wait, does this sound familiar?

Okay, so Bound pretty much tells the same story as 50 Shades of Grey but there are a few significant differences. A big one is that, as played by Carpenter, Michelle is a much stronger character than Anastasia Steele. For one thing, she’s not an innocent and naive girl being introduced to sex for the first time by a charming sociopath. Instead, she’s significantly older than Ryan, which also brings an interesting dynamic to the film. Michelle’s not a virgin, she doesn’t say things like “jeez” or “oh my,” and she’s capable of getting aroused without obsessing about what her inner goddess is doing as a result. And, while her relationship with Ryan does head in a similar direction as Anastasia’s relationship with Christian Grey, Michelle never seems weak as a result. Instead, she’s experimenting and there’s no way you can’t root for her as you watch the movie.

(Ryan, meanwhile, is ultimately portrayed as being the type of manipulative sociopath that Christian Grey would be in real life.)

Perhaps my favorite part of the film was Michelle’s relationship with her teenage daughter, Dara (Morgan Oberender). The two actresses play off each other well and, from the minute they first interacted, I believed that they could be mother and daughter. They’re relationship felt real and, as a result, you cared about both of them and found yourself hoping that things would work out for the best. And, as a result, it made one of the film’s final plot twists feel very immediate and real.

Bound is the type of film that will be (and has been) dismissed by a lot of mainstream critics but it deserves more consideration than it’s been given.