Argemaluco
I don't exactly know what I was expecting from a horror film written by Bret Easton Ellis, but it wasn't this. To start with, The Curse of Downers Grove isn't even a horror film... or at least, not the kind of horror suggested by the publicity. Besides, The Curse of Downers Grove is based on a novel written by Michael Hornburg, so Ellis was only in charge of the adaptation to cinema; it's possible that the problems came from the original material. But it's still difficult for me to understand how the movie ended up being such an incongruous hodgepodge of shapes and styles. And the worst thing of all is that The Curse of Downers Grove had the potential of being an interesting film. The shortage of supernatural elements (depending on the criterion from every spectator) doesn't avoid it from portraying horrors of a more daily and realistic nature, such as bullying, sexual assault, police corruption... well; I won't reveal more than that. The point is that The Curse of Downers Grove deals with themes which are much more disturbing than any vindictive ghost or generic tribal curse. That's why I think this film would have worked better as a drama, in which said themes could have been dealt with the necessary maturity not to decrease their impact and social relevance; or maybe, it should have completely plunged into the mystic of the provincial superstition in order to create a darker and more psychological tale. I don't know; I appreciate the intention to deal with so many themes, but I feel that, when bullying and sexual assault are set in the same context as curses and spirits... nobody wins and everybody loses. The raw reality darkens the fantasy, and the fantasy is tarnished with cruel situations which can't be solved with an exorcism, or a sacrifice to some local deity. Sure, there have been films which perfectly mixed horror and social commentary (They Live, Videodrome); but The Curse of Downers Grove is very, very far from that level. On the positive side, the actors make a good work in their roles, highlighting Bella Heathcote, who faces the aggression from her partners and the hypothetical supernatural influence on the events torturing her with equal credibility. Pity that the screenplay constantly destroys her character's consistency; in one scene, she's criticizing the youngsters who make bad decisions, and in the following one, she accepts to attend a party with strangers of very doubtful intentions. That's the narrative laziness I didn't expect to see associated with Ellis' name. In conclusion, despite having some interesting ideas, The Curse of Downers Grove is a tedious and unsatisfactory film whose main problem is not having decided its intention from the beginning.
Steve Pulaski
I've lived less than five minutes away from the town of Downers Grove, Illinois my entire life, even going to high school there and finding myself going there for one thing or another on an almost daily basis. It's a remarkably unremarkable town, but it's one with everything one could need - a grocery store, a library, several parks, roomy middle-class housing, great schools, and low crime. It's the perfect setting for a horror film for the very fact that there's little that happens there and you'd be hard-pressed to hear the terms "breaking news" and "Downers Grove" in the same sentence.This is ostensibly why The Curse of Downers Grove has created such a buzz in my community over the last few weeks, with news of its release spreading through the neighborhood like wildfire. However, I was usually the one to crush the hopes of local residents and friends by telling them that the film, in fact, isn't shot in Downers Grove, or anywhere in Illinois for that matter, but in California, in a town that is so valley-centric and coastal that it doesn't even mirror the sleepy, middle- class roots of Downers Grove. Right off the bat, that voids a lot of the film's credibility; why even use a specific location for a story and not even shoot the film in that location?Turns out, the film is based off of Downers Grove, a teen novel by Michael Hornburg, who grew up in Downers Grove, Illinois and attended Downers Grove South High School, claiming to have seen numerous classmates die from strange occurrences over his years. In present day, I haven't heard anything about "the curse of Downers Grove," which leads me to believe, unlike high-profile Illinois curses depicted in films like Munger Road, this "curse" was simply something Hornburg could use as the basis for a novel set in his hometown. We haven't started talking about the film, and already, it seems to be bask in its own irrelevance.The Curse of Downers Grove, indeed, is a bad film, for more reasons than its false setting and entirely fictitious curse, which could apply to any town anywhere in the United States or the world. It's a film so hokey and ugly, without a shred of an idea of what it's supposed to do as a film, that rather than function as a horror film, or even a competent thriller, it settles for middle-of-the-road, soap- opera production and comes off like a dark Lifetime murder mystery. "The Curse of Downers Grove" is the justification for strange occurrences that always plague the graduating classes of Downers Grove High School (a school which doesn't exist in real life, mind you), where a member from the graduating class dies every year in some freak accident. With that, we focus on Chrissie (Bella Heathcoate), who believes the curse is a big hoax. When her mother (Helen Slater) goes out of town, however, she is left in charge of her younger brother (Martin Spanjers) and to her own devices. She decides to go to a party with her best friend Tracy (Penelope Mitchell), where she subsequently winds up being cornered by the star football player Chuck (Kevin Zegers) and nearly raped before she can fight back and poke Chuck's eye literally out. Now, Chuck's future as a football player is ruined and his entire existence shamed by his abusive father (Tom Arnold, who does some strong work at being menacing and downright vicious). Chuck is out for revenge against Chrissie, and because his father is a former cop, he's practically untouchable. He resorts to vandalism and taunting her, and she resorts to seeking comfort in the well-meaning but offbeat neighbor-boy Bobby (Lucas Till), all while trying to get Chuck and his football goons to leave her and her friends alone on the week of graduation, when "the curse" usually strikes.The first problem is editor Kayla Pagliarini seems to have so little confidence in the audience that she resorts to spelling out who to keep an eye on during the film and who appears unsettling through glossy and unwarranted editing tricks, particularly on one character, which just about ruins any credible mystery the film had. In addition, director Derick Martini and writer Bret Easton Ellis can't seem to figure out how they want to position this story. At first, with the commentary about the curse and its effect on people, it seems as if this film will be another Final Destination-esque teen thriller. It isn't until the film gets going, however, that you see it has little to do with the actual curse of the town, but with this side-story of Chrissie angering the football star and getting put in danger because of it.Martini and Ellis have no clue on how they want to tackle this story, be it through paranormalities, teen drama, mystery, or what-have-you, so the result is a film that's dreary and unfocused. The Curse of Downers Grove is about as limp and fickle as a horror film can be, as its plot moves along at a miserably slow pace, despite only being seventy-eight minutes long, and its characters are largely faceless. Absent of all tension, void of any compelling characters, loaded with undeveloped red herrings, and terribly misguided in its plot, The Curse of Downers Grove's only hope for long-term impact is the fact that it features the name of a close-knit Illinois town. However, because it wasn't even shot in said town, and formulates no connection to the roads, the landmarks, the people, or the foundation of Downers Grove, that part also has a very slim chance of making this out to be anything other than a seriously lame, irrelevant teen thriller.Starring: Bella Heathcote, Penelope Mitchell, Lucas Till, Kevin Zegers, Martin Spanjers, Helen Slater, and Tom Arnold. Directed by: Derick Martini.
