Dir: Cameron Romero, USA, 2009, 85mins
Starring: Kathy Lamkin, Cristen Coppen, David Rountree
Review by Daniel Laverick
It can't be easy being the son of one of the greatest horror film directors of all time – especially if you decide to follow in your father's footsteps in the genre where he is king. Cameron Romero, son of the great George Romero has done just that in Staunton Hill.
If you've ever watched more than a handful of horror films you'll recognise the plot of Staunton Hill. A group of teenagers travelling through hick country become stranded on a rarely travelled road and come across a remote farm house where they meet a god fearing, obviously inbred family from hell. Think Texas Chainsaw Massacre mixed in with recent torture porn films and you'll be about there. Romero has produced a fairly standard B movie, but inexplicable and incomplete elements to the film make me think that the offspring of the creator of Dawn of the Dead was trying to achieve a bit more.
Firstly, the film is set, for no apparent reason, in the 1960s. The travelling teens are on their way to attend rallies against racial discrimination in Washington. A scene between one of the black teens and the weird gas station owner, flirts with a racial undertone that seems to die a death immediately after the scene is complete. The fact that film is set in the 60s never seems to make much difference either.
George Romero's fame stems from the social commentary that underlined his films. He made frightening films that reflected the societies from which they were borne and that resonated in the minds of the spectators who engaged with them. Romero junior has thrown in a few potential talking points but has failed, in spectacular fashion, to follow through on any of them.
The characters are the usual fare, walking clichés who you never really care about once they're despatched. This in itself isn't problematic and is to be expected in the case of the horror B movie. The inbred, hick family, compromising of a portly mother, wheelchair bound grandmother and mentally disabled son, are B movie archetypes. There has been an obvious attempt to replicate the Texas Chainsaw family and the fear that they induced, with the freakishly strong son with a penchant for butchery taking the place of Leatherface, but they aren't particularly scary and they don't have the same impact.
It may be unfair to judge Cameron Romero's film in relation to his father's pedigree and in comparison to classics like Texas Chainsaw Massacre. But, if you're going to ride on the back of great films and great directors, you leave yourself wide open to such criticism. Staunton Hill doesn't follow up on its plot points. If the film is set in the 60s the audience expects to know why. If the family are killing for financial gain, which is indicated in the final scene, this needs to be explained. Ending a film with a sense of mystery and allowing the audience to draw their own conclusions is a great filmic technique when executed properly, it's just plain confusing when its crow barred in during the final sequence.
Ultimately, Staunton Hill could have been a fairly standard genre movie. The plot holes, unfinished strands (we never learn the fate of two captured characters) and lack of finality as the credits roll, relegate it to a below standard genre movie. There are a couple of good scenes that allow the makeup and effects team to flex their muscles, but it isn't anything you can't find in any of the Saw films (if that's the kind of thing that gets your juices flowing).
Verdict: directorial greatness is NOT hereditary.
|
