It's time to review one of the uglies... very ugly. It's called...
Blackout (2007)
Directed by: Roberto Castaneda.
Written by: Ed Dougherty
Let me start by saying that there is one good thing about this movie. That thing is the title. It really is aptly named Blackout because that's exactly what I slipped into about a minute into this sweaty hunk of crap.
The only big name in it was Amber Tamblyn... you know from that "I talk to God" show... the beginning of The Ring ...um...Russ Tamblyn's daughter. No? It doesn't matter, anyway.
It takes place mostly in an elevator during a .........wait for it...... A blackout. Hot diggity dog! Three people that live in the building are caught in it. They all have someplace to be. We only find this out through flashbacks. And they get so muddled, we don't know what's going on. There's Tamblyn, a student trying to rush back to her dying grandmothers hospital bed, a punk rocker dude who's trying to get back to his girlfriend so they can runaway and escape her abusive father, and a doctor, who desperately needs to clean his apartment before his daughter comes to visit. We also learn that the doctors wife committed suicide and the daughter, for some reason, lives with an aunt.
Throughout the ordeal, the doctor is the only one taking charge and keeping a level head. After hours (and we know this from the annoying clock ticking away on screen) pass, the doctor becomes more and more hostile. Even to the point of breaking the punks foot and stealing Tamblyn's vital asthma inhaler. Eventually, we find that the doctor is a serial rapist/killer and needs to clean the body of a dead girl out of his place.
Eventually the time of the daughters visit passes and the doctor completely flips and kills the punk guy while trying to rape Tamblyn. Tamblyn (being the only "big" name) is able to fend him off and escape the elevator which miraculously falls after her escape, killing the doctor in the process.
All is right, now. The doctor is dead, everyone knows he was the killer and Tamblyn lives. But, and here's the oh, so sad part, her grandmother has passed and she wasn't there.
As I said, it was from Netflix, so in a way it was like free. If I had bought this I would have flipped after watching it, when I wasn't cruising the internet for the Trick 'r Treat script. I've been known to buy bad movies and went into a psychotic rage after watching the... Walled In comes to mind...
Anyway, there's my take on the movie Blackout. But, watch it and make up your own mind. If you have the time to have your brain melted, that is...
See you soon with a review of the 80s great The prowler.
