The Movie:
Bob Keen is best known as a make up and special effects technician, having worked on such notable properties as the first three Hellraiser movies, Richard Stanley's Hardware and even Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. With such a resume under his belt, it's a shame that his directorial debut, 2006's Heartstopper, didn't turn out to be more interesting than it was.
Sheriff Berger (Robert Englund of A Nightmare On Elm Street) has been chasing a serial killer named Chambers (James Binkley) for some time now. When he finally brings him in, it looks like the ordeal is finally over as he's sentenced to death by the electric chair. Unfortunately, a freak lightning storm occurs and while he appears to be dead once the switch gets thrown, we soon find out he's not. They transport his body along with that of a teenage girl named Sara Wexler (Meredith Henderson) who has just unsuccessfully tried to kill herself to a hospital in the back of an ambulance and it's here that Chambers' corpse grabs onto Sara's arm. When he does, we see part of his evil tattoo move off of his body on to hers.
As luck would have it, Chambers is possessed by an evil demon and that demon is looking for a new host – Sara is that new host. She doesn't realize it yet but once they get to the hospital he's going to run around and kill a lot of people to try and get to her so that he can complete the transfer and take over her healthy young body.
If this sounds a little familiar, there's good reason for it as the film borrows very heavily from Wes Craven's Shocker and from Halloween II but isn't quite as interesting as either of them. While the kill scenes are surprisingly bloody (Chambers rips the hearts out of his victims, thus the title), they get repetitive early on. Seeing a guy pull someone's heart out of their chest is cool the first time, but the fourth time we see it the novelty has worn off but the movie doesn't really realize that. There's also the acting, which isn't particularly good. While Englund is decent and surprisingly restrained considering some of his earlier and more famous work, he's not in enough of the film to save it and Binkley plays Chambers as a walking, talking serial killer movie bad guy cliché. Henderson isn't a whole lot better, and she seems to zone in and out of character in that sometimes she's quite believable in her part and in others it looks like she's phoning it in.
That being said, Heartstopper isn't a complete waste of time. Keen's pacing is quite good and the art direction and cinematography does a good job of making the hospital where the bulk of the action takes place looks nice and eerie. The make up effects are quite well done and even if they are repetitive at times as stated, they are at least effective. There are also a few good jump scares in here that will catch you by surprise. They won't have a lasting effect but as temporary and superficial scares go, they're done well. It's a shame then that the script was so contrived. If the 'been there, done that' feeling that we get throughout the film hadn't been so overpowering this could have been a decent low budget shocker. Here's hoping that next time around Keen works with a better story and some better actors. As it stands, Heartstopper is pretty middle of the road.
Video:
The 1.78.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer is sharp and colorful with more detail present in the image than you might expect from a modestly budgeted DV production even in the darker scenes. There are no problems to report with mpeg compression artifacts and while there is some moderate aliasing to look for here and there, it's not overpowering nor is it omnipresent. Black levels stay pretty deep even if there are a few spots where things are just a tiny bit murky. There are no issues with color bleeding to note and while the colors are intentionally muted in spots, reproduction is otherwise fine.
Sound:
The only audio option on this disc is a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound in the film's native English language with an English closed captioning option available. The 5.1 track sounds better mainly because of the effects placement and the way that the score is used in the rears particularly during the kill scenes. Other than that, both tracks sound nice and clean and neither has any problem with hiss or distortion worth noting.
Extras:
Aside from animated menus, trailers for other Anchor Bay horror DVDs (including one for the feature) and chapter stops for the film, the only extra features are interviews with director Bob Keen and actor Robert Englund which, combined, run for roughly half an hour in length. They discuss their work in the horror movie industry and talk about how Heartstopper came together, with Englund doing a pretty good job of selling the film. The interviews are pretty informative and they do a good job of explaining the history of the project and how they each came on board but you can't help but be left wanting more – maybe a making of documentary to showcase the hospital or possibly a commentary track.
Final Thoughts:
Heartstopper has a few interesting moments and a couple of good scares but is ultimately brought down by some mediocre performances and a script that isn't as good or as interesting as it should have been. Anchor Bay's DVD looks and sounds just fine and the interviews are nice even if there could have been more features. Rent it.
Ian lives in NYC with his fiance where he writes for DVD Talk and for AV Maniacs. He likes NYC a lot, even if it is expensive and loud.
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