Short Takes

Thank heaven for little girls? In a horror flick such as this, it's safer to thank the dark lord of the hoary nether world, because there's a better than average chance the pig-tailed moppet is out to ruin somebody's day. Dark Castle Entertainment who've, until now, made a cottage industry of overloading William Castle classics with MTV-approved audio/video hysterics, sails into uncharted creative waters and manages to keep itself afloat. More or less. They still don't know how to END these suckers! CineSchlockers forever scarred by the "Casper the Friendly Ghost" finale of House on Haunted Hill will now have another howl-worthy stinger to contend with, because they're really gonna want to SEE this thing. Why? Well, remember that wicked-cool human Cuisinart scene in The Cube that got stolen and stuck in Resident Evil, Thirteen Ghosts and The Cell? FX slingers Howard Berger and Jason Baird bring it back again, with a vengeance, when a whole dance floor of foo-foo vacationers gets Ginsu'd in one of the most gloriously gruesome opening scenes in the HISTORY of mainstream Hollywood. It's so delish, in fact, they even re-run it again toward the final reel, but that STILL doesn't keep the awful sequel-bait ending from knocking TWO STARS OFF its final rating. You can practically see the wheels in Julianna Margulies' brainpan churning, "I turned down 30 mil of easy 'ER' bucks to do THIS!?!" And don't count on master-emoter Gabriel Byrne to chat this one up with his Actor's Studio cronies. Two breasts. Way more than 196 corpses. Conveniently labeled "C4" explosives. Giant fish hook to the neck. Welding-arch gazing. Fast mo. Gratuitous morphing. Slow mo. One firesuit stunt. Gratuitous "Love Boat" theme. Hard-rocking tugboat skipper. Underwater meat grinder. Wriggling maggots. Boozing. Attempted ghost diddling. Thank the screenwriters for economical genre dialogue such as, "WHAT THE ... ?!?" (2002, 91 mins, 1.85:1 anam, DD 5.1, Featurettes [Don't miss "A Closer Look at the Gore"], Music video, Trailer, Nifty 3D lenticular cover.)