Suspension (2015)
Ted Hentschke
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Directed by Jeffery Scott Lando
Staring Ellen MacNevin, Courtney Paige Theroux, and Duncan Ollerenshaw
Oh, Suspension, where did you go wrong? You started off as a lighthearted and heavy on the cliché horror-comedy. I was all over the shy and nerdy girl haunted by a dark past getting hunted down by a grotesque killer out to finish the job he started 8 years ago. I joyously awaited the punishment to be delivered on the mean pretty girl and her cadre of cool kids. I theorized how the inept Deputy would fuck up, and how the kind but tough Sheriff would try but just fall short of saving the day.
I wanted the aforementioned nerdy girl to find her inner Amazonian, confront the killer, and take charge of her life. I prayed the stupid foreseeable plot twist was just a red herring. But alas, this was not to be.
Many years ago, Emily’s father, Tom, went on a killing spree. Since then, he’s been locked up in an asylum, but the damage was done. Emily is now a troubled teen with an absent mother and mute little brother, who escapes her daily life in grotesque drawings that reimagine her father’s rampage. Tonight is the anniversary of the murders, and it seems like Tom is back to finish what he started. Emily is the target, and anyone nearby is equally in the crosshairs. Queue tense music and explosive violence.
The film starts off strong, with a riding crop being shoved down someone’s throat and a teacher begging Emily to repent for the sake of her immortal soul. Emily’s one friend just wants to hang out with the normal kids for once, driving a rift between them. The mean girls are mean and do silly mean girl stuff that no one actually does, but it sets them up for good cathartic kills later on. Good, strong, fun, bloody, comedy-horror setup and execution.
The film keeps this tone up until about the 40-minute mark. The funny stuff is really good, and I particularly like one scene where the Deputy is trying to cut open a man he accidentally shot to pull out the bullet that ties him to the victim. He starts off with some kitchen knives, which soon devolves into a bloody mess as fails to gracefully extract the slug. It’s gruesome, funny, and totally out of left field. If the film had kept this tone, it would have been a slam dunk.
Unfortunately, after one particular boy is killed standing outside of his car, the film throws any kind of comedic cleverness and effort out the window. It attempts to rely on its slasher elements, which are subpar at best. The plot becomes convoluted and full of holes, all in an attempt to mask the obvious inevitable plot twist. If you can’t figure out what the big reveal is 5 minutes in, then maybe this movie has something for you. However, you’d probably have more fun just grooming ticks from your buddies, because you are a chimpanzee.
The predicted twist ruins much of the film. The plot twist has two main elements, and both of them are seen coming from the first introduction. Heavy foreshadowing is fine, as long as the inevitable twist is in some way clever or subverted. Suspension leads up to both of these big reveals, and then they just kind of… happen. And the movie just… ends. That’s all, folks! With how clever the first half of this movie was, I was really expecting some kind of twist on a twist. When it finally came to the big reveal and it was exactly what was alluded to, I felt robbed.
I get that every great comedy horror wraps it all up with a good serious bit. Even so, these serious bits generally have just enough comedy sprinkled in to make you care about the heroes and their triumph. It gives the characters a likable edge in the chaos and keeps you engaged. Similarly, the gruesomeness of the serious bits should equally mirror the intensity of the comedy. Good comedy is best paired with extreme gore, as the emotional back and forth is all the more compelling.
Aside from the bullet digging scene, the film is rather tame. Kills all boil down to “and then the person got stabbed,” and not in an interesting “stabbed in each eye, then ran around blind until they accidentally ran into a whole rack of knives” kind of stabbed either. Even someone getting their head axed in half is done mostly off camera. As a pure slasher film, it doesn’t hold up.
Which is why I’m so sad they just dropped the comedy bits. This was a good movie up until that point. It was goofy, with exaggerated characters just ripe for the killing. It would have been a good subversion, using cliché for greater splattery punchlines. It feels like two different movies, and the inconsistency kills it.
Suspension is far from the worst film of the 8 Films to Die For. There’s a good chance it could have been the best if handled better. The biggest problem is that it just becomes boring. Without the comedy to hold it up, it gets increasingly difficult to care about the frightened teens and lackluster kills. Not a terrible movie by technical standpoints, but ultimately forgettable.
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Film
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