‘Stoker Hills’ Never Finds its Footing Thanks to a Lackluster Screenplay [Review]
Tyler Doupe'
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Stoker Hills lured me in with the promise of Tony Todd. But even a decorated horror icon couldn’t save this film. A discombobulated narrative and frequent gaps in logic make the flick a chore to endure.
The picture sees film school bros Ryan and Jake setting out to make a killer film about zombie sex workers. But when a malevolent figure abducts one of their actors, the fellas bro down hard trying to get to the bottom of the mysterious disappearance.
Stoker Hills has a number of problems but the bulk of them stem from Jonah Kuehner’s screenplay. The early dialogue between the film students seems as though it’s supposed to play like witty banter. But no one ever says anything particularly clever and therefore, a lot of the lines just fall flat. Additionally, Jake and Ryan primarily only refer to one another ‘bro’ but it’s clearly not an indictment of bro culture. It’s just… because…
Additionally, the script is stuffed with far too much filler. In one such instance, we see two police detectives standing around discussing the merits of changing diapers. Sequences like this serve no greater purpose. They don’t flesh out the characters, deliver necessary information to the viewer, or advance the storyline. An unfortunate amount of the film’s dialogue plays like extraneous noise that should have been trimmed from the final cut but made it in anyway.
The performances in Stoker Hills don’t do much to save the script from itself. The actors (save for the always effective Tony Todd) come across as stiff and stilted. And Todd is relegated to a glorified cameo that sees him disappearing from the film for the bulk of its runtime.
Also See: Tony Todd Explains Why ‘Candyman’ Messed You Up So Much
Also problematic are the cumbersome exposition dumps that deliver information that should have come about organically instead of being dropped into an awkward monologue.
Director Benjamin Louis mixes found footage with cinematic sequences and the result is nothing short of bewildering. In the found footage segments, we see the student filmmakers shooting footage with no discernible reason to be filming. And that takes away a certain level of credibility right from the get-go. Further, the way the narrative jumps from the story unfolding through POV footage to the police personnel investigating the case (cinematically) is jarring. As soon as I would begin to settle in to a timeline, the perspective would change and the process would start over.
When used effectively, the intersecting narrative approach can build suspense and draw the viewer in. But in this case, the way the stories are edited together is anticlimactic. The flick could have benefited from a re-edit that was more deliberate with the timeline shifts and allowed the viewer ample time to adjust to each respective shift.
Another stumbling point for me was the flick’s lack of logic. Case in point: The detectives make the executive decision to trace the calls placed by a suspect with no mention or even implication of a judge having signed a warrant. Anyone who has seen an episode of Law & Order likely knows that the police don’t have carte blanche to tap phones without a judge signing off. If that were anomalous, I could set it aside and be done with it. But the film frequently eschews common sense in favor of advancing the narrative. And that grows cumbersome pretty quickly.
Related: Experience, Witness, Record: Legacy and Black Lives Lived in Circles in ‘Candyman’
My final qualm is with the ending. It left me sorely disappointed as it wasn’t well set up and added nothing to the story at large. I won’t say anything more than that so as not to spoil anything for potential viewers. But don’t expect to come away from Stoker Hills feeling satisfied.
This one definitely wasn’t for me. But I would still be curious to see what Louis could do with a more polished screenplay.
If you are keen to check it out, Stoker Hills is now available on-demand.
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Stoker Hills
Summary
A discombobulated narrative and frequent gaps in logic make the flick a chore to endure.
