Call it ABDUCTION OF A WIMPY KID: Paranormal Edition. Designed for a new generation of DONNIE DARKO/’01 fans*, it probably works for them; elsewise, not so much. Talented teen actor Mason Thames, currently training a dragon on screen, is the best thing about this indifferently played serial killer number about a man wearing a Hallowe’en fright mask and tempting boys off the street with black balloons. Nothing peculiar or suspicious there for neighbors to notice, right?. But the ruse works on Thames, led astray when he’s already in trouble at home: drunk, violent single-dad; tough customer little sister; and Thames the family wuss in spite of his talent as a baseball pitcher. That’s how he met an earlier victim, a star batter he almost struck out. Fortunately, li’l sister’s nightmares detail fresh leads for the police, and his creepy holding cell has a working phone with a direct line to dead previous victims. But can this Hansel ‘grow a pair’ and trick Ethan Hawke’s Wicked Witch? More moody than scary; with a 1978 setting that looks right, but feels wrong. Something director Scott Derrickson, who would have been 12 at the time, ought to know.
ATTENTION MUST BE PATD/LINK: *Bear in mind, this site is DARKO agnostic. Underwhelmed at first sight, just as that film, a sizable flop on initial release, was building a formidable cult following. A trajectory PHONE seems likely to reverse. https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/05/donnie-darko-2001.html
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