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 13
Seconds (2003)
R1 / NTSC DVD
Alliance Atlantis / 2004
Director: Jeff Thomas
Writer: Jeff Thomas
Starring: Jeff Thomas, April Cole, Daniel Rain, Kevin Kuras,
Robert Yensch, Sarah Corbin
Review by Vaughn Drake
The telephone rings, jarring our protagonist from his sleep
and there’s banging at the door. Weird sounds emanate
throughout the house, a pasty white fanged creature emerges
from the fog, and then he wakes up covered in sweat…it was
all a dream. Or was it? The front door is wide open. (Oh
my!)
We cut to a band of musicians and the sound crew meeting up
at an abandoned silent film theater to record their third
album, and weird things start to happen. (By the four minute
mark I was regretting my choice of viewing, but I was in
this for the long haul, and had to continue watching, if
only to write this review as a warning to others.) Around
this time a cute redhead was introduced to us (thankfully I
now have some redhead nudity to look forward too!). The main
character, played by the director of course, starts shooting
heroin and someone notices that the engines from all the
vehicles are all gone (what the deuce!?), and around the
same time the sound engineer finds a box with a journal from
the early thirties and some teeth with it. Being the most
prudent thing to do, he starts to suck on the teeth like
they’re candy, and a few of the other characters find a
gallery of paintings that feature some of the cast in
horrific situations. People start to die, and after 91
minutes, mercifully it ends…too bad
it ends with a twist that makes little sense, but at least
it ended.
13 Seconds is so incredibly bad from start to finish, I’m
struggling to think of something good to say, but I insist
on saying something nice. (Pause…pause…pause) The cover! The
cover was real nice and creepy, and is what drew me to the
film…too bad it had nothing to do with the movie at all.
Back to the trashing. The sound is out of synch throughout
and the lighting was terrible. Note to the director and
lighting technician: diffused lighting and a secondary light
source can be your friends. The script was amateurish trash
and the most of “actors” read each line with a monotone
drone that conveyed their disgust for agreeing to the movie.
Even when there was promise, their complete lack of talent
took over and ko’d the scene. Halfway through the movie,
there was a cool FX scene reminiscent of the chest bursting
scene from Alien, but the crap musical cues, terrible camera
work and poor editing gave it no impact. That scene should
have been the standout scene of the movie—the scene fanboys
talk about for years, like the shotgun scene in Maniac or
the already mentioned chest bursting scene from Alien.
Another poorly executed effect was when the director tried
the teeth chattering Cenobite effect (or head shaking
J-horror effect if you prefer), but just had the actor move
his head to the right, and then to the left a few times.
What I wouldn’t have given for a complete power failure in
my apartment block—13 Seconds is one of the worst movies
I’ve ever sat through. And I never did see the redheads
trim, tits or tush… |
