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Overall Rating : 5/10
Directed By : Ford Austin
Danielle De Luca (Zombie Farm)
Jim Saviano
Kerry Lynne Feirman (Tower of Blood)
Matt Fromm
Supplied By : Razor Digital Entertainment
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : Oct. 1, 2006
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| PLOT Nestled within a quiet California town, a museum dedicated to the legend of Lizzie Borden has been opened. Cassy, a beautiful college student is drawn to the museum, taking a summer job as a tour guide. Cassy is quickly propelled into the mystery of the Folklore surrounding the legend of Lizzie Borden. It begins to consume her every waking moment. She begins dressing, acting and talking as if she were Lizzie Borden. And there are the dreams. Dreams of blood and death! One by one her friends are found murdered and her boyfriend, Andrew begins to fear the worst. Cassy may be next! Is some madman killing off all off their friends, or has the ghost of Lizzie Borden come back for a bloody rampage? |
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| THE REVIEW The premise of THE CURSE OF LIZZIE BORDEN is rather simple. The story starts with a summer school class, it's teacher Professor Blaisdale informs the class that they would be studying American folklore, the most prominent subject that comes up is the unsolved case of Lizzie Borden. Professor Blaisdale, goes on to explain the story, in which all of us probably know a little about, how Lizzie in 1892, brutally slaughtered with an axe, her father Andrew and her step-mother, much to a mostly amazed class. None are possible more amazed than young Cassie however, who seems to have an ever growing obsession and fixation with Lizzie and her notorious case, Cassie become even more elated when Blaisdale makes an announcement. He announces to his class that a friend of his by the name of Josiah Moody, has just opened a Lizzie Borden museum, in which he has collected many authentic artifacts from the case and that the class will be taking a "field trip" the coming day. Accordingly, the next day they arrive at the house to meet Moody, a wacky character in his own right( probably one of the film's most annoying characters). He rambles on and on various facts of the borden case, most of which the information-wise students already knew about. To make a long story short here...naive Cassy, become fascinated by the place while there and continues to took it up with looney Josiah long after everyone leaves. Apparently Moody charms her and gets her to agree to help him with a previously planned Halloween event he has planned for his museum. It is arranged that Cassie will live at the museum throughout the Halloween season, but get this she will actually play Lizzie Borden and amuse the coming guests. But there's a twist, it seems that our Cassie has a seemingly violent past that know one knew about and once she dons the accused murder's clothing, and persona it seems to bring out that maniacal side as she takes the role all too seriously. I'm sure everyone knows her story, and knows the history and even the rather catchy childhood song. " Lizzie Borden took an axe, gave her mother 40 whacks...when she saw what she had done, she gave her father 41. " The story has been covered from the many documentaries to the other films that have been made prior to this one, however this one tries to be a little different in itself. For some odd reason, here, The Lizzie story now takes place in California. Now I have never heard of a film, about the Borden case outside of Fall River Massachusetts, and housing it in California makes no sense at all - but nonetheless the story is different and surprisingly, for it's budget somewhat entertaining, Now the plot of having a museum devoted to a crime only to have the suspect[ect "return" in someway to slaughter once again, seems all too familiar to me as I have just completed a film in which I worked on entitled "GRANDMA'S SLOPPY SECONDS" which had sort of the same plotline. The "spirit enters an innocent and then possesses them to act and behave like them" is very familiar as it has happened in a lot of previous films, so nothing new or original here but none the less when I watched this film, I found it to be fun. Sure this film does have a low grade video look and the budget seems to be a very very then one and it does have all of the B-Movie schlock staples in tact. The gore is over done, and over the top and often laughable, but when you see as many B films as I have it doesn't always remain a point to examine seriousness as you get immune to these kinds of things in these films. If you're going to be a hard-ass and sit and criticize every little detail then this film would not be for you. I believe that films such as these do have their audience, they approach the films for purposes of having fun and that's it, and in that sense THE CURSE OF LIZZIE BORDEN falls in that category of "so unrealistic it's good and so ridiculous it's entertaining" |
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| GORE
METER 4.5/10 Plenty of the red stuff in this film, but not very realistic, a little overly exaggerated would be putting it correctly. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 4/10 The score, reminded me of a film like TOURIST TRAP, only TOURIST TRAP's score was memorable, will this one tends not to be so much... |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM THE CURSE OF LIZZIE BORDEN is a film, that I found to be fun for what it is, which is a film that is very loosely based on factual events. With that said, this film is not something to learn from as there are plenty of resources available that provide a very credible insight. I would recommend this for at least one viewing, although I did enjoy it pretty much, it is not a film that, would deem multiple spins in your beloved DVD player. |
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