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Overall Rating : 4.5/10
Directed By : William Butler
Michael Paré (BloodRayne II: Deliverance)
Ja Rule (Half Past Dead)
Tom Sizemore (Bottom Feeder)
Danny Trejo (Halloween (2007)
Supplied By : Genius Products
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : February. 12, 2008
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| PLOT Detective Michael Turner investigates mysterious deaths that occur in and around a maximum-security prison. What begins as just another suicide and murder case unfolds into a furious struggle to uncover the unexplainable while escaping death at the hands of a vengeful spirit unleashed within the prison walls. |
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| THE REVIEW In FURNACE, at Black Gate prison bodies of inmates and guards alike are beginning to turn up due to mysterious deaths. Detective Michael Turner is assigned to investigate the deaths that are being seemed as suicides. Eventually Turner discovers that a previously closed down wing of the prison has recently reopened to make room for incoming prisoners - unfortunately it also reopens some years long secrets involving the former warden who supposedly died at the hands of inmates, and his young Daughter that mysteriously went missing. It seems as if the spirit of the Warden's Daughter is now haunting the prison and is responsible for the prison's newfound chaos - and the key to it all may lie with the prison's furnace. At first glance at FURNACE's DVD cover, when you notice names of the likes of a Ja Rule or Paul Wall as the stars, if you're anything like me, you'd be a bit skeptical as to how good the film may be. Even with my initial reaction to some of the cast, I was still looking forward to FURNACE as it was written and Directed by William Butler, whose last film, MADHOUSE I happened to really like and to this day still watch on occasion. With MADHOUSE, his Directorial debut, a film he also wrote and directed, Butler showed lots of forthcoming potential in the way he told his story, the direction and angle choices were all great, so I was really looking forward to this follow-up release from this Actor turned Director. I can't really say that FURNACE quite lived up to what I had expected or that it is even up to par with MADHOUSE. The plot is not at all original from the very beginning as it all seems very familiar, if not just a film that makes alterations from other already preexisting films. The story focuses on a police Detective named Michael Turner that is called upon to investigate a string of mysterious suicides that are happening within Black Gate prison and around it. In the end it seems that it all boils down to an evil spirit of a little girl that is lurking within a formerly closed off area of the prison. When this area is once again opened to house some new incoming inmates, those whom come in contact with the area mysteriously meet a deadly fate. The element of the story that involves the spirit is really reminiscent of Director Renny Harlin's late 80s Thriller, PRISON starring a young Viggo Mortensen - in which in that film, inmates release an evil spirit of a corrupted executed inmate from within the prison walls. The other aspect of the story of the evil little girl that haunts the prison is a lot like the character of Samara in THE RING films. In FURNACE, the little girl, once innocent was burned alive by her crazy Warden father, with the help of a mentally incompetent inmate, she's back in spirit form here, but unlike Samara from THE RING who was drowned, her weapon is fire, from which she was burned. I was kind of disappointed at the lack of depth or originality of FURNACE as it's really not much new to Horror as it's basically a few plots of other films that have been reversed - more so in the comparison to THE RING. Midway through the film, I knew that this was how the film would be, and hoped for at least more character build-up for the main characters, but unfortunately, I was also disappointed there too. As for the acting the performances are fairly mixed, as you'd expect from such an ensemble cast as we have here. Obviously, some of the cast members are more experienced than others and it surely shows. Paul Wall along with Cowboy Troy, who are newcomers to the world of acting have basically bit parts, Paul Wall the rapping Houston Texas native has no lines(but a film opening suicide scene), whereas Troy's speaking duties are limited. Main focus within the film is on the character of Michael Turner, portrayed by veteran Actor Michael Pare, who does a fairly decent job of leading the film though out. A big problem with the film are the characters that are just not focused upon enough. I was really impressed by Ja Rule's performance, I really was and felt like he did a very believe able job, but in the end, he just wasn't given enough focus in my opinion. The same could be said from the awesomely-always badass Danny Trejo, Tom Sizemore(who, in my opinion had very little of a presence at all here) and Kelly Stables, whom coincidently played Samara in THE RING TWO, who is about as hot as they come when out of the extravagant Samara garb. William Butler's first film MADHOUSE was a low budget indie and by the looks of it, i'd venture to guess that FURNACE's budget was slightly lower, but that's just a guess due to the look of the film as well as some of the film's special effects that looked a little less believable than others. Overall, FURNACE is a decent take on a premise that has become all too familiar these days in Horror, but when it was all said and done, I couldn't help but to still believe Writer/Director William Butler of being capable of a film that is even better. |
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| GORE
METER 3/10 Not too gory, dismembered limbs a strangulation, bodies being burned and an exposed body are all I remember - nothing actually worthy of being "unrated" although the DVD states it as being such. |
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| MUSICAL
SCORE 2.5/10 The score was somber and soft for most of the film and I thought that it didn't do much to add to the film |
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM To be honest, FURNACE is truly nothing new, it is merely a story we have already seen many times before told in yet another different way, I was expecting to enjoy this one a lot more than I did, but ended up seeing it as a film that was just ok at best. | ||||
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