Scream for Help

I don't know that I have ever been more confounded by a movie than Scream For Help. It has the throw-everything-against-the-wall madness of The Ice Pirates and The Last Dragon, but unlike those, I don't think Scream For Help is doing so intentionally. It has the cheesy, awkward, "was this made by humans?" aspect found in movies like Birdemic and Troll 2. But those were made by either grossly inept amateurs or crew that didn't speak the same language as the cast, resulting in a disconnect. Scream For Help has the director of Death Wish and the writer is Tom Holland, who wrote and directed Fright Night and directed Child's Play. It constantly feels like some kind of satirical swipe at both Hitchcockian thrillers and, of all things, teen mystery media like Nancy Drew. But Scream For Help plays it far too straight to be satirical, especially in the final third, when it becomes a grim home invasion movie. The plot concerns Christie, a 17-year-old who is convinced her new stepfather is plotting to kill her mother. That is the most straight-forward element of Scream For Help. Everything after that is a descent into utter madness. Characters have no consistency, no arc, and the only resemblance to being human is that they are visibly not 50 squirrels in an overcoat. And it's not that the acting is bad, or the script is bad, it's both, but in entirely different ways. A lot of critiques now will make the comparison of AI or an alien imitating human behavior. That's not enough here. The script ping-pongs character motivations at will; Christie's best friend is killed in a hit-and-run and is more concerned with proving her stepfather did it than she is broken up about her friend being dead. Later -- as in later that evening -- her dead friend's now-former boyfriend comes over, they talk, he kisses her, she sends him away, and then with no provocation or emotion whatsoever, chases him down and says she's ready to sleep with him. When she proves to her mom that her stepfather is cheating on her, she decides to go upstairs, even though her mom has a broken leg, and she has seen evidence of him being a murderous psychopath. The stepfather is shown that his co-conspirators are going to cut him out of the deal, and he betrays them, but then re-aligns with them for no reason whatsoever. And these are just the bigger moments. There are literally dozens of scenes that will make you exclaim "WHAT WHY" with your arms out and your jaw on the floor. The acting and dialogue are no better in being anything remotely resembling reality as we know it. I don't know if it was direction that led them down the wrong path, or the actors made choices. Whatever the case, the acting in this is remarkable. Every kind of bad acting -- broad, wooden, arch, you name it -- is on display, sometimes in the same scene, sometimes with the same actor. I can't think of a single scene where the right emotion or the right temperament was displayed at the right time. It's like the "acting styles" game from Whose Line Is It Anyway, where the performers have to switch acting styles but stay within the scene and character, only they did it for an entire movie. The direction is equally baffling. The camera work is rather pedestrian, but there are some choices in this movie, folks. The scene I mentioned above, where Christie and her dead friend's boyfriend decide to sleep together? They go upstairs to her room, and we to watch in real-time as they get undressed; taking off shoes, then socks, then shirts and pants, slip into bed, take off the underwear under the covers, every moment painstakingly detailed for your viewing ... well, pleasure sure isn't the word. The friend that dies in a hit-and-run? For no good reason, she doesn't die on the roadside, even though she looks like she's been fed through a wood chipper; she dies at the hospital, because ... reasons. Why do two classmates of Christie's we've never met harass her and blame her for her friend's death? Why does this never come back up? How is it Christie's mom falls down the stairs in a roll and breaks her leg, but when she's thrown down the basement stairs and lands on the concrete floor on her head, she's fine? The dialogue is about two steps short of human, but not in a robotic way. In fact, I'm not sure that I could explain how. Christie refers to everybody by their first and last name. Profanities are used in ways that never seem natural for the situation, like when Christie wants her friend to also witness her stepdad cheating; Christie's friend asks what they'd doing, and Christie replies "fucking!". It makes sense literally, but no human being would just use that word by itself. It's little moments like that that make the dialogue sound stilted and unfamiliar. Oh, and just in case this bizarre train wreck isn't comprehensive enough for you, even the soundtrack has lost its damned mind. Sometimes, it's a sweeping orchestral piece that wouldn't be out of place in Gone With The Wind. Other times, it's a jazzy, funky piece like a 60's caper flick, a sappy number like an 80's after-school special, and sometimes it sounds like a 70's cop show. But never once, not in one scene, does the music make sense for the moment. It's all well-composed, but you'd do just as well to score it yourself by turning to random radio stations. And yet, despite all of this, this is not unwatchable. It's broken, yes, fundamentally and fully, but it isn't bad. It's not good either, but it is somehow mesmerizing. The plot is as paint-by-numbers as a preschool assignment, but it's how the movie gets from point A to point B that is something to behold. I can't say it's so bad it's good, but I can say it has to be seen to be believed. I know for certain I wasn't entertained the way they intended, but I was entertained in some fashion. Whether I can ever explain how, I don't know.