While from the third part of “Jeepers Creepers” there is only a title, a poster and an interesting appearance of Francis Ford Coppola among the executive producers, director and screenwriter Victor Salva tries to pull himself together and continue to create a good, interesting movie. As you can see now, this Victor manages extremely rarely: after the sequel to Jeepers Creepers, he shot only three full-length projects, of which only one became successful (we are talking about the drama “Peaceful Warrior”, which did not become a box office hit, but received very good reviews from critics). The remaining two tapes already belong to the category of action thrillers / horrors – this is “Fear Boulevard” and “House of Ghosts”. Hoping to see at least something from the then Salva, it was decided to watch the Boulevard of Fear, which has in addition to an interesting script participation in the project Rose McGowan.
Radio presenter and psychiatrist Sonny Blake has to return to his home. The cause was the death of his own father. Not knowing, or to rejoice, or to cry, Sonny decides to come to see everything with his own eyes. The first thing that comes to mind is to sell the house, getting rid of it once and for all, however, as it turned out, no one wants to take the house. Nobody at all. So, having decided that it would be better, Blake moves there on his own. The first thing she has to face herself is not a calm rest and not kind, sympathetic neighbors (on the contrary, they look more than strange), but a newspaper peddler doing everything possible to bring Sonny to a feverish fever. He's breaking into her house. He does his best to show his greatness. The whole town is afraid of him. It's a game. A survival game in which only one person survives.
If you do not know that the director of this film is Victor Salva, then even an experienced viewer after watching can easily remain in the dark (if you do not tell him about it) - this tape is very different from what Salva did before. Of course, there is a necessary, mysterious, gloomy atmosphere, but perhaps this is all that can be boasted of. The tape seems to be a kind of game of cats (newspaper carrier) - mice (Sonny), where the first wants to have fun, play, constantly crossing the road to everyone, and the second just wants peace. The film turned out to be weak, and probably all the claims will go not to Salva, the director, but to Salva, the screenwriter. Salva, the writer, has a lot of questions. First, why does the script leave so many questions behind? Who's the newspaper guy? Where did he even come from? What does he want from the main character? If this is the game, why not play with someone else, because anyone can easily become a victim. In this situation, modeled by Salva, there is just a strange guy who is very difficult to call a maniac or psychopath. Just a guy who came from nowhere and I don't know why. But this is not the main question, but in the question of the ending - what is the point? What does the final say to the viewer? It seems that the writer himself does not know what he wanted, so I had to mess up so much, leaving a lot of questions to which he stupidly never answered. Of all the characters, it is not bad, even the main character is well-written. Her fears, her past and how it affected the present are well written. Let Sonny and the psychiatrist, with each passing day, her psyche will be a little shaken. So much so that at first she will feel crazy. In any case, almost everyone around her will consider her crazy. Good, interesting image, which can not be said about the script at all. Good work is shown by the operator Don E. FontLeRoy (besides the operator, Don is also the executive producer of the project): very confident, high-quality work, maintaining a gloomy atmosphere until the end. For an operator working with a director on several projects, the task was quite simple and understandable. Musical accompaniment from Bennet Salway (also working with Salva on several projects, including two parts of “DC”) also does not lame; the composer understands his task, so he wrote for the tape is not a bad soundtrack, adapting to every moment.
They did not spare money for the cast. For Rose McGowan, this is a challenge – it’s been a long time since she played in normal action thrillers. Rose’s performance isn’t bad, but mostly she handles almost everything, showing her character as a knowledgeable radio psychologist’s answer and as someone who’s starting to get entangled in herself. Not a bad game, it deserves attention. A waste of money is the participation in the project Lin Shay and Ray Wise – too little screen time, both actors can be seen in one or two scenes maximum. Not bad for the role of newspaperman Daniel Ross. He never managed to show a real madman, rather some kind of weirdo, posing as some superhuman. However, in the counting scenes, Ross looks confident, to some extent threatening. Not a bad cast, quite acceptable game.
Total:
“Boulevard of Fear” is a very weak project, capable of capturing the viewer with its atmosphere or the participation of famous stars, but leaving behind a strong sediment in the form of large open questions, and left unanswered. Hopefully, with Jeepers Creepers 3, Salva will be able to pull himself together, do something normal, rather than some kind of mess that doesn’t make sense. There was not enough intelligible scenario, able to penetrate the skin and act in such a way as to be scared to the chills. Instead, the finale reeks of misunderstanding, meaninglessly spent 90-minute time. You can recommend only fans of the cast, fans of the director, the rest - at their own request.
Thank you for listening!
Salva goes back to where he started. The main motif from the House of Clowns flashes before us - materializing fears. The darkness of the past forms images that pose a serious threat to a person’s mental health, and the emerging energy funnel attracts the victim to similar situations. In this way, we plunge into the anatomy of victimhood.
The thing is that our heroine is quite a well-off outwardly woman for the third and fourth time experiencing nightmares associated with terrible bullying, which she was subjected to from her father. But this is the “trick” of the whole picture – the most terrible, the real tortures are not shown at all. It was all in the past tense.
And we can only focus our attention on the permanent fears of the heroine. Is it true that a devious teenager rearranges figures at her house? Secretly sneaking into the apartment and threatening her? Is it a lie or a sign of madness? Or maybe she just keeps coming back to the basement where the unseen tortures took place? In any case, Salva suggests that we think about the fragility of the human psyche and the importance of taking care of it.
Probably in an effort to create a powerful psychological thriller with a hint of the author’s film, the director overdid it a little. Unfortunately, Rose McGowan did not cope too much with the role (although she tried very hard), and the second half of the tape played a qualitatively identical motif, minimizing the drive and giving the viewer boredom. Alas, but for all the colorfulness of the plan, its real embodiment turned out to be weaker than the much simpler and genre “Night Flight” by Craven. Grandpa horror two or three strokes, observing the dynamism and spectacular visual series told essentially the same thing.
5 out of 10
Sonny Blake (Rose McGowan) - radio host/psychologist - after the death of her father moves to the house where she spent an unhappy childhood. Her father was an alcoholic and a sadist. She hid in fear in the basement and waited for her parents’ cursing from their bedroom to subside. Sonny would be happy to sell the house and forget, but it turned out that it was “easier to sell an elephant” – and this is despite the cute suburb and good building. And, of course, the local newspaper vendor.
Owls are again “not what they seem”, and the main character (this time, the heroine) is again Salva’s alter ego. Pursued by the shadow of a sinister father, who kicked him out of the house for his homosexual orientation, and the vindictive Nathan Forrest Winters boycotting his Disney film “Poodra”. But Sonny Blake didn't do anything wrong to that hardcore newspaper peddler. Why doesn't he let her go, why doesn't he let her go? The police can not open a criminal case, because the guy is a minor. But he is evil, irrational evil. Unlike the authentic 12-year-old messenger from Jackson's The Postman, who craved "simple family happiness," the motives behind the age-old newspaperman's misbehavior with Rosewood Lane remain unexplained and unexplained, as do the motives of Bob of Twin Peaks or Jack of Nature of the Beast.
Adrian: "Why do you do that?" Jack: "For the fuck of it."
The fact that the underage postman is played by a twenty-eight-year-old strongman (Daniel Ross) refers to 1995, when 20-year-old Forrest Winters agitated the decent population of America to boycott the pedophile director. The public was delighted to see him as a helpless 12-year-old boy, which he had not been for 8 years. And when the characters in the film talk about Daniel Ross as an “innocent minor”, the audience has a natural reaction: “Are you blind?” He's an adult! Stop hanging out with him! The very reaction that Victor needed - and, concurrently, to one degree or another, his own reaction to the events of 1995 and 1988.
The idealistic Rosewood Alley turns into a hanging alley, a theme that will resurface in 2013’s Haunted. The Ventshakhta is like a double-edged sword: if you hear, you can be heard; if you touch, you can be touched. Children's injuries, sniffed with curious walls. Weaknesses. Achilles' heel. Insecurity. A vacuum where people open their mouths but don't hear each other doesn't fit into your position. A dream where the parquet floor turns out to be quicksand, and running in any direction is running in place. On the films of Salva, you can compose multivolume treatises on psychology. His final twist offers a bogus explanation. It's a bogus twist. He explains the events on his fingers, but leaves them even more confused and uncomfortable. Because it's an attempt to build logic where logic doesn't make sense -- other Nathans, real, alive, flesh and blood, but not rationally controlled, always present. Like a terrible dream, where everything “converges” in small things, but does not “converge” in general – for the general logical dependence is broken, the chain is broken. It is such a cozy and safe “logical construction” that a mysterious newspaper peddler destroys, for no apparent reason rearranging the ceramic figures of Sonny Blake. The bear is always on the left, and the ballerina is always on the edge. In all his films, Salva, figuratively speaking, “rearranges ceramic figures in places.” His cinematic world is a Looking Glass, not a grotesque or phantasmagoria, but a barely noticeable traitorous asymmetry. Cauchemar. When you feel that something is wrong, but why, why, and what is wrong, you are unable to understand or realize — unable to sort, correct, and arrange in a rational sequence. Like a staircase where all the steps are designed with equal pitch. All but one. Anybody.
8 out of 10
Promising female psychologist Sonny leads her radio show, deals with children living in families of alcoholics, and is experiencing the death of her father, with whom she had a difficult relationship as a child. Unable to sell her father’s house, she moves into it and plans to start a new life. However, not everything is calm on Rosewood Lane - residents of this area are terrorized by a teenage newspaper deliverer. According to rumors, it is the devil himself.
From the synopsis, the curtain of a supposedly good thriller opens, especially from the director who made a lot of noise in his time, “Jepers Creepers”. But as the plot develops, it becomes clear that the director clearly lost his former grip. Police officers in the district are comparable in intelligence to the donuts and coffee they order for lunch, and a teenage devil, not at all poorly played by an actor far from the status of a teenager, becomes the only meaning of watching a film before the final credits.
His habits are mysterious and his goals unknown. With his appearance in the house of the main character, he creates an atmosphere close to horror, with each new victim he constantly asks the question: “Why?”. But on the part of Salva would be a betrayal of his own style to reveal all the cards at once and his most important trump card, the motive of the killer, he apparently left on possible TV sequels.
There is no brilliant cast or script that can make a splash. “Boulevard of Fear” by all measures is a film that was not for nothing rejected for cinemas. Viewers would leave the viewing, feeling the wrong mood of logic in the behavior of the characters of the picture, and would forever put an end to the career of Salva. He, by the way, is pathetic - being the director of good films, he slid to the very real B-Movie. One can only hope for Jeepers Creepers: Cathedral, a film that is supposed to pull Salva out of the hellish impasse he has fallen into through his last two works.
The film is a complete mystery, in which everything that happens will not be given a logical explanation. In fact, this is the main drawback for which I can not positively evaluate the film and be glad that I did not waste time watching.
For starters, I liked the way the film clearly described the plot. Therefore, even such a simple and not terrible-looking story with a peddler turned really into something frightening-charming. And this atmosphere was held to the very end.
Unfortunately, the expectation of a logical outcome rests on nothing. On the one hand, the director did not have to resort to something global to keep the viewer in suspense. On the other hand, over time, simple horror stories become not enough, so you involuntarily get used to the fact that around the heroine there is always someone’s shadow (and, from the first frame, it becomes clear whose).
In addition, the heroine is put in an absolutely hopeless position: the police refuse to help her, friends do not believe, neighbors lie. Moreover, she herself is a psychologist working on the radio, but as for her safety, the heroine behaves surprisingly unprofessionally, poking from one pseudo-source of salvation to another.
As for the villain, he was quite cute and even harmless at first glance, so that, relying on his beautiful black eyes, everyone in the film just inflated the elephant out of a fly, with which they clearly overdo it.
And the end of the film struck by the fact that the viewer was given not what I write for reflection, but actually just threw the frame, they say, everyone will guess what is happening. Personally, for me, much remained a mystery, not to mention the fact that from many persons (including the heroine’s woe-dad) only appearance remained in memory, and no history that could perfectly complement the film and make it more complete than the “boulevard of fear” without fear.
When life’s upheavals and problems become an overwhelming burden, there is no better cure than to take a short distance from civilization, find a quiet house in a small town and do what you love. Life in peace and quiet, alone with your thoughts and experiences, like a massage for the soul and brain. However, in small towns you can face problems that only at first glance seem small. So, the Boulevard of Fear.
The image of a girl pursued by a mysterious psychopath, somewhere in a quiet town on the outskirts of the universe is one of the most beloved directors. This is not just a story about different genders. After all, behind the external weakness of the heroine can hide a real fighter, from whom you can expect anything, in the fight for your own life or the lives of loved ones and loved ones. So, the story can have a huge number of ways of development. From a dramatic thriller to an extremely cruel horror film.
However, the main idea of “Boulevard of Fear” (which, it is worth noting, should not be translated in the original, because “Rosewood Lane” is the name of the street where the events take place) is far from the possibilities of the main character. The first frames of the film are a classic setup, in the future capable of developing absolutely any scenario. From a mystical thriller about a haunted house, to a psychological thriller about the confrontation between a victim and a maniac.
The main character, Sonya, returns to her home, where she grew up, and where she recently spent her father’s last journey. The planned calm and renunciation of the world for an indefinite period is interrupted by the appearance of a local guy - a newspaper deliverer. Why do the dogs bark furiously, the neighbors try to hide in their homes and so strongly advise Sonia not to subscribe to the local newspapers?
From this point on, the plot is split, and the narrative goes in a different direction than the average psychological thriller. Thriller, not quite standard in logic and manner of plot development. From suspense almost immediately there is no trace, as both the victim and the maniac are determined by the bundle. It remains only to observe their physical and psychological confrontation. But the faint light of suspense still warms, heating the interest of the viewer laid from the very beginning a mystery. The dark pupil, without the surrounding iris, the eyes of the newspaper peddler can still be explained by a rare defect in the development of the body. But why are the locals so afraid that he can do things that ordinary people can’t? Why do all the local dogs hate him so much? And what links him to Sonia's dead father? And the closer the final, the more doubts about the genre of the picture. Is the thriller psychological or mystical? The confrontation of people, or a man and a monster from some other dimension?
In the plot, individual episodes and the idea itself, no, no, no, there is a connection with the classic from Victor Salva “Jeepers Creepers”, from which he never managed to escape. The heroine who found herself in a small town, one on one with a terrible “monster”. A negative character (that is, an antagonist) is an impersonal subject. Where did he come from, where does he live, what kind of evil lurks under the guise of an ordinary guy and what does he want? Whether he turns out to be an ordinary person or a mystical monster, the connection with Jeepers Creepers is more than obvious.
With one exception. Some storylines and details that have good prospects have not received proper development. Childhood fears of the heroes, emotional experiences of Sonya associated with memories of his father, the image-mystery of a newspaper deliverer. The basics, which will be enough for a few motley stories, so quickly and in a concise form flash before the viewer that it does not even have time to interest, or just pay attention.
The atmosphere of the tape can become an outlet, although to some it may seem another minus to all others. A measured narrative, only occasionally interrupted by dynamic action, lulls. This may seem as an attempt to bring the film to the necessary timekeeping, and to increase the nervous tension, an attempt to transfer it from the heroine to the viewer. A phenomenon characteristic of almost any film close to the Boulevard of Fear in the genre. In my opinion, it is still more than a picture.
Along with a good, you can even say star, composition. Although not all actors are known to the general public, but fans of the genres “thriller” and “horror” are certainly familiar with Rose McGowan (this is the legendary “Charmed”, and “Grindhouse”, and “Scream”), Lin Shay (“2001 Maniac 1-2”, “Astral” and episodic roles in “Nightmare on Elm Street”, “Psycho” and “Amityville 7”) and not quite from this category Ray Wise. In general, there is someone to see and what to see. Just once. Let it be quickly forgotten.
Director Victor Salva is a clear “bad student” for film critics, even taking on a more independent project like “Peaceful Warrior” after a series of horror films, film critics, however, are not allowed into their warm embrace. But not such a talentless director Victor Salva, I think for a certain genre he does his job quite well.
The rolling fate of the film "Boulevard of Fear" was not the best way, but frankly, I do not even know what the producers were ready to earn money on this film. The picture did not become a landmark event, no special originality is noted, there are no stars, and there are no simply familiar faces to the viewer in the film, and such projects do not go out on one name of the director.
But that doesn’t mean this movie is a complete failure. Horror "Boulevard of Fear" - atmospheric film, designed exclusively for one-time viewing, devoid of almost any hint of humor, and to the best of its ability brushes aside banal scenes and dialogues. This is not a classic or an event of the year, but comparing such a film with other unsuccessful thrillers and horror films will be unfair.
Victor Salva is a director who adheres to the old school, he has no genius and ingenuity, but he tries to play in front of the audience in every possible way in his paintings. I think the project is good for a one-time viewing, make your ending a little more understandable and clearer, you could put an assessment higher.
7 out of 10
And that's Victor Salva? Noooo! It can't be! All right, you can assume he was shooting half a movie, piece by piece, while the rest of the pieces look like a cheap TV series. And the fact is that almost the entire cast is from the series, and the game they have appropriate. None of the characters seem like a living person, except that Lauren Velez behaves more less naturally within his role.
The scenes are also... different. Some scenes are easily recognized by the style of Salva, whether it is peeping through a hole in the fence, or a still dark silhouette in the moonlight, or as a scene on the road where the heroine passes a guy with a sign in his hands, and there was a scene in the kitchen with a door for a cat. The rest (most) of the film was shot... no, just, bland, dull, as if someone else was filming.
The musical accompaniment plunged me into confusion, because the film sounds melodies of absolutely different levels of quality, i.e. synthesizer cheap and frightening orchestral Bennett Salway (I do not believe that he wrote electronic parts), which sounds in the film from the power of 15 minutes. I don’t know how, but I had this difference caused the atmosphere of the film to collapse, and it was not enough.
Regarding the plot, I will say that it is weak, indistinct, and only holds up due to the intrigue “who is this guy on a bicycle?”. By the way, the finale will not be the revelation of the century, will not cause a storm of emotions, just show us a little more. I want to add that I like to look at dubious pictures, because in some of them I will find something for myself. But here, except for some moments in a recognizable style, there is nothing. It is not enough for me, you decide for yourself.
4 out of 10
You all need a little more clarity, apparently! Why?
Just triviality, balancing on the verge of stamp, and at the same time intentional understatement create the atmosphere of the film. In this, at first glance, boring and typical medium-hand horror, I saw more individuality than in all the praised and cult “Saws” and “Paranormal phenomena”.
Just the fact that a lot of plot nuances are terminated without playing a role is very vital and correct! The creators of the film hung guns, and only a crossbow shot.
Yes, hints at a difficult childhood and some problems with his father. Yes, it doesn't chew! Do you want to? We've seen all these topics with a psychologist who needs a psychologist a hundred times, and we know what we're talking about. Does this have anything to do with the guy on the bike? Nope. So it's over.
Meaningless conversation? Normal life! You only communicate with people for a specific purpose!
No porcelain figures? I'm sorry, somehow Rose's heroine was not up to figures all of a sudden! And that's the truth! The film is scattered some “tips” that lead to nothing. That's what life would be like! How many crimes are not solved? How many corpses are not found (this is about Barrett and the pipe left by a teenager for a prank)?
In general, I have the feeling that the only motive of the “demon” young man was “just like that.” Or rather, no, his motive is "because I can!" The same uncomplicated and monstrous that sounded in "Funny Games" Haneke. However, alas, Daniel Ross, who played Derek, did not lie next to Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet. Infernal in it, except for contact lenses, nothing is noticed. It's not the actor's fault, it's just caste failure. I would prefer to see in the role of the supposedly demonic teenage terrorist a more fragile and inconspicuous guy (although this is a purely subjective opinion).
And the contemptuous "phi" seen in many reviews, that they say, the undisclosed ending, with a hint of a sequel, causes only a response "phi" to such know-it-alls. The ending is logical, clear, complete, and, as for me, much more unexpected than all these tired twists of fashion thrillers, from which only a twist and expect!
I, naively, already believed that the boy-carrier, somehow representing the wrong name, and being in several places at the same time, and really has an inhuman nature. But the last 30 seconds of the film gave an exhaustive answer not to the unnecessary question "Why?", but to the much more intriguing - "How?!"
Yes, after watching a rather good atmospheric Jeepers Creepers, I decided to watch the films of Victor Salva, I started with the Boulevard of Fear, to admit honestly I did not even read the reviews, and did not look at the rating, but I had to.
The beginning is quite tempting, good music, a mysterious atmosphere, all this lasts in the interval of about 10 - maximum 15 minutes. Then there is the ridiculous student staging of shots, a flurry of cheap actors, and repulsive from the screen, and the thought arises in my head not to continue watching this film, but curiosity and desire to know what is in this film, maybe cheap staging is not yet a sign of quality, but suddenly there is a deep idea, and of course we continue to look, and in vain, it is worth trusting your intuition.
I could not even imagine honestly admitting this. The film has absolutely no logical explanation of events, complete nonsense, after watching only questions, and nothing else. What was all this? What was it? I understand when in the film you several times change your opinion about what is happening, when you correctly and carefully play your understanding, throwing from the side, but then explaining how everything really is, at least give a hint so that a person understands all the same, and from several versions chose the correct one, here you were just whipped, and ineptly, and that’s it. Completely inadequate ending, there is no suggestion that we wanted to tell the Director. We all have failures, but they...
Maybe someone in this “thriller” will find something intriguing, see in the image of a psychopathic maniac, the embodiment of the inner fears of the main character, I did not see anything in it that would make sense, as in the whole film.
In my opinion, films are divided into attractions and semantic, and those that carry these two components. Meaningful should have in themselves first of all a story, a story, call it what you want, which will bring you something important, touching, or vice versa oppressive, living, real, in general contain that at least something can convey to you. Attractions, almost all of them have a story, but it does not have to have any meaning, but just has to be interesting, like the Texas massacre or the Collector, Paranormal phenomenon, there is nothing important in them, it is just an attraction that is more aimed at causing in you some emotions, fear, tension, expectation, laughter, etc. This film is not about one or the other. There's nothing on my look.
Sonya Blake has a successful career, a lesbian girlfriend (nothing personal), a personal therapist and a bunch of ghosts from the past. Having inherited the house of the late and extremely unloved father, located in the suburbs, after unsuccessful attempts to sell, he decides to move to it, while not leaving work in the city. Why, one asks, go back to where she fled so much, probably, so that it would be further to go to work, and to make the action muddle up. And it, in fact, did not wait long, in the form of some infernal essence of the boy-newspaper. What is most offensive, the director pretty quickly cuts off possible guesses about Sony’s mental disorders, indicating that the guy is really something incomprehensible.
And that is the main problem of the film: there is no intrigue in it. Who the killer knows immediately what he wants, and why, I think, the director was not thought out. At the same time, being something otherworldly, the postman behaves absolutely normally, except for a mysterious trick on the track. To call him ingenious and inventive also does not work, all his tactics are simple as five cents. Moving on, sort of the emphasis is on the fact that this is a youth slasher, but absolutely missing all the relevant attributes. Suspense is pumped extremely ineptly and even according to the old rules: the door means someone will be behind it.
What do we end up with? Rose McGowan, whose face has lost half of her emotions because of the plastics she made after a car accident. The otherworldly psychopath, who is not clear why he started everything to leave so easily and, the iconic cat door, similar to the one in which Wes Craven killed Rose back in '96.
By the way, what happened to Barrett and what was the purpose of the hellish newspaperman? Is Salva full of optimism to shoot a sequel?
I always evaluate films primarily by the quality and level of emotions they caused me when I first watched them.
Salva is one of my favorite directors and each of his creations is something special, amazing. He surprised, surprised and will surprise. Truly a great thriller!
For a long time, Victor Salva did not please us with new films. “Boulevard of Fear” appeared after a rather long (five-year) break in the work of the director, so interest in this picture was great.
We can say that this is not the first variation on this theme, but the way it did Salva puts this film above his genre “twins”.
First of all, I want to note the cast - he played just brilliantly. Daniel Ross is awesome! The role of a maniac played by him turned out to be incredibly bright, creepy, outstanding and at the same time charming. Rose McGowan created the image of a strong, yet feminine woman. Beautiful and gorgeous actress. All the actors in general held extremely powerful and very memorable.
Salva, as in her other films, makes each frame so calibrated that the atmosphere of what is happening is addictive. I think everyone did their job well.
The Boulevard of Fear is definitely worth watching. My assessment
Since the conception of the genre of “slasher” it became clear that the most mysterious murders occur not in multi-million metropolises, but on neatly cut lawns of American suburbs, hiding the secrets of their inhabitants behind the friendly facades of cozy mansions.
It is here, in the classic scenery of the youth horror, the viewer will have to face a new fruit of the imagination of Victor Salva - an unbalanced newspaper peddler, under the careful guidance of the director, gradually turned into a collective image of psychotics and serial maniacs, an antagonist, devoid of memorable character traits and specific features of the hunt for the victim, but still claiming to remain the main intrigue of the film, deliberately not exhausted in the hope of a future sequel.
The rather common plot of pathological obsession and persecution ranges from a trivial psychological thriller to a typical horror movie, casually building a detective line around the shadowy personality of the boy pursuing McGowan's heroine - a character of not entirely human origin. Inheriting the square meters of her deceased father, psychiatrist Sonia Blake is forced to take part in a game with a dangerous predator who, without good motivation, threatens the life of a newly-minted neighbor and her loved ones.
Resisting the unhealthy manifestations of the attention of a fearful suburban teenager, the woman would certainly take up her own investigation, but Salva prevents the criminal from being exposed, instills disbelief in the police, who seem to care about peremptory evidence of the guilt of a sadist minor. The escalation of the extremely tense situation is limited by the visits of a determined guest, manipulating the mental health of the heroine with the help of annoying attempts to interfere with the measured pace of her life, as the plot develops more monotonous and secondary.
The notorious effect of surprise is the only artistic technique capable of justifying the genre definition of the film, in the rest, the author's script does not go beyond the tabloid detective, twisted so tightly that the director prefers an open finale that is fundamentally important for the victory over the unknown to continue the mystical story.
This is Victor Salva’s new creation, Rosewood Lane, or Boulevard of Fear. Victor Salva shot about ten films, good and not so, but he gained real fame among horror connoisseurs as the creator of the famous Jeepers Creepers, which became almost cult and an example of how a landmark film is made when the author has only a special sense of style.
When you read the annotation for Rosewood Lane, you involuntarily wonder what could be interesting and scary about this story? Girl, murder, psychotic neighbor. You have some doubts that such a story, quite ordinary, at first glance, can get something sensible. And this time you're wrong. Victor Salva masterfully managed to do what not everyone manages. He "scares" without resorting to any tricks, complex effects, a sea of blood. Invisibly escalates subtle tension, using two components: atmosphere and accents on the smallest details, which may seem insignificant, like the movement of the eye in the hole of the fence, but are the building blocks of fear, in which he gradually immerses the viewer. There is a feeling that the film is not so simple, there is something else that is only implied but not shown. And everyone, by virtue of his imagination, "draws" this something himself. We can not always understand and rationally explain what scares us. Sometimes it’s a little thing that causes rejection. So in “Rosewood Lane”, it would seem, in the center of the plot is an ordinary psychopath, terrorizing half of the city and the main character, but this image is “drawn” so that involuntarily believe in the “otherworldly” origin of his madness and malice. His laughter at the end of the film is a clear confirmation of that. Obviously, you need to be a master of such “reincarnations” of your own characters, and Victor Salva, of course, is.
At the same time, the film contains a whole set of cliches, inconsistencies, absurdities, like slow-moving, and as always, not believing police officers. And it’s too conspicuous to allow the film to “take a certain height” and be recognized by the most critical audience. However, even this cannot deprive the Boulevard of Fear of its originality, easily recognizable author’s style. And in the finale - the indisputable "decoration" of the film, a grateful viewer is waiting for several unexpected moments that will not leave him indifferent.
One last thing. I think the number of people who will appreciate the film and those who will not will be roughly equally divided. Here everything will depend on individual perception and the right attitude.