Final Draft 2007 Genius Products, Inc   Buy It Now

I think there are number of directors, writers and producers in Hollywood that are under the assumption that horror is easy. It doesn’t take much, just some blood, maybe a thought provoking script, and that’s really about it. Horror is not easy though, and for every good horror film that comes along there are at least twenty or so that are not.

That brings us to Final Draft, yet another in the unending string of horror films that are coming out thanks to the genre gaining popularity once again, at least for now. First, it’s seems as though this movie doesn’t know what it wants to be. The director himself calls it a horror film while everyone else seems to be billing it as a thriller, so apparently just pick whatever you feel is best, though I wouldn’t put this movie into either category. Final Draft is the tale of Paul Twist (James Van Der Beek), a down and out screenwriter who recently has been plagued with a memory from his childhood. While at the circus as a youth, a clown who loved to finish his act off by breathing fire had it go tragically wrong. The fire blew back at him setting his head ablaze. Paul’s idea is that now, the clown has come back looking for revenge on those who laughed at him, and the idea just won’t go away.

Determined to get the screenplay finished, Paul decides to lock himself in his loft with only his friend David Hockin (Darryn Lucio) being his contact to the outside world if he needs something. As Paul begins crafting his masterpiece, he is plagued by visions of the clown, his ex-wife, a bully he knew from high school and now the real question is are these visions real, are they merely a part of the script, or is it something more sinister.

Here we go again with another film that wants to try and mess with your head, but Final Draft never succeeds in doing so. Actually, the only thing that it is truly successful at is being another bland and boring, cookie cutter movie, the likes of which has been seen time and time again. I just watched a similar idea in the film The Invisible just a few short days ago, and even that movie isn’t the first to attempt this.

Final Draft really would like to be menacing at times, it really would enjoy trying to take you on a ride filled with unbelievable delusions, but it simply can’t do so. As we watch Twist’s psyche slowly corrode and the clown from his memories seemingly come to life to do his bidding, Final Draft really turns into more of a shallow, slow moving, and boring piece of cinema that really doesn’t pack any type of a punch, slap, or even pitch. Much of what is seen in these supposedly nightmarish visions as we see Twist bantering with the illusions in his mind is just far too predictable. There are no real surprises here, just expectations, and they aren’t ones of a grand performance of masterfully crafted movie as Final Draft certainly isn’t a movie that one could compare to the likes of Hitchcock.

Is the film a thriller? Absolute not, nor is it a horror movie but instead of an experiment gone wrong and another shinning example of how not to make a movie and more importantly, what is wrong in cinema today, especially those films that are trying so desperately to pass themselves off as horror films. Final Draft instead is merely a look inside the mind of someone who is slowly losing it, but his interactions with the phantasm of his wife or the bully that picked on him really do nothing to further the plot or the character. This is much more a remedial exercise in filmmaking without a vision, and Final Draft, despite its name, could have used at least ten more revisions before being a true “final draft.”

Final Draft also includes a music video which really isn’t worth watching as well as a making of. I found this to be much like the movie itself as the cast and crew talking endless about how great the movie is really mirrors the film. They seem to be living out some fantasy within their own heads, and although they think it is the best thing ever, let me once again point out that what is here isn’t anything new, and it has been done much better in the past.

The tagline for Final Draft is “some stories should never be written”, but it should be changed to something along the lines of some movies should never be filmed. Final Draft is a blow average film with the only advantage going for it is that it wasn’t shot with a camcorder, and I’ve personally sat through far too many of those movies over the past few months. But the lack of bad video is about the only thing that Final Draft has going for it, and outside of this fact, this is just a forgettable “horror” movie that is better overlooked.
 

-mike-
 

Directed By: Jonathan Dueck   Written By: Darryn Lucio   Cast: James Van Der Beek Darryn Lucio Tara Spencer-Nairn Jeff Roop Melanie Marden Adam MacDonald Devon Sterling Ferguson Julia Schneider Kyle McDonald David Hemstead Deborah Odell James Binkley

DVD Features: Audio: English The Making of Final Draft Music Video