They

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Rating 2


Directed by Robert Harmon

Written by Brendon Hood

Starring Laura Regan, Marc Blucas, Ethan Embry, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jon Abrahams and Jay Brazeau


Following the traumatising suicide of a childhood friend, a young woman starts to believe the night terrors she suffered as a child were not just the result of delusions brought on by an over-active imagination.

This 2002 horror film treads a very well worn path and has much in common with ‘Darkness Falls’ and ‘Boogeyman’, two films that came later. Obviously influenced by Japanese horror films, it uses suggestion to create an aura of creepiness and menace, eschewing the trend for in-your-face gratuitous gore. The story is too flimsy for it to be entirely successful and there is not enough originality, but although it is ultimately rather underwhelming, it is not without merit.

The scenes that take place down in the unspecified city’s metro system are quite effective and I could not help but think of the later British horror film ‘Creep’. However, like that film, I found it difficult to believe no checks are made to ensure all passengers have left the premises before the stations are locked down for the night. The same applies here to the character who finds herself trapped in a swimming pool, because apparently not even a cursory check is made before everything is switched off and locked up. Suspense works best if it is believable, something that too many films of this type are willing to overlook.

I recently watched another Laura Regan film, ‘Hollow Man 2’, and found her performance rather unimpressive and off-putting. Something similar happened here, but her performance worked much better on this occasion. There seems to be a rather cold and fractured brittleness to her acting, but that suits the character she plays in ‘They’, whose behaviour increasingly borders on paranoid schizophrenia as the film progresses.

The full title given to the film at the time of its original theatrical release in the US was ‘Wes Craven Presents: They’. It has a 37% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes from 54 reviews and grossed a little over $16.1 million at the box office.

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Hollow Man 2

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Rating 1½


Directed by Claudio Fäh

Written by Joel Soisson (screenplay) and Gary Scott Thompson (story), based on characters created by Gary Scott Thompson and Andrew W Marlowe

Starring Peter Facinelli, Laura Regan, Christian Slater, David McIlwraith, William MacDonald, Sarah Deakins and Jessica Harman


An invisible man, Michael Griffin, an ex-commando and alleged war criminal, played by Christian Slater, is on a killing spree. Two police detectives, Frank Turner (Peter Facinelli) and Lisa Martinez (Sarah Deakins), are assigned to protect a scientist, Maggie Dalton (Laura Regan), in her home, without being told the truth about their assignment. Slowly but surely, the secret that the military has tried to contain, primarily by rampaging around urban residential districts in armoured vehicles and attack helicopters, begins to unravel.

‘Hollow Man’, despite the presence of Kevin Bacon in the lead role, was a disappointing 2000 film, directed by Paul Verhoeven, which, despite the poor reviews, grossed $191 million worldwide against a production budget of $95 million. The sequel, which features none of the actors from the original film, was released direct to DVD in 2006.

It’s a bog-standard action film with a few visual effects to create the invisible man. It would be unfair to say there are holes in the plot – there is, more accurately, one huge chasm. Even allowing for the basic premise, there is no internal logic to it whatsoever.

The acting is generally adequate, although I was less than convinced by the performance of Laura Regan. However, this might have been the fault of the script or the direction, rather than her talents as an actress. I have seen her previously, both in films and in episodes of television shows (‘Cold Case’ and ‘Ghost Whisperer’), without forming a negative impression of her acting.

‘Hollow Man 2’ is not an entirely dislikeable film, taken for what it is; it just isn’t very good.



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Dead Silence

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Rating 2¾



Directed by James Wan

Written by Leigh Whannell from a story by James Wan and Leigh Whannell

Starring Ryan Kwanten, Amber Valletta, Donnie Wahlberg, Joan Heney, Bob Gunton, Laura Regan and Judith Roberts


When Jamie Ashten (Ryan Kwanten) and his wife Lisa (Laura Regan) receive a mysterious box containing a Ventriloquist’s dummy it sucks Jamie into a living hell that takes him back to Ravens Fair, the small town where he grew up, and an encounter with his estranged father Edward Ashen (Bob Gunton). All the while, he is pursued by Detective Jim Lipton (Donnie Wahlberg), who is convinced he committed a terrible crime, despite his protests of innocence.

James Wan directed the first ‘Saw’ film and was one of the producers of all four films in the series to date. Leigh Whannell wrote the second and third films in the franchise. Although ‘Dead Silence’ contains passing references to ‘Saw’, it is not really similar to those films, having more in common with the likes of ‘Darkness Falls’ and ‘The Grudge’ than it does with the so-called “torture porn” genre (which, in truth, the ‘Saw’ franchise is not really a part of, anyway).

The film is visually very much in the style of horror films of the period – it was released into cinemas in America in March 2007. It doesn’t offer anything new or unusual, but all in all it is agreeable rubbish and enjoyable to watch. This is despite a distinctly off-kilter performance by Donnie Wahlberg, who plays a variation of his character from the second ‘Saw’ film. There is some fun to be had from the presence of Ryan Kwanten in the lead role, at least for those of us familiar with the Australian soap opera ‘Home And Away’ and the character Vinnie.

It is difficult to go too far wrong with a horror story about an evil Ventriloquist’s dummy, even if in the end the film resembles an extended episode of the television show ‘Supernatural’.

‘Dead Silence’ received the kind of reviews predictable for this type of film, with an 18% rotten rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Nigel Floyd, writing in Time Out, was probably closest to the mark when he observed that the film was “affectionately done.” It did not perform particularly well at the box office, grossing $21 million worldwide against a production budget rumoured to have been in the region of $20 million. Plans for a sequel were abandoned.


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