HORSEMEN

Starring:
Dennis Quaid, Zhang Ziyi, Lou Taylor Pucci, Clifton Collins Jr., Patrick Fugit, Eric Balfour and Peter Stormare

Director:
Jonas Åkerlund

Running Time:
90 mins

Out to buy on DVD 19/10/09

• Good support from Zhang Ziyi and Clifton Collins Jr.
• Lou Taylor Pucci steals the show

• Dennis Quaid is not a leading man
• A complete lack of originality
• Copies from movies that have done it so much better

"Come and See"

After tragically loosing his wife, Detective Aidan Breslin (Quaid) feels that his grieve is affecting his work as well as his family. When a series of serial killings associated with the arrival of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse but little did Detective Breslin know that the case would take him further away from his two sons and take him to a place that he would have never expected.

When Michael Bay created his production company Platinum Dunes, remakes were its main forte but can an original script have just as big an impact in the horror genre?

Founded in 2001, uber-director/producer Michael Bay’s production company Platinum Dunes became known for remakes cult horror classics that didn’t really need reinventing. With Hollywood thinking that modern audiences won’t watch anything that pre-dates 1990, they have remade ‘The Texas Chainsaw Massacre’, ‘Amityville Horror’, ‘The Hitcher’ and ‘Friday 13th’. In 2008 however, the company produced their first original movie, David S. Goyer’s ‘The Unborn’ but the critics universally panned the film and unfortunately ‘Horsemen’ will suffer the same fate.

The film is another serial killer movie. This is a genre that has been well covered in the past by genre influencing classics like ‘The Silence of the Lambs’ and ‘Se7en’ and it the stable plot device in shows like ‘Criminal Minds’, ‘C.S.I.: Crime Scene Investigation’ and every other crime drama on television. Using the Biblical prophecies concerning the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, the film wraps these around the plot device of a grieving father and police officer investigating a series of bizarre killings, all with relating to the horsemen, Death, Famine, Pestilence and War. The problem is that this is a plot device that was used so successfully in ‘Se7en’ that this movie pales in comparison.

Director Jonas Åkerlund has gathered together a decent cast however. Zhang Ziyi and Clifton Collins Jr. are always worth watching and they try they best with relatively underwritten roles. Lou Taylor Pucci is the shining light of the movie as Aiden’s son Alex, really grabbing his chance to show what he can do. The main problem is the casting of Dennis Quaid in the lead. Yes the role needed an older actor but his days as a leading man could be coming to an end. He really doesn’t have that something that grabs your attention and make you care about the character and the film suffers because of it.

‘Horsemen’ is a much better effort at horror than ‘The Unborn’ but still not enough to make you look forward to next Platinum Dunes release. A complete lack of originality and a borrowed style from many films that have done the premise so more credit, make ‘Horsemen’ another example as to way the Hollywood horror movie is dying.