Friday, January 28, 2011

Vanishing on 7th Street and Shadowy Messages: A Movie Review

Director: Brad Anderson.

Writer: Anthony Jaswinski.

Vanishing on 7th Street is currently available through video-on-demand, as of January 7th. Then, this shadowy film will have a limited theatrical run February 18th through Magnet Releasing. Running is also something that many of the characters do a lot, while trying to fight off the Roanoke mystery. Many viewers will also be running, but not towards this film. The main descriptive word that kept running through this reviewer's head was uncompelling.

Others might think boring, mediocre, or underachieving. The plot breaks down much like an unfinished nightmare, as shadows threaten to steal the lives of those not standing in the light. Characters without "an independent light source" (Vanishing) will soon be joining the doomed voices of the dark. A hastily inserted plotline involving an abandoned English colony in the Americas is more of an afterthought than a unifying theme. Then credits roll and soon, you are left in the dark, as well.

Writer Anthony Jaswinski's other primary credit is a 2002 film entitled Killing Time and this is only his second step into feature film making. His use of the Roanoke disappearance is unconvincing. In this early 16th Century myth, several dozen settlers vanished, after Sir Walter Raleigh, an expeditionist, left the colonists without food for three years. Unsurprisingly, the settlers dispersed and took refuge with indigenous tribes such as the Croatan tribe. They left a scrawled message with the word Croatan on a post, to let others know where they went. This event is not really a mystery and nor is much of the runtime within Vanishing on 7th Street.

This film was really disappointing and left this reviewer on the fence for much of the 90 minutes. This is not a good place to be, when one is looking for a little excitement, conflict, and tense interplay. These elements are only teased in the film and each topic is underdeveloped. As well, the actors, John Leguizamo, Thandie Newton, and Hayden Christensen, do not have much to work with here, as they do their best with a man vs. himself theme. Have you ever seen a conflicted person try to work out their demons within themself? This is too much like looking in the mirror, when all one wants is a thrilling distraction. There is just not enough here to recommend the film.

This film is currently available on various video-on-demand platforms, but horror and thriller fans really need to investigate whether this film is a time well spent. The shifting of gears in the conclusion also left this movie watcher wondering how many competing voices it took to break this film apart. Last act aside, Vanishing on 7th Street's final impression disappeared into thin air, much like the characters in the film.

Overall: 5.5 out of 10.

Acting/believability: 6 (the actors do not have much range to show here).
Writing/story/plot: 4 (someone needs to explain the plot to this horror fan, if there is one).
Conclusion/message: 5.5 (the film tries for a flip flop from the rest of the material, not unified, not satisfying).

Another review of this title from Al Kratina at the Montreal Gazette:

Vanishing on 7th Street Review at the Gazette

The trailer for this feature has been posted previously:

Vanishing on 7th Street 2nd Feature Trailer on 28DLA

Mindhunters is another film which deals with the Roanoke myth and here is much more excitement. This feature stars Val Kilmer. Also, below is The Traveler, which released under the radar this week. The Traveler also stars Kilmer.



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