Everything is New to Me

Amnesiac Review

Amnesiac

There are a number of factors that can make a film of any genre an unenjoyable experience. The acting could be horrendous, the special effects can look unrealistic, or the overall quality of the film can be poor, especially in the case of an independent, low-budget venture. Even if all of these checklist items can be marked off as passable, a movie can still suffer. Sometimes the plotline/story is just plain boring. Unfortunately, that is the case with Michael Polish’s new psychological thriller, Amnesiac.

After a car accident takes his memory, a man (Wes Bentley, P2, American Horror Story) must piece his life back together, using only what his wife tells him. He soon finds out, however, that the woman is not what she seems and what she is telling him is far from the truth.

Now, I know that synopsis sounds somewhat vague, but that really is all the movie is about. Wes Bentley’s character wakes up in a bed, hooked up to all sorts of machines, monitoring his health. A woman, played by Kate Bosworth (Superman Returns, Straw Dogs), tells him that they are married and that she will take care of him. As ‘man’ starts getting better, he asks questions and explores the house that he is staying in. He stumbles across dead bodies in the basement along with other things and realizes that the woman is obviously crazy. The only problem is that he still doesn’t remember who is his or what exactly is going on.

Honestly, nobody knows what is going on in Amnesiac until about the last 10 minutes of the film. Even then, there isn’t this huge reveal that redeems the film in any way. Don’t get me wrong; There are a bunch of great things to be said about Polish’s film, but overall it is still a dud. Bentley and Bosworth were great at their respective roles, the little bit of blood we saw on screen looked amazingly realistic and was quite welcome in this mundane 90 minutes, and the overall quality and aesthetics of the film were quite impressive. With all that being said, I still did not enjoy it one bit.

There were some moments where I thought about comparing Amnesiac to Misery. I quickly decided against that, however, because really the only comparison that can be made is that a crazy woman has a man tied up in a bed against his will. Misery was a great story/film, while Amnesiac only pretends to be one. It is slow moving with no real ‘excitement’ to be had and the story really just never grips me like I had hoped for.

If you are into psychological, slow-moving horror flicks, Amnesiac might be right up your alley. Check it out and let me know your thoughts in the comment section below. You can purchase a copy on DVD or Blu-ray, available now XLrator Media.

I have to give this one the low score of 1.5 ice-picks out of 5.

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