XII

Directed by: Michael A Nickles

Starring: Emily Hardy, Steven Brand, Mercedes McNabb, Jeremy Fitzgerald

Synopsis:

Leonard Karlson, a convicted child molester, is sent to prison, where he is attacked and mutilated by his fellow inmates. Released five years later, Karlson starts to track down the twelve jurors who sent him to prison. In a small Arizona town, Claire and Vicky, two waitresses who were on that fateful jury, are unaware that some of their fellow jurors are meeting violent and untimely deaths, until FBI Agent Naughton arrives in town and starts asking questions...

Review:

XII begins with a really big bang: a nice piece of narrative misdirection followed by a really bravado kill scene which comes out of literally nowhere. Unfortunately, whilst XII contains some decent enough thrills, it doesn’t deliver anything as audacious as that opening scene.

The story is a pretty decent hook. Rather than a bunch of teens randomly crossing paths with some serial killer/mutant cannibal inbreds, the killer here has a decent motive of vengeance against a disparate group of people – albeit from the same home town. It reminds me of some of Vincent Price’s old movies, such as Theatre of Blood and Dr Phibes. Indeed, Karlson’s horrifically disfigured face bears a resemblance to Phibes. Unfortunately we never really get to meet Karlson, except when he’s killing people. A trick has been missed here, I think, where they could have cast doubt over Karlson’s guilt in the original crime. Instead, he’s cast as a kind of supernatural bogeyman, only appearing so he can rip someone’s face off. Karlson’s modus operandi works against the film too, as he has a specific type of ordeal in mind for each of his victims, so there is no variation to the kills. Luckily there are a number of other characters who get killed for trying to obstruct Karlson from his “mission”.

Michael Nickles is aware of the genre’s clichés, so has a little fun with the audience’s expectations, killing certain characters who would normally be considered bulletproof until the finale at least. Even the “final girl” isn’t quite clear-cut, as there are two strong candidates for much of the running time (one of whom is Mercedes McNabb, who played Harmony in both Buffy and Angel). The incidental dialogue between characters works well too, and the script takes pretty good stabs at rounding out some of the characters.

Verdict:

XII offers just enough originality to the slasher genre to be worth checking out. The initial kill scene will unfortunately raise your expectations a little higher than the film can deliver, but those familiar with the genre will get a little kick from seeing the usual tropes played about with.

6 out of 10 (MikeOutWest)

New! Comments