Seconds Apart

Starring: Orlando Jones, Edmund Entin, Gary Entin, Samantha Droke, Louis Herthum, Morgana Shaw

Synopsis:

Seth and Jonah are twins that share a dangerous ability; Telekinesis. In a series of bizarre experiments, where they seem to be trying to stir up emotional reactions within themselves, they murder a number of people. One policeman begins to suspect them. After one of the twins becomes involved with a girl at school, jealousy begins to divide them and soon they can no longer trust each other. This leads to a horrific secret being revealed changing both their lives forever.

This movie is part of the After Dark Originals – a series of horror movies.

I’ll admit to finding the first part of this movie slow and slightly tedious, but it soon picked up and ended with a twist that wasn’t signposted and I certainly didn’t see coming.

The movie begins with a punchy scene that illustrates a little of what the twins are doing. Following this scenes it appears to compensate for a lack of budget by being a bit too quirky and a bit too clever for its target audience. I think this turned me off initially but the undercurrent of menace kept me with it. The introduction of the Detective Lampkin, (Orlando Jones), along with the tragedy that haunts him helps. Jones’ performance reminded me a little of Richard Brooks, as Jubal Early in the Firefly episode “Objects In Space. What Jones does is act as the audience’s place in watching the movie. His emotional response to events and the past that continually haunts him counterpoints the twin’s schizoid behaviour and their inability to empathise with other people. Their experiments in trying to resurrect their emotions through using telekinesis to manipulate people to kill themselves, shows one twin to be totally amoral and the other to be just plain insane. Neither are characters we can or should relate to. An inkling of the very emotions they seek, affects one of the twins and the division between the two becomes more evident throughout the movie’s running time because of this.

Unfortunately, the set up, of the twins experiments and how Jones investigates the murders appears overlong in a short 90 minute running time. Again, it caused me to lose interest within the first half hour. Had the movie focused more on the events in the last half an hour (twin meets girl, it causes friction until a reveal changes everything), the film would possibly be far superior.

This movie isn’t so much a horror movie as a thriller with horror overtones. Despite there being a number of grisly murders, the gore is fairly restrained. This works in the film’s favour. When a horrific image is shown, it’s all the more powerful, such as a woman eating broken glass and the jump edit cuts of Jones seeing his wife dying in a burning building. Both Entins are suitably creepy and play off of each other very well. They look a little like evil younger versions of Jake Gyllenhal. It was good to see Louis Herthum again after his terrific turn in The Last Exorcism.

Summary:

Despite my comments about the annoying first half, the second half rescued this for me. I recommend it to those who like a thriller that strays into the horror genre. It’s not anywhere near perfect but as creepy movies go, this is worth a look as it is moody and atmospheric.

7 out of 10 (Wayfarer)

New! Comments