The FINAL installment of this year's Horrorfest for me was...........
Butterfly Effect 3: Revelations
I actually think that it's pretty lame that After Dark chose a sequel as one of the Horrorfest bunch. But be that as it may, despite my reservations, there was a bit of the movie that almost proved promising...
Quite frankly, I like the concept of time travel consequences. Sure, it's not a new concept, but it's something that I like when done well. I also liked the way that
Butterfly Effect 3 felt a lot like
Memento at times; disjointed and confused main character with no linear memory who is trying to solve the murder of a loved one in their past. There was actually a while in the film where I thought that it would definitely be a breakout Horrorfest sequel hit.
HOWEVER
While the production value and direction were pretty good, the acting was pretty damn abysmal. And that wasn't even the worst part. Time travel can be pretty damn complex when using it to construct a non-linear story. And for us thinkers in the audience it's easy to pull apart the holes in its theory. Be that as it may, there were some surprisingly good kills and some successful mood-building parts of the story (our protagonist is trying to go back in time to find out who killed his ex-girlfriend, only to find that every time he goes back, someone else winds up dead, and his life is just that much worse). But what kills me is that I honestly feel as though the writer started out with a good concept (albeit the THIRD installment of a good concept) but didn't know what to do with it. The ending was so incredibly awful and contrived that I wanted to tear my eyes out. With the obvious money that they had for the production value, I think that they should have spent a little more on writers. Or maybe After Dark should have gone with something
original.
2.5/5