Review of Horsemen (2009) by Marko S — 27 Sep 2012

The opening is inviting: a silver platter human teeth pulled out leads to a series of murders. somewhere along the way they are revealed to be inspired by the byblical four horsemen, there will be four victims (actually five, but it's just a plot twist), and four killers... it gets more and more unreasonable, and plot is just a wessel to carry around a half-boiled puke stew of ideas, some of them can't be combined with others. there is also some subtle racism, some not so subtle miscast (zhang ziyi, who doesn't speak english as a character who grew up in a basic american suburban family). dennis quaid is seriously underacting, but it's reasonable with that kind of messed-up screenplay, and he is maybe the strongest link.

I grew up in 90-es, watching psyvho thrillers and when I see one starting ot the TV I have a compulsive need to see it to the end, no matter how bad it will turn out to be. let's be reasonable: nowdays it can't be good, the genre is used up, all the ideas about serial killers are already seen many times. horsemen is mixing many earlier movies into one piece - the gothicness of seven, the gore ofe the saw series, some stuff from primal fear and silence of the lambs any many others. does it make it any good? no. there are some good details, like run-down detroit as a setting, and maybe one or two oneliners. and the whole styling is wrong: it's not movie-like, it seems like a music video, but it is also anticipated: the director is a veteran of music video industry.

If you are a hard core fan of serial killings on a screen, watch it. otherwise - avoid it like war, plague, hunger and death.