Review of Joshua (2007) by Myss Meow — 07 Aug 2008

"It's not scary at all, but it is kind of amusing due to the camp value." So said the friend who passed off his copy of Joshua to me. After having high-hopes, I am sad to report that his analysis is not something I can combat.

A borderline-comic hodepodge of The Omen, Rosemary's Baby, and The Shining, Joshua aspires to occupy a similar rung of greatness as those films, but it fails miserably. Agonizingly slow, dull, and downright annoying for most of its runtime, the film also doesn't benefit from its parade of stereotypes that pass for characters: all the women are screaming harpies, Sam Rockwell's father character is an immature dumb jock transferred from the football field into a corporate office, and nothing signifies "gayness" quite like drinking from a martini glass and singing showtunes (Dallas Roberts's character--speaking of which, has Roberts EVER played straight?). Nothing (for me at least) renders a horror film more unfrightening than a cast of boring characters one cannot care about.

Where the film does succeed (albeit only slightly) is in its satire of Upper West Side Manhattanite yuppie parents who use their children as status symbols. The few moments of intentional humor that work are mined from this. Most of the film's laughs are completely unintentional, however: Joshua's murder of his grandmother is timed inappropriately, and therefore almost hilarious; the way he sniffs the air before declaring "I don't feel sick" is camp on a grand scale.

The performances are all unremarkable or over-the-top (Vera Farmiga, ahem), with exception of Sam Rockwell, who inspires some sympathy, simply because he's so dumb and ill-equipped to deal with what transpires in the film. Jacob Kogan, sadly, just mines his Wonder Showzen persona minus the funny (well, mostly anyway). The direction by Ratliff is fine, and to his credit, he does manage to get some genuinely unnerving tension in the final quarter of the film. Nico Muhly's score is exactly what I expected it to be: post-Glass minimalism that isn't terribly memorable, crossed with Alexandre Desplat's masterful score for Birth(I am rather surprised that Muhly, an accomplished young composer, couldn't come up with something better--but than the source material isn't all that inspiring.).

And now let's discuss the controversial accusations of homophobia. One reviewer labled Joshua a "gay panic horror film", something leveled against the new X-Files film as well; in The X-Files: I Want to Believe, a man is killing people with a rare bloodtype to save his dying husband by replacing his organs, and eventually his entire body. Far from being homophobic, that subplot is played against Scully's attempts to save a child dying of a brain disease; both subplots are an examination of keeping people alive through unnatural means, and the film makes a subtle point that both are at least slightly morally dubious, but both are also driven by deep love for the person trying to be saved. Accusations of homophobia are completely unfounded--the gay subplot is incidental, and presented in a matter-of-fact way. Joshua, on the other hand, is a bit more problematic. The end reveal can be interpreted many ways, and one of them, yes, is that it is a "gay panic horror film". But considering Nico Muhly is gay gay gay, and director George Ratliff's first film was a chilly condemnation of Fundamentalist Christians in Texas (something that carries over to this film), this interpretation loses quite a bit of weight. The only time the film actually sort of delves into serious waters is a scene near the end where Joshua clings to his father in bed in an almost erotic way--but this is not something Ratliff dwells on or explores. Either way, the final scene of the film does nothing to relieve the boredom inspired by the rest of it, and Joshua remains a watchable, but forgetable effort.