Review of Strangeland (1998) by J M — 08 Jan 2008

"Strangeland" is one disturbing, brutal little horror movie. The film basically revolves around a detective and his family. After his teenage daughter disappears after supposedly attending a house party (which she heard of while talking in an online chatroom) with her best friend, he is committed to finding his daughter, like any other parent would be. Turns out a tattooed, pierced, schizophrenic sadist by the name of "Captain Howdy" (a reference to "The Exorcist") is responsible for the disappearance. Captain Howdy spends his time torturing and brutally slaying young teenagers in his basement torture chamber, after luring them in via the internet. After the corpse of his daughter's best friend is found, Captain Howdy is caught, and locked up, and luckily the detective's daughter made it out alive. But upon the maniac's release from the mental hospital, the townspeople are outraged, and Captain Howdy starts all over again.

The internet is a scary place to begin with, especially in today's age, so I think many people can relate to the film's premise. It fleshes out all of the potential dangers of internet chatrooms, and giving out personal information to the world wide web. I have to admit that many things in this film were quite disturbing. It isn't necessarily scary per se, but it is unsettling. The Captain Howdy character is a vile, disgusting person, doing inhumane things to his victims (example being sewing their mouths shut), and sometimes his little torture methods were hard to watch. Dee Snider plays the maniac well, and he is a thoroughly creepy villain. There was some decent acting, from recognizable stars including Linda Cardellini, Amy Smart, and horror legend Robert Englund.

Overall, "Strangeland" is a decent horror movie. It's not a perfect movie, but it is far from the traditional teenage slasher film, so don't expect anything along those terms. Most people won't find this scary, but it was good for a horror film. This movie goes to show you how scary of a place the internet can be.