Review of The Deaths of Ian Stone (2008) by Justin M — 07 Dec 2007

The Deaths of Ian Stone is certainly a very interesting premise. A man who wakes up and is forced to die each day certainly lends itself to impressive spectacles. unfortunately, by adding a monster aspect to the film, that overpowers the rapid reincarnation, the film loses all of it's potency.

Okay, here's the plot in a nutshell. Ian Stone is an all American guy who goes along his merry way until he is murdered by a sort of half ghost monster. He is then forced to wake up the next day and do it all over again. The one constant in all these lives is a girl named Jenny. Ian must find out why this is happening and stop it before it's too late.

There are a few things wrong with this. When you have a character that can live again, you lose all the tension of killing that character and therefore it loses all potential of being scary. So, one thing the film could have done for shocks is create over the top gory death sequences. Is it a cheap, low ploy? Yes, but it would have been better than the frankly, lamely tame deaths we witness in this film. We're not given a sense of helplessness until the third act and by that point in it's 88 minute running time, everyone is realizing just how stupid the movie is.

One of the biggest problems is the monsters. A monster movie is only as good as it's monster and these almost grim reaper figures aren't much to look at or be frightened of. The directer expects us to be scared of the same thing several times throughout the film and when you show us just what the monsters look like, twenty-five minutes in, you've lost that scare by the end. Another problem is pacing. The movie jumps around in an attempt to keep your attention and employs the use of more fade in/fade outs than you can count. This movie probably could have afforded to be longer and yet it dragged at it's short running time.

In the end, The Deaths of Ian Stone is a very good idea that got mixed with a monster element and turned sour. The acting is not half bad, the story had potential it just could have been more subtle. Today's audiences are savvy enough to not need to be beaten over the head with an explanation, subtly is good, and this movie doesn't have much of it.