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actor Andrew Lauer's directorial debut, the teen (or in this case, 20-something)
horror movie "El Intermedio", four friends (two childhood friends and
their respective significant others) decide to take a trip to the U.S.-Mexican
border, where they will go into a tunnel that joins the two countries and,
according to one entrepreneur, bring back "primo stuff". I believe the
object post-transport is to sell the drugs, although there is dialogue to the
contrary. In any case, Malik (Edward Furlong) has a girlfriend who is currently
on crutches, but is apparently not following doctor's orders, because she
travels with the others on their transnational drug trafficking quest. No,
really.
Perhaps as a testament to what a turkey "El
Intermedio" is, I supply as evidence star Edward Furlong's big gut. Coming
off the embarrassing "Crow:
Wicked Prayer" (or vice versa), Furlong is first seen onscreen sleeping
on the couch in his trailer home. We're not quite sure how he pays for that
trailer, as it's established quickly that Malik is a lazy stoner. In any case,
to the border our four friends go, Furlong bringing along his gimp girlfriend
(on crutches!) and his unsightly beer gut. (Really, folks, if you're going to
continue making a living as a leading man, shouldn't you at least try to
stay fit? Especially if your name isn't Steven Seagal?)
Some of the action takes place in the tunnels before
transplanting to an empty "safe house" convenient located above said
tunnel. Of course calling what happens in "Intermedio" action is being
generous. Mostly it involves actors running around the cave, and then later the
hallways of the safehouse, in the dark screaming obscenities at each other. It's
all very "drama class"-ish, and the only thing that saves it from
being a total catastrophe is Cerina Vincent, who is quite a looker, especially
in the film's second half when her shirt gets mysterious hemmed by about 7.
Thank God for small (ahem) favors.
"El Intermedio" is really a slasher film at
heart, except here the masked killer is actually a ghost (or more appropriately,
blurry ghosts). Soon the four friends, along with their Mexican drug dealer
contact, are fleeing killer ghosts under the control of a creepy old man played
by Steve Railsback, who has made a career out of playing creepy old men in dumb
teen horror movies. Of course running from these hardware-wielding ghosts who
are trapped between the world of the living and the dead would be easier if, you
know, stoner Malik hadn't brought along his gimpy, crutch-dependent girlfriend
to an illegal narcotics buy underground.
For an actor who has been in "Terminator
2" (still the pinnacle of his career), Edward Furlong doesn't show any
signs of ability. In a bit of trivia, Furlong has said in an interview that he
was never contacted to do "Terminator
3", and he seems to insinuate that the film's failure was due to his
absence. Of course the truth is that "T3" did just fine without Mr.
Furlong, grossing a whopping $418 million worldwide. Edward, my friend, if
"El Intermedio" and "Crow: Wicked Prayer" represents the
total growth of your talent since "T2", they were smart not to
let you anywhere near their movie set.
"El Intermedio" is terrible from top to
bottom, and Kraig Wenman's script lands with a loud thud. The story is
unoriginal and downright silly at times, and first-time director Andrew Lauer
doesn't do anyone any favors, relying on cheap "Boo" scares and
offering little by way of creativity other than wacky camera angles, and even he
seems to get bored with this eventually. Most amazing of all, there are
sequences that are simply looped throughout the film, an amazing fact
considering that the film couldn't even manage 80 full minutes plus
opening and ending credits. The movie seems to have decent production values,
although you wonder if Lauer didn't blow his entire budget in the first 10
minutes or so. All that running around in the tunnel, and then later in the safe
house, must have saved a ton of money.
The most disappointing thing about
"El Intermedio" isn't that it's awful, something I knew it would be
going in. Rather, I find it most distressing that the oh so lovely Cerina
Vincent, who almost single-handedly makes "Intermedio" not the total
crap it really is, hasn't found true fame after Eli Roth's cult horror hit
"Cabin
Fever". Can you recall anyone from that movie not named Cerina
Vincent? And the fact that she's not translated that memorable role into more
decent roles leaves me disgusted with the filmmaking community at large.
Perhaps in an attempt to make up for a dull story that
has its characters running (literally) in circles, the filmmakers offer up
plenty of gore, but they're poorly done, especially one ambitious segment where
a character is sliced in half and falls to the ground. The entire special
effects amounts to the crew burying the actor up to the chest; it's so badly
done, in fact, that when the actor flails about post-severing, you can see the
ground move. That, I'm afraid, is indicative of "El Intermedio". The
film is saved from a doomed rating by Cerina Vincent's ever-so-small shirt, but
little else.
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