DIRECTOR Victor Salva WRITER Victor Salva STARS Rose McGowan; Lin Shaye; Ray Wise DVD 15 October
An empty, lacklustre experience of a movie, Rosewood Lane attempts to straddle the line between thriller and horror, yet resonates on neither level. Really, this is average TV drama fodder at best, plodding its way to a clumsily made point that makes little sense.
Rose McGowan stars as Dr. Sonny Blake, a radio talk-show psychiatrist. Moving into her childhood home a year on from her father’s abrupt end, the film opening with the discovery of his dead body at the bottom of the stairs, she is immediately warned to stay away from the local paperboy. She has no choice in the matter, the sociopath personally targeting her, as she ponders the true cause of her father’s death.
The premise is, overall, a nice idea. Here we have a suburbia that is terrorised by what ought to be a figure of safety, the ever reliable paperboy. Sonny is a troubled woman, having suffered abuse at the hands of her alcoholic father; living back amidst this history may be unravelling her psychology, causing her to imagine the whole thing — the police certainly do not take her seriously. Layering a supernatural element to this paperboy adds a little extra to proceedings.
Or, at least, it ought to… the psychological and supernatural are patched together with little thought given to the ambiguity required for this balance to work, robbing any possible intrigue. The whole film in fact feels like a first draft that somehow escaped development, criminal for what is a slow-burn approach, as is the underuse of actors Ray Wise and Lin Shaye. They do the best they are able with a mediocre script, as does McGowan who gives a reasonable performance, but there is simply no substance for teeth-sinking here. Something of a waste of time.
