The Girl in the Photographs is the last thing horror maestro Wes Craven had his name attached to before his death in 2015 (he was the executive producer). It's too bad that this film has gotten pretty bad-to-middling reviews - it would have been nice to see his career end on a high note. But the "For Wes" at the end isn't totally embarrassing. It's always kind of depressing when an absolute piece of crap is dedicated to a recently deceased person. And The Girl in the Photographs isn't an absolute piece of crap. That's not to say it's good - it has good moments and looks nice at times, but generally is bogged down by an uninteresting story, lack of tension, and annoying characters.
It is kind of funny though, in that it starts off like Craven's (2nd?) most influential film Scream - but in a way that will only really click with horror nerds.
My synopsis: Some crazy guy is kidnapping young women in small town USA. He kills them and photographs them "artistically," then makes sure our heroine Colleen will discover the prints. The cops - including a very wasted Mitch Pileggi (as in poorly utilized - not drunk) - don't care, which is totally ridiculous, but whatever. When a pretentious LA fashion photographer finds that this killer may be ripping off his work, he and his troupe of vapid models head to small town USA for a photo-shoot. Of course, once he sees Colleen he *must* work with her. But our crazy killer guy may have other plans...
(not-so) Elaborate Genre: Slasher
Overall: A few good moments, but lots of bad ones. Mostly annoying.
The annoying elephant in the annoying room here is the pretentious photographer, played by Kal Penn doing a Jeff Goldblum impression. I'm not sure if it was the direction (or lack thereof), but he is an *incredibly* irritating character. The kind where you just sigh and say "oof - This Fucking Guy" whenever he's in a scene. Just bad news all around. And his model friends aren't much better - the potential victim pool in The Girl in the Photographs is pretty much divided into two groups: "incredibly annoying," and "okay but bland."
The killer/motivation/whatever part of the story isn't well explained, and there's the interesting choice to reveal who the killers are early on. So the whole mask thing doesn't really make any sense - why have them wear masks if we know who they are? And why does the guy with the beer gut always have his shirt off? But I'm 75% sure he's wearing a George W. Bush mask, which is terrifying in and of itself. (Sadly becoming less terrifying by the day - what I wouldn't give for a good old fashioned Dubya campaign from the Republicans right now.)
Overall, it just feels like there should be more tension - there's the dark house, and a spooky masked guy is stalking a potential victim - by all accounts there should be some some intensity. And it's not horribly shot or anything. On the contrary, some of it looks pretty good (if not a little too slick for it's own good). But the film just feels inert more often than not... which extends to the shot choices - from the way things are framed or whatever, you expect just about everything that happens. And maybe that's it - it's too generic. The Girl in the Photographs just doesn't have that extra oomph to make it stand out from the crowd. Even the scenes that work (a guy trying to find an intruder using a camera flash) are better in theory than in execution.
Honestly, it could just be the setting - boring anytown USA (actually Victoria, BC, Canada standing in as Spearfish, South Dakota) is lacking *anything* interesting. And the film never attempts to engage the environment in any way. (Like Halloween or whatever, where the normal-ness of the suburban town plays into the horror.) I'd rather see something in a cabin in the woods, you know?
Horror-wise, it plays like a straight forward slasher flick with a mean streak, although there's a little gritty / tie-em-up torture stuff too. I'd say the best thing about the film is the kills - and they are wise to save the better ones for the final act. They are not the "fun" type of kills - they are messy and brutal, not really the kind of thing that will make you cheer, you know? Even though you probably hate the characters on the receiving end of it.
Ultimately, I wasn't too into The Girl in the Photographs. It isn't awful, but it's not really a good time.
Or maybe I'm just bitter because they make a wise-crack about conversational blogs.
I would not recommend this film.
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