Nefarious Films Reviews

"Grim Reaper" 2007

Director:  Michael Feifer

Writer: 

Starring:  Cherish Lee, Brent Fidler, Adam Fortrin

The biggest serial killer of them all, with pretty much all of creation since the dawn of life under his belt, has been rather under represented in film. He’s enjoyed a couple of outings such as his famous game of chess in Bergman’s classic The Seventh Seal as well as his famous game of Twister in the equally classic Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey but Death’s only real starring role was in the Final Destination films and he never even appeared on camera. That was until now however. Grim Reaper finally brings The Duke of Spook, the Man with No Tan to our screens in all his ancient and omniscient majesty. Except erm, it doesn’t really.

The film follows a young lady who happens to be a stripper (well, a stripper who doesn’t actually take her clothes off) who is hit by a taxi one night after work. After a peculiar little incident with a man who kindly tells her to stay in the light before mysteriously disappearing she is taken to hospital. Once there she begins to hallucinate (or are they visions?) about the Grim Reaper – the actual spectre of death in his hood with the scythe and everything. She escapes her room only to witness Death plunging his scythe into the driver of the taxi which hit her. She runs around screaming for a bit but then before we know it she has been taken to some mysterious and foreboding institution where there are a group of young people who are also survivors of various accidents and who also believe that ol’ bony face is after them. It’s not long before they start being picked off and yadda yadda yadda…you know the rest.

This rather tedious set up asks a lot of questions which any viewer might think would bear some relation to the rest of the film but none of the questions posed here are ever satisfactorily answered. Who was the mysterious helpful stranger? An angel maybe? We’re never told and in fact don’t even see him again. Who was the strange nurse who was so maniacal and sadistic that she couldn’t really be employed in a real hospital could she? Was she a demon? This one is answered but it would have been better if it hadn’t been. Why is Death after these people? Why didn’t they die when they were supposed to? Aggkk –don’t even bother trying to work that one out. What is the institution they wind up in and who is the strange doctor who runs it? Please don’t make me even remember the answers we’re given to those questions.

Anyway, before long there’s lots of young people running around frantically in the grungy old hospital/asylum type place with something chasing them in order to kill them. Please stop me if you’ve heard this one before. It seems rather familiar but that’s only because every other slasher film made (and that’s really what this is by the way – a slasher film) has followed this formula before it. What is really shocking is that the stuff that Grim Reaper throws into the existing slasher formula is so bad that it makes the viewer long for something even more derivative just so as to get away from the glaring inadequacies present in every aspect of this dull and confusing ruin of a potentially fun idea.

It is a shame because a film using the Grim Reaper himself as its villain could actually be something pretty cool. The very personification of death should be quite an impressive opponent. This fellow on the other hand is just plain boring. He wanders around seemingly without much idea of where he’s going until he happens upon someone who he then struggles to kill. He can be easily fooled via the age old trickery of hiding behind things and he is also very susceptible to being run over. He doesn’t have an inch of charisma or personality and when he is unmasked he looks more like a tired old (well, very very very old) man than an ethereal entity of timeless existence and unfathomable intellect.

Not everything about this movie is poor, some of the effects are passable, the acting, while not good, is still no worse than anything seen in a thousand other better movies and the lighting is competent enough. The blame for this movie’s low score lies with script and direction both of which are lazy, derivative and ultimately boring. Grim Reaper is a good film for new filmmakers to watch to see what happens to a film when nobody involved has any degree of interest or passion for it.

Rating: 4/10