Ticking Clock (2010/Sony Blu-ray) + Dear Mr.
Gacy (2009/Anchor Bay Blu-ray)
Picture: B-/C+ Sound: B/B- Extras: D/C- Features: D/C-
The
subject of serial killers is so beyond tired that I am always surprised when
any show up anywhere outside of the news.
Any good feature films on the subject have long since been made for now
and yet, the torture porn cycle has allowed more bad features to be made. The latest two duds are now on Blu-ray and
are very, very bad.
Cuba Gooding Jr. (a name synonymous
with bad releases 99.9% of the time) is back in the laughably atrocious Ernie
Barbarash disaster Ticking Clock
(2010), in which Gooding plays a writer about major crimes whose girlfriend is
killed in a very brutal way. Despite his
long history of journalism, he does become a suspect, yet the killer seems to
always be one step ahead of him. John
Turman’s script tries to give this aspect new life, but it does not work and
Gooding is a real bore here. However,
the actor playing against him is another story.
Neal
McDonough (Captain America: The First
Avenger, Traitor, Star Trek: First Contact) steals the
show as the sick serial killer with a uniquely devious power in this otherwise
formulaic, predictable and tired cat & mouse serial killer thriller with
few thrills. Would somebody please give
this man a good script with a lead role!
Then we
get the almost as dreadful Svetozar Ristovski’s Dear Mr. Gacy (2009) supposedly based on some true story (notice
these claims are never really so?) about a bizarre relationship that develops
between the infamous, sick killer John Wayne Gacy (William Forsythe) and a
young 19-year-old boy names Jason (Jesse Moss) that is so goofy that I was
surprised it ever got made. Another
title was going to be The Last Victim, but that sounds too
optimistic as these bottom-of-the-barrel releases will continue to be churned
out to no end. This was another Silence Of The Lambs wanna-be (aren’t
they all?) and is a very sloppy production with only some of the Gacy aspects
very passively interesting. A
documentary would have been a better idea.
Both
Blu-rays offer 1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers and both
look poor, though Gacy is even
worse, both stylized in silly ways that are beyond cliché, but Clock had some more
money to apply. Too bad they both look
like bad cable movies. As for sound, Clock has a DTS-HD MA (Master Audio)
5.1 lossless sound mix that is decent for the most part despite some dialogue
flaws and limits and Gacy offers a
Dolby TrueHD 5.1 mix pushing its low-budget audio a little more than it should.
Clock as no extras, while Gacy has a making of featurette, teaser
trailer and theatrical trailer, but it might as well have been a basic disc to.
- Nicholas Sheffo