Legend Of The Bog (2009/Lionsgate)
Picture: C- Sound: C- Extras: D Feature: D
There is a special sort of frustration that goes along with B horror
films when the packaging makes promises that the film can’t keep. In this case, the DVD cover for Legend of the Bog features Vinnie
Jones, ex-footballer and professional badass, carrying a machine gun with
skewered skulls on pikes in the background.
This implies two things: first that we’re going to see Vinnie Jones
doing what he does best, being a big scary British guy who beats the piss out
of people, and second that there will be some fun macabre atmospherics
involving dismembered body parts. But as
you may have already guessed, Legend of
the Bog delivers on neither. Of
course it should have been obvious when you saw that the tagline was, “Bodies
buried for eternity… until now,” which makes about as much sense as trying to
slice bread with a spoon. Sure we all
see what you’re going for, but you clearly don’t know how to use your tools, in
this case words.
It’s not hard to make Vinnie Jones cool, he’s already gigantic and
British. But instead of being the
Goliath-sized monster of pure awesome that he plays in most movies, in Legend of the Bog he plays a twat who
for no good reason has decided to hunt reincarnated bog people with a rifle and
a sharp stick and answer every question with, “I’m a hunter.” And by the way his name is Mr. Hunter. Really.
As for atmospherics and dismembered body parts we get two hands, one
head, one nose, and a filmmaker who has no idea how to make a horror film. There’s not a single scene in the film that
seems as though it’s even making the slightest effort to scare the viewer. Okay, sure, the bog is an extremely blunt
metaphor for purgatory, but one doesn’t really expect purgatory to include a
montage of sweeping cabins and gathering mushrooms accompanied by pleasant,
upbeat music. The scariest part of
watching Legend of the Bog is
realizing how thinly the already strained metaphor is stretched before it
completely undermines itself, thereby destroying even the slightest merit the
movie may have earned.
The picture and sound quality are both a bit soft with a 1.78:1
widescreen aspect ratio and Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. The back cover tries to pawn off the widescreen
format and subtitle options as special features, but at this point that’s like
saying that the DVD comes on a state-of-the-art compact disc for ease and
portability.
It’s not clear whether the filmmakers tried to include homages to
classic films like the convenience store scene in Terminator and the opening classroom scene in The Howling III, or whether the scriptwriters just stole the
scenes, called it inspiration, and hoped no one would notice. Even if they were tipping their hat to the
classics they did a poor job of it.
Truth be told, Encino Man did
Terminator more justice than Legend of the Bog if the reference was
intentional in the first place.
Very rarely have I come across a movie with less merit than Legend of the Bog. It’s absolutely no exaggeration to say that
the entire 92 minute running time of this film is a waste of your time and you
should avoid it at all costs.
- Matthew Carrick
