[Chill]
Plot:Sam (Thomas Calabro), an aspiring writer, takes a job as a clerk in an L.A. inner city grocery market owned by the sinister Dr. Munoz, a former scientist who claims to have a rare skin condition that forces him to live in sub-freezing temperatures. Meanwhile, Sam befriends an attractive neighborhood boutique owner Maria (Ashley Laurence) and becomes unwittingly entwined in a threatening love triangle when she reveals that ex-boyfriend Detective Defazio (James Russo), who is investigating the recent disappearance of two local prostitutes, is stalking her.

Cast:Thomas Calabro, Ashley Laurence, James Russo, Shaun Kurtz, Barbara Gruen.

My Thoughts:Chill-ingly bad!

Review:Wow, very rarely do movies as bad as "Chill" come along. Well, unless they're from the Asylum production company that is. But seriously, "Chill" is just bad. Period. The movie sets in motion a series of events ranging from mad scientists, their experiments, a stalker, and of course people being murdered. You kind of get the feeling watching this movie that the director just wanted to finally make a film. He didn't care if the script was boring enough to put a hyper-active kid to sleep, or that the budget was painfully low.

He just wanted to add a credit to his resume. The most unbelievable thing about the movie though is that it's set in Los Angeles, an inner city area. The film has one black person in it, and a bunch of Europeans...possibly Romanians maybe. But either way it's a discredit to the racial makeup of inner city L.A. I mean freaking Ashley Laurence is in the movie, and she's not exactly the poster child for inner city residents.

The film also plays on alot of stereotypes. Not in an offensive way, but just a lazy writer way. The black guy tries to rob the small market where most of the movie takes place in. And the Eastern European types are involved in all sorts of freaky mad scientist shit involving the walking dead and frankenstein like creations. If they had thrown in a Mexican who just recently snuck across the border, and came to the market looking for work.....you would've had a stupid-stereotype-trifecta right there.

So does the movie deliver? Yeah, it delivers in utter failure! "Chill' is truly an exercise in futility. The movie starts off with a sliver of potential. But squanders it quicker than a drunk gulps down a bottle of gin. The film really makes no sense. And I know the hip, trendy thing for indie films to do these days is play around with and juggle four stories at one time, and connect them throughout the movie so the ending can bring all of these different players together. But this movie doesn't even do that right.

It becomes more and more of a jumbled mess as it gets deeper into it's so called story. Forget about being scared too. The only thing scary about this movie is the mindset of the person who ponied up cash for it after reading the script. I'm sure this person or persons has also been sold a magic jelly bean and a talking can of alphabet soup. Yeah, I know it's silly...but if anyone was able to squeeze cash out of them for this crap? Then they must be a few fries short of a happy meal.

Poor Ashley Laurence, I dunno maybe she owed someone a favor, or she really loves her craft so much to the point where she was willing to appear at length in this movie. If it's option B, then godspeed to her. She pretty much carries this movie to her best ability, but get sno help from those around her who are probably regretting starring in such a sad piece of cinematic junk. And if the answer is indeed option B, then Ash is truly a dedicated individual.

But for a woman who's been the staple character of the classic "Hellraiser" series, and has appeared in many other top notch horror films, this movie seemed so not on her level. Blood and gore are present in ''Chill', so there's your teenie, tiny piece of good news about this movie. It knows that a horror films has to have blood and gore.

Congrats, now if the writer and director could've just figured out also that it needs more than one good actor, a coherent script, a plot with some sort of point and issue-resolution, and the ever so important entertainment value. Then maybe I would've rated it better. But as it stands now, "Chill" is trash.

Positives:Ashley Laurence gives a good performance.

Negatives:Bad script, no entertainment value, a pointless plot, just a poorly rounded effort.

Overall:Half a star out of four.





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