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This low-budget horror flick is no classic, but it certainly could have been worse - so says DVDFile's Horror Vixen....
Kino / 90 Minutes / 2010 / Unrated / Street Date: August 14, 2012
Usually, when I’m looking at movies that are coming out in the near future, the first thing I look for is a good horror flick. Next, is any horror flick. I’m the type of person who will watch ten horror movies that induce shouting at the screen rather than shuddering with fear in order to see the one that will make me turn on all the lights in the house in the wee hours of the morning and watch cartoons for a half an hour before going to bed. When I read about Mr. Hush, it seemed to have some promise; man gets stalked by creepy crazed killer not once but twice. I also read that it was a throwback to the scary films of the 80s, replete with aging actors who did their first films then. I thought this could be hit or miss. After watching the movie, I knew both were right. A bit of a hit, a bit of a miss.
The movie has its moments, albeit briefly. The story is fairly compelling. A man not once, but twice, loses the ones he cares about to a slightly unhinged vampire priest with an Irish/Scottish brogue. The first time, fittingly, is during Halloween night, when the “priest” talks his way into the main character’s home (played by Brad Loree of, coincidentally enough, Halloween fame) kills his wife and kidnaps his daughter. Flash forward ten years, and now Loree’s character is living in a tent and washing dishes for a living. Suddenly, he falls for a woman he’s been working with for a while who has a lovely daughter who not only loves her mother, but is accepting of this new man that her mother likes (when does that ever happen?). Then our stalker shows up again to not only reveal his true identity, but why he’s stalking Loree in the first place. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it?
What is kind of cringe-inducing in this movie is the acting. In his first leading role, Loree really pulls out all the stops (whether they need to be pulled or not). He is the jokiest of jokesters, the angriest of put-upon victims, and the weepiest, most pathetic of heartbroken widowers. For brief glimpses, he seems to have a certain charm that an audience can warm up to, but for the most part, his over-emoting made me roll my eyes rather than sympathize with him. I really wanted to like him, he just made it so hard to do so.
The second actor that needs to be discussed seriously is Stephen Geoffreys, the vampire priest’s henchman in Mr. Hush, who just kind of shows up out of nowhere about two thirds of the way through the movie. Most people would recognize Geoffreys from the 80s horror movie (and vastly superior) Fright Night. He played the irritating little sidekick “Evil Ed” in the 80s and seems to reprise his role as the little toady with the high pitched voice. Through the Mr. Hush wormhole, I was transported back again to the 80s, watching Chris Sarandon tell Roddy McDowell that he had to have faith for the cross to work on him.
Meanwhile, Evil Ed is somewhere cackling hideously. With a shake of the head and a few blinks of the eye, I’m back in the present, realizing that he’s as annoying in this film as he was in the earlier one. The only difference now is that he looks like an over the hill heroin addict (that may have been done for the film; I hope so). Unfortunately, this film doesn’t have enough going for it to counterbalance the insanity of the over-the- top acting.
It’s not the worst film I’ve ever seen by far, though. As mentioned above, the story is fairly compelling, and some of the acting was ok. It succeeded in giving the feel of an 80s movie, complete with not taking itself too seriously. This may be one of the ten I watch while I wait for the one that really impresses me, but the 88 minutes goes by quickly, and not once did I actually yell at the screen.