The Bell Ringer

Issue date: 4/28/09 Section: Arts & Life

"Trigger Man" isn't really a horror movie so much as a film about people walking without saying anything.

There are many scenes in this movie in which people walk without saying a word. The plot focuses on three city friends who go on a hunting trip, and for the first 10 minutes or so, nobody says a damn thing.

They walk, and walk, and oh yeah, they walk some more.

Occasionally, somebody does say something, but their dialogue is so shockingly awful that you kind of wish they would just stick to walking without talking. There is one instance in which two of the guys talk about a movie they love, and we're not even sure which movie they're talking about.

Sounds like really compelling stuff, doesn't it?

About 40 minutes into the film, the three friends come under attack by shooters who are apparently hunting them from a nearby abandoned factory. The movie keeps the shooters off-screen until the final five minutes, presumably in an attempt to build the suspense.

However, director Ti West botches his own efforts by relying too heavily on scenes of vile and sickening violence.

Whenever someone gets shot in the head, (and that happens a lot here) West makes sure to have a long, agonizing, close-up of blood spurting from the open wound.

There is one particularly nasty scene involving a female jogger who comes across the abandoned factory. She is in the movie for roughly three minutes and exists for one purpose and one purpose only: to get shot.

She is the only female in the entire movie, and it's somewhat misogynistic to note that West lingers on her death scene longer than anyone else's (the scene when she's crawling through a wheat field is hurl-inducing).

None of this is even remotely scary.

When the final survivor of the movie stumbles upon the abandoned factory, the movie attempts, I think, to build suspense by having him walk around. I can understand that West wanted to suggest that the killers can be anywhere and ready to strike at any moment, yet he has no sense of pacing, and fails to create an atmosphere of dread and unease. We're just watching a man walking for what seems like forever.

I do realize that I haven't told you the character's names, and there is a reason. It seems pointless to do so. None of the characters are developed in the slightest, and when they do talk, they seem indistinguishable from each other. I could tell you their names, but that would give the false impression that they have their own individual character traits.

Trust me, they don't.

The cinematography from Ti West is absolutely dreadful. He's constantly zooming in and out, blurring up images and filming people from far away during what few dialogue scenes there are, so that you can't hear a word of what they're saying. Apart from a few interesting compositions in the climax, West seems to have no idea of how to work the camera.

However, as chaotic as the movie is on a visual level, narratively speaking, it's even worse, stealing from far superior works like "Deliverance," "The Blair Witch Project", and "The Most Dangerous Game."


The final scene ending with someone getting a bullet to the head reveals West's intentions for making this movie: exploiting violence for the sake of violence. "Trigger Man" is a boring and vile movie, the first horror movie that seems to have been made strictly for no one.

Page 1 of 1

Article Tools