Chain Letter (2010)

Review by Sean Patterson



Chain Letter is a a 90's teen slasher flick (think Scream) mixed with Saw and Hostel-like creative torture-murders. The high school stereotypes abound. Ugh.
I'm underwhelmed, but Chain Letter is not a bad movie. The acting, even by the unknowns playing the teens, is good. The editing is tight. The gore is...gory. It's just that it all comes together into something less than its individual parts.
A cheerleader's nerdy brother is sent a chain email threatening death to those that do not forward it, and she teases him into forwarding it to several people. What follows is a long sequence of the email being either forwarded or disregarded by subsequent teens. A portentous music cue follows every instance of the email being ignored or deleted.
Speaking of which, the music in the movie is really its worst flaw. Again, the music isn't bad. It's appropriately moody and bombastic in turn. But it, as does the rest of the flick, feels generic, and the on-the-nose use of the music prevents any of the "surprise" scares from actually surprising. Not once did I startle or even lift an eyebrow.
Neither did I grimace at the well done gore. The teens who ignored the chain email are beaten, crushed, ripped in twain, and otherwise mutilated in bloody murder scenes, all of which involve thick metal chains (get it?). If you've seen Scream, you know the rest.
Two actors stand out conspicuously. Brad Dourif plays a high school teacher who rails against technology. What he's doing in this movie is anyone's guess. His deft acting skill is so apparent that he upstages the other actors, who do well in their own right despite blase dialogue. Kieth David plays the cop assigned to solving the murders. This is the second horror movie in a month he's popped up in, and I feel I should have known he does many movies of this sort. Though, now that I think of it, I suppose a wonderful baritone voice doesn't guarantee starring roles outside of video game voice acting.
The movie features weird anti-technology themes. Cell phones and computer games are portrayed as soul-sucking totems. Being a tech geek, perhaps this is part of the reason Chain Letter didn't resonate with me. All the same, those themes are never paid off except with a vague reference to a Luddite cult.
Chian Letter maintains a steady stream of murder and pseudo-mystery. It ends up the worst thing a horror movie can be: average.