Unspeakable

WARNING: This review is hidden because it reveals the content of the film.
Click here to show this review. "Unspeakable" is straight-up ridiculous. It’s a salad of psychological thriller plot points mixed together and if you can watch it without screaming “What?! ” in outrage or laughing out loud, you’ve got a lot more composure than I do.

Dennis Hopper plays a sadistic prison warden named Early Blakely who allows scientist Diana Purlow (Dina Meyer) to complete a series of psychological tests on some of the inmates. Using a device of her own making, she is able to see inside the mind of the prisoners and discovers that the psyche of serial murderer named Jesse Mowatt (Pavan Grover) is unlike anything she’s ever seen.

From the synopsis you might be thinking to yourself “Hey, isn’t this just ‘The Cell’? ” Well it is, but that film didn’t have crazy mind powers and supernatural nonsense now did it?! This picture doesn’t know what it wants to be, except a waste of your time. It seems to have a message about the death penalty, how many people probably take far too much glee out of ending a person that has been sentenced to death. Considering we can see in the early scenes an unjust sentence imposed on a man who turns out to be innocent and we have a device that allows professionals to look into the mind of others, that seems like a good point to make. Or it would be if the film didn’t mostly revolve around a villain so evil and so dangerous that leaving him alive is unfathomable. Even locking up Jesse Mowatt isn't an option because not only is this serial killer thought to be the Anti-Christ "by many religious groups", but also possesses numerous super-human abilities. This madman has the ability to alter people's memories, is telepathic and capable of mentally bending small animals to his will. He has a healing factor that rivals Wolverine’s and can even teleport! You thought Magneto was such a big threat that they had to shove him in a plastic prison and throw away the key? At least the mutant had logic in his crimes; this guy’s just a killing machine! To be fair, he might not actually be able to teleport. It could simply be bad editing and shoddy writing as he is easily able to sneak up on our female lead over and over.

There’s a lot going on here. None of it good, but there’s a lot of stuff! On top of this super serial killer, we also get a story of an internally tormented psychiatrist who must interview the killer to get to the truth. Partially to clear up her conscience and partially to prove the innocence of a man, she must delve deep into the mind of a maniac. Not through questionnaires and in-depth analysis though, through a device that allows you to record a person's memories onto a computer. This device is either one of the greatest inventions of all time (because hey, wouldn't it be useful to save memories forever? ) or as the warden of the prison treats it, just another useless doo-dad that is just getting in the way of capital punishment. The devices doesn't seem to work correctly, since it somehow manages to record fantasies and other events that cannot happen and people's memories are shown through a third person's point of view but the movie implies that it's the greatest thing ever... it just doesn't know what it wants to do with this device. What I see is a gimmick that the author decided to thrown in their script without really thinking about the real-world ramifications of it.

“Unspeakable” is poorly put together, with bad special effects (the computer generated insects are very bad and the splattering blood is not convincing), an insane plot that makes little sense, stupid characters (if your super awesome device that records people's memories can prove a man's innocence, wouldn't you want to edit the scene the killer dreamed up where the two of you have sex out? ), over-the-top performances (Dennis Hopper in particular), continuity errors (apparently a six-man beating will leave you looking fresh as a daisy) and an ending that really screams "Our movie was so deep we need to tack this black screen with text on it to tell you how much these characters are tormented". If you watch "Unspeakable" you'll be amazed and left speechless after witnessing this train wreck. But the worst thing? Yet ANOTHER movie with no Wikipedia page, meaning I’ll probably have to write it myself! (On Dvd, February 24, 2013)