Retribution Reviews

This incredibly tedious, low-budget ($1.5 millon) horror film tries to make up for its lack of narrative inspiration with hyperactive camerawork. Set in Los Angeles, the movie opens on Halloween night as destitute, wimpy artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb) makes a suicide leap from the roof of his flophouse. He survives, but his soul--somehow, in a green laser light show with clouds of smoke--becomes possessed. After a stay in a sanitarium he is allowed to go home to his flophouse, where he is welcomed back by an extended family of hookers, bums, thugs, junkies, and drunks. Everything is looking up for George--until he falls asleep, when he has nasty dreams in which he goes places he's never been, meets people he's never seen, and murders them in a variety of horrible ways. When he wakes up, news of the murders is all over the front page. RETRIBUTION is the feature debut of director Guy Magar, who racked up 25 hours of television helming ("Lady Blue," "Hunter," "The A-Team") before trying his hand at the big screen, but it sure seems like he didn't learn much in TV. The film is dull, repetitive, and much, much too long, with every scene pointlessly drawn out and padded with loads of unnecessary camera movement. It has no drama, no suspense, and no surprises--it's just plain slow and terribly pretentious. The story's whole premise is woefully underdeveloped and doesn't make much sense, even for a supernatural horror film.