Horror movies keep revisiting the best – and worst – of the ’80s slasher scene, so why not travel back in time to one of the genre’s true masters?
“Tell Tale” begins by cribbing from Edgar Allan Poe’s “Tell Tale Heart,” but the thriller finds more than a few new wrinkles along the way.
It also boasts a creative turn by star Josh Lucas, although all of the above wasn’t enough to avoid the direct-to-DVD express.
Lucas stars as Terry, a 30-something single dad who just received a heart transplant to treat a life-threatening condition.
He seems healthy enough, but his heart goes pitter patter a mite too loudly when he meets certain people for the first time.
Terry thinks his heart – or his mind – is playing tricks on him. And when a nosy detective (Brian Cox) starts investigating Terry’s ties to a series of odd events the logic behind “Tell Tale” comes into focus.
Cox, who makes every movie he’s in so much better, excels in a small but showy role playing a character whose arc will catch viewers off guard. It’s one of many minor pleasures on display throughout this modest journey into a mind of a shattered man.
“Tell Tale” loses its rhythm once part of the mystery reveals itself. It’s suddenly a conventional revenge exercise, one lacking the taut pacing of previous genre entries. But the last 20 minutes prick our sense of complacency, and the final shot is one of the better endings in recent memory.
It’s ultimately Lucas’s film, and he conveys the sense of a man buckling under his own medical woes. Terry isn’t just frightened of his own heart failing. His young daughter (Beatrice Miller) suffers from a more serious medical condition that requires his constant attention.
It’s all Terry can do to keep his head held high every day, and he’s baffled that a local beauty (Lena Headey) would so much as look his way.
“Tell-Tale” isn’t gorey enough for horror hounds, and the thrills won’t keep audiences jumping. It’s merely an origianl tale spun from a dusty classic, one told with a refreshingly sure touch.
Poe would be intrigued if not outright proud of the results.
(Photo: Josh Lucas thinks his new heart is the source of some troubling emotions in the new thriller “Tell Tale.”/Vivendi Home Entertainment.)
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If the film inspires viewers to visit Charm City’s own Mr. Poe and his works of classic Gothic horror, then its straight-to-DVD fate (not always a harbinger of poor quality, these days) will be vindicated.
D.