I had initially planned to make today’s Supernatural Saturday Night columns somewhat interchangeable. I did an article on Jackson Rathbone, the almost paranormal obsession that fans of Twilight have with the books/movies, and the drive of the fans to get 100 Monkeys, the band Jackson is a part of on the Breaking Dawn soundtrack by making it relevant to New Orleans since 100 Monkeys had an almost sold out show at the House of Blues in New Orleans. Ironically, the majority of the people who attended were Twilight fans.
So I looked on Netflix for a movie that was in the horror genre that also featured Jackson Rathbone. S. Darko, the sequel to cult classic, Donnie Darko centers around Donnie’s little sister Samantha, and her visions of being a zombie appearing to an Iraqi War vet who believes the end of the world is coming.
Jackson plays the adorable science geek who buys what he thinks is a nickel infused meteorite for $600. He interacts with Samantha and seems to be the guy she’s most interested in and not the romantic lead played by a small town, somewhat alcoholic mechanic whose brother was kidnapped.
The actual storyline was hard for me to follow because I have never seen Donnie Darko and his psychotic bunny ghost. I was completely lost as Samantha’s sleepwalking became astral projecting and she began to interact with the vet known as “Iraq Jack.”
At almost 40 minutes in, I sat in a stupor wondering how Jackson figures into this whole situation. The church, made of bricks with crucifixes made of iron blow up as if an iad hits it.
The supernatural aspects that would make the movie more in the horror genre are introduced and then just as easily explained away by the finding of Iraq Jack’s dog tags or a meteor falling. The show doesn’t stay on one theme long.
The irony of it is, right after Jackson interacts with Sam; two men dressed in black suits glance at her, and then enter a movie theater with “12 Monkeys” on the sign. 12 Monkeys starring Brad Pitt was a much better movie.
The Men in Black so to speak are investigating the town.
Then suddenly, in some sort of twist, the main character is smashed between the alcoholic mechanic’s car and a car that came from nowhere that was eerily similar to the one that Sam and her friend, Kory came into town in.
Intermixed in these scenes is some guy, possibly Iraq Jack constructs an iron bunny head.
After the death of Sam, Kory begins the astral walking that Sam was doing during most of the movie. While Randy was drunk driving, the sheriff says he doesn’t believe he’s at fault for Sam’s death. He does seem to have all kinds of guilt.
Then suddenly the movie changes and Kory is back in the car again and Sam is alive. Kory gives her life so that Sam can live. She begins to help the boy who spoke to her in the previous version of reality.
Sam is overcome with grief and is now face to face with the psychotic bunny. She’s a zombie with glass embedded in her temple.
Dates keep showing up on the screen and there is the hint that something big is going to happen. She tells the psychotic bunny he needs to get to hire ground.
This movie is twisted and a little dark. I found myself in the position that I became so exceptionally bored with trying to keep up that I just wanted to skip the stream so that I could see Jackson. His alien obsession and his allergic reaction to the meteorite was one of the only few things that I could actually understand. I actually know someone who is so alien obsessed that she believes aliens choose humans and visit them in their dreams to further their species.
He is a perfect example of how the movie presents one thing and then shatters the perception that they’ve been trying to build. His character, “Jeremy” is set up to be the alien conspiracy geek who is bullied by the tiny town’s popular kids in search of Sam. Once Kory has somehow switched her death for Sam’s, she is being irritated by Randy, (the drunken mechanic) and he head butts him when he won’t take the hint. Randy’s knocked out cold.
For some reason Iraq Jack knows that Sam had died and knows about her older brother Donnie.
Sam finds the dead bodies of the kids and the town claps for her. They are extremely pleased with her and give her a round of applause as she comes into the diner. The people believe that Iraq Jack did it. IF he did, where is Trudy; Elizabeth Berkley’s radical Christian character who wears a key on a bracelet; the very same key that opened the grate in the mine that Sam stumbled into and finds the dead children?
If he was guilty, then why would he walk into the diner where Sam is sitting listening to Randy’s pathetic apology? Justin Sparrow, who is Iraq Jack, is arrested for the crimes even though The Priest and Trudy were involved all along? Trudy specifically mentions how the key is a gift from the priest because he alone knows how much she loves God? Then she begs Sam that they have to get to the children before the town can destroy them?
Ironically, intermixed with this twisted tale is the love story.
It is the last part that makes this bizarre movie come together and wrap up nicely. The last half hour that makes the movie worthwhile. Meteors are hitting the earth, threatening to destroy the world. Sam’s ghost appears to Justin, who is in jail. Sam, whose wound we now learn comes from falling on the stupid rabbit mask, is discovered and rescued by Randy.
Sam’s ghost releases Justin from jail and comes to the heel to retrieve the stupid mask now faces down the meteor shower because she tells Justin, he is the only one who can save the world. She tells him to wake up and start everything over.
Once you get to this part, you should realize that everything does precisely that. I would like to warn fans of Jackson Rathbone. This is not the loving and protective characters that Jackson usually plays. Jeremy is a character with a dark side and is infected with an alien virus that makes him act completely different from the perception that his character initially gives off.
This is a psychological roller coaster that twists and turns like crazy. Do not take anything at face value, even when the movie looks like it’s over. This is a movie that will require 100% attention or you’ll never know what’s going on or if you accidently skipped backward and lost your place in the streaming of the movie.
However, once it was over I was left with an empty feeling. I did not care one way or another for this movie. It had to many twists and turns to really be classified as a horror movie. It wasn’t even scary. It was kinda stupid in my opinion.
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