PLOT: A teenager tries to protect his favorite pop star from her homicidal handler, who terrorizes him and his friends with supernatural abilities.
REVIEW: Twelve years ago, Mitchell Altieri co-directed (with Phil Flores, under the name The Butcher Brothers) a remake of the 1986 classic APRIL FOOL'S DAY. The remake starred Scout Taylor-Compton, and it was such a painful viewing experience, so far off from the fun of its predecessor, that I try to pretend it doesn't exist. Now Altieri and Taylor-Compton have collaborated again on the horror film STAR LIGHT (WATCH IT HERE), and things turned out much better for them this time around.
Altieri co-directed this film with Lee Cummings and also wrote the screenplay with Jamal M. Jennings and Adam Weis. Parts of the movie are very reminiscent of TALES FROM THE CRYPT: DEMON KNIGHT, but STAR LIGHT is saved by the fact that it isn't actually a remake of DEMON KNIGHT, so there's no need to directly compare the two. STAR LIGHT definitely is the sort of movie that Roger Ebert would call a "dead teenager movie"; at its core, it's simply about a group of teenagers who have gathered together in one location so they can get knocked off one-by-one. We've seen this done many times before, both in slashers and in movies that have a supernatural edge like this one does, but STAR LIGHT does mix in some unique elements. These unique elements start with Taylor-Compton's character, famous pop star Bebe A. Love.
The story follows teenager Dylan (Cameron Johnson), who is a big fan of Bebe's – and happens to be the person who finds her on the road after she gets in a single vehicle accident. Bebe is banged up and scared, and we soon find out that she's on the run from her handler Anton (Bret Roberts). Dylan takes Bebe to a friend's house where a party has just been held, but now there are only a handful of teens hanging out there. While Dylan tries to figure out a way to help Bebe without going against her wishes and contacting the authorities, Anton shows up at the house and starts lurking outside like Billy Zane's character The Collector in DEMON KNIGHT. Circling the house like a shark, as one character describes it. By this point we have already seen Anton cause the deaths of multiple people while he's been following Bebe's trail, so we know he's trouble and that he has supernatural abilities. He proceeds to use those abilities to cause people to die in the house without actually stepping foot inside the place himself.
Altieri, Cummings, and Altieri's co-writers did their best to build up Dylan as a character we can like and care about before the horror action kicks in, giving a glimpse into his life and showing character interactions that include some scenes involving Dylan's single mother Dorothy (Tiffany Shepis). He's not a great character, but he works well enough for the lead, so the film can hold our attention while putting him through some very strange events. Bebe is a bit too odd to connect with (Dylan would disagree with that), and even though the other teenage characters have their moments, I couldn't really bring myself to care whether they were going to bite the dust or not.
Most of the acting in the film is good; genre regulars Shepis and Taylor-Compton are always reliable, and Roberts hams it up as the villain. But there are also a couple instances of questionable acting courtesy of performers who have minor roles. One moment that really stood out involved a line where one character asks another, "What are you, some type of a dick?" This was probably always meant to be a humorous line, but the awkward way it was delivered actually turned it into comedy gold.
Even though STAR LIGHT spends more than half of its running time scaring and eliminating its trapped characters, the film never reached the level of action and excitement I was hoping it would. There were times when it felt like it was dragging the situation out for too long, that things were moving along too slowly. It felt longer than it actually is, which is just 89 minutes.
The movie has its issues and doesn't reach the full potential of the concept, but overall it's an enjoyable watch. I was always interested in seeing what was going to happen next, even while feeling like things weren't happening frequently enough, or weren't intense enough when they did happen. It's not good enough to make up for that APRIL FOOL'S DAY remake blunder, but it's decent enough on its own and I felt it was worth the 89 minutes it took to sit through it.
STAR LIGHT is now available to watch on Digital and On Demand.