Case 39

Case 39 (2009)

23% on Rotten Tomatoes (out of 62 reviews)

Directed by: Christian Alvart

Runtime: 109 minutes

Starring: Renee Zellweger, Jodelle Ferland, Bradley Cooper, Ian McShane

From: Paramount Vantage

Here is a movie I didn’t think I was ever going to see. But, last night I had free time and wanted to get out of the house, so I returned to the drive-in in Lakeland and I saw the double feature of this, preceded by Paranormal Activity 2; of course, that movie in that format isn’t quite the same, but I was still entertained by it. This movie, though…

In case you don’t remember, it was released the first week of October as one of the many horror flicks coming out at that time. They all beat upon each other and none of them did that particularly well; not a surprise to me, dividing the horror fans that way. This is noteworthy for some of its major names… along with the fact that they started filming this in late 2006. No kidding. There were many re-shoots (I even noticed it once, but if you looked closely enough, Renee looked noticeably different due to plastic surgery, hair styles, or what have you) and the United States was like the last place in the world to get the movie. More often than not, a film being on the shelf for that long is a giant red flag. After I actually watched the damn thing, that theory was proven to be correct.

I don’t know how much about the movie is known by people (heck, I’m not sure if I’ve seen the official trailer or not; the one I’ve seen online is rather misleading, to say the least), but as I doubt that many people care about this movie… I’ll make the comparison to the movie Orphan, i.e. my very first review. That movie-which ends up being similar to this in a few ways-stomps all over this one. I don’t blame the little girl starring in this movie (Ferland); with what she had to work with, she was fine, being both cute and creepy. It’s just that the story and the other people acting around her… for many of them it was just another paycheck, in other words. Interestingly enough, both little Esther (Isabelle Furhman) and popular little girl Chloe Moritz could have been in that role; not that it would have really changed this movie at all.

To be brief, Zellweger delivers her usual Zellwegerian performance as Emily Jenkins, a social worker who has to deal with 38 cases as once (is this how it really works?) but then is giving a 39th one; there, it looks as if some wacko parents are abusing an adorable little girl. She tugs Emily’s heartstrings and eventually the parents are caught trying to cook her in an oven! She’s saved and somehow, Emily is allowed to briefly adopt her. That proves to be a mistake, though, as various things suddenly start happening… and I’ll leave it at that.

This movie overall just isn’t that scary or terrifying at all. Despite some laughably dumb stuff you get to see, it’s also pretty boring overall. The first half mainly isn’t the problem; it derails totally in the second half once you get to see just what exactly is going on. It’s rather laughable, the killings are. And Emily acts REALLY stupid before and after she finds out what it is. Think and act logically, that does not happen. She could have even tried to attack the villain (as an attempt would have made the audience happy, at least), but nope, does not happen. Things get stupider and stupider until the very end and the film is just a waste of time. Aside from the goofy premise of what’s causing all the mayhem, the movie is otherwise not fresh at all, is not even interesting to look at, and flicks like Orphan are more worth your time than even spending a few bucks to rent this once it comes to DVD/Blu-Ray. I mean, other people noticed it more times than I did, but there's at least one *really noticeable* instance where Renee looks very different, due to wearing a bad wig to look like she did before massive reshoots happened. But it's kind of hard to hide plastic surgery on your face...

However, I will mention one thing that did make me chuckle. Near the end of the movie, through ways that I won’t get into as it’s spoilers, someone calls Renee a pumpkinhead; pumpkinhead! For some reason, that seems totally appropriate and for the rest of my life, I may think of Renee Zellweger as a pumpkinhead. At least I could garner SOME kind of enjoyment from this otherwise pointless motion picture.

I’ll be back Thursday night and for that I think I’ll go back (way back) to review a classic bit of horror.