Horsemen - DVD

Horsemen -DVD
By Jose

What is it about
Platinum Dunes finally makes a horror movie that isn't a remake and it ends up going straight-to-DVD. Why am I not surprised?
Horsemen is a Se7en-ish thriller. But that only works if you're willing to buy into the reasoning behind the motivation of the killers, or the very identity of the ringleader of these Four Horsemen-inspired killers.

Review
For Horsemen to be enjoyed, it requires the viewer to accept a lot of stuff that can be a bit hard to swallow. Like if you're willing to believe a quartet of killers can sneak in and out of populated buildings with heavy clanging metal frames undetected. Or if you're willing to believe a teenager can stab arteries with a degree of precision we're told would even be challenging for a skilled surgeon. Or if your willing to believe Dennis Quaid's widowed single dad truly does care about the well-being of his two sons even after his neglected eldest blames him for being such an absentee father he hasn't even looked inside his bedroom for three years. Three years? Really? Also, somebody hangs them self thirty-plus feet in the air with metal hooks in their arms all by their lonesome.

Side Note
I may sound like I disliked this movie the way I disliked Mega Piranha (HA). But no I did enjoy the movie. It is that people tend to see certain movies and even though you mention the faults they go ahead and “yell” them at you once again. Again, even though I already mentioned them.

Back to the review
Dennis Quaid stars as Aiden Breslin, a criminal pathologist specializing in teeth and bite marks. His wife died of cancer a few years earlier, his teenage son attends therapy, the youngest son is still too young to fully comprehend the loss, and Aiden copes by throwing himself into his work to such a degree he's grown distant from both of them. A platter of bloody pulled teeth with no corpse to go along with it gives him another chance to push his sons aside in favor of drowning his sorrows in work. A corpse suspended from hooks on metal frames with cryptic clues is the first victim, sending him in search of a quartet of serial killers basing their methodology on the Biblical Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse.
A scene that begins with Eric Balfour as a blue collar guy verbally abusing his gay kid brother takes a turn that proves more emotionally gut-wrenching than anything else the film throws at us.

To reveal anything more would be to spoil the further twists, and this is a serial killer that is all about misdirection and building towards a big climactic twist. Even though you'll probably figure out who the main orchestrator of the murders is long before that individual reveals him or herself.

Final thoughts
Horsemen takes a quieter, more subtle slow burn approach to the story compared to Platinum Dunes penchant for noisy, over-edited films. Perhaps a little too slow, too subtle, too lacking in suspense. I have a strong feeling that opinions on Horsemen are going to be very mixed. I actually fall into a ‘middle of the road‘ with this one. I liked it but I wish there was a bit more organization or a polish to Horsemen.

Ratings: 2 out of 5