Heartstopper (2006) Review

Seinfeld’s Steinbrenner sings the opening theme.

Heartstopper (2006): 4 out of 10: After twenty minutes, this movie really had me psyched. A true eighties throwback Heartstopper begins with two characters, a death row inmate who has trouble being electrocuted (Shocker) and a good looking suicidal shy girl who is called a whore by a bunch of teenage cheerleader vixens (Carrie). They meet in an ambulance and the death row guy’s tattoo transfers to the suicidal girl. And we all know what happens next, don’t we?

The girl goes back to high school and takes revenge on the vixen sluts, her overbearing mother, and everyone else. There is plenty of violence, nudity, and sexy high school girls kicking ass. (Okay, let me calm down for a moment) And had the movie done that I would have been happy. Instead, it remakes Halloween II. Yup, an abandoned hospital, (The staff is about 5 people) and the serial killer comes back to life using his patented heart through the chest maneuver (hence the name) which looks silly the first time and gets progressively sillier as the movie goes along.

In the Jamie Lee Curtis role, we have Meredith Henderson, who is bland for a suicidal girl being chased by a serial killer. The killer mind you is not played by the above the title actor Robert Englund (Who is an Amish Sheriff and leaves the movie fairly early) but James Binkly who is a serial killer that simply won’t shut up.

In fact, dialogue is a real problem for this film. Nobody talks like real people. All the conversations are either a witty rejoinder or a plot point or god forbid horrible self-conscious foreshadowing. 

And while the sets are unconvincing and understaffed and the script and story derivative and pedestrian, this is hardly the worst direct to video horror movie I’ve seen. Its biggest fault seems to be it does nothing I haven’t seen done better dozens of times before. Well, that and the fact that nobody has been crying out for a Halloween 2 (or Visiting Hours) remake.

Screenshots

Heartstopper is a really dark and unappealing film visually. I mean dark in the literal I cannot see the characters or what they are doing sense not the metaphorical content and tone sense.

As with The Cavern or It’s Alive Heartstopper mistakes cannot not see clearly what is going on with scary. I brightened the heck out of these screenshots. the actual film is a murky mess.