SECONDS APART

Seconds Apart (2011)
Directed by: Antonio Negret
Written by: George Richards
Starring: Edmund Entin, Gary Entin, Orlando Jones

FILM Seconds Apart

Directed By Antonio Negret

Written By Geogre Richards

Starring Edmumd Entin, Gary Enitin, Monica Acosta, Gabe Begneaud, Kent Jude Bernard

Running Time 89 Minutes

Out Now To Rent and Buy on DVD

Review By Sub Editor Ross Hughes

This weeks DVD release from AFter Dark, a studio that seem intent in delivering a horror to us fans every single Monday is this nice little creep fest involving a set of twins who are causing a little mayhem and murder at their local school!  Well I say maybe but the truth is they really are and before any one shouts spoiler we witness their brutal idea of a game right at the start with a little game of Russian Roulette involving the High School Football Team!  For no apparent reason we see these “jocks” talking the usual smut about the girls at school when all of a sudden they pull out a gun and decide to copy the Deer Hunter!  While the mayhem is all set to kick off, we see a glimpse of these twins filming the whole show which already gives away any guess of what this plot is going to be!

Seconds Apart serves up not one but two Carries, in the form of  Jonah and Seth played by real life twins Edmund and Gary Entin who are best remembered for playing the freaky siblings in the two Rest Stop films!  Here they are really effective in the role, bringing  the required freaky energy to the film and most importantly being its biggest stength, I mean, how can a horror film go wrong when you have these freaky twosome has the centrepiece attraction.

Telekinesis is a well known horror trait  that has been underused in recent years with only the splendid Dead Ringers ringing any bell in my old mind even though I do remember a similar themed episode of The X Files a few years back that had twin sisters playing havoc so you can guess that Seconds Apart while not really offering anything new to the genre, it does seem fresh among the usual blood soaked horrors hitting the market.  I can safely say after Fertile Ground and Prowl, this is probably the strongest of the After Dark set of films to hit the shelves

 Well they not auditioning for the next Chuckle Brothers

The shocking deaths from the Russian Roulette game brings Detective Lampkin (Orlando Jones), to the school and while he is talking to all the other students he stumbles on a young girl who sorts of hints that there is something not right about those two after having a similar experience herself involving sex with an a hot stud who suddenly transforms into a ghastly man.  While she was doing this dirty deed she believes she a glimpse of the two brothers filming it all, but as she says “its hard to remember when those two are around!”.

Lampkin’s suspicions of Jonah and Seth ends up in a deadly game especially when he is still dealing with the death of his wife who burnt to death at home which left him badly scarred while trying to save her!  Its here we see the the difference between the two brothers in which Jonah just wants to keep their heads down while Seth is determined to keep playing the game and even begins to taunt the detective about his sad loss!

When a new pretty student Eve (Samantha Droke) turns up and befriends Jonah the already tension between the two brothers escalate and while Jonah starts to feel regret to what he and his brother are doing, Seth is determined to keep their brotherly bond alive even if it means destroying his brother’s new relationship with Eve and everything around them, including their own family!

I would love to write here “what follows is a battle of the brothers in which only one can survive” but sadly I can not!  The film does threaten to go down this route and I for one was really expecting it to kick off in the last twenty minute mark but sadly Seconds Apart is not that kind of film!  Yes its horror and we are greeted with some startling images on occasions, none more so with the boys game of eat the glass out of the cereal bowl  which delighted my horror heart.  But this film refuses to go down the typical blood fest route that in many hands it would have!  I do not know if this is a good or bad thing, its all down I suppose to what you want out of an horror but I have to say for much of the running time, the film kept my attention and not once did I find myself bored!

All the characters you care for which is a must in horror with Lampkin himself bringing out a lot of sympathy for his tortured soul and extra marks goes towards the parents of these twins who probably serve up the most frightening aspect of the entire show in which you know something is not right there, but you just can not put your finger on it!  The two boys like I have already said are brilliant and worth the watch alone but there just seems to be a lack of something to rise the film from decent to a great watch!

The film builds up an incredible amount of tension and dread and maybe that is the problem, the end does not have the required nasty bite it so desperately needed.  What I wanted was Carrie Vs Carrie but instead it had an easy resolution that suggested the film just run out of ideas which is a shame, because for 75 minutes, Seconds Apart was turning into a quite wonderful delight!

Rating:

[pt-filmtitle]Seconds Apart[/pt-filmtitle]