Katiebird (*Certifiable Crazy Person)
Picture: C
Sound: C Extras: C- Feature: D
Split screen is not used much these days, though it was a
very different device in Classical Hollywood productions than in later films by
the likes of Brian De Palma, a clever peak use of the visual device. Music Videos in the 1980s brought a fun new
take to splitting the screen as it introduced widescreen letterboxing to the
world in a way then young home video could not. With digital video all over the place, some are turning to the
device and most of them are botching it.
Justin Paul Ritter’s awful Katiebird (*Certifiable Crazy Person)
tries to build a story about a female “serial killer” on it and fails
miserably.
With no coherence, no point, no build-up, no narrative in
a readerly or writerly way, no credibility, no believability and it just
constantly wallows in the violence and how self-impressed it is with
itself. What little here that might be
graphic or supposedly shocking has been done better dozens of times before,
going back to the 1960s. Director
Ritter talks about just going out and doing anything to get anything on the
market; a terrible mentality that is as empty and highly cynical as the worse
Hollywood productions with no heart or soul to it. That it also restigmatizes mental illness shows its immaturity
and even a sense of infantilism.
The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image is awful, shot
on lower-definition tape, is a mess. Moire patterns and messy color are matched
by messy editing and some very bad camera work so bad that Barney Miller
episodes look highly artistic by comparison.
The Dolby Digital 2.0 sound is harsh and badly separated stereo,
something repeated on the 16bit/44.1kHz bonus PCM 2.0 Stereo CD included in the
version of the DVD we received. The
music score by Daniel Iannantuono is long, drawn out, repetitious, clichéd and
nothing to write home about. Extras
include a commentary track by the director and three co-stars, teaser, trailer
and two featurettes for this feature, plus six additional trailers for other
Heretic titles.
- Nicholas Sheffo
