LIZZIE (2013)

Studio:       Naedomi
Director:    David Dunn Jr.
Writer:       Leif Holt, Marielle Seastrom
Producer:  Matthew Mosher, Leif Holt, Aaron Holt
Stars:     Corbin Bernsen, Don Swayze, Gerry Bednob, Shawna Waldron, Amanda Baker, Leif Holt, Caitlin Carmichael, Cindy Baer, Gary Busey

Review Score: 

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Summary:

A troubled woman discovers that a repressed memory from her past is strangely connected to the legend of Lizzie Borden. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

A narrator recounts the legend of Lizzie Borden in rhyme.

In an unconscious state during a therapy session with Dr. Fredricks, Lizzy Allen has a frightening but incomplete flashback to a troubled childhood seemingly at the hands of her father. Back at home, Lizzy wakes in bed with her boyfriend Jason after a disturbing dream. She tells Jason that she should start taking her medication again because of the nightmares. Jason reminds her of the dangerous side effects that she encountered when she was previously medicated. On Dr. Fredricks’ suggestion, Lizzy now lives in her childhood home in order to trigger and to confront a suppressed memory.

Lizzy has another session with Fredricks. Lizzy tells the doctor that she is still having strange daydreams despite resuming medication. Fredricks asks Lizzy why she thinks she cannot remember her past.

Lizzy finds an old doll in a moving box and has another flashback. In the bathroom, Lizzy hallucinates breaking a wine glass and cutting her finger. She and Jason spend the evening in together. While Jason sleeps on the couch, Lizzy thinks she hears strange noises. She writes the words “not guilty” in the condensation on the bathroom mirror before having a vision of Lizzie Borden taking an axe to her as a child.

Lizzy sits in a trance for hours on her bed before hammering her alarm clock with a baseball bat. Lizzy thinks someone is stalking the house. It turns out to be Jared the cable guy.

Noises are heard again while Lizzy showers. Jason then scares her with a ski mask and a bloody axe. After a fight over his insensitive prank, the couple eventually reconciles.

Dr. Fredricks suggests trying hypnotherapy with Lizzy again. She refuses. Fredricks prescribes new medication instead and stresses not to combine the drugs with alcohol. Lizzy takes the pills with wine anyway. She fights with Jason when he comes home late after drinking with his foreman Dave and forgetting his phone at work.

Lizzy has another vision and passes out. She awakens to a visit from her new neighbor Maggie. Jason dreams of Lizzy as a ghost that says, “it’s not my fault.” He brings a gun into the house.

Maggie uses an axe to help Lizzy get into an outside door that perplexed the cable guy. They are unable to open the door. Lizzy playfully chases Maggie with the axe. When Jason does not come home, Lizzy imagines him with a mistress. Lizzy then mixes wine with her medication again.

Jason comes home and sees the axe marks on the small door outside. He manages to finally break it open. Jason finds a first aid box inside that contains mementos of Lizzie Borden. While Lizzy sleeps with her old doll, Jason has a vision of Lizzie Borden murdering him with her axe.

Lizzy asks Fredricks for stronger pills. He tells her that he can no longer treat her if she is unwilling to face her past.

Acting strangely, Jason comes home covered in dirt and carrying a hand axe. He has a vision of Abby Borden in the mirror when he goes to the bedroom. Maggie shows up at the door dressed as a maid. She confesses to Lizzy that her real name is Bridget and that she works for a couple named Abby and Andrew who have a daughter named Lizzie. She claims that Andrew violated her. Lizzy calls the police, but Maggie vanishes.

Lizzy goes into another room and has a vision of Andrew Borden assaulting Bridget after claiming that his own wife cannot bear him a son. Abby Borden tries to attack Andrew with an axe, but he ends up butchering his wife instead. Lizzie Borden kills him after discovering her mother’s body. Lizzy passes out.

Lizzy awakens covered in blood. She discovers that Maggie and Jason are both dead. Lizzy takes Jason’s gun and kills herself. A flashback shows that Lizzy’s mother Elizabeth killed her father Daniel with an axe while possessed by Lizzie Borden. Lizzy then returns to life possessed by Lizzie’s ghost.

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Review:

According to the infamous jump rope rhyme, “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her mother forty whacks.  When she saw what she had done, she gave her father forty-one.”  Ms. Borden was subsequently acquitted at trial, although recounted tellings of her tale often omit that part.  There also were only thirty axe wounds discovered across the two victims.  But that is just one more fact that gets in the way of a 120-year-old log for the fires of a handful of movies inspired by the crimes.

“Lizzie” is the latest horror film to stoke that legend as a background for its fictional story.  Lizzy Allen is a mentally and emotionally troubled young woman struggling to come to terms with an unresolved and unknown childhood trauma.  Dr. Fredricks thinks that moving into her childhood home will help trigger the repressed memory, as will a generous dosage of psychotropic medication.  As she continually downs her pills with an ever-present glass of wine, Lizzy instead uncovers a bizarre connection to the phantom of Lizzie Borden.  The past and the present are then linked through nightmarish visions in a manner that spells trouble for everyone in Lizzy’s life.

The screenplay is credited to Leif Holt, who also appears in the film as Lizzy’s boyfriend Jason and serves a third duty as producer.  Marielle Seastrom is given the curious credit of “revisions by,” a designation that makes more sense once the script is seen in action.

“Lizzie” plays like a collision of unfinished ideas and unrelated scenes.  It feels as if a committee could not agree on which turns to take and so they started filming without a clear direction on where things should go.  Characters perform actions without any justification, such as Jason bringing a gun into the house for no reason other than because the script needs it later.  Unnecessary sequences like a montage of coffee being prepared to a nondescript rock song with a screeching guitar do nothing but fill out the runtime.  Entire characters could be wholly excised and the film would actually become less confused about why so many irrelevant threads are being boiled in a pot.

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                                     Kissing is even better when the lips actually touch.

When a film resorts to stunt casting to fill the roles, the intention is clear about just how seriously the production takes the material and its intent to deliver quality entertainment.  Yet “Lizzie” does not even make smart use of its “name” talent.  Don Swayze has one line in two scenes.  He cannot possibly add enough interest in the film to warrant inclusion with such a brief part.  Porn starlet Aurora Snow appears topless in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it sex scene that avoids showing her face.  Why cast a recognized person at all if any random pair of breasts would suffice?

“40 Year Old Virgin” comedian Gerry Bednob shows up as the comic relief in a presumably improved extended cameo that is painfully unfunny with ad-libbed dialogue featuring more awkward pauses and stutters than laughs.  Too many scenes such as his come off as unrehearsed, unprepared, and unprofessional.

Amanda Baker stars as Lizzy.  Her acting pedigree includes several years worth of daytime soap operas and those overly dramatic chops are misplaced in a performance meant to be treated seriously.  Hers is the type of character chained to a worthless boyfriend who thinks it is funny to frighten his emotionally damaged girlfriend by wearing a ski mask and terrorizing her with a bloody hand axe.  He even openly nicknames her “Crazy” as a pronoun.

It is unfortunate that the tie to Lizzie Borden’s legend does not relate to Lizzy’s story in a sensible way, because the Borden case is something that “Lizzie” depicts with some accuracy.  In a flashback to the nineteenth century murders, the bodies of Lizzie’s parents end up where they did in reality in a plausibly presented scenario.  The film even cleverly weaves in a detail about the Borden’s maid Bridget also being referred to by the name Maggie.

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                                    Keep an eye on the disappearing/reappearing tin tray. 

Which makes it stranger that the attention to detail is lacking significantly in so many other places.  In an attempt to show too much of Amanda Baker’s sideboob during a shower scene, she turns so far that her breast covering is visible.  The contents of a grocery bag change according to the take being cut to.  Actors miss each other’s lips when they kiss.  And when an axe blade meets a skull, the prop body bounces around like a spring-mounted baseball bobblehead.

“Lizzie” may have started on a path of purpose, but it comes together as an uneven collection of scattered performances and wandering plotlines.  Questionable casting and careless continuity hint at a set where the filmmakers simply shrugged their shoulders while the camera rolled.  As should be expected in such a case, “Lizzie” ends up with a confused story that makes up for a lack of chills by filling the space with disappointment.

Review Score:  35

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