NO ONE LIVES (2012)

Studio:       Anchor Bay
Director:    Ryuhei Kitamura
Writer:       David Lawrence Cohen
Producer:  Harry Knapp, Kami Naghdi
Stars:     Luke Evans, Adelaide Clemens, Lee Tergesen, Laura Ramsey, Derek Magyar, Beau Knapp, America Olivo, Brodus Clay, Lindsey Shaw

Review Score: 

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Summary:

Tables are turned on a gang of murderous thieves when their latest victims produce a shocking surprise of their own. 

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Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Kidnapped heiress Emma Ward runs through the forest before she is caught in a trap. While strung up by her ankles, she carves the words “Emma alive” into the bark of a tree.

Towing a trailer with their belongings, an unnamed man drives with his female companion Betty. They stop for the night at the Highwayman Motel. The clerk notes that the Driver has an unusual name on his credit card. In their room, the couple watches a news story about Emma and the carving. The Driver kisses a scar on Betty’s stomach before they become intimate.

Presuming the family to be on vacation, a group of thieves robs a house. The heist team is led by Hoag. His crew consists of his large brother Ethan, his girlfriend Tamara, a loose cannon named Flynn, and a young man named Denny, who is in a relationship with Hoag’s daughter Amber. When the family arrives home unexpectedly, Flynn impulsively shoots them all. Hoag calls an end to the theft, berates Flynn, and demands that he make up for the losses from having to cancel the heist.

The Driver takes Betty to Helen’s Steakhouse for dinner. Hoag’s crew arrives, too. Flynn intrudes upon the couple’s dinner before Hoag pulls him away. On the drive home, Flynn sideswipes the Driver’s vehicle and causes an accident. Flynn leaves the Driver and Betty at the gas station with Ethan while he takes the car and the trailer back to Hoag as restitution for the botched heist. Meanwhile, Ethan holds Betty at knifepoint as the Driver regains consciousness. Tired of life on the run, Betty intentionally slashes her throat against Ethan’s knife. The Driver slips his handcuffs and eventually kills Ethan by jamming a cuff through his jaw.

Inside a false panel in the car’s trunk, Flynn discovers captive Emma Ward and brings her inside the house. She pleads for help and tells everyone that the Driver will come to kill them all. Amber shows her family an episode of “American Crime” documenting the violent murders leading to Emma’s abduction and identifies her ransom value at two million dollars. When Hoag cannot reach Ethan, Emma explains that he is already dead. Hoag dispatches Denny and Tamara to the gas station, where they discover Betty’s body and recover Ethan’s, as well.

After Denny and Tamara return home with news, Emma realizes that the Driver would not have killed Betty and that he will want revenge for her murder. The family stashes Ethan’s body and the Driver later cuts himself out from inside it. Emma tries to leave, but sees the Driver waiting outside. She decides that her best chance of escape is to let him kill the family. The Driver opens his trailer and uses the equipment inside to set traps around the house.

Hoag opens the front door and sets foot on the porch. He is speared in the back and pulled away by a wire. Denny is shot in the stomach. The Driver tortures Hoag for information before dropping him into a thresher.

In a flashback, Emma remembers a time in captivity when the Driver explained that her life was dependent upon him staying alive. He intentionally slashes his own throat to test whether or not she will save his life. She reveals a scar on her stomach that resembles the one that Betty had.

A fight breaks out following an argument between Amber and Tamara. Afterwards, they discover a bag hanging on the porch. Flynn opens the door and kicks the bag. Hoag’s remains spill onto the porch.

Denny and Amber attempt to escape via an old car in the garage. Denny is able to get the engine running, but the Driver grabs him and grinds his face under the hood. Amber runs into the woods. The Driver follows and maims her with a blade in the back. Tamara and Flynn use the opportunity to escape in the car with Denny and Emma. As they drive away, Amber stumbles into the road and Flynn accidentally runs her over. They drop Denny outside a hospital while the Driver hitches a ride with some frat boys.

Flynn pulls into the Highwayman Motel. The clerk calls the sheriff after Flynn uses the same credit card that the Driver used earlier. Emma uses the bathroom while Tamara showers. Emma takes Tamara’s gun and agrees to kill Flynn. Emma has another flashback to her captivity and her relationship with the Driver. The sheriff arrives and Flynn shoots him through the door. At the same time, the Driver sneaks in through the bathroom window and chokes Tamara through the shower curtain.

Emma and Flynn run outside where Flynn is hit by the police car driven by the Driver. The Driver pursues Emma to a lot where she begins clubbing him with a pipe. Flynn recovers and arrives with a shotgun, but the Driver is wearing a vest. As the two men fight, Emma knocks out Flynn so that she can be the one to kill the Driver. The Driver ultimately takes the gun from Emma, cuts her open, and removes a device from her stomach. The motel clerk comes outside. The Driver shoots Flynn and then the clerk, because he knew the Driver’s real name.

Dressed as a doctor, the Driver goes to the hospital and kills Denny by shoving a clipboard into his throat. As the Driver leaves, the media converges on the hotel to cover the arrival of Emma Ward by ambulance.

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Review:

“No One Lives” is a revenge horror cocktail of “The Collector” shaken with “Last House on the Left” and downed with a chaser of Patty Hearst and Stockholm Syndrome.  That quick description perhaps reveals too much of the plot already, although not quite as much as the title does on its own.  “No One Lives” does not have a twist to its premise so much as a gentle bend, but anything more than that first sentence might spoil the movie’s premise.

A simpler, yet more direct way to phrase it would be to say that a band of murderous thieves targets a pair of tourists “passing through” and ends up with a lot more on their hands than they bargained for.  Luke Evans, looking like Dominic West of “The Wire” wearing the facial hair of Orlando Bloom, joins Lee Tergesen and Adelaide Clemens, forever doomed to be likened to Michelle Williams, at the top of a cast of talented actors put to use in a film that offers little in the way of character development aside from kill or be killed.

                                    Dominic West + Orlando Bloom = Luke Evans? 

The plot shows the table its entire hand by the end of act one.  Once that setup is established and every turn has been taken, it is back to a straight arrow path that charges ahead to the finish line while decapitating everything in its path.  That is welcome news for anyone looking for old-fashioned gore-fueled mayhem and nothing else.  Those hopeful for a more engaging thriller will have the soft glow of a cell phone to illuminate their faces as they check the time.

“No One Lives” is not a bad chapter for the endless bookshelf of slasher flicks, it is just an ultimately empty one.  Grading the film for meeting its goal of a simply set bar would score unanimous tens from all of the judges for its shallow end dive.  Yet while it may be a movie with no loftier of an ambition than to provide an 80-minute diversion of bloodsoaked gags, that does not mean it should skate completely by without being compared to a higher standard.

The kills are good and the actors are even better, but to what end?  Fun without substance fades quickly from memory.  Director Ryuhei Kitamura and his cast are capable of far more than the straightforward material delivered here.  Kitamura in particular has proven his capacity for injecting much more octane, and intelligence, into suspenseful horror.  It is hard to come away from “No One Lives” without the feeling that an appetizing salad has just been consumed, and now the stomach is rumbling for a juicy main course.  Too bad the kitchen is already closed.

Were it a candy bar, “No One Lives” would not exactly qualify for the satisfaction of a Snickers.  “No One Lives” has the creamy nougat of splattery shock kills and a chocolate covered coating of thin horror entertainment.  Yet it is missing the caramel texture of a layered story and the peanut clusters of uniquely memorable moments.  This is more of a Three Musketeers, and it is about as filling as the tiny Fun Size bars that populate Trick or Treat bags every October 31st.  With a horror movie sack full of so many tastier options, a hungry stomach would be better off reaching right past and grabbing something that offers a much more fulfilling kick in the taste buds.

Review Score:  60

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