Andrew van den Houten has certainly
earned horror fandom's indulgence as a producer on The Woman,
Home Movie, and Jack
Ketcham's The Girl Next Door and
the director of Offspring.
As president of Moderncine, he gets to indulge himself with
this director's cut of his 2005 film, Headspace (with
about an hour of extras packed on the disc) which itself
must withstand big expectations
from that same fan base he's earned with his later work (providing
you haven't seen the prior DVD release).
The
story here involves aimless young house sitter Alex Borden
(Christopher Denham), whose childhood was ruined when doting parents
played by Larry Fessenden and Sean Young (briefly seen but hugely
memorable) have a “shotgun divorce” on his 11th
birthday. Nearly 15 years later, he starts exhibiting what most would
assume to be the symptoms of incipient schizophrenia and recalling
childhood visions of demons. His intellect explodes, seemingly
sparked by a simple game of chess in the park, and heightened senses
and psychic gifts also seem part and parcel of his brainy new gifts.
Falling
under the tender care of neurologists William Atherton and Dee
Wallace, it is discovered that he's using far more of of his brain
than the rest of us mere mortals, absorbing raw information like a
sponge then crunching it with the speed of a Cray. Borden is less
enthused than they are, and winds up referred to the tender
ministrations of Dr. Karen Murphy (Olivia Hussey, accent muddier than
ever here), who seems to be an awful and highly unethical therapist.
He also follows his mysterious chess opponent, the totally
unrealistic character Harry, home in a scene that for all the world
feels like a barely-coded
trick pick-up in the park.
Harry's main qualities are painting and chess, shorthand in both film
and life for an intellectual plot device with a bent towards the
bohemian.
Things
take a hard left at the thirty minute mark with the introduction of
“men in bad rubber suits,” I mean, “monsters” (of the id,
perhaps) who start knocking off those who cross Borden's path. If not
of the id they must be the gremlins who cause faults in your wiring
since their arrival is always signaled by flickering lights and
electric sizzle. As all good manifestations of our worries must, they
also attack Borden directly. When science and friends fail him, he
turns to a seemingly empathetic yet ill-fated priest (Udo Kier in a
gory and unusually Teutonic cameo) then Dr. Murphy's pal, a
discredited random Cold War relic (Mark Margolis in an even showier
cameo rocking a Boris Badenov-worthy Russian accent) for important
plot-exposition. To the director's credit there is more showing than
telling as Headspace
picks up speed heading from under-explained origin to telegraphed
finale.
The
cast is what makes this a curio for most. Olivia Hussey is perhaps
the most memorable. Gauntly doe-eyed, she wavers between steely and
disaffected, and, yes, still sports one of the most important bust
lines in screen history. This Juliet lived up to her pulchritudinous
promise. Debuting here are Christopher Denham in the lead and
Pollyanna McIntosh, now a muse and good luck charm to Van Den Houten,
Lucky McKee and Jack Ketcham as the star of Offspring and
The Woman. Her
entirely gratuitous sex scenes here are the stuff from which legends
are made.
As an
attempt at a brain-bending horror with touches of Sci-Fi and the
supernatural, Headspace
has at least one jump scare that's effective even though entirely
anticipated. There are several creature-kill sequences that are
almost comforting in the familiarity of their structure and pace.
Sometimes unclear plotting is forgivable thanks to a steady pace, and
but the twists are obvious.“Of course, so-and-so is such-and-such,”
and that's okay. Not a classic, but perhaps a neglected, genuine
pleasure given a second shot thanks to Van Den Houten's success?
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