The Wraith.

Let's use this to try and get back in the swing of things...hopefully! In memory of Bruce Ingram.

 Hey, you want this to be a mystery? Don't go on the IMDb page, the film is spoiled in the cast list. Not that you wont guess what exactly is happening in the first ten minutes, this film is less of a film and more of a concept stretched over ninety minutes. The Wraith is a supernatural story of revenge, as a strange dark figure in a strange black car begins to kill off members of Packard's gang, working his way up to the creepy and obsessive Packard himself. While these deaths are happening a police lieutenant is on the case, realising more and more that the unsolved murder of Jamie Hankins has a deep connection to all that is going on and may well be the key to solving it all.

The Wraith, in terms of action, is not easy to explain in terms of a positive or a negative. You see it's a very cheap looking film, with very few moments that truly stand out and yet at the same time the whole film is so cool you can almost ignore just how bland a lot of the action is. I do wonder though if that is just the films age, we're finally at a point in time where CGI is starting to convince and so thirty year old effects really are starting to show their age now and if there isn't an extremely imaginative and distinct director behind the camera, there is little to save the effects from looking just as cheap as they are. I guess this is another film to add to the list of 'films that actually need remakes so it'll probably never happen'.

The film is surprisingly well written, and acted, for what it is with each character being very memorable, despite being killed off one by one and battling for screentime between all the car chases and explosions, so that says a lot. It is just a shame that our villains, the people we are supposed to want to get killed off, seem to be the main focus and entertainment factor of the film with our two heroes so bland you could swap them out for cardboard standees and not notice.

Really the plotting is probably the biggest issue with the film, though. It's only 90 minutes and since a large portion of that is given to action sequences, a lot of the plot doesn't get to have any depth. It seems almost superfluous to have a mystery aspect at all, since most of the characters in the actual film have to shrug off even the most ridiculous of things because there isn't time for them to actually question or even think on anything. Why does Jamie come back to life as a Power Ranger? Why does he have a super car? And a vaguely futuristic shotgun? Why does he have braces on him that keep disappearing? Why does he have super powers? Why does he come back to life at all? Why does he have a new face? Well even if you do ask, you aren't going to be getting answers despite the film making a fairly simple concept way more complicated than it needs to be, I really cant understand why they didn't just keep this simple, it would have been way more enjoyable that way.

And it is honestly, with all jokes aside, a shame because there is a lot of interesting stuff going on here that has absolutely no time to be explored in any meaningful way. You don't need to give us it on a plate but really you've just created a ninety minute long backdrop with a few explosions in front of it and just everything in your movie is so damn cool, you've got me craving more but refusing to give me it. Honestly I think the Crow did it so much better when it ripped this off close to a decade later.

Another problem with the film is the films tone, it doesn't take itself particularly seriously despite featuring a very dark and twisted plot but it doesn't really play itself as a black comedy either and I found that made me very uncomfortable. It doesn't need to be a gritty, dark horror film but if you aren't going to go all the way with the black comedy bent either it just becomes completely impregnable by the audience, it just feels cold and heartless. You don't half arse teen drug abuse, rape and supernatural vengeance.

So do I recommend it? I hope by now that I've proven that I'm not a snob. I love the 80s, its my favourite decade for cinema in practically every genre but The Wraith...The Wraith I just do not see the appeal. If the budget was bigger or the director more imaginative, to make the action sequences more thrilling, then I could probably look passed the fact that this is basically 90 minutes of plotholes but alas, I cannot because that is all you really get. A cool idea, wasted, then done way better in The Crow and done way better before in High Plains Drifter.

Think About It!

-Locke.

What would you rate, 'The Wraith'?