Conjure
no stars at all
DVD
Directed by
Matt Busch
Written by
Matt Busch
Cast
Matt Busch
Sarah Wilkinson
R
95 mins
There is nothing I can say that will express the depth of disappointment I feel while watching "Conjure." Read on to see why.
So what we have here is, well, I'm not sure just what it is we have
here. We've got a lot of Matt Busch hawking his own artwork, and
shamelessly promoting his career, but not much in the way of actual
storyline going on here. At least not until the last half of the movie,
when there is plot, but it's a plot you've seen before several times.
The first thing you'll likely notice about "Conjure" is that the
effects are a real mixed bag. Even the first thirty five seconds is
proof of this. First, the ghost at twenty five seconds in...convincing.
Unnerving. Well acted, well done.
But then, follow that up with some second-rate weapons fire special effects at the twenty seven second mark.
But then, the monster sequence at the forty two second mark kicks
in, and manages to be both creepy and weird all at the same time.
But then, we're treated to this positively horrendous opening
sequence starting about a minute and a half in. Mindlessly
self-serving, it is little more than a promotional sequence for Busch's
artwork.
It's not that someone wouldn't have a use for this footage. It's not
as though it isn't interesting, even! I'm sure amateur artists
everywhere are going to find this inspirational. I did, even!
The problem is it has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING TO DO WITH THE MOVIE!
Almost the first ten minutes of "Conjure" have NOTHING at all to do with the PLOT!
I find myself enraged by this. I just spent ten minutes watching a
COMMERCIAL. Not even the THEATRES subject you to a ten minute
commercial before the movie starts.
The theatres at least have the class to give you several different commercials for those ten minutes....
Worse yet, the next several minutes are almost exclusively devoted
to Matt painting what looks like a castle he found in a graveyard. For
a ninety minute flick, there's not a whole lot in the way of plot to be
had here, folks. Thirteen minutes out of ninety have been eaten up by
Matt And His Art. That's almost twenty five percent of your movie just
lost to a guy drawing.
For reference, think how pissed off you'd be if "The Princess Bride"
was twenty five percent Fred Savage sitting in bed and reading.
Put the torches and pitchforks down, please....
I found myself wondering, around the twenty minute mark...is there a plot in all this? WHERE is the plot in all this?
It's about twenty one minutes in, that's where the plot is. We get
this nice little sequence, eerily reminiscent of the motion detector
sequence in "Aliens" where Matt wanders through his house, gun in hand,
as a series of motion detector lights activate on a command center back
in the bedroom.
But then, twenty five minutes in, it's all for naught as it's back
to Time Passes sequences of clouds moving and more with Matt And His
Art.
The disappointment I feel at this moment is just staggering.
And THEN, as if the first ten minutes weren't bad enough, we get it
all recapped in the form of a Detroit Free Press interview around the
twenty seven minute mark! Who IS the target market for this movie,
anyway? Really big Matt Busch fans with the attention spans of ferrets
on crack??
Yes, there will be some new information in this sequence. It doesn't
change the fact that it comes after the part that repeats what's said
earlier.
The handful of purely terrifying sequences that come into play and
the positively spectacular ghost effects are no match for the sheer and
astonishing bulk of shameless self-promotion that we're subjected to.
The ending is twenty pounds of predictable in a five pound sack.
Matt Saves The Day. Yaaaay. And the how is even worse...folks, we've
all seen this before. This is a "Monkey's Paw" ending all over again,
done so many times before by better movies than this. Eliminate the
thing that caused the problem and watch the problem go away.
"Wishcraft". "Wishmaster." "Hellraiser". "Leprechaun". The list goes on.
Plus, more commercials. You're welcome.
The special features include a blooper reel, a making of featurette,
deleted scenes, an alternate ending, trailers, an interactive
sketchbook, and others to be determined later.
All in all, Matt pretty much sums up the impetus behind the movie in
the first ten minutes. Art is a lot about selling a product. And
"Conjure" is the art that Matt must have intended to sell a lot of his
own products. "Conjure" is, categorically, one of the worst movies I've
had the intense displeasure of having seen in a long time.
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