Yes, you read the title right. Thomas Jane, who portrayed The Punisher in the 2004 movie, decided he wanted to revisit the character of Frank Castle again. So he made a fan film – just 10 minutes long – about Castle doing something simple. Laundry day.
But as you might imagine, it doesn’t quite go as planned.
This is very NSFW due to language and violence. But it includes Ron Perlman (Hellboy) and others.
I may be among the few people who really enjoyed Jane’s performance of the Punisher vs. the version with Ray Stevenson from a few years ago. Jane brought some humanity to the character, which is probably why true Punisher fans didn’t like it. Hopefully this isn’t the last time we see Jane in the role.
If you didn’t see any of the trailers, the story is basically that a small town is beset by a strange mist after a freak storm. The townsfolk hide in a supermarket and fight for their lives.
What made this movie for me wasn’t the setting. It wasn’t the special effects (though they were cool and used very well). It was the characters.
I am a big Thomas Jane fan. I think the next Punisher movie coming out (War Zone) is a mistake. He gave the character an emotional core that I think will be lacking… but I digress. I thought his character, David Drayton, a book cover artist, had just the right balance of manliness and uncertainty. Who would believe that there were monsters in the mist? He didn’t. Had to prove it to him.
And the ending… Wow. Just heartbreaking.
The other characters… Mrs. Carmody played by Marcia Gay Harden was a real witch disguised as a religious woman. 🙂 Harden played her to the teeth. You hated her from the beginning and it only got worse!
And Andre Braugher… Brent Norton, the uptight neighbor. He was trying to do the right thing too. But he didn’t believe in the monsters until it was almost too late…
This is a movie that uses suspense well. The backgrounds go away once the mist arrives. So your focus is entirely on the characters and what they do to survive. It gets a solid 4/4 from me. I really enjoyed it. One of the best “horror” movies I’ve seen in a long time.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_b.png?x-id=336f7349-de13-4ba7-8b82-1ae0847afff3)