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List Price: $14.98 | | Label: MGM (Video & DVD)
Salesrank: 86345
Released: October 5, 2004 |
| Our Price: $1.55 |
| Used Price: $0.01 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Dennis Hopper and Pavan Grover 'turn in powerful performances ( Film Flash Radio ) in this taut, suspenseful and disturbing psychological thriller. Filmed in a real prison, and starring Dina Meyer (Starship Troopers), Lance Henriksen (Alien vs. Predator) and Jeff Fahey (The Lawnmower Man), Unspeakable will take you on a wild ride from its hair-raising beginning to itselectrifying end! Against the advisement of the prison warden (Hopper), psychologist Diana Purlow(Meyer) attempts to map the mind of serial killer Jesse Mowatt (Grover) and discovers images so twisted and horrific, she can't begin to explain them. But when Mowatt later escapes death from the electric chair and begins a lethal rampage, she is faced with a terrifying question: Is he merely a talented serial murderer or something far more unspeakable?
Description of Unspeakable:
Unspeakable is a suitably spooky variation on The Silence of the Lambs crossed with The X-Files, and features a wonderfully delirious Dennis Hopper performance to boot. The legendary actor plays a gentleman sadist of a warden, with little tolerance for an experimental memory-graphing program in use at his prison by Diana, a resilient scientist (Dina Meyer). The capture of an escaped serial killer, Jesse (Pavan Grover), brings researcher and brilliant madman together in a Clarice-Hannibal fashion; the difference is that Grover's character is an evolved human with powerful telepathic abilities. Between invading Diana's thoughts and projecting fantasies into her memory machine, Jesse provokes guards and the warden himself into self-destructive insanity. Lance Henriksen and Jeff Fahey add extra substance to the cast, and the entire, grisly production has a sure-handed look and feel under the direction of Thomas J. Wright, a veteran of The X-Files, Angel, CSI, and much else. --Tom Keogh
Unspeakable Reviews:
Superb Acting 
2008-06-29 - Dennis Hopper is Dennis Hopper...nothing more need be said ... he is always great. But, Pavan Grover took the movie and made it his own. Regardless of some other reviewers, I think he was great. The range of his acting was vast ... from revoltingly hostile to gently seductive. We will all be seeing a lot more of him. Now, the movie ... scary, a bit predictable but a great way to spend an afternoon.
respect the effort, detest the result 
2007-07-16 - This film tells the story of a scientist Dr. Purlow (Dina Meyers) who tried to use a radical (and somewhat farfetched) medical/scientific technology to "read" (for lack of a better term) the human mind. Though her efforts to use this on a human subject are initially rebuffed by the Governor (Jeff Fahey) with whom she was once romantically involved (which is almost a believable and nearly a relevant premise), she is finally able to test this on a captured serial murderer named Jesse Mowatt (Pavan Grover). During this process of neural/psycho-navigation, Dr. Purlow begins to increasingly suspect that Mowatt is something more than just a psychopath - he might even be a well of pure evil, with telepathic powers and perhaps even supernatural elements. O-kay...
I have two opinions on this film which may seem somewhat incompatible, at least at face value:
On the one hand, there is my strident dislike for this utter piece of crap movie. It is a weak, unimaginative, and poorly executed film - most particularly regarding the writing, directing, and acting, which is especially unfortunate in terms of the latter aspect because there is some talent among its cast (except for the lead actor, Pavan Grover, who also happens to be the writer and producer). Dennis Hopper is a distinguished actor who is capable of both handling complicated roles and effectively defining character archetypes. In this film however, he is reduced to over-the-top profanities and being a one-dimensional caricature which crosses into high camp, without the pizzazz. Dina Meyers (hubba hubba) may not be the greatest actress ever born, but she is consistently solid in her performances, as well as being gentle on the eyes. However, she cannot save what is a marginally written and poorly directed pile of offal. Lance Henriksen makes an appearance in the film as well. He is a talented character actor with a unique and effective presence (usually) as well as a wealth of experience, but he is basically on auto-pilot through the film's lame script and sub par direction. Tom Keogh's remarkably inaccurate and useless editorial review for Amazon.com is a disservice for those looking for the film that simply does not stand up to his misleading description.
But the star of the film and a main source of its most glaring weaknesses - is Pavan Grover, who got the job because of his intimate relationship with the producer and writer. Actually, I don't have a problem with this (self-nepotism?) approach; if someone organizes and produces and arranges the financing for a film, then it is certainly their prerogative to cast whomever they like - including themselves. And, there is a modicum of logic to the notion that someone so familiar with the script might have an advantage as an actor (Leigh Wannell did an adequate if not impressive acting job in his role in SAW). This is an effective approach only if the individual has any shred of talent as an actor, or if they are at least cast in a role for which they are not so remarkably ill-suited. Grover is neither. He has seemingly little or no ability as an actor, and is a dreadful choice for a role in which either a fair amount of ability and/or a considerable presence is required. What little "acting" manages to clunk forth from him must have come from the Derrick Zoolander school of theater villainy (mugging for the camera with a shifty-eyed, brooding smirk). For a guy whose character is supposedly so sublimely and purely evil that it portends a possible involvement of the supernatural, Grover instead just comes off more like a model pouting because they're out of his favorite brand of conditioner. He isn't menacing or ominous, and certainly isn't scary; just unintentionally comical and annoyingly creepy in his listless portrayal. In the film projects I have been involved with, I prefer to forego major acting roles myself because I am really not much of an actor. That's not to say Grover couldn't effectively portray a menacing villain in a film. There are roles in which he might be able to pull off adequately, provided they are better suited to his look and abilities. In spite of his apparent limitations at acting, he is certainly an intelligent man.
The other opinion I have about this film deals with my grudging respect for Grover, who is actually a doctor by training, but followed his dream of film-making and has been able to put together a feature-film project as a writer and producer - not to mention as the story's main antagonist ... too bad he sucks at 2 of these things (I hope for the sakes of his patients and his malpractice insurance provider he was a better doctor). Still, I have to respect the considerable effort if not the result. Grover's example is inspirational, not only to those of us who want to (or have) had a hand in film-making, but as encouragement that making something so awful can actually get a distribution deal.
scary bad
2007-06-30 - What do you get when you take the storyline of the silence of the lambs, add one-dimensional characters, bad dialog, bad acting and a tacked on political message? Unspeakable.
A great idea, but...
2006-04-20 - Because I've heard excellent things about the actor/director of 'Unspeakable,' I hate to give it a low rating. But I was sorely disappointed at the lack of plot development. The idea behind the film, that of unravelling the mystery behind a twisted serial killer's mind, is compelling. However, none of the film's elements receive enough attention. The acting is good, but the script contains predictable and uninteresting dialogue. I expect a psychological thriller to engage my mind. This film fails to delve deeply enough into its plot to do that.
High Budget version of THE EVIL 
2005-09-07 - This film has nothing to do with SILENCE OF THE LAMBS or even the X FILES. If you have seen the film THE EVIL, a very low budget film from NEW ZEALAND, then you have an idea of what UNSPEAKABLE is doing script wise. It is not exactly an upscale version of THE EVIL, but it does come from that line of thought. Add a seam of the supernatural, and some intense psycho-drama, as well as some very major gore, then you can get the feel for this film. It is clear that Lance Henrikson's talents further this on the Researcher's side, and Fahey's character is a real politician's animal in the way this film works. It stands very steadily in the Horror film camp, but seems to attempt to say some things about the human condition.
The essence of this film, from the "meaningful film" point of view, is that this film looks at the nature of true innocence, what is evil, and what constitutes true evil; and perhaps even to go so far as the genesis of pure evil... is it inherant, or is it conditioned ?
The comments it has like "The Religious right are neither", and " I think I just got splashed by the milk of human kindness" really add some social comment on some very current conditions that the Neo-Cons purport to stand for.
Hopper adds a great deal of verve in this film, and when he plays off of Lance's character, the emotions run high.
Whilst I could care less about preachy Horror, it does work as a decent sort of horror film, since the serial murderer character has a quasi-apocolyptic tone, which really races on the supernatural and surreal elements in good horror films.
Whilst the low budget pedigree of the film is very evident, it has enough of a budget to allow the actors to play high toned tension and horror in the best possible manner. The gore and horror, in the slash gore sense, leaves little that is unnecessary... the trepanning in the autopsy scene is done for a very good reason, and whilst it is graphic, it is not unwarranted in the context of the film and its events.
The DVD extras are mainly, and perhaps unusually, just visual out-takes, and deleted scenes. The scenes show that the script clearly intended to go in a much more supernatural direction, and in my view the final edit, when taking into account exactly what was taken out, shows a great deal of studio interference( I suspect). Overall, the film may have benefited by a writers commentary, since there is clearly something in the story line that had a few things to say, at least in a horror film sense, and maybe even in a wider, deeper, social sense.
Given a bigger budget, this could become a good, and very watchable franchise.
