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| Yeah, let's give high school graduates one more reason not to go to college... |
This time around, I've got a doozy on my hands. Welcome to what's sure to be the best teen horror flick the month of February, 2011 has to offer: The Roommate. Before you all shit your pants in terror from what might be the scariest film title since The Shining, (seriously, The Shining sounds like the hard-knock life story of some little orphan kid who shines shoes in the airport terminal and becomes a hero after he ties the shoelaces of a would be terrorist together, tripping up his plans and saving America. I just made that up...sounds better than this pile of shit) put the bat down for a minute and listen to the eye-gougingly terrifying synopsis, straight from the IMDB.com. And I absolutely quote, "College student Sara finds her safety jeopardized after she's assigned to a dorm room with a new roommate, Rebecca." If you haven't already tied a necktie to the ceiling fan and are about to kick the stool out from under you in fear, you have a stronger constitution than most. Gaze in terror as a girl finds her safety only slightly jeopardized by a complete stranger who she now has to live with for a whole year, minus holidays! No one in America today, where every single person gets along, should have their safety jeopardized in such a frightful manner! I shudder at the thought of feeling like my safety is in jeopardy when in the presence of someone I've never met! I'm not too sure but I think people get paid to write synopses like that. That fact is scarier than most horror movies I've seen. Especially this one, that I haven't seen. But the deck might be stacked a little in my favor this time around because, oh wait, yes I have basically seen this, because it's a complete rip-off of Single White Female.
Since that incredibly detailed IMDB synopsis didn't seem to quite paint a clear enough picture, I'll try my hand at explaining what I think it's about after watching the trailer and a random TV spot or two I've happened to catch. It appears that Sara goes to college, gets paired with a random roommate, Rebecca, and they have dozens of college misadventures until it turns out that Rebecca is a goddamn psycho and gets a bit clingy and possibly stab-happy. That is nearly the exact plot of Single White Female, the only difference being that this takes place at a college instead of in Adult World, which is what I call...whatever this scary place is around me. "But hey, movie reviewer jack-ass, it doesn't say that it's based on that stinky old person movie, so it's not." Shut your stupid mouth while I give you a history lesson. In 1990, before anyone who goes to see The Roommate was born, John Lutz wrote a book called SWF Seeks Same. In 1992, a movie based on that book came out called Single White Female, which is what SWF stands for. In 1996, Francine Pascal wrote a book called The Roommate (Sweet Valley University), which, according to the reviews on Amazon.com and the general synopsis of the book, is the exact same plot as Single White Female. And now, in 2011, we have The Roommate. Follow me closely here: The Roommate, the movie, is supposedly an 'original' story, ripped-off The Roommate, a supposedly 'original' novel, which was in fact a rip-off of the movie Single White Female, a very popular movie in the nineties, which was based on the book SWF Seeks Same. The layers of bullshit do not end with this thing...but hell let's throw eight million dollars at a group of people and see if we can make a profit off of stealing? Hmm? Sounds good.
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| They'll never suspect a thing...ka-ching! |
This cast is a tough one to judge, 'cause I honestly don't have the slightest idea who any of these people are, so I had to do a bit of research. I love that the Gossip Girl cast members are attempting to jump ship from that show as quick as possible. I guess it's pretty popular but the ten seconds I saw of it are ten seconds that I really genuinely want back so that I can use them to, I don't know, walk to the other end of my apartment and then forget what I went there for. Probably bacon. Leighton Meester plays the role of Rebecca, the creepy, psycho roommate...oh sorry, I meant the roommate that 'jeopardizes the safety' of the other. What does she do, make her climb past the 'safe step' on a ladder without proper supervision? I've never seen that Meester Meester lady in anything so I can't really say if she's slumming it or not. I'm sure she'll play a fine...safety jeopardizing...person. Minka Kelly, displays her fantastic talents as Sara, whose safety will most surely be in jeopardy. And by 'displays her talents' I mean, who the hell is she? Because I have no idea. Oh wait, she was really good for the last three minutes of (500) Days of Summer! No, I would have never known this was the same person if I hadn't looked it up. These people are as interchangeable as punk bands. And finally, filling in as eye candy for the ladies, who will no doubt make up for most of the ticket buyers and drag their poor boyfriends to this filth, is Cam Giga...Giga...you know what, I don't know him or his creepy French sounding name. Ji-gon-day? Really...it's spelled Gigandet. I'm sure my friend Amy will tell me he's the best new actor since Shawn Ashmore, Liam Hemsworth, and of course Robert Pattinson. She has this uncanny ability to discover these up-and-coming 'really good' actors who have been in 'so many good movies' before the entire female population noticed they were hot. What? They all happen to be 'easy on the eyes'? And girls say they're 'good actors?' Huh...isn't that the damnedest thing?
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| He's already accepted the Oscar...in their hearts. |
If Gigawhatshisface's forgettable ten seconds of acting in Easy A and what I see of him in the trailer and couple commercials for The Roommate are any indication, we have a lot of sultry squinting and smooth, gravely voiced dialogue to look forward to from this great obviously-not-getting-by-on-his-gay-looks actor. Soon he'll be up for a coveted role in Twilight...oh he already was in Twilight. Imagine my shock. After Blake Lively acted in The Town and did a damn good job, I had a little bit of hope that other CW stars would try to avoid being type-cast as teen 'throbs. Looks like I was a little too hopeful with this bunch 'cause obviously none of them read this script too hard...or maybe they thought they were reading a remake of Single White Female. But it's not, they swear!
It is. Which brings me to my special spoiler alert. Not only do I plan on ruining the plot of The Roommate for you, but in doing so, will undoubtably ruin the plot of Single White Female. I'm sorry, but it can't be helped. I won't even mention SWF again and I will still ruin the ending. Let's see, Sara, fresh from a nice home life enters her first year of college far enough away from home to feel nervous about it. She gets a roommate randomly assigned to her, as is the custom, and at first everything goes super-duper swimmingly! They borrow each other's clothes and tell secrets and even adopt a stray cat...which I'm sorry to say for people who think animal lives are more important than human, Mr. Scrumbles probably ain't gonna make it to the credits. Rebecca will get jealous of the time it spends curled up in Sara's lap and make it pay...in kitty blood. Sara makes friends and Rebecca is kind of reserved but the two get along and they discover the joys of college like getting into clubs underage and of course meeting sexually ambiguous boys like Cam Gigadick. Cammie falls for the hotter of the two because he's just that deep and Rebecca gets jealous, not because Sara has a guy but because Sara doesn't hang out with her as much. Rebecca starts to get clingy and stalky and creep out Sara's friends. Even Rebecca's mom warns Sara that Rebecca should be on the meds. Rebecca will start thinking Sara is being corrupted by all of these young hip people and I can only assume, and I will with much certainty since as usual the exciting stuff is in the trailer, that Rebecca snaps and starts physically assaulting Sara's friends and apparently a gas station attendant who I can only assume makes a pass at Sara. And we hope that she tries to seduce Gigabyte while disguised as Sara and then beats him up when he finally figures it out...after. This song and dance will continue for the last third of the movie leading to some silly, contrived sequence where Rebecca takes Sara hostage and tells her they can be sisters now because Rebecca always wanted a sister and most likely had one and accidently killed her or something, probably by hugging her too hard. By the grace of some deus ex machina or happy crappy ending writing, Sara will triumph and Rebecca will either bite the big ticket to the looney bin in the sky...or since this movie is a kid friendly PG-13, she might just end up in a real looney bin.
I can only imagine the schmaltz will continue as Sara returns to school the next semester with a 4.0 sympathy GPA for nearly gettin' sistered to death and meets up with a recovering Cam Gidget who she obviously forgave for getting with Rebecca. I don't care who you are, you usually try to figure out who someone is in the dark before you get intimate, especially if their hair color doesn't look quite right...unless she dyes it...then seriously still check. Cam Gigadouche seems like just the kind of stand-up guy who squints his eyes harder during morally ambiguous situations like that. Sara probably gets a one person room or, in a really hilarious twist, joins a sorority, where she'll have dozens of new creepy sisters. See, I can write this garbage. So in my final plea, don't go see this movie, save seven dollars and just go watch Single Whi...HOLY SHIT, Billy Zane is in this movie!? Where are my freakin' car keys!?
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| Zane saves every film he's in. |
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