“Your watch. After you left for work this morning, it stopped, didn’t it? Whenever a clock stops, they’re coming.”
Ian Stone must discover who keeps killing him and why he returns in a different life — before they kill him permanently.
Last week we began our look at movies from After Dark Horrrorfest Movie series. We started with Borderland, a shocking bloodfest I couldn’t finish watching the first time but one that was worth the effort to see it the second. Now I want to talk about my favorite movie of the lot The Deaths of Ian Stone.
TITLE:
THE DEATHS OF IAN STONE
Director:
Dario Piana
Writer:
Brendan Hood
GENRE:
Horror, Fantasy, Thriller
DESCRIPTORS:
Horror, Addiction, Alternate Realities, Death, Killers, Drug Use, Monsters, Torture, Mystery, Past Life
RATING:
Rated R.
SUMMARY:
Ian Stone is a college hockey superstar and just about to score the last minute game winning goal when the clock stops. After being glared at by his teammates and consoled by his girlfriend Jenny, Ian Stone is killed in a seemly random act of violence.
Ian Stone is a nine to fiver, over worked and under paid in corporate America with a live-in girlfriend Medea until he witnesses a paramedic take a man’s life . . . or was he rescuing him? Confusion remains until the next day where on the way to work the clocks stop and he is brutally killed.
“Getting your customer to their destination alive usually makes for a better tip.”
Ian Stone is a cabby who has just met an extraordinary woman in what is otherwise a dead end life. She takes an interest in him. Things just might be looking up until the clocks stop and he is killed . . . again.
Ian Stone is unemployed and on government assistance trying to get his act together and find a job until the clocks stop . . .
Ian Stone is a heroin junkie coming down from his last high when the clocks stop . . .
They are hunters. Every time the clock stops, it means they’ve targeted their prey and are closing in. Their prey is Ian Stone. And each time they kill him he awakens in a new life.
But Ian has a secret . . . one so dangerous not even he can remember it, but little by little through each ruined life, they come closer to discovering just what that secret is.
And then there will be no more lives for Ian Stone. . . .
APPEAL:
“Listen, you’re a smart boy. Don’t let denial get in the way of that.”
This is a movie where the fun is in the reveals and the twist at the end. Why is Ian Stone being killed? How can he keep coming back to life? What are the hunters and what are they really after? And what are the shadowy creatures he keeps glimpsing out of the corner of his eye?
As horror films go, this one was light on the scare. However it was a captivating movie. The mysteries surrounding Ian drive the movie. It has some snappy dialog which made settling on one quote for this article, impossible. The acting was good and the special effects were fun — surprising considering that this was not a multi-million dollar movie.
Any story that deals with the unreality of reality has an uphill battle with internal logic as well as getting the audience to suspend disbelief. This movie had a well thought out mythos that is slowly revealed in the second half but you have to hang with the film through multiple lives without explanation in the first half. It also features creatures that were fresh and a visually fun to watch.
WATCHALIKES:
If you enjoy The Deaths of Ian Stone you might want to try a noir reality twisting movie like Dark City
Still undecided? Take a look at this trailer for the movie:
Meanwhile, did you see this movie? What did you think of it? Did I craft a properly tantalizing summary or give too much away? That is a hard balancing act, especially with a movie like this. Let me know what you think in the comments.
This post is based upon an earlier post made in The Lair of the Undead Rat.
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