Before going into too much detail, let me try to give a brief synopsis. Michael suspects his wife Stacey is having an affair. He contacts Quaid Hess, who is a private investigator, to get proof of the affair after his friend, Leon, gave him Quaid’s business card. Quaid follows Stacey and catches her with Dillon who has recently moved back into the area after a 10 year absence. Michael comes home from work to find Dillon and Stacey in bed but is killed in a struggle with Dillon. When Dillon and Stacey try to bury the body in the woods, Michael comes back to life (a zombie) and chases them, eventually catching up to them and biting Stacey on the arm. Meanwhile Quaid is on the hunt for Dillon since he’s also been contracted by Leon to kill him. Dillon and Stacey stumble upon a shack in the woods filled with posters of Hitler and swastikas hanging on the wall. They also find a case containing a tape recorder. When they listen to the tape, they are shocked to discover people have been used as test subjects for some Nazi experiment which is turning them into the undead. The undead can spread this virus by a simple bite. Stacey finally succumbs to the deadly virus and in the throws of passion attacks Dillon, biting his penis off. Dillon slashes Stacey’s throat and stumbles from the shack and straight into Quaid. After an intense brawl, Quaid is killed by Stacey but not before he shoots Dillon in the back. Dillon stumbles onto a dirt road and meets Ilsa, a mad Nazi scientist. She takes Dillon back to her laboratory to perform more evil experiments but Dillon manages to escape, killing Ilsa and her henchman in the process before running into Leon. And as the two men point guns at each other, the camera fades to black as gun shots ring out.
*whew*
I know this might seem like an extra long review, but this is a train wreck of a movie. Jason Impey directs this movie and it’s obvious he has watched a lot of movies and stolen from those he likes. For example, the opening shot is very simplistic in black and white, while a very simple score plays in the background. It’s so obvious that the director was channeling John Carpenter and Halloween when he shot this opening scene.
There’s nothing wrong with using what’s already been done as long as you add something to it. The director does add to the opening, so I’m not harping on it. However, there are numerous flashback scenes before and after the main storyline and after the second or third flashback I could feel the director channeling Quetin Tarantino and the Kill Bill movies. Again, there’s nothing wrong with using what others have done, but this time it was too much and too confusing. Most of the flashback scenes made zero sense and often introduced different topics which left me saying, “This makes no sense…”
The biggest problem I have is the zombies. We have to wait over fifty minutes to find out why there are zombies in this movie, but not only that, we find out in the lamest manner. A tape recorder is found by Dillon and reveals why the zombies exist. This wasn’t even a good tape recording. There’s too much static and the voice is too garbled. It’s hard to make out but you can Leon rambling, which goes on way too long, as he tells us what we (the audience) is eagerly waiting for. The only thing I understood, literally, was serum, test subjects, and bite. The whole explanation was the biggest WTF moment I’ve ever had in all the movies I’ve watched up to this point. What a lazy, lazy, lazy way to explain why zombies are running around in your movie. Oh, I wanted to scream. I still do.
My second problem…the sex scenes. Look, I understand that in the horror genre formula, there is usually a random and gratuitous sex scene right in the middle of the chaos and mayhem. But there are two scenes in this movie that just don’t work. The first comes when Stacey and Dillon are in the woods. It’s dark so they decide to build a campfire and play kissy-face while zombies are lurking in the woods and chasing them. I wouldn’t mind seeing them cuddling each other for warmth and from a sense of fear but not in a moment of intimacy.
The second comes after we discover why there are zombies are running around in the woods. Dillon and Stacey are hiding in the shack, Stacey is looking rather, er, dead, and this is the moment when she’s going to make out with Dillon. And Dillon is letting her, willing to go along with it. If that weren’t bad enough but Stacey collapses and then revives looking deader, but starts in again on Dillon. Once again Dillon allows Stacey to do this but suddenly Stacey bites off his pennies. What? I just groaned and vocally said, “Whhaaa….”
The third problem I have is the fight scenes. These make little sense. The first one happens when Dillon is searching for Stacey after she ran off when Michael bit her. Dillon is attack by two zombies and then suddenly Quaid is there. Granted Quaid had been looking for him but instead of helping each other to get away from the zombies, Quaid starts punching Dillon in the face while the zombies swirl around and eventually attack the two men.
Again, the second awkward fight scene happens towards the end of the movie. It’s the big show down between Quaid and Dillon. Both have guns and both couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn especially since they are only 5 feet apart. If that weren’t bad enough, but after dropping their guns, they start pounding each other with their fists but not one visible mark mares their faces. Just crazy!
This probably could have been a good movie had the director not tried to throw everything but the kitchen sink in this movie. If you want a movie about betrayal, then make it about betrayal. If you want it to be about zombies, then make it about zombies in a clear and rational manner. If you want to combine the two ideas, then intertwine them in a fashion that is seamlessly. Above all, if you want to hold your audiences’ attention, you need to establish your plot earlier instead of waiting fifty minutes into a 91 minute movie.
I did some research about the director, Jason Impey. Apparently Jason likes B movies because he likes the freedom of control (or lack of it) and unpredictably. Not rushing to judgment because I have two other Jason Impey movies to review, I just hope they have a little more predictability and a little more control.
Overall, The Turning is not enjoyable. While there are few things I like, they are not enough to carry this one from start to end.
personally i agree, the turning was a disappointment.
and kurt, what the hell was that video link? looks like some woman being tortured + f-in killed. dude this is not a site for snuff fans its a site for horror fans. go away.
Don't forget the motor city: https://angelfloresjr.multiply.com/journal/item/65…
I went there for a photography class. I better go check to see if there are dead bodies. I swear that's the same place.