Fingerprints (2006) is supposedly based on one of these tall tales, but it's a new one to me: if you put your car in neutral on these train tracks where a bunch of kids died in an accident, the ghosts of the children will push your car to safety and leave behind ghostly fingerprints on your car windows. It all seems plausible to me- kids are always leaving filthy, greasy fingerprints everywhere in life, so why not in the afterlife?
feel the terrorIn 1957 in an unnamed small town, a bus full of smiling, singing children meets the business end of a train when the guard and signal light at the track crossing fail. Ever since that dark and stormy night, the citizens of Unnamed Town have experienced a strange phenomenon at the site of the accident: if you put your ear to the train tracks, you can just make out the faint strains of Carol Channing singing "Hello, Dolly!"
No wait, sorry. What I meant was, if you put your car in neutral on the tracks, it'll roll off. Not nearly as exciting as Carol Channing, but still.
Melanie (Leah Pipes) arrives in Unnamed Town fresh out of rehab, ready to start life afresh and reunite with her bitch-cuckoo mom, her pushover-whipped dad, and her bland-hot sister (Kristin Cavallari). Boy, lemme tell ya, kicking heroin was a walk in the park compared to life in Unnamed Town for poor Melanie! Kids in school are mean because she's an ex-druggie, this one boy from school totally tries to rape her, and this little mute girl named Julie keeps following her everywhere.
As you could expect from any teenage girl, Melanie decides to solve The Mystery of Julie. Over several days of wacky adventures, she digs around the abandoned bus depot, talks to the town drunk, sees messages written in blood in various places, and chats with Sally Kirkland. It turns out that Julie is Sally Kirkland's sister- and one of the children who died in the horrible bus accident all those years ago! It might have been a shocking twist if we hadn't seen Julie riding the bus at the beginning of the film.
And yes, I'm calling Sally Kirkland Sally Kirkland instead of her character name, because it's just better that way.
Lest ye think you've got it all figured out, however, Fingerprints continues to deliver twists and turns, oh my brothers and sisters. Someone, you see, is killing the teenagers of Unnamed Town...who could it be?
no really, feel the terrorIt's someone in a train conductor's outfit, that's who! Yup: after about a half hour of...well, nothing, Fingerprints turns into a slasher film. Melanie continues to get her Columbo on and finds out a bunch of crap that makes only a little sense: the bus accident never happened, someone was actually killing children back in 1957, there was some Nightmare on Elm Street-style justice, something about building highways and knocking down depots, and Sally Kirkland sports an "I do declare!" southern accent for no apparent reason.
a slumming Lou Diamond Phillips feels the terror, literallyAll in all, it's a terribly dull affair. There's not much action to be found, and what little there is is decidedly unscary. The town history is convoluted, the ghosts don't do much, the slasher-style killings are cheesy, and the effects range from "meh" to "worst fake blood ever" to "holy shit, I totally forgot we're filming the graveyard scene today- someone run to Hobby Lobby, buy some styrofoam, and make some gravestones stat!"
Believe me, I'm all for movies with super-fake gravestones...unless the movie is just plain boring, as is Fingerprints. The only time I sat up and really took notice of the goings-on- and I mean literally sat up- happened in the last 15 seconds of the film. After yet another twist that made zero sense, there was this shot of a car swerving all over the road (due to, you know, terror)...but the footage was sped up and I swear, it looked like something straight out of Benny fucking Hill. It was an incredibly bizarre choice by the filmmakers, and probably the highlight of the movie.
"I do declare! I feel the terror!"Given the general suckitude of this flick, it should come as no surprise that it lingered on the shelf for a couple of years: though it was produced in 2006, it was released on DVD only yesterday.
Oh my God, I heard about this girl? Who watched a horror movie that totally stunk and she was so bored the whole time! She ate a piece of cake, though, while she watched it and the cake was good. And then spiders came out of her vagina, I swear! I know her roommate.
27 comments:
That picture of Carol Channing is the scariest part of your post.
I remember watching a piece on this urban legend on tv back on the 80's, the cars really moved by itself, i even remember seeing the fingerprints, but it was mexican tv, so it might be El Chapulin Colorado show.
Aarón Soto
(from the happiest place on earth: Tijuana)
And now Sally Kirkland drinks mint juleps on the veranda... IN HELL!
I love that crazy broad. Kirkland, that is, not Channing. Channing scares me too much. We all have our limits.
Not really related to anything in the post, but you might enjoy this link: http://vinnierattolle.blogspot.com/2007/09/april-fools-day-novelization.html
I would have thought Kriten Cavallari would have been the first sign that something was amiss
Welcome to the LAMB!
And congrats on the leaderboard...you are faboo.
The scariest thing about this post for ME was the part where you mentioned there was a third Urban Legends movie and I went, "There was a third Urban Legends movie?!" and then promptly added it to my Netflix queue. Even knowing, as I full well do, that it's going to be REALLY BAD, I still could not resist. Is there rehab for this sort of thing? A 12-step program?
Wow, Melanie get her Columbo on? I wish her luck. My Columbo was always tight in the crotch...not that that's a bad thing. Actually, My McCloud always fit much better...
I actually watched this a few weeks ago, out of sheer boredom. Its astonishing to me that someone could write a screenplay that is so inept.
I think LDP's blaze of glory seered by cornea's.
JA- I'm with you on the Kirkland love. She's one of those wackos I've known about since I was, like, ten...though I'm not sure if a ten-year-old name-dropping Sally Kirkland is cool or loserish to the max.
Thanks for the welcome, nayana! LAMB kind of rules. It's a great resource, and I've already discovered some sweet blogs through it.
Meg, I've heard that Bloody Mary really sucks, which bums me out as it was directed by Mary Lambert...and I think the Bloody Mary legend has some real potential for scariness if done right.
Theron, I think you should end all of your comments with a "ba dum tish" rim shot.
...thanks, I'm here all week...
oh yeah and...
@Meg- ULBM, directed by Mary Lambert (Pet Sematary), actually has a few decent death scenes, including an impressive mirror shattering scene, and a death that was done again in Final Destination 3 about 8 months after ULBM was released.
It kicks the shit out of IAKWYDLS, anyway.
Stacie this urban legend is indeed based on real happenings in my hometown of Corpus Christi, Texas
Supposedly, people go down to the site of the accident at night, park their car on the tracks, sprinkle baby powder (!), and get back in the car.
While waiting the car starts to move and little handprints start showing up all over the windows
It’s the kids trying to save you.
My theo and a couple of my cousins actually did it one time and they swear it happened just as the legend says.
We have that same urban legend in San Antonio. When my sister and her friends were in high school, they tried to find the Ghost Tracks, but they got lost and ended up in China Grove (oh, oh, China Grove) instead.
I just saw the third Urban Legends movie, and then the first. I'm going to review them as soon as I see the second.
As long as you expect the third movie (Urban Legends:Bloody Mary) to be really cheesy, I think you'll enjoy it a lot, I did! It's a little like Prom Night II: Hello Mary Lou.
I heard this really nasty story about Carol Channing.
But I can't retell it because I'd be betraying the friend of a friend.
"I don't remember eating corn!"
Heh... do you know my friend of a friend?
Good lord, that story is practically an urban legend itself!
From your description the movie sounds like a mixture of "Chinatown", a Faulkner novel, and early 80's slasher (with the costume themed killer). The thought of said film makes my brain do cartwheels in jello pudding, and should have been the greatest film of all time. Too bad they squandered the opportunity.
Damn! That is one broke-ass headstone! Was Julie Lynn Pearl a pauper or something? I love how they ran out of room and couldn't put a date of death.
Oh, Adam, if only it were 1/1,000,000 as good as the film in your brain!
Each kid involved in the bus accident had one of those ghetto-ass gravestones. They look terrible alone, but sticking them in a graveyard next to REAL markers wasn't the best idea, I must say.
Sorry I'm late to the party, but what the HELL is that thing the Killer Conductor is using to impale the annoying teeangers of No-Name Town? At the end when it's finally revealed in total, it looks like a cartoonishly large railroad spike.
I picked your blog for the name, but considering you DIDN'T understand the thought out storyline, which plainly given, you obviously are BLONDE. (At least your brain) The movie is enjoyable and BETTER than a LOT others out there. I believe I will be getting my critics elsewhere. Next time, just say I didn't like it instead of all that nonsense mumbo jumbo. My 3 yo can do better. WOW
@Lancer, why don't you shut up. Hair color is just a physical appearance and has NOTHING to do with who you are as a person. Stop being rude and if you hate something then just don't comment and ignore it.
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