Three Can Keep a Secret

On my last outing with the Tomb of Terrors collection, I was witness to pain the likes of which no mortal man should have to bear. The films found on the fourth disc of this box set were a complete abomination, and I seriously debated just leaving the set semi-permanently, to return to it when I had run out of halfway decent films to watch. As we can see here, I did not follow through on that idea. As we can also see, I should have.

Three Can Keep a Secret is an exercise in boredom, giving us a group of college friends – two guys and a girl, whose names I didn’t bother to write down – as they go through life drinking, hanging out, having generic college debates, and doing nothing of any real interest. Then about halfway through the movie, the girl gets date-raped, one of the guys gets drunk and murders her rapist, the three all decide to bury the body out in a desert somewhere, and a detective shows up to investigate. It’s kind of a double-edged sword, really, this film: it’s actually filmed and acted with some small degree of competence, and while clearly not good by any means, there’s obviously been an actual effort made, which should give it a leg up on its entertainment competition in this collection. However, the story is almost nonexistent and what little there is takes so long to get moving that the only real note the film hits is one of unrelenting dullness. It moves slower than that mountain moved trying to get to Mohammed, slower than a dentist is when drilling a tooth. It is not a very swift film.

There’s also a real problem with the directing. The camera will not stay still at all, constantly swirling around the cast, jerking around, and rapidly zooming in and out as though the director is hoping to get noticed by the producers of The Shield. Not only is it just distracting, but when the camera is moving a great deal faster than the film itself is, it really just adds to the overall desire for something to just frigging HAPPEN ALREADY. And then nothing does. If this is what I can be expecting from the remaining films on this disc (quality-wise of course, not the randomly throwing a crime drama onto a horror set part), I will indeed be taking that hiatus from the set for a while after this week. I just got a new job, I don’t need the grief.

Rating: ½ *