The Source (2002)

Just writing a "review" on some random movie because I'm OCD and want all checkmarks on my profile like a good little girl who does everything she's told. :oD That's not to say I didn't watch this movie though. It's horrible. BOOM. Reviewed. Gimme all my checkmarks IMDb.Oh dear, I have to have at least 1o lines of text to submit for a real actual review. Here is a short story then. Once upon a time, a girl went on IMDb. She then went on a search for the most horrible movie she could find to write a review. It was a tie between this one and another one about male witches where the abysmal line "I'm gonna make you my wi-atch" was uttered. The world ended that day.

As soon as this movie started, I realised I wasn't in for a high budget blockbuster type. For one it was 2am and I was watching cable. That pretty much tells you everything you need to know. The plot revolves around Reese,an introverted high schooler who looks like he shops primarily at Goths R' Us. He is tormented by memories of his Mother committing suicide for some unknown reason. Despite being quite a likable guy and despite being blessed with cute good looks,Reese is a social outcast. Possibly because he wears dark clothing,we may never know. Just to add to the "teen-angst",Reese is a talented artist who has more candles in his room than any church should. During one lonely lunchtime being tormented by jocks,Reese is befriended by fellow outcast Phobe,a flower-child eco-warrior who is unexplainably best friends with a fiery girl named Ashley and her genius brother Zack. They all go for a drive after school to hang out in a forest (because all teenager do that,y'know),where they stumble across a glowing rock which Zack quickly identifies will give them special powers. And you can guess what happens next....think Carrie meets The Craft. They take "revenge" on the people who have tormented them, which in Ashleys case is all the boys who have refused to have sex with her. She's looser than Courtney Love,this girl,and cruelly takes Reeses' virginity in the middle of some trees half an hour in. Soon Ashley is overcome with the power and everything turns very,very Carrie. There are lot's of things to like about this movie.One being cute little Reese,he can't act much but he's nice to look at. Two being that the movie bounces along happily like a techno music video and doesn't really drag at all. Before looking the movie up on IMDb,I was under the believe that this was a mid-nineties project considering the special effects are very dated. Ultimately the movie is very stilted in that it falls into ALL the teenage movie cliché's. Introverted,black-clad,depressed protagonist? Check. Rebel bad girl? Check. Maths genius who can explain away everything? Check.Plus,the friendship between the four leads is just sooo damn unbelievable.Movie directors have got to get it into their heads that these varied groups of oddballs don't exist in high schools. Goths like Goths. Hippies like hippies. Nothing inbetween. In the real world, Ashley would have beaten Phobe up years ago. Still, this is a pretty entertaining movie and the really ironic thing is that The Source is a million times better than anything teenage Hollywood has barfed out in years.

This film was truly bad and must be of the straight to video variety. It was riddled with stilted acting and poor casting, the main character was far too old to be a high school or even college student and was only marginally younger that the actor who played his father. One of the teachers is also younger than one of the female leads. Makes no sense.Special effects appear to be straight out of Adobe Premere and the story fails to take off .... no soul at all. Shot in music video style, emphatic editing and cool clothes in a clumsy attempt to nail down a demographic audience.This was probably someone's attempt to break into the industry with some rich uncle's money.The kind of film you'll find late at night to fill air time.

The description on the cable guide was:"Four teenagers use psychic powers to get revenge on the bullies in High-school. 2002"And I think, OK time for some brain candy wrapped in bad horror. I was wrong. This was actually a pretty good movie, there were a few unexplained plot points but in general I really enjoyed this film. I also fell instantly in love with the actress playing Pheobe - Alice Frank. Oh and Ashley ain't too bad either. The acting in this is far better than I expected and for a low budget film the sets and effects were very good. I also will be looking for this on DVD to buy.