THE SCULPTRESS A film review by David N. Butterworth Copyright 2000 David N. Butterworth
no stars (out of ****)
Phaedra Cinema, the distributor of such never-heard-of classics as "Soft Toilet Seats," "Trailer: The Movie," and "The One Armed Boxer vs. the Flying Guillotine," has sneaked its latest release, "The Sculptress," into a few theaters this weekend hoping to cash in on a handful of Halloween holidaygoers looking for a right good scare. "The Sculptress" is a scary proposition all right, but not in the way its producers intended.
From the outset it's easy to see why some of the larger, more reputable chains aren't carrying it: the film looks like a straight-to-video release from the early '80s that's been dusted off (not very carefully) and re-issued in theatrical format.
That staple of schlocky Z-movies Jeff Fahey ("The Lawnmower Man") plays a washed-up Shakespearean actor lacking in some basic people skills. When he's not reliving his glory days in his ramshackle Nob Hill apartment, screaming scotch-induced "Hamlet" soliloquies well into the night, he's out and about on the streets of San Francisco stalking loose women. Fahey's Dobie sizes up his victims (actually just one, a peep show performer name of Sylvie) dressed like one of the guys from Kraftwerk, and approaches them in the ridiculous attire of a Bavarian Count replete with a cane, dark glasses, and a false beard (just in time for Halloween!). "Do you have a castle?" Sylvie asks Dobie seductively when he flashes the bulging contents of his wallet outside a coffee shop. "Jah. With ze many turrets" is Dobie's perplexing reply.
The real "star" of the film (and I use that term extremely loosely) is Katie Wright, who plays the sculptress of the title. Sarah is new in town, studying at the prestigious SF art institute under the mentorship of a "genius" Frenchman, played by the beret-wearing Patrick Bauchau. That's convenient, because Sarah would one day like to live and work in Paris (you won't believe the film's final shot, with its cheesy Eiffel Tower backdrop and "Rosemary's Baby"-inspired imagery). Bauchau's character criticizes Sarah's work publicly (her clay busts keep turning into gargoyles--perhaps she's possessed... by an incubus!!?) but he still manages to talk her into dinner. Whereas Wright does a decent English accent, her talents pretty much end there.
On the other side of the wall, Dobie's troubled past is succinctly summarized in a scene in which he thumbs through an old scrapbook of newspaper clippings with headings like "Actor Delivers a Stunning Macbeth," Actor Courted By Hollywood Studio," "Actor Renounces Hollywood For Priesthood," and "Prostitute Fingers Priest in Sex Scandal." The film's plot could have been just as easily condensed. "Artist Moves In Next Door to Shakespearean Psychopath." "Yawns Ensue."
So Dobie rants and raves and Sarah chips away at large blocks of granite till way past their bedtimes. Late in the film, their paths finally cross with mind-numbing results. Nobody else in the apartment complex appears to mind all the racket, but one old dear does go ballistic when Sarah's bathtub overflows. No, we don't see Wright in the tub (or Fahey for that matter), and the gore quotient is virtually nil, so for a horror film "The Sculptress" is surprisingly lacking. The only thing worth looking at is San Francisco, and writer/director Ian Merrick manages to make even it look dreary, windswept, and deserted.
"The Sculptress" isn't even bad enough to be fun. Luckily, a limited release has made it easy to avoid.
-- David N. Butterworth dnb@dca.net
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