Playback

A group of high school students recreate a vicious murder for a school project but in doing so unwittingly unleash an evil that is hell bent on possessing and destroying them. 

In 1994 Harlan Diehl videotapes himself murdering his own family, the crazed killer then  performs a ritual to transfer his soul onto the last remaining survivor, a baby; the ritual however was stopped short by the police giving Diehl only enough time to transfer his soul on to the video tape in the camera before he is shot dead.  A long time has passed since the killing; the town has long forgotten about the Diehl Family, until a group of teenagers lead by Julian Miller (Johnny Pacar) set to recreate the videotapes for a school project.  Quinn (Toby Hemingway) a friend of Millers uses his connections of the local news station to get the original tapes only to unleash the soul of Harlan Diehl on to himself a begin a new string of murders. 

The opening sequence of Playback is quite confronting, shot completely from the perspective of the killer its shows the shocking and gruesome murders of his entire family. The shots are as close as you would get to a real murder scene with people covered in blood screaming for help and others already slain, you actually feel bad for the victims. It was quite a well edited and shot sequence I was quite excited for what playback had installed for me from here on in, however that is the only scene like it from here onwards you just get your run of the mill horror, group of teens do something wrong, unleash a killer, killing them off one by one. I mean that template has worked for countless others in the genre why wouldn’t it work for this. 

Sometimes film makers want you to believe in something they are trying to sell you, like Amityville Horror, the house being possessed or chucky from Childs Play, where in a similar situation a doll coming to life seems more believable then a character being able to transfer his soul to a VHS tape; not only possession but deaths are somehow caused by a force coming through video cameras or TVs. I never could quite grasp that idea and most of the time it came off silly.

Christen Slater is credited in this movie and the trailers as the lead role, however he only appears as a supporting role, a role of which needs taking note of; Officer Frank Lyons (Slater) should be out to protect and serve, only instead he is more out to watch and perve, his character has a weird obsession with the young girls of the local high school having cameras placed into the change rooms and houses especially on one particular girl Dee Dee (Jennifer Missoni).  His obsession, I guess we’ll call it, is really awkward to watch and with a screen time of 15 or so minutes it didn’t really add much to the story. 

With new horror movies being released constantly Playback will most likely get lost in the countless better offerings out there, where as it might have a great opening scene the rest of the movie just doesn’t hold up.