The Scorned (2006)

Summary: Matt and Raina are supposed to be getting married soon but their fighting and arguments have been increasing. One night a drunk Matt ends up cheating with his fiancée’s best friend, Nicola, and soon, Nicola ends up dead. Now a year later with the 2 cheaters on their own paths, 3 friends rent out the infamous house but not all is well. Seems Raina’s spirit still remains.           Overall: If you’re watching this film, it can only be because you have caught more than a few reality shows in your time and seeing these individuals again would give you some pleasure. Because frankly, I have no idea why anyone else would watch this.           The film’s cast is frankly the most interesting about this film. You have more than a few people whose 15 minutes of fame was thought to have expired, especially with a few reality shows winners in the cast Jenna Morasca and Ethan Zohn of Survivor, Reichen from “Amazing Race,” and Lori from Big Brother. So with more than a few million dollars in wings, it’s actually a surprise than 2 of those 4 got like 1 line of dialogue, Reichen’s characters has nothing at all to do with our main plot line and Ethan shows he’s a much better soccer player than actor.           So with a cast of about 30, almost everyone having had some reality tv show experience, it was sort of interesting to see if I could recognize them all. And a few, such as Bolo (our illegal alien truck drive), I had to rewind since you barely saw his face. What got me was that I felt Reichen’s acting left way too much to be desired and yet they didn’t utilize Johnny Fairplay, who at least showed more ability than Reichen did.           Another thing catching my attention, were the 4 ladies who chose to act topless in the film. Frankly, everyone of these people got their way onto tv without needing nudity. So after their 15 minutes of fame has expired, why show it now? You already got onto tv…what more did you have to gain? 2 of the 4 ladies were from “The Real World” frankly, maybe the fact that their “reality experience” had nothing to do with skills…maybe they felt some pressure to show something different? But Stacie’ J’s topless shot, was soooooooooooooo unnecessary to both the scene and her career. She can’t act anyway, but clearly she had nothing to gain by this. I just felt sorry for her.           Ok, now on to the “horror” part of my review. It’s support to be a haunted house and it turns out early enough on, Raina isn’t even dead. But her spirit still haunts the house. The film fails because it went out of its way to include like 30 reality show stars but had no place to put them. So almost every character has nothing to do with the basic plot and so except for our couple of Oliver and Kirsten, everyone else is fairly useless. And catch the scene towards the end as Matt is trying to kill someone (I’m not spoiling it for ya)…the blood spurting onto his face…a little excessive if you movie is trying to be serious (it sure was for the prior 75 minutes). Silly film, sillier plot. The effects are quite bad. But at least the cast kept it amusing.           Comparison: Murder in Small Town X meets Project Greenlight

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