Decoys

Film: Decoys

Year: 2004

Director: Matthew Hastings

Writers: Matthew Hastings and Tom Berry

Starring: Corey Sevier, Kim Poirier and Stefanie von Pfetten

Review:

This was a film that I found when searching for winter horror films. This also doubled as a Foray through the Fours, being from 2004 so that was enough to select this as a Featured Review on Journey with a Cinephile. I’ll be honest, I knew the rating, runtime, director and year of release, other than that, I came into it blind.

Synopsis: Luke (Corey Sevier) and Roger (Elias Toufexis) are just another couple of college guys trying to lose their virginity. But when Luke sees something unusual, he begins to suspect that the girls on campus aren’t exactly human.

We start this off with a cold opening, which is funny with a plot aspect to the movie. It is Halloween. A guy sees children ring the doorbell and there’s no answer. He knocks at the door as it looks like he’s expected. No one answers and he peeks in the window where he sees movement. He then knocks and the door opens. He heads inside, calling out and doesn’t get an acknowledgement. What he does find is two guys, both are frozen to death. He originally thinks it is their costumes. When he learns the truth, he screams.

It then shifts to St. John’s College in New Brunswick, Canada. Luke and Roger go into the laundry room. They’re annoyed by smokers for leaving the window open as it is winter. Roger offers a beer which Luke declines but gives into peer pressure. They have fun while doing their laundry. While Luke is still here finishing up, he meets a pair of cousins. They’re both attractive, Constance (Kim Poirier) and Lilly (Stefanie von Pfetten). They flirt with him before leaving. The two women also forget their quarters.

Luke takes them up to their room, but finds they’re not in. He sneaks into their room to leave them on their desk. He also decides to sniff a nighty. This proves problematic as they come back so he hides in the closet. He sees more than he bargained for. They strip down naked to get into their pajamas. They do something strange before getting dressed though. Constance sprays something over these tentacles that come out of a hole in Lilly’s chest. They leave, allowing Luke to escape.

He goes back to his room to tell Roger what he saw. His roommate already met the two, asing Constance to be his date to a party tomorrow. These two also go to a local diner with a couple of other friends, Alex (Meghan Ory) and Gibby (Ennis Esmer). The former has a crush on Luke, but he doesn’t notice it. Neither of these friends believe Luke either.

They go to this party and everyone is having a good time. Luke seems to forget what he saw or thinking that he was just drunk. Lilly is interested in him. That is until she’s selected to represent this sorority as the Ice Queen, a local pageant that this school does. She is brought on stage to meet the house boy, Bobby Johnson (Marc Trottier). They go off to dance and it upsets Luke. Bobby and he get into it, with Luke accidentally hitting another sister in the face. He leaves in a rage.

Bobby goes off with Lilly. Luke goes to his jeep to go on a drive with Alex. Lilly and Bobby hook up. This ends poorly for him. The next morning, Detective Amanda Watts (Nicole Eggert) visits Luke. He’s taken to the crime scene. Detective Francis Kirk (Richard Burgi) leads the investigation. Luke is the prime suspect, due to the fight, him leaving in a rage and being close to the crime scene at the time it happened. It is unexplainable though as to how Bobby died. He looked to be frozen from the inside out. Luke must clear his name and convince everyone that there is something much darker happening here.

That is where I’ll leave my recap and introduction to the story. What is interesting is that the recap ran longer than I wanted. It is intriguing though since we have a simple story. Everything that I’ve given sets the stage and then from there it gets repetitive with Luke trying to convince everyone what is happening. More people around him die in a similar fashion. They also try to connect characters that I don’t think need to be. The basic premise here is something that we’ve seen before and I enjoy. This just falls short of execution.

Now that I’ve set that up, let me delve deeper into the story. We get elements of a teen comedy where Luke and Roger are trying to hook up with women. The synopsis says both are virgins, but I don’t think that is the case, it is just the latter. These two are first-year students. Roger reminds me of my first year, in the respect that I just wanted to drink and party. They’re away from home for the first time and cutting loose. We do get the troupe that no one believes Luke and for good reason. When he first saw what he claimed, he was drinking. He was also hiding in a closet. He does weird things from there that make him more of a suspect in the crimes. This works for me.

Then let’s shift over to talk about what these two women are. It doesn’t hide it for long but they’re aliens. My only issue here is that Luke accuses them of this and then it is confirmed soon after. That seems like a plot convenience but I’ll digress. Something that was interesting is that they need the cold. That explains why they’re here and why the bodies are found in the state they are in. This does use a classic troupe that is used for aliens since almost the beginning of the subgenre in horror. It does get weird where it goes there with Constance and Roger. I can enjoy it though, just not the route I would have gone. I do like having that there are others we can’t trust. Having them being good looking adds an element as well, especially since it makes Luke lower his guard and question things.

The last part of the story is the police investigation. I do like it to raise tension by forcing Luke to prove what is happening. The only issue there is that there isn’t much evidence against him, aside from getting in a fight with the deceased and then being near the crime scene. I understand not looking at Lilly as a suspect. This angle also disappears for a long stretch, after Luke does weird things with cameras. For this to work better, we probably need more or just lower it all together. There is also this odd aspect where Amanda, the detective, hooked up with Luke. I have no idea why this was included as it doesn’t do anything.

Let’s then shift over to discuss the acting performances. No one is great, but they do fit a film with the budget that it is working with. I do think that Sevier is fine as this first-year student who keeps digging his hole deeper as he tries to clear his name. This legitimately reminded me of myself at that age. Toufexis is funny as well as his roommate who also reminds me of things I did in college as well. Poirier and von Pfetten are good looking. I do believe we see them both nude in varying stages. Ory is also quite cute. She’s an interesting character as things go along. Esmer, Burgi and Eggert are fine in their roles. The rest of the cast rounded this out for what was needed.

All that is left then is filmmaking. The cinematography is fine. It doesn’t do anything to hurt the product as well as not standing out. The same for the editing and framing. The gripe I have is with CGI. That doesn’t hold up. The tentacles and fast moving to flee rooms were problems. The practical effects are fine though, especially the look of the creature. We don’t linger long on it which is a credit. There were also a couple times they used dreams or hallucinations scares. Those didn’t work for me. The soundtrack was also fine without standing out.

In conclusion, there are decent story elements and overall concept. The problem then becomes execution. This uses a troupe that we’ve seen before, but it doesn’t do enough with it to stand out. The acting was fine. No one was bad in my opinion. A bright spot is how beautiful the actors are and then seeing the women nude. This feels like it was inspired by the film Species to be honest. How this was made wasn’t bad. The practical effects were good, but the rest was just decent with subpar CGI. Not one that I can recommend unless you like low budget cinema.

My Rating: 4.5 out of 10