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Released by: Anchor Bay Films
Released on: October 23, 2012.
Director: Levan Bakhia
Cast: Scout Taylor-Compton, Travis Van Winkle, Michael Copon, Christina Ulloa
Year: 2012
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The Movie:
With many of these recent suspense/horror films I'm reminded of a scene from Family Guy where Stephen King is in his agent's office. The agent asks him for his next story and King, in desperation, looks around and, finding the desk lamp, grabs it menacingly and says, “It's about a scary lamp monster! Oooooh!†I don't believe it's the genre that's been worn out but, rather, the gimmicks. So you end up with something like 247°F from first time director Levan Bakhia, taking a weak premise at best, cram it with the most annoying characters you can, and then try to make a story. Truly, my review could be summed up with just one photo:
The story here is about four friends - two guys, two women - who head to a lakeside cabin for a weekend of partying and youthful hijinks. There's the idiot, Michael (Copon), his idiot girlfriend Jenna (Ulloa), their oh-so-cute friend who doesn't start out an idiot but becomes one by the end, Ian (Van Winkle). And then there's the story's POV character, Jenna (Taylor-Compton), whom we see in the opening scene losing the love of her life in a car crash. Fast forward three years and she's still on medication and introverted despite Jenna's efforts to get her back in the world.
They arrive at the cabin and everything seems perfect, thanks to Ian's uncle Wade (Tyler Mane). He heads off to get the May Day celebrations in order, leaving this pack of knuckleheads alone. There's some expositional awkwardness during which they start pounding shots of mead. Really. But, soon, they locate the Euro-style sauna Wade has built and are hanging out there, jumping in the nearby lake to cool off periodically.
But Michael is soon pretty wasted and leaves the others in the sauna to pass out. However, on his way, he stumbles around and accidentally knocks a ladder against the sauna door. The idiots inside the sauna can't figure anything out and end up helping that ladder jam the door shut, trapping them inside. How, then, will they survive?!? WHO CARES?!?
See, here's the conceit: If you can't write characters then you're going to make stock, 2D-type characters who go from mildly annoying to outright enraging in just a few minutes. I spent the majority of this 88-minute wreck screaming at the TV to let them all hurry up and die. There's no tension because you don't care about these characters and, in fact, they - especially the females - becomes so irritating so very quickly it works against the film's premise and thus ruins it entirely. Really, I don't even want to write more about this movie because it makes me that angry.
Audio/Video/Extras:
That said, this BD from Anchor Bay really polishes up this turd nicely. The photography is actually pretty good and the widescreen 2.40:1 shows it off nicely. Black levels get a serious workout here since much of the film takes place both at night and inside the cramped, dimly-lit sauna but they look consistently even. Similarly, the Dolby TrueHD 5.1 English-only soundtrack comes in support with musical swells that attempt to heighten the tension (spoiler: they don't) but the track is pretty solid all-around. English SDH and Spanish subtitling options are available as well.
For extras, four more painful deleted scenes are included, pointlessly, along with audio commentary from director Bakhia. His tone is more than a little self-satisfied as he anecdotally describes the shoot and everything he was trying to get right as a first-time director. To him, it all works and works fabulously well. I would like to have the opportunity to meet him and punch him in the face for this.
The Final Word:
I removed the string of expletives I wanted to be the summary here so I'll just say this: 247°F is for no one. Ever.
