Daily Mirror, Films Column, 25/10/02
HORROR movies aimed specifically at youngsters have been a fixture at cinemas all over the world since the 1950s, when some bright spark realised that undemanding teenagers liked nothing more than a small scare to help them snuggle up together in the back row on a Saturday night.
I Was A Teenage Werewolf and I Was A Teenage Frankenstein even, as the titles might have suggested, featured actual teenage monsters.
But from the early 70s until today, teens in horror flicks have normally served only to provide the unstoppable supernatural bogeymen such as Jason Voorhees, Freddy Krueger and the bloke with the hook from I Know What You Did Last Summer with plenty of easy targets, while the teenagers watching enjoyed seeing them being slaughtered in ever more imaginative ways.
With such a limited concept, it was inevitable that the genre of teen slasher films would begin to look a little tired, which is why I approached Donnie Darko with quite some trepidation.
But from virtually the first frame you know that this one is going to be different, and although you can see how it might have many of the characteristics of other teen scare-fests, this time featuring a nut dressed up like a maniacal Easter bunny, that appearance is wildly deceptive.
Instead, I'm delighted to report, this is one of the boldest and brightest debut movies I've seen and will definitely be in my top 10 at the end of the year.
Donnie Darko manages to satisfy both as a teen horror movie complete with a doomed romance and as a moody think-piece about time travel, the universe and predestination. Such a genre- defying feat is far from easy to pull off - let's face it, even a straightforward horror flick that just wants to give you a scare is beyond the capabilities of most of the writers and directors who choose to make movies when they'd be better off sticking with pop videos or adverts.
But writer-director Richard Kelly has delivered a film of rare quality.
Thrilling, chilling, occasionally funny and thought-provoking, it's an unpredictable but never less than thoroughly entertaining experience.
It boasts terrific performances from most of the cast, even if executive producer Drew Barrymore overdoes it a little in her cameo, and it's hard to find any faults in this superior entertainment.
Just in case I haven't made myself clear, I LOVED IT, and if you want to know what everyone else is going to be talking about over the next few weeks, catch it on that big, beautiful screen.
A must-see if ever I saw one.
