Nothing Left to Fear

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Nothing Left to Fear
Starring Rebekah Brandes, Ethan Peck, Anne Heche, Clancy Brown
Directed by Anthony Leonardi III

In the small town of Stull, Kansas, the church has hired a new pastor.  Dan (James Tupper), his wife Wendy (Anne Heche), their two daughters Mary (Jennifer Stone) and Rebecca (Rebekah Brandes) and young son Christopher (Carter Cabassa) feel God's calling to this small town, six states away, and Dan accepts the position as the new pastor.

The old pastor, Kingsman (Clancy Brown) and the townspeople welcome the family with nauseatingly bad open arms, a welcome that, if any normal person was greeted with, would've planned on packing up and leaving as soon as they arrived.

Instead the family settles in, and Rebecca falls for the mysterious Noah (Ethan Peck - who is unfortunately the grandson of the great actor Gregory Peck), who acts about as wooden as a cardboard cutout.  He's mysterious, we get it.  No one cares.

Soon the town's - sinister? - motives come to...actually there's no real reason why the town is so sinister, or even if it is sinister or not.  But the town has the distinction of protecting the world from evil by sacrificing a family for some reason.  Where's Buffy when you need her?  Noah sets out to protect Rebecca because he falls for her, but is it too late for our doomed overly-stereotypical Christian family?  Do we even care?

Yes, and no.

Another typical possession movie with a few "Lottery" themes thrown in for good measure.  Throw in the Biblical theme of the Passover and you've got one crapload of crap.  Nothing new is added, the only scares come from terrible CGI effects of blackened eyes and opened mouths, not to mention a "Grudge" style crawling. 

Looking into the real history of Stull, Kansas, one would discover that there is a cemetery there that locals believe is the portal to hell, which would've made sense in this movie, but instead it's arbitrary and hidden, with no real explanation of what's going on, or even the utterly convoluted ending.

Anne Heche is the worst of the bunch in this film.  Her performance as the perfect Christian wife and mother was so over the top it was nauseating, and her false sweetness gave me diabetes.  There was one cool scene, but other than that, it's been done.

My Rating: C

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