Some movies are high-concept, most are low-concept. "Wes Craven Presents: They" is all concept — and no execution. It's as if the script development was halted at the pitch stage and the movie went into production anyway.
There's plenty of exposition but no development of character or theme, no turning point, no climax and no denouement. It's all first act — and it ends just as it seems another, more interesting movie is about to begin.
The premise has promise: "They" supposes that the beasties who terrorize children in their bedrooms are not toys, clothing and furniture as seen by tired, light-deprived eyes, but are in fact real and quite nasty. And they pick out certain children to terrorize into adulthood.
It must be noted that Wes Craven did not write, produce, direct or have anything else to do with the production of this movie. While using childhood nightmares to haunt adults is an idea the elder statesman of horror would certainly approve of, one would hope he'd develop it further than writer Brendan William Hood and director Robert Harmon.
The filmmakers begin with a 5-year-old boy being terrorized, then flash ahead 19 years to Julia (Laura Regan), who's putting the final touches on her master's degree in psychology. She's about to get intimate with her haughty doofus boyfriend (Marc Blucas) when she's called away by that same boy, Billy, now grown into a very disturbed young man (Jon Abrahams).
Billy's freaked out, ranting about "They," how they are out to get him, how they mess with electricity, how they will go after anyone who had "night terrors" as a child, Julia included. Then he kills himself in the middle of a diner — a decision that in retrospect, given what's in store for Julia and two of Billy's other friends, seems wise.
But what are "They" exactly — other than murky, cheap-looking special effects? What's their motivation? How do they choose their victims? If Hood and Harmon know, they've decided not to share it with the audience.
About as specific as the movie gets is in a conversation between Julia and Sarah, an adorable young patient of the child psychiatrist Julia has begun seeing again in an attempt to calm her fears.
"They come for me," Sarah explains.
"Who comes?"
"They."
"Why do they come for you?"
"To eat me."
Julia would do well to heed that warning, but it wouldn't matter, because the movie gives her and the other victims no means of fighting back. Craven — or Jamie Kennedy in the guise of the movie geek in Craven's "Scream" — could have told screenwriter Hood that those who are terrorized in horror movies are usually culpable in some way. When they realize that their own wrongdoing has spawned the evil that besets them, they unlock the secret to defeating it.
The victims in "They" have done nothing wrong; they're chosen arbitrarily and have no recourse. The least likable character, the boyfriend, is spared.
That's the way terror works in real life, not in the movies.
"Wes Craven Presents: They" is rated PG-13 for horror violence and scenes of peril, simulated sex and scattered use of strong profanity and vulgar sexual slang. Running time: 90 minutes.
E-MAIL: jeff@desnews.com