Bill Gibron is a veteran film critic from Tampa, Florida.Without him, the Saw franchise may never have reached the heights it would later achieve. With him, the infamous torture porn series skyrocketed...only to fizzle when he finally left. Indeed, Darren Lynn Bousman was instrumental in turning the Sundance fave into a mainstream hit, his work on Part Two through Four expanding both the mythology and the audience for the puzzle box frightfests. Since then, however, Bousman has not been able to maintain such a high professional profile. His labor of love, Repo: The Genetic Opera, failed to foster much beyond a cult, while his remake of Mother's Day never even got a proper US release. Now he returns with the timely terror tale 11-11-11. Dealing with religion, faith, and creepy coincidence, it marks another noble effort that, sadly, few will probably appreciate...or even get a chance to see. Joseph Crone (Timothy Gibbs) is a wildly successful writer of thrillers. Unfortunately, his life and muse have been upended by a tragic incident involving a crazed fan, his wife and son, and a horrific household fire. Now trying to regroup, he shuts himself from the world. While attending a meeting for survivors of tragedy, he meets up with the perky and personable Sadie (Wendy Glenn). She gives him a new journal and tells him to try and cope the best he can. A phone call from his distant brother (Michael Landes) informs him that his father is dying. Desperate to escape, Joseph packs for Barcelona, Spain and travels to the land of his childhood and the memories of a faith embracing family he never loved. Upon arrival, our hero starts piecing the past together. His wife and child died on 11-11. His mother died giving birth to Samuel on 11-11. A recent near fatal car accident occurred on...11-11. And it seems that the upcoming temporal anomaly - 11-11-11 - it threatening to change the course of humanity itself. While he doesn't believe, Joseph's kin predict that the date will see a last chance stand for good to defeat evil. As he becomes more and more immersed in the concept, he discovers a startling truth - his clergyman brother may actually be some manner of Messiah, and he, Joseph, may be the one who helps him rise to the ranks of greatness...or godlessness.
For all its metaphysical mumbo jumbo and lack of real fire and brimstone, Bousman's 11-11-11 is actually quite good. It comes from the quiet school of horror movie making, an approach that lets atmosphere and inference create the ever increasing levels of dread. This is not scary so much as suspenseful, the question of what is really happening carrying us past moments of muddled theology and limited action. Bousman is going for brains vs. blood here, hoping to engage our mind more than our gag reflex, and he does so with style and finesse. The film manages to crawl under your skin, implying just enough to keep you waiting for the next plot twist. When the ending finally arrives and everything is explained, the answers seem obvious. But on the way to them, this filmmaker finds some real invention and fear.
Naturally, not everything is perfect. Lead Timothy Gibbs shifts between convincing and clueless, our ability to identify with his plight suffering a similar schizophrenic result. Landes is better, but he also has the most to lose, logistically. Glenn is good if unnecessary and the rest of the supporting players create an air of authenticity that the 'stars' sometimes subvert. If you are willing to listen to the kind of cosmic claptrap this narrative is based on, you'll find 11-11-11 to be a devilishly good times. Others who've long dismissed Bousman will consider it nothing more than entertainment Hell on Earth.
