Stuck

It’s been 13 years since director Stuart Gordon released his classic Re-Animator and in that time he’s released more crap than quality, being responsible for horrible films like Robot Jox and Space Truckers. However, with Stuck, Gordon has once again struck gold. Based on the headline-grabbing true story of retirement home nurse’s aid Chante Jawan Mallard, Stuck owes almost as much to torture porn like Hostel and Saw but with a lot more innocence. Mena Suvari plays Brandi, the overworked nurse’s aid who, on the verge of a promotion, steps into the role of antagonist through naïve innocence and a few intoxicated wrong decisions. She crosses the line when, driving drunk and drugged after a night out partying, she hits a homeless man (Stephen Rea) and ends up more concerned about her promotion than his life. Stuck in the windshield of her car, the homeless man is along for the ride as she drives home and parks the car in the garage, with the hope that he will finally succumb to his injuries. From there it’s taut thrills, with a heavy emphasis on gore and pain, as the homeless man attempts to escape his predicament and Brandi tries to prevent it. Deserving of the good response it received from the audience when it played at the Toronto International Film Festival in 2007, Stuck is another of those little Canadian films that succeeds thanks to strong acting, bleak cinematography and a simple, well-constructed story with an outcome that’s never obvious. Unfortunately, the DVD does the movie little justice, being as bare bones as it gets, with the movie trailer providing the only bonus feature. Hopefully Stuck will eventually get the DVD release it deserves.