Michael O'Keefe
This is a low-budget flick that on the most part doesn't look low-budget. No real acting to speak of, but a story line that engrosses you. Melanie(Leah Pipes)returns home from a drug rehab stay to a small town that has been almost paralyzed due to a tragic accident that happened 50 years ago. Citizens stood helpless and watched a train plow into a school bus filled with their children. Melanie gets wrapped up in the legend of ghosts of the dead children being able to push a stalled car off of those same tracks. Can it be that this troubled teen can actually unlock the real reason of the terrible tragedy? Harry Basil directs this movie filmed in Guthrie and Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. Veteran actors Lou Diamond Phillips and Sally Kirkland are joined by Kristin Cavallari, Josh Henderson, Ben Hall and Sydnee Harlan.
terrible2
"Fingerprints" is an all around mixed bag. Some brilliant moments of creepiness mixed with moments of complete Duh…At its heart is a ghost story. However, someone came up with the idea to make it a slasher film as well. While the paranormal elements tend to work well, the masked killer segments do not, partially to do with the fact that the killer's costume is laughable at best. The premise is quiet simple, if not clichéd. A small town with a big secret and tragic past. Enter a castaway to learn about, and then attempt to solve the mystery. One big problem that I had was with the flashback sequences. They seemed to really cheapen the film and story. A few flashbacks would suffice, but the movie tries to hurl them at you and make things more confusing and less entertaining. The acting is also a mixed garden salad. Plump full of ripe tomatoes and rotten prunes. I was pulled out of several scenes because of this and found it harder to concentrate on the plot. The main characters are well portrayed, particularly Leah Pipes as "Melanie" and Andrew Lawrence as 'Mitch". During the finale and reveal, things became quite rushed (budget issues?) and I was left a bit unsatisfied. However, everything is presented to you in a nice little package, so at least you understand the story.Not bad if you're looking for a ghost story. It may even be appealing to some slasher fans. It's a middle of the road type film, not really bad, but not really good either. I guess it all depends on what you're looking for. For me, it was half and half. So on a scale of 1 to 10, I'll give it an even 5… Right smack dab in the middle.
Scarecrow-88
This is one of those American films modeled after the Asian ghost girl genre where a young woman, with a troubled past, is guided by a spirit towards a startling truth buried under a myth for sometime.FINGERPRINTS concerns Melanie(Leah Pipes), a teenager returning to her parents after a stint of rehab on a mountain retreat and nearly dying of a drug overdose(..she also watched as her boyfriend lay dead on a gurney inside an ambulance). Melanie's mother, hard-hearted and fed-up, doesn't trust her and father obeys his wife's command. Pretty blond Crystal(Kristin Cavallari), Melanie's sister, stands beside her despite how the parents always question whether or not drug use has returned. When Melanie begins seeing a little girl, Julie, around rail-road tracks near a train station to be torn down, her life becomes progressively worse. Confiding in her counselor(Lou Diamond Philips), Melanie feels betrayed when he informs her mom of an incident where she saw writing in blood scaling up a rope in gym class. Other incidents concerning Julie cause Melanie to pursue the truth behind what actually happened to a school bus of children who went missing never to be seen again. Mary(Sally Kirkland), Julie's sister, and town drunk, Keeler(Geoffrey Lewis), once the mayor before the incident with the missing children ruined his reputation and life, both have secrets regarding the past Melanie will seek answers from. It concerns Julie and Mary's train conductor father and the demolition plans for the depot that went awry. Melanie's father is part of an operation to, once and for all, wipe away the station so that the memories of those lost children can finally fade..but, someone, donning a train conductor uniform, will take matters into his/her own hands, killing teenagers, taking their bodies from the crime scene.The title refers to a legend of the town of Emerald that if you park your car near the train tracks, ghost children will push it across, their fingerprints proof. As often as these films do, FINGERPRINTS follows a familiar formula where Melanie, determined despite the resistance against her cause, will find a way to get to the bottom of the mystery, led along the way by a dead girl wanting justice. This, in turn, has everyone wondering about Melanie's well being..she must be doing drugs again due to such erratic behavior. Of course, Melanie will be successful in her mission and the maniac, who uses a taser to electrocute victims when a razor blade or other stabbing tools won't suffice, will reveal his/her identity(..and, as usual, the preposterous scenario involving the psycho's "rise from the dead", despite a "shock to the system" that would kill most folks, will rise in an attempt to get even). Josh Henderson is Melanie's love interest, Penn. Andrew Lawrence is the sleazy jerk, Mitch, who attempts to rape Melanie. Another familiar development has Melanie on a rescue mission to save her sister as well. Leah Pipes is quite good in the lead as the heroine nobody trusts due to mistakes in the past, and the film does get pretty violent at times(..the attacks are really vicious and sadistic, the killer quite unhinged). Cavallari services the film as some nice eye candy.
