This film starts out with a couple of detectives responding to a homicide where they find a pregnant woman, girlfriend of Wesley Smith, who not only died by electrocution, but has WAZ carved into her baby-pooched belly. So, they search for Wes, but he's found hanging dead in a crack house. At the autopsy, both bodies are found to have the same tranquilizer in their blood, so the hunt ensues.
Helen (Melissa George) is the more logical, uncorruptable, yet more intimidated cop, while Eddie (Stellan Skarsgard) is the hard-ass, up in your face, don’t give a shit type. Both seem to compliment one another in their search for the killer.
Another body dead is found with WAZ carved on the stomach, so the source of the tranquilizer is investigated further, which leads to a Dr. Gelb. While questioning the doctor, they see a W Delta Z equation on his chalkboard, and during the distraction, the doc is able to get a shot off at Eddie with a tranq gun and flee. On the run, but caught, the Dr. claims that he sold some of the tranquilizer to a couple of college students, and even though he's the prime suspect, he did not commit the murders.
Come to find out, the people being killed were involved or associated with people involved in a rape case which Eddie investigated, and all who were tried, got off. So, in vigilante-style justice, the rape victim, Jean (Selma Blair), comes back to get her own revenge and plinks them off one by one.
As the story progresses and the hunt for Jean continues, the body count rises, and we find out just how deep-rooted Eddie and the others are. In the end, Jean tranquilizes Eddie and puts him in an electric chair across from Danny, an accomplice to the rape, and Eddie's sexual partner. (This where I thought the plot spread thin and the twist went lame.) So, she cuts off Eddie’s penis, and when he requests to be killed, she cuts his throat while Danny watches, and then turns herself in. The back story is, she thought Eddie really cared for her, even after the rape case collapsed, but then she saw Danny and Eddie together, so she knew why justice hadn’t been served, and took it upon herself to do so.
From what I gather, WAZ aka The Killing Gene boils down to this: What would you do for love, how far would you go for it, and would you kill and/or die for it?
There were traces of Seven, Silence of the Lambs, and even a little Saw (WAZ is pretty much SAW backwards), but it wasn't as well executed or as interesting as those it borrowed from. So, I just had to say, WAZ-up? with this movie, and what was the point in doing the whole homosexual and interracial relationship (Danny was a black dude) twist? Sure, it had potential to be a much better movie, had it not possessed so many elements from other like it, and then end on a lame note, but it was also more of a crime drama, rather than a horror movie. Even some episodes of CSI have more violence and gorier footage than this. But, I do like Selma Blair, it just really depends on the movie if I have an attraction to her, and even though she was bent over a couch butt-naked, it still didn’t do anything for me, and, it wasn’t just because she was getting raped. She just didn't possess that extra something like she had in Hellboy, Cruel Intentions, or Sweetest Thing.
So, I’m still not sure what the buzz around this movie is all about, and probably will never give it a second watch, but am looking forward to the other titles Dimension Extreme has to offer in the near future.
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OVERALL RATING--2.5-- |
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