Marcus (DVD)

Marcus DVD (click for larger image)Starring Ross Kurt, Frankie Ingrassia, Marc Rose

Directed by Bob Hardison and Rich Robinson

Distributed by Warner Home Video

Tis the season to be merry, celebrate the birth of baby Jesus and join together with a loving family! Too bad the beautiful Brooke (Ingrassia) is tied up in her bathroom while her boyfriend Marcus (Kurt) torments her. He is making her reveal every dark secret from her past while he tapes the confessions. Her brother and friends are coming over soon, and Marcus has to know everything about them so he can impress his guests.

Marcus has serious problems, and we don't mean the mental main character. The film itself is rife with problems after the opening scene ends and the audience is introduced to Brooke's estranged/angry brother Roger and his gold digging fiance Gwen. Roger just can't turn off his rage. Nearly every sentence that cannon balls out of his mouth is full of venom. Nothing against nasty characters, but when each dialog exchange through a film sounds like a bully picking a fight, you've got serious problems. The huge flaws with one character get overlapped when we are introduced to more characters who can only display one emotion and devastatingly low intelligence levels.

Marcus DVD (click for larger image)Roger and his woman arrive at Brooke's home only to meet her secret ex-lover Charles and his date Kate. The pissing match begins and the claws come out never to be sheathed until the film finally starts to get good ... when only 10 minutes remain before the credits. What a way to take you out of a movie. For the next hour or so the audience gets forced more family drama than a week long marathon of Jerry Springer. Everyone is pissed at everyone else and Marcus only adds fuel to the fire when he announces that Brooke is going to be late to dinner.

Marcus is also among the one-note offenders. We know he is insane and hates these people for being so nasty but he delivers each line of dialog like he is trying to make a foreigner understand: talk slowly and loudly while opening your eyes really wide. Imagine that happening throughout a feature length film. Sound like a fun time? Didn't think so. It would have helped if we had known more about this nutter and why he singled out Brooke for his weird family chaos experiment. All he does is provoke the dinner guests into fighting each other until the very end when he reveals what is really going on and then the film just ends. Sure, there is a surprise involving disgusting relationship Roger and his sister had, but did we really need so much time listening to all these drama queens yell at each other? There had to be another way to move the story along aside from everyone generally accepting the situation they were in.

On that note, why didn't they realize sooner that Marcus was hiding something? Hell, the house wasn't all that big and he never locked the door to where Brooke was being held. No one seemed to really question anything that was going on. Was it the holiday spirit? Or was it just stupidity on the part of the filmmakers? We should give them some props for throwing in a very random sex scene. Just out of nowhere it is time for sex! No need to lock the door, we'll just fuck right here!

Marcus DVD (click for larger image)The special features are a whole lotta "meh." The interviews run at about a half hour and give plenty of insight as to how each actor got their roll, what it was like filming the picture and all that crap, but who is really going to care after sitting though this over-acted stinker? The same can be said about the commentary that sounds like the entire crew is on hand. Some voices can hardly be heard which helps confuse the listener from identifying who is speaking. There's some back patting and various other bits of trivia, but to hear them you have to sit through Marcus again. Screw that.

Building Brooke is a basic behind the scenes featurette showing us how one shot, yes, just one shot, was made. The audience is shown how a fake Brooke built and then slammed against a bathroom wall. I wasn't really scratching my head at how they did that scene, but maybe someone was. Yawn.

Skip Marcus. Maybe not since it could be recommended for unintentional laughs. The acting is one of the major drawbacks of the film, but the stupidity of the characters is also quite amusing. It may also help with your anger management. Sit there and just yell at the screen with Roger. By the time the film wraps up you should have all that negative energy out, unless you bought this DVD.

Special Features
Building Brooke special effects featurette
• Cast and crew interviews
• Commentary track


2 out of 5

Special Features:

2 out of 5

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