Ruptured Reasoning: ATM (2012)

by Chris Marshall:

Director: David Brooks

Cast: Alice Eve, Josh Peck, Brian Geraghty

Netflix Synopsis: When three coworkers make a midnight stop at a glass-enclosed ATM after their Christmas party, they find themselves trapped by a menacing man outside. Soon they're fighting for their survival as the temperature plunges and the man toys with them.

Chris: I’ve watched a lot of movies this year. Like, a whole lot. Most were quite good, thanks to The Oscar Project, where even the “bad” entries tended to be of a pretty high caliber. I’ve seen some really bad ones as well (I’m looking at you, Project X). But purely in terms of realism, Project X looked like a documentary in comparison to ATM, which hinged entirely on the stupidity of its main characters.

This isn’t exactly a revolutionary phenomenon. Roger Ebert, in his Little Movie Glossary, refers to it as the Idiot Plot: “A plot that requires all the characters to be idiots. If they weren't, they'd immediately figure out everything and the movie would be over.”

Ruptured Reasoning: The Burrowers (2008)

by Chris Marshall:

Director: J.T. Petty

Cast: Clancy Brown, David Busse

Netflix Synopsis: When the men on a pioneer homestead are brutally murdered and the women and children go missing, a posse sets out to find them, assuming they've been abducted by Indians. But they soon discover that the truth is much more horrific.

Chris: I was mostly interested in The Burrowers because it fell into a genre I had never seen before: horror western. I guess I just hadn’t ever thought about it before, but I realized I couldn’t really think of any other examples of the genre. I’m sure it exists—Stephen King’s The Dark Tower series could sort of be considered horror western, I suppose—but I had never seen such a movie.

As it turned out, the film had plenty to offer outside the peculiarity of its subject matter. I was pleasantly surprised by how well it turned out. Sure, there were some flaws, but for a movie that never saw a theatrical release, it was quite well made.

Ruptured Reasoning: The Final (2010)

by Chris Marshall:

Director: Joey Stewart

Cast: Mark Donato, Jascha Washington, Whitney Hoy

Netflix Synopsis: Unpopular high school student Dane leads a group of outcasts seeking revenge on the "cool" kids who harassed and humiliated them for years, and their plan includes gruesome forms of torture learned in history class and horror films.

Chris: Whew. There is one good thing about this movie. It allowed me to do some expert-level trolling of Justin after it was over. Other than that, it was an abomination.

I almost don’t even have the energy to write about it. This is everything that’s wrong with America. This is everything with wrong with humanity. There is no redeeming value, only a glorification of evil. I really wonder who gave this project the go-ahead. What kind of person thought this would be even slightly okay?