The Deaths Of Ian Stone (2007)

Two of the odd things about the After Dark Horrorfest 8 Films To Die For project is that while it may be a stamp of approval to help low budget horror and suspense films find more notice when it hits DVD, most of those films aren’t great, and then there’s always one or two that get lost in the shuffle and deserve a better fate altogether. The other oddity is that all of the 8 films roster, in a slightly edited for content form, wind up on the Sci-Fi channel within six to seven months of that DVD release. That sounds bad, but sometimes it can be for the good. Take the case of The Deaths Of Ian Stone, which has some extra boost due being one of the last credits for the late Stan Winston, who co-produced. Because of the After Dark Horrorfest format, it’s all too easy to have a few films such as Stone and the previous Horrfest year’s Gravedancers to slip under the radar.

As it so happens I caught The Deaths Of Ian Stone on the Sci-Fi channel first. With the commercial breaks, the film seemed interesting and intriguing. I was glued to the chair and I dared not move, until the channel gave its upteenth promo of it’s show Scare Tactics anyway. That’s what DVR is for, see…anyway, Stone impressed me enough where I sought it out on DVD. Three things jumped out at me, and it wasn’t the vampirish-ghost-demon ‘Harvesters’ or whatever they were supposed to be. It was the fact that at 87 running time, Deaths Of Ian Stone becomes slightly disappointing after the second (and uninterrupted uncut) viewing. Not a ton of the film was edited out On TV, one profanity and the bird flip is censored-but not the blood so much. I expected tons of more gore in the film. It’s not that that’s really a bad thing, but there are a few films that After Dark picked up for its 8 Films in the past that were given extra budgets for additional scenes or inserts to pack in more of the red stuff. In addition, Stone isn’t all that scary. There’s not a lot of suspense in it. It might have been, if more time was given to some of the “lives” of Ian Stone, be it (not in this order and all set in London) college hockey player, taxi driver, car crash victim, ad executive or junkie. The demonic-pincher handed Harvesters who are after Ian Stone, and cause him to live in alternate life/time realities (think of a dash of Dark City colliding with The Butterfly Effect) and kill him off at their whim, we are told (and shown) that they live off the fear of humans, so much so that it is like a drug to them. Within a period of time they start killing people, because as our humble guide (Michael Feast) informs “the fear before death is the greatest fear of all”. Ian Stone (Mike Vogel of ‘Cloverfield’) is ‘different’ however, because he can see what The Harvesters can do, he supposedly killed one somehow, and thus they wish to have these ‘deaths’ as a form of cruel and unusual punishment.

Don’t get me wrong here- I still liked the film a lot and I’m not disappointed with buying the DVD for ten dollars (well, okay, just a tad bit- the only extras are Lionsgate/Afterdark trailers and the Miss Horrorfest webisodes, which might have some nice looking women who are die hard horror fans in a reality show type setting, but have nothing whatsoever to do with the film itself, I would have liked something else, be it an audio commentary, deleted scen…something…otherwise it’s a ‘bare bones’ release) but when all is said and done, the acting lifts the film up to a higher standard. Jamie Murray especially has enough femme fatale in her that her rubber reds in the third act are not really needed at all. I’m actually a Jamie Murray fan now due to this film. Vogel and Christina Cole are average, but since nobody here is dreadful and the dialog not horrible, Deaths has a problem that comes up early. It has to do with the plot itself. There seems to be huge chunks of story missing, as a back story is mentioned often but the unfolding events appear to contradict it, and if the plot revelation of sorts makes little sense. If a character did what you know he did, why run the risk of making him remember what he did so he might be able to stop you? The other disservice is that it’s a stand alone film and most likely won’t see a sequel to explore the Harvester world.

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The Deaths Of Ian Stone (2007)
Directed by: Dario Piana
Starring: Mike Vogel, Jamie Murray, Christina Cole and Michael Feast

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