It's Monday afternoon at 3:47 pm on Jan. 20, 2019, bored out of my mind and depressed because the Chiefs lost in overtime in the AFC championship game - and oh yeah, it's cloudy and cold to boot. So I figured I'd watch "Rebound" since a little horror might liven things up around here.
I was wrong. It made me even worse off.
I'm going to jump to the heart of the matter right off the bat and I'm warning you that I will be telling you exactly what happened so there is no mystery and hopefully you'll have the sense not to waste 1 hour and 20 minutes of your entertainment life watching this crud.
Claire, who is plain and plump and dull, comes home to her apartment early and unsurprisingly walks in on her boyfriend of 3 years doing the dirty with a co-worker in her bed, and apparently they've been cheating for a long time. The movie continually shows Claire reliving the scene but hilariously we get to see the couple do it in different positions, as if Claire would actually stand there for that long with the loves unaware, but of course that's not true because as soon as she opens the door they see her. Ridiculous. Look, if you want me to watch an indie horror film at least give us a good looking, fit and dull woman to look at, so I won't be so aggravated by your screw-ups. Anyway, Claire decides to move from L.A. (where supposedly she'd been in some plays and was - get this! - trying to become an actress! Ha! Her???) to Chicago, and within an hour on the road she loses her cell phone to a pickpocket at a rest stop, and also had a weird run-in with a homeless woman sprawled in the bathroom. 5 hours on the road sees her car break down at night (7:30pm) and she gets a ride from a local (Gus) to a mechanic's shop, where Eddie the mechanic works. He tows her car back and then she goes to a bar, encounters a passive-aggressive bartender who looks like her ex-boyfriend, Eddie shows up and spikes her drink (implied) with a rufie. Btw, there were a couple of really weird men at the bar too; I think they were in the movie for an atmosphere of creepiness. Anyhow, we don't see how Eddie gets Claire out of the bar without attracting attention but he does, and she wakes up tied (poorly) to a chair in Eddie's garage with a blindfold on. She immediately works her hands free, gets out of the chair and ends up outside hiding - why she didn't run for the road where cars would go by is beyond me. Remember, she has no cell phone so mercifully we avoid the current favorite horror movie trope of not being able to get a signal. Anyway, Eddie catches her, drags her back and begins to torture her and psychologically playing with her - he claims he's done this with many girls but somehow SHE'S his favorite - based on her looks he must have had some really poor luck!
After burning her fingers, making her stab herself in the thigh where there wasn't much blood (!), forced her to remove all of her makeup and cut her hair short (seriously - as if she wasn't plain enough to begin with!) and then holding her hand in acid to remove the nail polish (and the nails), Claire decides to play along and fill his pathological need to, as he puts it, 'help people' by revealing their true self, so he unties her and she kisses him, though he's not stupid enough to really believe she's sincere. I figured she'd use the opportunity to get the drop on him but there's a knock at the door and its Gus checking on her whereabouts, and noticing her purse he forces his way into the garage looking for her, Claire runs to him screaming and Eddie ends up shooting him. Dead. Deader than a doornail. Kaput.
With this fresh kill still not a minute old, Eddie drags the body away to hide it and Claire walks over, grabs a big mallet and pounds him on the back and knees to disable him. Eddie pleads (not cries) that he indeed did change her, look how strong she is, and even with his gun she walks out of the garage into the morning down the road, then stops, apparently thinks if thinking is possible for this character, and then heads back into the garage and assumes a SPOONING POSITION with Eddie! Seriously! A mentally ill killer is her rebound, get it! Wow, what depth. What a total idiot, and I'm not talking just about Claire her but the director.
I didn't think the actress playing Claire was bad, it's just that her role had her miserable and crying a lot, and no one likes that. But the actor playing Eddie did a good job with what he had, creepy in a Norman Bates kind of way.
Now you don't have to waste those 80 minutes - you're welcome. ;-)
p.s. There was the germ of a good movie in this but apparently someone treated it with penicillin.
I was wrong. It made me even worse off.
I'm going to jump to the heart of the matter right off the bat and I'm warning you that I will be telling you exactly what happened so there is no mystery and hopefully you'll have the sense not to waste 1 hour and 20 minutes of your entertainment life watching this crud.
Claire, who is plain and plump and dull, comes home to her apartment early and unsurprisingly walks in on her boyfriend of 3 years doing the dirty with a co-worker in her bed, and apparently they've been cheating for a long time. The movie continually shows Claire reliving the scene but hilariously we get to see the couple do it in different positions, as if Claire would actually stand there for that long with the loves unaware, but of course that's not true because as soon as she opens the door they see her. Ridiculous. Look, if you want me to watch an indie horror film at least give us a good looking, fit and dull woman to look at, so I won't be so aggravated by your screw-ups. Anyway, Claire decides to move from L.A. (where supposedly she'd been in some plays and was - get this! - trying to become an actress! Ha! Her???) to Chicago, and within an hour on the road she loses her cell phone to a pickpocket at a rest stop, and also had a weird run-in with a homeless woman sprawled in the bathroom. 5 hours on the road sees her car break down at night (7:30pm) and she gets a ride from a local (Gus) to a mechanic's shop, where Eddie the mechanic works. He tows her car back and then she goes to a bar, encounters a passive-aggressive bartender who looks like her ex-boyfriend, Eddie shows up and spikes her drink (implied) with a rufie. Btw, there were a couple of really weird men at the bar too; I think they were in the movie for an atmosphere of creepiness. Anyhow, we don't see how Eddie gets Claire out of the bar without attracting attention but he does, and she wakes up tied (poorly) to a chair in Eddie's garage with a blindfold on. She immediately works her hands free, gets out of the chair and ends up outside hiding - why she didn't run for the road where cars would go by is beyond me. Remember, she has no cell phone so mercifully we avoid the current favorite horror movie trope of not being able to get a signal. Anyway, Eddie catches her, drags her back and begins to torture her and psychologically playing with her - he claims he's done this with many girls but somehow SHE'S his favorite - based on her looks he must have had some really poor luck!
After burning her fingers, making her stab herself in the thigh where there wasn't much blood (!), forced her to remove all of her makeup and cut her hair short (seriously - as if she wasn't plain enough to begin with!) and then holding her hand in acid to remove the nail polish (and the nails), Claire decides to play along and fill his pathological need to, as he puts it, 'help people' by revealing their true self, so he unties her and she kisses him, though he's not stupid enough to really believe she's sincere. I figured she'd use the opportunity to get the drop on him but there's a knock at the door and its Gus checking on her whereabouts, and noticing her purse he forces his way into the garage looking for her, Claire runs to him screaming and Eddie ends up shooting him. Dead. Deader than a doornail. Kaput.
With this fresh kill still not a minute old, Eddie drags the body away to hide it and Claire walks over, grabs a big mallet and pounds him on the back and knees to disable him. Eddie pleads (not cries) that he indeed did change her, look how strong she is, and even with his gun she walks out of the garage into the morning down the road, then stops, apparently thinks if thinking is possible for this character, and then heads back into the garage and assumes a SPOONING POSITION with Eddie! Seriously! A mentally ill killer is her rebound, get it! Wow, what depth. What a total idiot, and I'm not talking just about Claire her but the director.
I didn't think the actress playing Claire was bad, it's just that her role had her miserable and crying a lot, and no one likes that. But the actor playing Eddie did a good job with what he had, creepy in a Norman Bates kind of way.
Now you don't have to waste those 80 minutes - you're welcome. ;-)
p.s. There was the germ of a good movie in this but apparently someone treated it with penicillin.