Our fearless – and quite possibly senseless – movie janitor is watching every movie on the IMDb Bottom 100 list. Join us now for another installment of Unwatchable.
It’s an unfortunate coincidence of timing that finds Nine Lives at the top of my Unwatchable queue on the same day I’ve reviewed Donkey Punch. There are some notable similarities between the two movies: a predominantly British cast of young unknowns, a confined setting, a Ten Little Indians structure. But Nine Lives has a secret weapon: Paris Hilton.
The presence of Paris probably ensured Nine Lives a spot on the Bottom 100 list, even if the movie had otherwise been good. (It’s not, but we’ll get to that.) Check out Ms. Hilton’s IMDb page, click on a few titles, and you’ll find that Nine Lives is far from her only effort to engender widespread scorn and derision among the users of that fine site. My guess is that Nine Lives would never have made the list without her participation; it’s hard to imagine anyone even bothering to hate it otherwise.
What we have here is a reunion of nine upper crust classmates from a posh school, gathering at a remote Scottish estate. Eight of them are interchangeable underwear models from British GQ and the ninth is our gal Paris. As a blizzard swirls outside, the very, very boring young people drink wine and exchange snooty quips. One of them – it’s either Tim or Tom or Pete or Paul or Andy, I’m not sure – finds a musty old tome telling the tale of the ancient Scot warrior whose name alone evokes the most primal of terrors: it is he who is called…Murray.
Yeah, so Murray is pissed off about some old slight or another, and his spirit escapes from the book and starts jumping from one bland young Brit to the next. When he’s in your body, your eyes go blank and you get all stabby on your friends. Despite that, Nine Lives isn’t particularly gory, which leads me to believe writer/director Andrew Green is aiming for suspense. His aim is off. It is a little surprising that the Hilton haters are all over this one, though, since – spoiler! – Paris is the first one killed. I am forced to conclude that few of the IMDb users who ranked Nine Lives so low actually saw the movie. And who suffers for this? Only poor Paris and me.
Previously on Unwatchable:
68. Kazaam
69. The Perfect Holiday (pending)
70. Epic Movie
71. Gigli
72. Meet the Spartans