Brendan Hood

(In French, On Cable TV, October 2020) Horror is a very peculiar movie genre in that you can have a rather wonderful first half of a horror film filled with mysteries, scares and plot hooks, only to lose it all when you actually start to tie together the plot strands. (Or worse, not tie them at all.) The Deaths of Ian Stone falls prey to this decades-old risk, sabotaging an intriguing beginning with a trite conclusion that sucks a lot of energy out of the film. The setup is more elegant than original, as a young man wakes up in a different body every day, and is inevitably killed at around 5 PM. It’s all quite serious and sombre (in keeping with the mid-2000s’ fondness for dark cinematography) and there are several interesting questions raised throughout this opening. But then, alas, come the explanations and while a film with a conclusion is infinitely preferable to one without, the one selected by screenwriter Brendan Hood isn’t quite as strong as it could have been. As The Deaths of Ian Stone sinks into love-conquers-all easiness, the film definitely loses an edge—and I say this as someone who generally prefers love-conquer-all movies. Too bad—director Dario Piana can create an atmosphere, and some of the initial ideas aren’t bad despite working in the overdone time-loop genre. But then there’s the rest…