Starring: Caitlin Dissinger, Tony Alfarro, Zachary Gosset, Larry Laverty
Directed By: Phil Grasso
Written By: Phil Grasso, Ricky Gutteridge
Grade: C-

Chainsmoke centers on a couple with a troubled marriage who end up being trapped inside a small town with maniacs all around. It is a pretty typical horror film that doesn’t do much to be anything other than ordinary. The film is predictable from the beginning. Even if it didn’t do anything great I wish it could have given us a more entertaining ride, but the empty characters makes it hard to be at all engaged with what is going on.

Sean (Alfarro) and Melody (Dissinger) are a married couple, vacationing at a casino. They have massive debts piling up, but Sean keeps this a secret from Melody. Just as Sean thinks all of their problems might be solved with out his wife having to find out about them at all, he gets robbed. Everything he won and Melody and his entire life savings are gone. As they are leaving the hotel, they run in to Andre (Gosset), who went to high school with them. Sean is infuriated to even see the guy since he was jealous of Melody and him being friends. He acts obnoxious towards Andre, but Melody insists that they give him a ride. Sean demands $200 to help with gas. Andre and Sean end up fighting most of the time as do Sean and Melody. Eventually, it gets to the point where Sean finally kicks Andre out.

Not too long later, their van hits a chain in the road. Andre ends up catching up with them and they manage to get the van to a motel. There seems to be something off about the owner, but this is the only motel in the area so they have no choice but to stay there. Melody finds Andre’s dead body later that night. She tries to get as far away from there as possible, looking for someone to help. Melody thinks her husband did this, which is reported to the police. Melody gets stuck in the room where she is chained up by the real killer. As Sean is arrested he is now helpless to save Melody or himself.

The acting was average overall, but could have been a lot better. It was pretty lifeless and atonal. The characters were really one sided so it is understandable, but stronger performances might have helped what was holding them back. Probably the person who stands out as the best performance is Larry Laverty whose character title is “crazy hotel owner”. He had this paranoid and warped sense of reality to him. His mannerisms, how he talked, and overall how he carried himself were pretty creepy. Not to mention he was one of the bad guys and knowing certain things about what was going on, added to his eeriness. He was in a decent amount of the film, but still for a character who doesn’t even have a name to be the only person we see anything good from speaks a lot about how weak the headlining performances were. Caitlin Dissinger was just not the right person for the role of Melody. There was so little emotion and overall I just found her and thus her character boring. She is supposed to be the person we relate to and root for the most, but there was almost nothing to her character. You almost feel sorry for her, because her husband played by Tony Alfarro was so angry all the time. There seemed to be nothing more to the character though. Alfarro played him as angry rather than as a person. Zachary Gosset seemed to play Andre a bit more realistically, but some of his actions really don’t make any sense. He randomly attempts to rape Melody and then a few seconds later acts like it was nothing. Our three main character aren’t people, they are just one trait. Sean is angry, Melody is boring, and Andre is just the other guy. Nothing else really matters about these people and we can only see them as very dense characters.

There is very little blood and there aren’t really any creative or fun deaths either. The theory of the owner of the only gas station and the owner of the only motel trapping people in to their town to make a profit and then kill them had some potential. This usually is the set up for horror films where someone’s car breaks down in the middle of nowhere or they find themselves lost. It’s usually planned by the people who are plotting their deaths. However, Chainsmoke didn’t even bother to do anything with this somewhat creepy, but pretty basic aspect. With the marriage issues and being hunted by people working together, locked in a small town, it seemed like it was a worse version of Vacancy, which was only an average film. Nothing changes in their relationship and none of the characters come to any revelation. One of the most ridiculous moments was as Sean is seconds away from death, literally as he is being chased by his killer, he is going out of his way to take stolen money. I know he is having money troubles, but he won’t have to worry about money if he’s dead, which could be a matter of seconds away. This really shows how a near death experience hasn’t changed him at all. He is the same selfish and bitter person. It really seems like we never knew Melody from the beginning, but we definitely don’t learn anything new about her and there is no growth on her part. Chainsmoke is a pretty lazy and boring film that doesn’t offer much excitement throughout its’ uninventive story.