Jonathan
Blakely is no Linda Blair. After appearing as a child actor in the cult 1980’s
slasher Chain Face Clown, he managed
to land a few acting jobs, but his adulthood career never amounted to much.
Nevertheless, his biggest fan, Emily Lynessa still developed a creepy fixation
on him. She will act on her psychotic obsession when Blakely makes a convention
appearance in Oliver Robins’ Celebrity
Crush, which screens during this year’s Dances With Films, in Hollywood,
USA.
By
casting himself as Blakely, Robins automatically adds a layer of meta-notoriety
to the film, since he appeared as young Robbie Freeling in Poltergeist I and II (but
he didn’t get to make the trip to Chicago in Poltergeist III). Frankly, most fans probably better remember the
late Heather O’Rourke as Carol Anne, but Robins was there too. In Crush, Blakely’s feelings about Chain Face are rather complex. There is
bad blood between him and the producers (or maybe they are the rights holders,
since they all look like they are about the same age), but he has just started
cashing in on the lucrative convention circuit.
Blakely’s
old co-star Peter Norvis was supposed to guide him through the gig, but he will
become Lynessa’s first victim instead. Technically, she has no desire to hurt
Blakely (whereas Norvis, not so much). The deranged fan just wants to live
happily ever after with Blakely, so she is willing to drug him and hold him in
captivity. Wisely, she does this in Florida, the home state of Scientology, where
such things happen all the time.
It
is impossible to escape the long shadow Misery
casts over Crush, especially
since the Stephen King adaptation is a superior film in every possible way. Frankly,
Crush just looks cheap and many of
its performances are rather awkward, to put it diplomatically. Admittedly,
Robins and company are intentionally going for a grubby, lo-fi look and texture,
but this film hardly passes for professional grade.
Arguably,
the best part about Crush is the way
Robins intercuts footage of Chain Face
Clown throughout the film, at particularly fateful or intense moments.
Ironically, these scenes are visually more intriguing and scarier than the
actual narrative involving Blakely and Lynessa.
Robins
is not bad as his analog and Melissa McNerney is pretty good as Blakely’s
long-suffering fiancée. Admittedly, Jake T. Getman is also well-cast as the
young Blakely in the film-within-the-film, but that is about as far as it goes.
Yet, perhaps the greatest problem with the film is its tonal indecisiveness,
frozen in a no man’s land between nostalgic shtick and Annie Bates’ hobbling
scene. Not recommended, Celebrity Crush screens
tomorrow (6/21), as part of Dances With Films.
