Full Review: Strangeland (1998)

Submitted by Bob

Principal Cast: Kevin Gage, Elizabeth Pena, Linda Cardellini, Dee Snider Robet Englund

Director: John Pieplow

Genre: Horror, thriller.

The Basics: Dee Snider of Twisted Sister wrote and starred in this psychological thriller about a suburban psychopath who lures teenagers to his house via internet chat rooms and subjects them to torturous tribal “rites of passage”, such as intense body piercing and flesh scarification.  His latest victim, Genevieve (Cardellini) is the daughter of a detective who will stop at nothing to catch the sadistic monster, with the online name CaptHowdy.  Howdy, real name Carlton Hendricks (Snider) is caught, but found not guilty of his crimes- by reason of insanity- and is treated and released from a mental hospital.  Upon his return to his small home town, he is lynched by a local mob, undoing the positive results of the psychological treatment and returning him to his psychopathic mindset.  Capt. Howdy then goes on a rampage getting revenge against those who tried to murder him, and the detective who did nothing to stop it.

Recommendations: Fans of psychological thrillers and psychopath horror films will enjoy this one.  It is graphically violent in some scenes, so viewer discretion is advised, as they say.

My Interpretation: I must admit that I went to see Strangeland in the theater because it was written by Dee Snider and I’m a fan of his music.  I had the idea that since he was deep into metal culture and intelligent (as proven by his famous appearance to Congress to speak out against the

PMRC) this would be a somewhat scary and well written movie.  I was right. 

The film doesn’t seek to redefine the psychological thriller.  It takes aspects of the culture on the time (1998) and exposes the possible horrors associated with those parts of our culture that many of us see as harmless.  For example, at the time, internet chat rooms were rising in popularity and discussions of the dangers of these rooms were beginning to arise in the media.  Also, the trends of body piercing, tattoos, and scarification were growing in popularity.  Snider successfully integrated these trends into the horror of this story as a sort of social satire.  The thing is, when CaptHowdy is caught the first time, these elements are not mentioned anymore in the movie. This is where Strangeland becomes more “typical” as a horror/thriller.  Not to say it becomes a bad movie at this point, but many of things that set this movie apart to this point, fade away.

I do wish that Dee Snider would have continued writing movies as I think the films would have gotten better and better over time.

Statistics:

Cast Performance: Good.  You have a good mix of seasoned character actors and newcomers to make the movie believable.  Snider is great as Howdy, Gage is a good “rogue cop who doesn’t want to follow the rules,” and Robert Englund is awesome as the closed minded, behind closed doors, small town lynch leader.  Cardellini and newcomer Amy Smart both work well as the “horror movie teens.”

Violence/Gore: Borderline.  The violence of the movie is disturbing more on a psychological level.  CaptHowdy is more of a sadist than a killer.

He sticks hooks in your skin and pierces your genitals rather than gut you.  Not much carnage, but violence mentioned is on screen.

Nudity: Moderate. CaptHowdy keeps his victims naked, so the nudity of the film does not carry a sexual connotation.  But it is there.

Ambiance/Music: Very Good.  The setting is small town America, which is shown very effectively throughout the movie.  The soundtrack is full of up and coming stars in heavy metal, with Snider himself proving the opening song.

Overall Rating: 3.75/5.0 Bob Kline scale.