Directed by Jim Gillespie
Starring Sylvester Stallone, Tom Berenger, Charles S. Dutton, Robert Patrick, Polly Walker, Jeffrey Wright and Kris Kristofferson
Folks, the flick we're looking at today has to be nothing short of one of the most infamous flops in horror history. Boasting an absolutely mammoth budget of $55 million and the star power listed above, D-Tox (perhaps better known by its video title Eye See You) qualified as a finished product that the studio quite simply had no idea what to do with or how to market, making it sit on the shelf for three years after completion before finally turning it loose on video shelves. There, it died a quick death, and the only evidence that I have that anyone has ever seen the film is the one wintry night back in 2002 when myself and a couple friends spent 90 minutes chuckling at the TV screen.
I'm not quite the research nut that I used to be with movies of this nature, but this is what I can gleam. Stallone was in that VERY rough period of his career in 1999, long before the irrefutably awesome Rocky Balboa would resurrect his career and when he struggled to get his movies screened theatrically. This script must have seemed like a good idea at the time. Horror was still relatively hot in the wake of Scream, and Jim Gillespie, the director here, also did the duties for I Know What You Did Last Summer. Big problems: all of the main characters were dudes and decidedly old, a clear lack of gratuitous nudity (which, given the aforementioned factoid, is a big plus), and a plot that qualifies as cliched and hackneyed to even the most seasoned slasher movie fan quickly ensure that Universal pictures saw the whole project as a big wash. With that, the movie.
Stallone plays FBI agent Jake Malloy, a guy who has been tracking a serial killer who targets law enforcement officials. The dude's method of operation is actually pretty cool, as he prefers to ring a doorbell, wait for his quarry to look through the peephole, and insert a drill through said peephole. The killer has a grudge against Jake, as he informs the officer via the ever-popular late-'90s taunting phone call plot device that the agent pursued him several years back for some prostitute deaths, and he is out for revenge. This results in the movie's first real money scene, as the killer does a lobotomy job on Jake's girlfriend Mary (the certifiably hot Dina Meyer). Jake chases the killer down, finding him dead from an apparent suicide and setting us up for the rest of the movie.
The movie gets its title from the setting for the remainder of the movie. Jake descends into alcoholism after these incidents and promptly tries suicide (preferably right after listening to Titanica's "Try Suicide"), making his supervising officer Chuck Hendricks (Charles S. Dutton) send him away to a rehab center specifically for law enforcement officials. It's a nice little stronghold out in the wilderness, surrounded by snow and trees as far as the eye can see, and populated by what is admittedly a pretty damn good group of actors playing Jake's fellow rehabilitators. Check that list above for proof. They're actually all given fairly fleshed out backgrounds as well, with Robert Patrick's character standing out amongst them as one of the better red herring suspects.
Red herring, you ask? Well, it isn't long before a snowstorm hits and bodies begin piling up. Having just watched the movie again after more than a decade of forgetting its existence, I'm having trouble remembering any of them. They aren't very creative deaths. There also isn't much emotional weight going on here, because while the flick did do a decent job establishing character traits for all of its actors it was nowhere near as admirable when it came to making the characters sympathetic. Jake actually is sympathetic, and Stallone did not appear to be mailing it in. Not having a box office hit in many years will do that to you. But the setup to D-Tox is just a lot more interesting than its payoff.
I will give the movie this - it has take on the "take group of characters and isolate them" slasher movie trope that, while not unique in the least bit, at least FEELS new with all of the characters being tough guy cops. The movie's big budget also shows, as Gillespie shoots the movie with plenty of love and affection that $55 million can easily afford you. But emotional bearing is a big deal with me, and that's where the movie is sorely lacking. Coupled with the fact that it just feels as cookie-cutter as all get out for the vast majority of its second and third acts and we're talking criminal boredom. Although it does have a scene at the end where Sylvester Stallone gorilla press slams the villain onto spikes, so +5 points to the movie there.
** out of ****. It has moments, but moments are just about it. Good early-afternoon falling asleep fodder and little else.
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