Macabre…ish Horror Review: 100 Feet
100 Feet, 2008/ 105 min.
Marnie Watson (Famke Janssen) gets house arrest for killing her abusive husband, Mike (Michael Paré) in self defense. The cop escorting her home is her husband’s former partner, Lou Shanks (Bobby Cannavale), his angry former partner and when she gets home, another cop fits her with an ankle monitor and warns her she cannot be outside of her 100 foot perimeter. If the alarm sounds for longer than 3 minutes then the police will be alerted.
The furniture is covered and dusty and dried blood is still on the wall. Everything is still otherwise, as it was. Including all the memories. Marnie sets to cleaning (including the blood stain), packing away photos and ordering groceries.
That night, after she’s settled in, she sees her husband’s face and she takes off running. He’s really there, or rather, his spirit is, he chases her, pushes her down the stairs and attacks her. Now outside of the perimeter and unconscious, Shanks arrives and after asking if anyone’s assaulted her, Marnie lies and though there’s an obvious hand print on her jaw, she says she fell.
She also notices the blood stain has returned to the wall after Lou chastises her. The next day, she paints over it. She later hears someone walking around upstairs but finds nothing but the electricity comes on.
While making coffee, plates fly out of the cupboards at her and she screams at her husband’s ghost in rage.
Then, Frances (Patricia Charbonneau), Marnie’s bitter sister arrives with documents in hand that need her signature. Marnie is excited to see her sister but she’s angry. Angry that their mother bankrupted herself to pay for Marnie’s defense, then died and her life insurance was used to pay for Marnie’s house.
Later, Marnie calls the delivery guy, Joey (Ed Westwick) to get her some library books and he befriends her and refuses to leave once he sees her bruised face. He wants to hear the story and so she tells him. About the abuse, about everything.
As she continues cleaning out her husband’s things to get rid of his spirit, the light flickers and her dead husband arrives again. Beating her and slamming her around the basement. Shanks hears Marnie’s screams and he’s convinced someone else is in the house, perhaps the someone who killed Mike and is forcing Marnie to take the rap and now that person must be attacking her.
Every time Marnie’s husband returns to hurt her, the blood stain also returns. Then she finds a lot of evidence that her husband wasn’t just a cop but a dirty one. No one can help her, not the police, not the church, she’s on her own and he’s more active and violent than ever. Soon it’s not enough to hurt her. When she sleeps with someone else, the spirit of Marnie’s ex brutalizes that man to death, right in front of her.
Then Mikey is out to get everyone who gets between him and his wife.
This is directed by Eric Red and it is violent. The violence is graphic but there’s not a lot of blood or gore until the end, then it’s gruesome. The CG and effects are pretty good too. There’s also an adult scene. It’s a good invisible man movie done well with a small cast!
TW: Domestic violence