Scar 3-D

To make a 3-D ‘torture porn’ movie is at best opportunist; to make one with flat, boring torture scenes is unforgivable. An odd mix of ’70s slasher-movie plotting and modern charnel house depravity, ‘Scar’ lacks the tongue-in-cheek fun of the former and the gruesome visceral power of the latter. As producer Norman Twain says in the film’s accompanying press notes, ‘It’s a bloody and disgusting mess.’

Sixteen years after escaping the clutches of sadistic undertaker Ernie Bishop, Joan Burrows (Angela Bettis) returns to the small town of Ovid, to see her niece Olympia crowned Prom Queen. Almost immediately, copycat killings of teenagers begin. When Joan’s niece goes missing, she follows the trail to Bishop’s house, now an embalmed museum to his crimes.
Jed Weintrob’s direction is torture indeed. Flashbacks to Joan’s original ordeal arrest forward momentum, the suspense-free chase scenes are laughable and the torture scenes are ugly and banal. Spotting the killer is easy. Caring about what he does to a traumatised woman who jogs around a graveyard at midnight is harder.