Stuck | DVD Review

Cult favorite Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond) does it again, directing the darkly funny and gruesomely satisfying Stuck, a tightly-written and well-acted ‘ripped-from-the-headlines’ tale that is quite the interesting character study.

Gordon and screenwriter John Strysik (Deathbed) took the true-life story of a woman who hit a man with her car and drove home with him lodged in her windshield and fleshed it out (Gordon has said that this is the way that news item should have ended), imagining the lives of the two people and how their destinies collide. Whether intended or not, Stuck becomes a cautionary tale of how one impulsive decision can lead to absolute mayhem and how any one of us is capable of tumbling into a downward spiral of increasingly violent behavior. As Brandi, a nursing assistant who works hard by day and parties harder at night, Mena Suvari (American Beauty) turns in a strong performance, easily conjuring up the confusion and panic that someone in her predicament most surely would be going through, almost making the viewer want her to get away with the whole thing. Stephen Rea (The Crying Game) is definitely in his element here, with his puppy-dog pout eliciting sympathy from the viewer for poor Thomas Bardo, a freshly-minted homeless man whose very bad day is about to get much worse. Once Brandi gets her car with its new living and breathing hood ornament safely home and in her garage, she makes a call to her drug-dealing boyfriend Rashid (Russell Hornsby, Get Rich or Die Tryin’), asking him to help her take care of the situation. Hornsby steals the show with his just-funny-enough portrayal of a tough-talking guy who very quickly realizes he’s in way over his head.

Stuck played not a few genre film festivals over the past year or so, even winning two awards (at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film and the San Francisco Indiefest), but it’s more than just a horror film. Sure, there’s enough blood and gore to satisfy the horror hounds, but not so much as to completely put off the more squeamish viewers who are simply looking for sly social commentary delivered with some well-written dark satire. Filmed in Newfoundland (subbing for Providence), Stuck features a supporting cast of somewhat well-known (to Canadians, at least) Canadian actors and some old Gordon favorites, including his wife Carolyn Purdy-Gordon as Brandi’s boss at the nursing home. Even fan-favorite Jefferey Combs (from both Re-Animator and From Beyond) puts in an appearance, albeit in voice only, as a smarmy 9-1-1 operator.

While the image and sound are commendable, the DVD release of Stuck has nary a special feature in sight, while the Blu-Ray version is chock full of them (see listing above). Unfortunately, we cannot review any of those features as our copy of the film is on DVD.

Stuck is a definite must-see for fans of ‘out-there’ cinema, and especially for fans of Stuart Gordon. If you’re going to buy it, though, you’d be better off with the special features-laden Blu-Ray version, as those of us who are less technically-enhanced only get the film on the DVD version (unless you count the trailer as a special feature). In fact, this film alone is almost worth upgrading for hardcore Gordon-ites, as the Blu-Ray version includes what surely must be a grade-A commentary from the director.

Movie rating – 4

Disc Rating – 1