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 'If one goes back in time and kills his mother before she had him, the traveler cannot exist and therefore cannot kill the mother.'
- Time Travel Paradox
Brian Warner (Mike Capozzi) is a sociopathic serial killer, who blames his parents Melanie (Stephanie Carrie) and James (Chris Dane) for his multitude of murders. After all, he reasons, if they had never brought him into this world, these deaths never would have occurred. So when the opportunity to travel back in time arises, he takes it, determined to change history.
When most people think of movies about time travel, Back to the Future usually springs to mind. But one of the oldest debates among those who study the theory of time travel (yes, people actually get paid to do this!) is whether or not it is possible to change the future in such a radical way. The generally accepted theory is that one person could not know enough about the past in order to actually change it – and even if this was possible, there would either be minute changes, or any changes that the time traveler made would result in a split in time, creating another dimension of time with an entirely different future (think Sliders.) Cool, right?
This film starts with a voice-over of the main character talking about his childhood, while we see photographs of him and his mother. There is a caption at the beginning that says, “35 years in our future,” which I found a little confusing. One usually doesn’t need to open a movie with a caption unless it has to be a very specific time (the show 24, for instance), as with a modern-looking film an audience will usually make the assumption that it is set around present day. The better place for a caption would be when Brian returns to the past. The complication here, of course, is that of the ability for time-travel. It doesn’t seem totally necessary to me, but rather than saying 35 years into the future, it would be better to start off with just a date; “July 1, 2045,” or whatever date one wants to choose. In addition, the movie’s final scene, which is in essence a flashback to Brian’s adulthood pre-time-travel, again begins with a “35 years later” caption. I think this is perhaps even less necessary, as this scene opens with an answering machine message from his mother, and then cuts to the same shot of Brian that the film opened with. Though the structure of a story that jumps around several times might be a bit confusing, I think the visuals make enough of a “bookend” that the audience should understand it.
When Brian does return to the past, he ends up in a back alley, in which a bum is sleeping. At first, it seems awfully clichéd to me, as a bum bearing witness to the arrival of a time traveler happens in many films of this genre (T2, for example). However, it did leave the opportunity of a setup for Brian’s sadistic nature (as his insanity was alluded to at the beginning of the film). Before he leaves the bum, he not only steals the man’s bottle of liquor, but also slits his throat. This scene also ends with some confusion as a car drives up to the scene and Brian approaches it, almost as if he knows the driver. He certainly would have no qualms about killing another person and taking their car, but it might have been easier to show this if a predatory perspective was used, rather than a more friendly one.
The suggestions of mental illness throughout the film were, thankfully, not very overdone. With that said, there is a montage at the end of the film that shows Brian making faces in a mirror, blood smeared on the walls, shots of severed body parts in his apartment, and a corkboard full of newspaper clippings. It seems a little out of place, and just sort of a stereotypical “crazy” moment. As his normal demeanor seemed to be more composed and smooth (sort of a Ted Bundy-type character), it’s odd to see his having what amounts to a psychotic break, in the style of say, Charles Manson. A more calm and collected walk around the apartment with cuts to these various objects might be more appropriate.
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