Horror Queen

THE PLOT

Once upon a time (apparently the late 1950s judging by their cars), a group of schoolchildren were killed when their bus was hit by a train. The lights on the tracks didn’t work and it was raining so the bus driver plunged head first into the train, killing everyone on board. The story then becomes part of an urban legend in the small Texas town where it happened, with a ghost story to boot. Personally I want to point out that the legend of a gravity hill is fairly popular in the Midwest and I’ve even done two articles on it myself. Then the movies leaps into the present day with Crystal, a blond and vapid girl who’s just picked up her sister Melanie from rehab. Melanie is slightly more mature, though her mom refuses to believe rehab has changed her. She won’t give her daughter a computer, but her dad slips her a cell phone. Melanie also came close to dying at one point and begins to see the ghost of one of the children, though she doesn’t realize it is a ghost. There’s also a jerk guy who wants Melanie, a town drunk and of course Lou Diamond Phillips as the hot teacher at school.

TRIVIA

Fingerprints tells two well known urban legends: the mystery of gravity hill as well as the vanishing hitchhiker.

THOUGHTS/OPINIONS

Sometimes you watch a movie and you don’t realize until it starts that you’re watching a piece of crap. My sudden realization came when the credits started rolling and I saw Kristin Cavallari listed. No offense to the wannabe actress, but starring on an MTV “show” doesn’t make you an actress. Seeing her try to act here was almost painful at times.

You’ll also notice that Fingerprints shifts halfway through the movie to combine the Gravity Hill urban legend with the Vanishing Hitchhiker legend. If you don’t know these legends, I highly suggest you pick up one of Jan Brunvand’s books on urban legends, just don’t ask to borrow mine.

There is some female nudity here or at least a naked woman who surprisingly enough has real breasts. I’m assuming they’re real since they sagged, which is surprising given how young she is and how small they are. The real capper of that scene though is the spectacularly bad simulated blow job at the end. The Horror Queen has never given a blow job like that nor will she ever.

Oddly enough I found myself enjoying Fingerprints more than I thought given that Cavallari was one of the stars. I was able to completely disregard her and focus on some of the other actors including one of the Lawrence brothers of all people. The main actress was also a nice treat, far better than some of the modern day horror movie actresses. Hopefully we’ll see her again soon.

The bottom line is that Fingerprints was an unexpected treat.