Horror Queen

THE PLOT

Abel Turner (Samuel L. Jackson) lives the quiet life of a cop, only stopping to be a real bastard to his children. When he sees Chris (Patrick Wilson) and Lisa (Kerry Washington) moving in, he’s happy to have another black couple in the neighborhood. Then he realizes that Lisa’s actually married to a white man and frankly he won’t have that in his area. In between lecturing his kids on doing anything remotely childlike and attacking people on the streets, he makes Chris and Lisa wish they had never moved to town. Lisa’s willing to accept the abuse, explaining that black men always hate to see black women with white men (seriously), while Chris wants to fight back. Before long they learn that they can’t fight one cop anymore than they can fight the system.

TRIVIA

Michael Landes (Final Destination 2) pops up for a very, very small cameo role as an IA officer while Jay Hernandez (Hostel) plays Jackson’s partner on the force.

The name of the movie came from the neighborhood where Rodney King was beaten by police during the 1990s.

THOUGHTS/OPINIONS

First of all the Horror Queen finds Samuel L. Jackson to be one of the sexiest men in the world, but compared to Patrick Wilson, he just can’t hold a candle. Wilson manages to turn a child molester (Hard Candy) into a sexy guy and if you haven’t seen his sex scene with Kate Winslet in Little Children, you should do that now. Thankfully he has a couple of shirtless scenes in the movie and man does that boy ever have a body. If all the men in the world had a body like Patrick Wilson, the world would be a happier place.

Lakeview Terrace isn’t a horror movie and I know that, but it does have some elements of a thriller. The movie drags at times, especially around the middle where we’re shown how Abel acts on the force. Guess what? It’s the exact same way he behaves at home, go figure.

Racism is obviously a big theme in the movie, but at times it seems like Abel hates Lisa more than he does Chris. Oddly enough he hates the Jewish man living in the area, but not the Asian guy living next door. The movie also gives a bad, bad name to the LAPD showing that the cops always stick together.

Then there’s the ending, which happens so fast that you’re left scratching your head. I kept thinking there had to be more, but apparently those scenes were left on the cutting room floor.

This is just a so-so movie, not too bad. Had it not been for Jackson and Wilson though, I probably would have skipped this one.