The trailer for this film looked like it would be a cross between a thriller and a horror movie. Personally, I was hoping it would lean more towards a thriller, since I really hate horror movies, but the film ended up being in a whole different genre: the cheesy horror movie. You know the type: it has scenes that are supposed to be scary, but instead, the audience is laughing. "Vanishing on 7th Street" falls into this category, which is unfortunate, because had it been scarier, it may have actually held some promise.
Luke (Hayden Christensen, "Takers") wakes up one day and heads out to work like any other day, only to find the streets deserted. Cars have been abandoned, and there are piles of clothes everywhere. When he makes it to work, Luke finds the same scene - everything is abandoned. Puzzled, he tries to figure out what is going on; three days later, when the amount of daylight per day has been diminishing rapidly, he gets an inkling: it's the dark that is dangerous. He finds his way to a pub that still has electricity, courtesy of a generator in the basement, where he meets Paul (John Leguizamo, "Gamer"), Rosemary (Thandie Newton, "For Colored Girls,") and the 12-year-old James (newcomer Jacob Latimore), whose mother bartends at the pub. The four of them must band together and try to "stay in the light" as long as possible, before the shadows get them and they become, like the others, just a pile of clothes.
No, don't see this film. To its credit, the movie did keep my attention the whole time; however, it was mainly because I wanted an explanation for these strange events, which the movie never offers. The "shadow people" are laughable - cue the scary music, and immediately you'll see shadows creeping up, trying to "steal" our four main characters. It's a shame that the "enemy" in this film was not aliens, or gunmen, or something more interesting, because Christensen and Newton do give good performances here; they are wasted, however, on the film's ridiculous plot.
"Vanishing on 7th Street" is already out in limited release, and will be in Detroit-area theaters on March 4th.
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Liz Parker is a 2009 graduate of the University of Michigan. She currently works as an Assistant Medical Editor for a pathology website. Visit her at her movie blog Yes/No Films
