Review: Outside Ozona

Several characters are headed towards Ozona, Texas, as a serial killer has been stalking the area. The killer has also been calling into Radio KWOK and speaking to the local late night DJ (Taj Mahal- hey, that’s the name I see listed, what can I tell ‘ya?). Mahal has been defying orders by playing whatever the hell he wants and taking live calls, virtually giving station manager Meat Loaf a heart attack. Kevin Pollak and Penelope Ann Miller play a crummy clown and his stripper wife, respectively (You’d have to pay me to watch Miller strip. Seriously). Robert Forster plays a lonely trucker who is sweet on Navajo woman Kateri Walker. Lois Red Elk plays Walker’s ill grandmother, Swoosie Kurtz plays an annoying cliché...er...the local gum-chewing waitress, whilst Sherilyn Fenn plays a woman travelling with her somewhat uppity sister. David Paymer plays a psychiatrist who hitches a ride with Fenn and her sister when his car breaks down.

Written and directed by J.S. Cardone (director of “The Forsaken”, scribe of the abysmal remake of “Prom Night”), this 1998 crime-thriller (with occasional comedic touches) has a great premise: A serial killer and several disparate characters are all headed towards Ozona, Texas. It sounds like a winner, doesn’t it? Full of possibilities with tension and interesting characters, etc. Unfortunately, the serial killer is just about the only interesting character in the whole damn movie. What results is a whole lot of waiting around with a bunch of boring, uninteresting, and/or unlikeable caricatures, whilst the killer gets far less screen time than most of them. Or to put it another way, it’s like “The Minus Man” minus the...er...Minus Man. It focuses on the killer’s intended victims instead, to varying degrees of success.

 

Robert Forster (in a role originally intended for the late J.T. Walsh, who the film is dedicated to) and especially David Paymer are excellent, even if the former has been playing Robert Forster in almost every role since the 1960s. Penelope Ann Miller is as irritating and incompetent as ever, and Kateri Walker is seriously amateurish (as are the awful actors playing the detectives). Pollak gets one great monologue about a famous elephant, that whilst completely extraneous, is at least interesting. For the rest of the film, though, having him play a foul-mouthed, cigarette-smoking, loser clown isn’t anywhere near as funny as it sounds. It’s a shame that Sherilyn Fenn’s life and career seemed to bottom out at some point from what I’ve read, but that doesn’t make her presence or performance here anything worthwhile (the role is too small anyway). Meat Loaf waits around to be given a role to play, though he does his best.

The film does have a bit of atmosphere and slow-building tension, but because it’s so slow it ends up seriously lacking urgency and therefore the tension and dread dissipates. It also allows the audience to work out the killer before they are revealed, despite the person in question being somewhat cast against type. The film completely collapses at the finale, proving the whole thing damn near pointless. Sorry, I just didn’t get this one at all.

Rating: C