UNSOLVED

October 3rd, 1972: Heather (Ashley Grinols) is a shapely blonde who’s fooling around with some guy one night after hours in the hallway outside her University’s library. When another guy attempts to join in, she flees for her dorm.

Passing her boyfriend Michael (Jerome Braggs) en route, Heather finally makes it across campus and to her dorm’s door. Alas, she’s accosted there by an unseen attacker and proceeds to have her throat slashed open.

Fast-forward to 2007, and demure Amanda (Jane Bunting) now attends the University, as an undergraduate studying criminal justice. Her class is ran by Professor Somers (Lance Marsh), who challenges his students to each find an unsolved case in his archives and produce a thesis on what they think really happened.

With the help of boyfriend Nick (Josh Shideler), Amanda chooses to re-open the unresolved mystery of Heather’s murder. It did, after all, happen on their very campus.

Aided by bookish classmate Shane (Quinn Gasaway), they begin to delve into the case but immediately meet opposition from those who were that at the time. Somers warns Amanda away from the case; her adoptive father and college Dean (Arthur Scappaticci) encourages his "star student" to look elsewhere; even her foster mother (Carol Klages) urges her against reopening old wounds.

Undeterred, Amanda ploughs onward – even locating Michael, who stood accused of the crime in 1997 but was never tried due to lack of evidence. He, too, treats Amanda with initial hostility. Christ, even roommate Jasmine’s (Tinasha LaRaye) boyfriend Damon (Milan Epps) thinks these kids should back away from this case.

While professing to be working on another University-based crime instead – the sexual assault of a girl which occurred one week after Heather’s death – Amanda, Nick and Shane continue to get quietly absorbed by the facts surrounding the co-ed’s unsolved murder. For Amanda, the journey seems especially personal, as she also suffers occasional black-and-white flashbacks which hint to a childhood trauma from, say, circa 1997 …

Then, inevitably, a fresh spate of killings begins. Someone really doesn’t want these cases reopened!

UNSOLVED is knowingly derivative, harking openly to the classic slasher structure of the 1980s. From the off, we’re reminded of HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, THE PROWLER, PROM NIGHT …

Everyone’s a suspect at some point, while odd moments of racial tension and conspiracy theorizing crop up to fill that obligatory social commentary gap. Indeed, what with good-looking teens suffering throat-slashings and an archetypal heroine in the mould of Sydney Prescott or Nancy Thompson, director Lance McDaniel’s film starts like a pitch-perfect love letter to the ignoble stalk-n-slash genre.

But then it gets bogged down in characterisation and routine, TV drama-type investigation work. The performances are solid and Sean Lynch’s script is above average, but there’s no denying that once in a while it’d be agreeable for UNSOLVED to remember the needs of its audience. The horror doesn’t truly resurface until the rushed 10-minute twist climax.

The film was produced by Oklahoma City University, and shot on campus too. It looks very slick and makes good use of its reported $100,000.00 budget. But it veers too much between teen slasher loyalties and Nancy Drew-type sleuth drama to fully satisfy as either.

Oh. If you’re wondering about the selling point on the DVD’s cover, Fritz Kiersch – director of the original CHILDREN OF THE CORN – acts as executive producer on UNSOLVED. The connection ends there.

UNSOLVED is presented uncut on Lost Empire’s region-free DVD.

It’s apparent in day scenes that the film was shot on HD: it often looks terrific in this 16x9 presentation, with sharp detail and bold natural colours. There is some edge enhancement to dampen the mood on occasion, but the day scenes are mostly strong. Darker scenes have a more washed out look to them, and for some reason appear to be a lot softer.

English 2.0 audio is adequate throughout.

The disc opens to a static main menu page. A static scene-selection menu allows access to UNSOLVED via 10 chapters.

There are no bonus features on the disc.

UNSOLVED can sometimes drag at 88 minutes in length, but overall is slickly produced and focuses more on characterisation than gory set-pieces. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, although it does mean the opening salvo is misleading. And, unfortunately, the plot isn’t strong enough to carry this along as a thriller alone.

Review by Stuart Willis