PopHorror Let's Get Scared
As the calendar turns to October, two things are on the horizon: the Major League Baseball playoffs and World Series and Halloween. If your team is in the playoffs, that means you have to balance between baseball and any horror movies you prefer. One horror movie that fits right in with the holiday theme is a Home Alone tribute called Knuckleball. directed by Michael Peterson (Lloyd the Conqueror 2011) This flick is easily one of Michael Ironside’s best acting performances this decade, and the rest of the cast does the best they can to keep up. Is Knuckleball a baseball movie? No, its not.
In the dead of winter in Seattle, Paul (Chenier Hundal: Arrow TV series) and Mary (Kathleen Munroe: Patriot TV series) are on their way to spend some time together following a death in the family. Their son, Henry (Luca Villacis: Channel Zero
Once Henry arrives, Jacob immediately puts him to work doing manual labor, but they bond after Jacob catches Henry throwing snowballs at the side of his work barn. Jacob turns the side into a makeshift batter’s box to teach him to pitch a baseball. Its revealed Jacob has health issues and Henry meets Dixon (Munro Chambers: Turbo Kid 2015), a neighbor and one of Jacob’s helpers.
As Jacob continues to bond with Henry, a jealous Dixon putters about outside in the darkest of night with a mean looking scowl. One morning, Henry finds Jacob dead as a doornail. He races to call his father but his phone is dying, so he is only able to leave a message. Henry runs to Dixon’s shack to tell him what happened and they go off to investigate. Mary suggests sending a police officer, Officer Connie Munroe (Krista Bridges: Land of the Dead
If you come to Knuckleball looking for a baseball movie, you’re in the wrong house. There are some baseball references in the film, but it’s more of a psychological cat and mouse thriller. So, is the movie any good? Acting-wise, we have Michael Ironside, who could cut a promo on a stick of celery and still be entertaining. Luca Villacis was hit or miss, but with child actors, that’s to be expected. In some scenes, he looks like he’s in actual peril, while in others, he’s about as emotional as a glass of water. Munro Chambers knocks it out of the park. I felt like he might even be a jealous deranged psycho with the way that he got into the character. Dixon’s visions of Jacob give insight to the type of character he’s playing as well. The bread and butter of the movie are the interactions between the triangle of Henry, Jacob and Dixon.
The script is good but it isn’t great. Some of the characters weren’t really developed, and the big finale at the end was totally anticlimactic. The setting for Knuckleball is the dead of winter, so even if you’re watching the film in the summer, the onscreen chill makes you want to grab a jacket. Is this a gory movie? Oh, you betcha! We have cold, dead bodies, buckets of blood, a skull crushing finale, gunshots, barbed wire and lots of fire damage. Unlike other contemporary movies, the splatter in this film was simple yet effective. As for special effects, there were some pretty cool makeup effects, and when Henry is on his phone, we get a little screen showing what game he’s playing or who he’s texting. There’s not much outstanding here, but none of it is bad, either.
Now, for the bases loaded question… is this film worth watching? Yes, it is. If you know what you’re getting into, and if the setting is right, you will get lost in the story. As we head toward the World Series, Knuckleball is the kind of movie that came out of left field and kept me entertained.
