The Girl in the Photographs ★★

DON’T be confused. The Girl in the Photographs (2016) has Wes Craven’s name attached to it, as an executive producer, but it’s far from the horror master’s best.

The film starts promisingly with a quote from William S. Burroughs about the nature of photography and introduces us to a pair of serial killers obsessed with capturing images of their victims’ final horrified moments.

There are some creepy sequences and inventive kills from writer/director Nick Simon and the film looks better than you would expect, courtesy of veteran cinematographer Dean Cundy, but the script is all over the place.

The main killer appears to be obsessed with ensuring one woman is pulled into his sick fantasy, but you are never fully sure why. Comedian Kal Penn, of Harold and Kumar fame, is awful as a famous, arrogant professional photographer who for some reason thinks the killer is trying to communicate with him and is stealing his spotlight.

Why he decides this from the luxury of his home in Los Angeles and heads for the small town location of the murders is one of the film’s biggest unexplained mysteries.

Anyway, anything seems possible during this film, but never fully adds up due to any character of note being murdered before they get to understand or explain anything.

Much suspension of disbelief is required; which is fine if the proceedings are entertaining in a knowing way, such as Craven’s own Scream, but any attempts at humour in this film fall flat.

There is a kernel of an interesting premise, although it’s been done before going right back to Hitchcock, but all the key elements – direction, editing, music, acting, script – are all lacking.

A wasted opportunity for sure.