Synopsis
Prom is suppose to be every girls dream come true in high school. Unfortunately for Riley, it's Otis' dream every day and her name is Kim, or else.
Thoughts
Direct to DVD can sometimes mean that it's just not worth your time. Kind of like those Disney sequels that are pretty much b-side songs from the first movie that just weren't good enough for the first film or to make it necessary to be a theatrical release. Or, the ones that are so bad you wonder who in their right mind would produce it. Then you get those rare finds with decent production value and an interesting story to follow that you're baffled as to why it went straight to DVD.
Otis is a nice little comedy horror gem. It's definitely more of a black comedy seeing that the subject matter is actually quite dark. This is one twisted and disturbing one sided love story. Somehow, it quite entertaining to watch.
The story is quite simple. Otis is a delusional pizza delivery man obsessed over his sister-in-law, Kim. How does he fulfill this obsession? By kidnapping young teenage girls and living out this fantasy that he's an all-star high school football player who's going to take "Kim" to the prom. Yeah, another horror movie about prom. You'd think the plots for horror films about proms would be exhausted by now, but Otis found found a way to keep it alive and well.
The characters are done quite well. Bostin Christopher reallys nails portraying Otis. I don't think I could picture anyone else playing the overweight, disgusting, simple minded, disturbing individual. Kevin Pollack is a nice polar opposite to Otis as his ill tempered brother. Illeana Douglas plays a great vengeful mother while Daniel Stern plays the pathetic father. For this movie, the cast couldn't be more perfect.
The movie moves along at a decent pace. Towards the end though, it kind of lags a bit. I found myself losing interest. Earlier, I stated that some straight to DVD's can baffle you as to why they weren't a theatrical release. Even though Otis has decent production value, a great cast (for this, at least) and a somewhat interesting story, the second half of the film drags. A good 15 minutes could have been cut, kind of like the second sentence of this paragraph. Probably easier said than done, but for something like this, I think you'd want to keep the viewer's interest. The case of mistaken identity and the final scene of the movie makes up for it though. I think they should have stuck with the alternate ending though.
Otis has a very dark subject matter that it takes very lightly, hence the black comedy tag I added. I'd suggest that if you're not someone who can take certain matters lightly, pass this one up. If you're interested in seeing a decent straight to DVD movie that's kind of entertaining, make Otis a cheap rent or add it to your Netflix queue.
IMDB: 6.1/10
Rotten Tomatoes: N/A
WeFLM: 5/10
Come for the performances. Stay for the alternate ending.
-kp
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