Ring Around the Rosie Movie Review

Wow. Sometimes I wonder, I really really wonder, how movies like this get made. Writer/director Rubi Zack has been a first assistant director for a few years, working on films like Jewish Vendetta and various Red Shoe Diaries episodes. The he (she?) wrote a script, if that's what you can call this, and someone put up the money for the movie to be made. Then someone suggested Tom Sizemore in a leading role. And someone said to change the name from Fear Itself to, ahem, Ring Around the Rosie. It just does downhill from there.

If you rent this DVD -- and I'm betting you won't -- you'll be scratching your head from the start. The film begins with a wide-eyed Gina Philips (that siren standard of many a TV drama) as she and her hubby (Randall Batinkoff) inherit a spooky farmhouse from her dead grandmother. (Or maybe he's her boyfriend, I'm not sure, because he promptly vanishes from the farm and the movie after two quick sex scenes with Gina.) Unfortunately for Ms. Philips, she's also inherited the farm's caretaker, played by Sizemore. Then Gina's sister (Jenny Mollen) arrives. And, in the biggest impossibility I've seen in years, she's wooed into Sizemore's arms because he helps her a) learn how to chop wood and b) learn how not to fall off of a swing. Hey, maybe the little blonde girl deserves big Tom.

Eventually this devolves into another psycho killer flick set in a remote location, and I was quickly reminded of the similarly awful Cold Creek Manor. Rosie has two primary differences: First is that Philips just might be imagining all of this, including her sister and Sizemore. Or maybe not. Second is that Zack at least doesn't have the street cred of Mike Figgis, so at least there's no enormous letdown like you get with a big name director.

Rosie's got not reason to exist, and I've got little doubt that if anyone even bothers to read this review, they'll be a member of Zack's immediate family. Sorry, mom.