Sadly, 100 Feet, the title of screenwriter Eric Red's 2008 horror starring Famke Janssen, does not refer to the many legs of a giant flesh-eating centipede—a shame, 'cos I reckon that would have made for a far more original and believable movie than this well-acted, but ultimately very silly ghost story.
Janssen stars as Marnie Watson, who has returned home after 752 days in prison for killing her abusive husband; it is there that she is to serve the remainder of her sentence under house arrest, fitted with an electronic tag to restrict her movement to a radius of—you guessed it!—100 feet. As Marnie slowly begins to put her life back in order (painting over blood stains on the wall, scaring homeless guys, screwing the delivery boy etc.) she finds her progress hampered by the very angry ghost of her dead husband, who hasn't quite finished with using his wife as a punch bag.
Red, whose earlier writing credits include the excellent thriller The Hitcher and cult vampire hit Near Dark, clearly possesses some skill behind the camera managing a creepy atmosphere, confidently tackling some complex effects and pulling off a few effective scares, but it seems as though, in changing roles, he's forgotten the importance of a really tight script; glaring plot-holes and lapses in logic blight this film from start to finish! (I'm not going to waste time going into details, but if you're interested, check out the film's message board on IMDb—plenty of other people have listed them for me).
It is thanks to Janssen's presence (she's still a major hottie and acquits herself admirably in her role), and one particularly grisly death scene that had me double checking the DVD's rating (yes, it really is only a 15 certificate), that I'm willing to overlook some of the film's minor problems, but a talented, easy-on-the-eye lead and some nasty gore only excuses so much.
Next time Eric, iron out the uglier creases before going into production and you might have another hit on your hands (oh, and feel free to take the killer centipede idea and run with it—seriously, that would make one hell of a film!).
