The Guardian
Director: William Friedkin
Cast: Jenny Seagrove, Dwier Brown, Carey Lowell
Shout! Factory
January 19, 2016
Reviewed by Brian M. Sammons
In 1990, director William Friedkin made his big return to the horror genre with this film after 17 years (not including an excellent episode for the 80s version of The Twilight Zone TV series called “Nightcrawlers”) and creating the Mt. Everest of horror movies with 1973’s The Exorcist. To say this was a big to-do in the horror community would be a bit of an understatement, and yet the movie came and went without barely a ripple and is now largely forgotten today. Did Mr. Friedkin forget how to make a good movie, or at least a good horror movie? Was he all out of you-know-whats to give when he made this one? Or is this a little gem of a movie that for some reason didn’t get the love that it deserved? Well now, with this new Blu-ray release of The Guardian from Scream Factory, let’s find out.
The movie begins with some text about how ancient druids would sacrifice people to trees. Next we see a nanny stealing a baby from a young couple, running into the woods with the infant, holding it up to an old, gnarly tree, and then poof, the baby vanishes and a baby face is added to the trunk of the tree. Jump ahead a few months and a new young couple move into a new house, get pregnant, give birth, and then look for a new nanny to come help with the baby. Yeah, you know where this is going. So there’s no real surprise here, even once magical weirdness starts to happen as we already know Druids are somehow in the mix before the first frame of the film. There is some tension and suspense as you wait for the other shoe to drop, but not enough to offset the “oh get on with it” feeling this film instills in the viewer.
There are some good gory bits for splatter fans here, including some cardboard characters, most notably a trio of biker baddies, tossed in solely for some juicy kills and to drive up the body count. You know, when slasher flicks did that back in the day they always got called out on it by high-minded critics. Oddly I don’t remember the same finger-wagging going on here. I guess it helps when a movie is directed by someone with the critical clout as William Friedkin. But big names don’t mean a thing to me, so I will wag my finger at it here, and sadly, that’s not the only thing for me to tisk-tisk about.
Perhaps the biggest condemnation against this movie is that it doesn’t look or feel like William Friedkin movie at all. It sure as hell doesn’t sound like it. It looks like any late 80s/early 90s movie and that’s a shame when you stop to think what Friedkin did back in 1973 with The Exorcist. None of that heart or soul is present here. Does that make The Guardian bad? No, but it sure as hell doesn’t make it good or memorable. And sadly, that’s this film in a nut shell. It’s not bad, but it’s not good – it’s serviceable at best, but for the man that gave the world The Exorcist, it is a disappointment.
On to the extras and special features on this new Blu-ray from Scream Factory. The bad news is that there is no director’s commentary here, and I would have loved that. There is also no making-of featurette or anything similar. There are a whole boatload of interviews, though. Actors Dwier Brown, Gary Swanson, Natalija Nogulich, and Jenny Seagrove are here. Composer Jack Hues and makeup effects artist Matthew Mungle also chime in. Co-writer Stephen Volk does an interview and the big man himself, William Friedkin, also shares his thoughts on the movie and his return to the genre. A still gallery and theatrical trailer are also found on this disc.
The Guardian is not a great film, it’s not a bad film, it’s a middle of the road film, and those are the worst kind of movies to review, or dare I say, even watch. They inspire no passion one way or the other about it, either for or against it. So go into The Guardian knowing that. If you are a fan of black magic movies, children in danger films, or the many countless flicks about druids, you may like this film. If that’s not you, you might want to pass on it.
