The Scribbler - Insanity or Freedom?

  As crazy, psychedelic mystery thrillers go, The Scribbler manages to open your mind to new possibilities. The movie was adapted from the movie's writer Daniel Schaffer's graphic novel directed by John Suits, who is best known for his horror mysteries and Sci Fi dramas. This was Suits first movie with a cast of established actors, like Katie Cassidy (Taken, Nightmare on Elm street 2010 and Arrow), Garret Dillahunt (No Country for Old Men, Looper and Last House on the Left), Eliza Dushku (Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel and Wrong Turn), Michelle Trachtenberg (Buffy the Vampire Slayer and 17 again) and Billy Campbell (Dracula and The Rocketeer). Beware spoilers ahead.

 The movie begins with a character with a multiple personality disorder called Suki (Katie Cassidy)  who has been detained by two detectives (Eliza Dushku and Michael Imperioli), they ask questions about the deaths that have occurred in the building, and implicate Suki's involvement and want her story. Suki's story begins with her being released by a mental institution and has been sent to a half way house called Juniper Tower to recover, this half way house contains strange colourful individuals, one of the being Hogan (Dillahunt), the only male on the top floor and Alice (Trachtenberg), a girl in black hung up on Hogan. 

  Suki has been told by her doctor Sinclair (Campbell) to use a portable machine called a 'Siamese Burn', this device was created to eliminate all of the different personalities in her mind, but one specific personality keeps emerging and leaving messages on the walls, this personality is called The Scribbler. Suki uses the machine but every time she blacks out someone on the top floor keeps committing suicide, the residents of Juniper Tower have come to see this as normal and carries on with their lives. 

  Suki begins to believe she's causing the deaths by letting out The Scribbler, in an effort to prove Suki wrong Hogan tries the 'Siamese Burn' and it gives him a sense euphoria and turns his eyes white. Hogan preaches that the 'Siamese Burn' doesn't remove personalities its just brings out your true personality and it lets you tap into your brain's full capabilities. Sinclair visits Juniper Tower to check in on Suki but also look for a former patient who has gone missing. Alice soon discovers the machine and uses it to bring out her powerfully jealous and vindictive personality,Sinclair reveals that Alice is his missing patient and that she has violent, homicidal tendencies. Alice almost kills Hogan and Sinclair. 

Suki tries to stop Alice but she's too strong for her, Suki finally realises that The Scribbler has being trying to warn her of Alice, and to defeat her, Suki needs to let The Scribbler out. Alice and The Scribbler fight on a rooftop in the rain, to end it The Scribbler tries to help Alice but she refuses help and finally understands what she is and jumps off the roof, the leaves The Scribbler on the roof in the rain screaming silently. 

  After the showdown Suki regains control of her body due to The Scribbler needing Suki's normal personalty to communicate with others. The two Detectives don't believe what Suki told them, but she warns them that they can't control her or Hogan now that they've used the 'Siamese Burn' they can be free of anything.  

  The mise-en-scene of the film has a definite comic book theme, the movie takes elements from Frank Miller's Sin City, Sucker Punch and Kick-ass. The location was very secluded and isolated, this added to the tension that the movie creates from the very beginning, the movie focuses on Juniper Tower so much that you forget there is a world outside of its doors. Every use of colour emphasises what the characters are feeling in the scene, the colour green is used regularly when something pivotal occurs, this immerses the viewer in to the movie and gives them subtle indication to the change in direction of the film. 

  The structure of the story in this film is surprisingly linear, which is unexpected for a movie in this genre, usually a psychological mystery thriller is more erratic and has no rhythm. The movie may have upset alot if people not following the norm but I think the story had to be linear, if the movie was non linear then the message of the film couldn't reach its audience successfully. The story is basically questioning if being insane is truly being free, the character of Suki is constantly asking this question in different ways through the movie, and its not until the end of the story that she finds her answer.

  Their were certain scenes in this film where comedy took control and lifted the bleak somber atmosphere and turned it into cynical humor.There were two scenes of this movie that i found really comical, the scene where Suki is arguing with a talking British Bulldog, and the fact that it gives her attitude was just perfect, the second scene is when she tries to K.O. Sinclair with a frying pan (nuff said). I think Schaffer put these comical scenes in to show that even an insane mind can find humour, seeing that the story is being told by an possibly insane character its only fitting that there would be some strange moments that the viewer would find funny. 

  Not all of the characters in this film are strong but you can identify the ones that are. Alice and the two detectives didn't have alot of presence in the film, as a viewer i didn't care enough about them as characters, simply because they needed more development. The three characters that did stand out was Hogan, Sinclair and Suki. Hogan played a very pivotal role in the story because he takes the role of Suki's emotion anchor and is the one who grounds her when she starts losing control. Sinclair doesn't get much screen time but he does have a great impact on the story being the one who sends Suki on her path and also created Alice's dark side, Suki's character is a good character simply because she's a character constantly struggling with her own sanity, Katie Cassidy translates this effectively to the audience. 

  All together this film asks alot of questions that some viewers didn't want to hear the answers to, this is most likely why it got low ratings in the box office. The Scribbler questions anti-conformity and true free will, the 'Siamese Burn' machine represented conformity or "The Cure" but this device ended up actually helping Suki and Hogan expand their mind even further. The various characters that resided in Juniper Tower all had a type of mental disorder, but Schaffer has questioned if that's actually them truly expressing themselves to the "normal" public. 

  The Scribbler may have not done well enough to be merited by the majority audience but those who took some time out of their lives to understand it, would have realise what a good movie it actually is, and I believe it will become a sure fire cult classic in years to come.