Furnace starts as Blackgate Prison guard Joey Robbins (Paul Wall) kills himself at home, his wife tells detective Michael Turner (Michael Paré) that there was no reason for her husband to commit suicide. Then later that night a prisoner named Jamison (Taylor Kinney) seemingly also commits suicide at Blackgate, detective Turner feels the two cases are linked somehow & when a third inmate is also found dead Turner is convinced something is going on. Turner befriends & enlists the help of Blackgate psychiatrist Dr. Ashley Carter (Jenny McShane) who is sure that illegal drugs are to blame but as Turner investigates the three apparent suicides the one connecting factor is a recently reopened cell block that has been bricked up for fifty years after the previous warden was murdered there, Turner discovers the dark past of the cell block has a very real present day effect as vengeful spirits seek revenge...
Co-written, co-produced & directed by William Butler this feels like a fairly standard rip-off of The Ring (2002) as the vengeful spirit of a young girl is awakened & seeks some sort of revenge or some wrong that needs righting, as such I suppose it's OK but nothing memorable & there are better examples out there. The plot is fairly standard stuff but the prison setting is quite cool & one underused in the horror genre, the actual revelations at the end are forgettable & don't seem to have much thought put into them. There are also various plot ideas that go nowhere, Tom Sizemore's character in particular is just totally forgotten about, the prison riot is never resolved & there's no real reason given as to why the ghost makes people commit suicide rather than just kill them. The character's are alright & they are fleshed out a little (although it's never made clear why Turner & Miller dislike each other so much), at 80 odd minutes in length it's not too long & while it's not the most incident packed film ever there's just about enough going on to sustain ones attention.
Text at the beginning of Furnace claims it was 'Inspired by Actual Eevnts' which I found hard to believe. There seems to be comic book references aplenty here, the two main characters called Frank Miller & Michael Turner are both real life comic book artist's & Blackgate Prison is the name of the prison used in the DC comic books including Batman. Although quite well made it's not that scary & the ghost scenes are a bit dull, the usual slightly pale looking girl who moves in strange ways as well as a burned man who are typical ghost fair. There's very little gore, there's a bit of blood, a couple of severed fingers & nothing else.
The IMDb reckons Furnace had a budget of about $3,000,000 which sounds like a lot of money to me, the production values are good but bland. Filmed in the old Tennesse State Prison apparently which explains why there's only about ten inmates. The acting is alright, rapper Ja Rule has a cameo while Tom Sizemore probably filmed his footage in a couple of days.
Furnace is an OK time waster, it's the sort of Asian ghost story that has been done to death & the sort of story you can't do much with & Furnace doesn't even try. I've seen worse but I've seen better too.
Co-written, co-produced & directed by William Butler this feels like a fairly standard rip-off of The Ring (2002) as the vengeful spirit of a young girl is awakened & seeks some sort of revenge or some wrong that needs righting, as such I suppose it's OK but nothing memorable & there are better examples out there. The plot is fairly standard stuff but the prison setting is quite cool & one underused in the horror genre, the actual revelations at the end are forgettable & don't seem to have much thought put into them. There are also various plot ideas that go nowhere, Tom Sizemore's character in particular is just totally forgotten about, the prison riot is never resolved & there's no real reason given as to why the ghost makes people commit suicide rather than just kill them. The character's are alright & they are fleshed out a little (although it's never made clear why Turner & Miller dislike each other so much), at 80 odd minutes in length it's not too long & while it's not the most incident packed film ever there's just about enough going on to sustain ones attention.
Text at the beginning of Furnace claims it was 'Inspired by Actual Eevnts' which I found hard to believe. There seems to be comic book references aplenty here, the two main characters called Frank Miller & Michael Turner are both real life comic book artist's & Blackgate Prison is the name of the prison used in the DC comic books including Batman. Although quite well made it's not that scary & the ghost scenes are a bit dull, the usual slightly pale looking girl who moves in strange ways as well as a burned man who are typical ghost fair. There's very little gore, there's a bit of blood, a couple of severed fingers & nothing else.
The IMDb reckons Furnace had a budget of about $3,000,000 which sounds like a lot of money to me, the production values are good but bland. Filmed in the old Tennesse State Prison apparently which explains why there's only about ten inmates. The acting is alright, rapper Ja Rule has a cameo while Tom Sizemore probably filmed his footage in a couple of days.
Furnace is an OK time waster, it's the sort of Asian ghost story that has been done to death & the sort of story you can't do much with & Furnace doesn't even try. I've seen worse but I've seen better too.