In Joshua (2006), a psychopath named James (Aaron Gaffey) brings a girl home from a bar, immediately cuts the tendons of her legs (which don't bleed much for some odd reason), & straps her to a table in the dungeon-liike basement where Joshua lives.

We're then introduced to nightmare-haunted Kelby (Ward Roberts) in another town. He's a nice guy who has just asked his live-in girlfriend Trish (Christy Jackson) to marry him, when he learns his dad had a heart attack in prison, & has died.

Kelby & Trish set off to attend a funeral in the hometown where Kelby's not returned in years. He'll soon be reminded why he has supressed memories of his former family life.

Largely due to clunky editing & a muddled script, the film takes forever to clarify that Joshua still dwells in his basement lair, & Kelby's childhood friend James was the psycho killer in the opening scene feeding Joshua.

Kelby is not the nice guy after all. Joshua, whether or not monstrous in appearance, is a tortured & maliciously deformed victim of two very, very bad boys. Toss in a third veritable psychopath, mad cop Wally (Jeremiah Jordan), & you have the fixin's of a fairly awful slasher film.

Joshua does have a bit of gore if that will suffice, but the talentless cast pretty much keeps it boring. There are moments here & there when you can almost detect an okay movie that didn't quite get made. The script, at least, has sparks of originality & might have resulted in a disturbingly good film, if only the cast had been slightly capable.

There are some terrifically demented twists to the tale, leading up last revelation as to the shifting nature or identity of Joshua. I shan't reveal that, but with such unexpected shifts in the film's reality, it's now & then if only momentarily very cool.

In the main, however, the film is so badly done that's few good moments are wasted. At least it does have a climax worthy of gore-horror psycho-monstrousness, & won't disappoint on that score.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl