On Demand Weekly

On Demand Weekly provides new movie reviews of hot movies on demand and from the POV of watching from the comfort of your home. Today’s review: TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).

Click Here For On Demand Weekly's Exclusive Interview With Director Joel Schumacher

TRESPASS - Starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman Premieres On Demand
By Chris Claro

This thing we call VOD is a strange beast. Populated mostly with smaller-budget independent films of a particular pedigree, video on demand has, in its relatively brief existence, encouraged the discovery of actors, writers, and directors who fly below the radar. It has offered a space to esoteric documentaries and earnest, star-free features shot in the hinterlands on a shoestring.

But every once in a while, it seems, a real live Hollywood-type movie premieres on VOD. Maybe a distribution deal falls through. Maybe there’s no marketing budget. Or maybe the director and his two Oscar-winning stars have holes in their schedules and villa payments to make.

Whatever the reason, TRESPASS, the new film directed by Joel Schumacher (THE LOST BOYS) and starring Nicolas Cage (LEAVING LAS VEGAS) and Nicole Kidman (THE HOURS) appears to be just such a movie. Released by Millennium, TRESPASS will have a day-and-date premiere “in theaters or order it with your remote,” as the breathless promos bark.

So now there are two venues in which to experience this turgid home-invasion thriller that starts at ridiculous, wends its way toward outlandish, and settles, in its third act, into total presposterousness. Cage plays Kyle Miller, a diamond broker whose go-go career has Kidman, the missus, feeling ignored. Aside from their issues, the couple has to contend with a typically self-obsessed and selfish teenage daughter. When a quartet of sadistic villains violates the Miller sleek sanctuary in pursuit of stones, cash, and maybe a kidney, the contrivances run amok, piling atop one another until they can’t do anything but topple over.

The bad guys, led by a genuinely scary Ben Mendelsohn (ANIMAL KINGDOM), have agendas, and the schematic script by Karl Gadjusek gives each member of the foursome his or her big scene to explain why they’re not really that bad, just misunderstood. Whether one is trying to recover his lost drug dough, regain custody of her daughter, or just express his psychopathic love for the ravishing Mrs. Miller, the crooks are each given paint-by-number colors that Gadjusek fills in dutifully.

On Demand Weekly's VOD Spotlight highlights stories from the On Demand industry. Chris Claro interviews director Joel Schumacher about TRESPASS (Millennium Entertainment).). Read our review of the film here.

Joel Schumacher Brings His Talents To On Demand
The director talks with On Demand Weekly’s Chris Claro about his home-invasion thriller, TRESPASS starring Nicholas Cage and Nicole Kidman

A Hollywood mainstay for almost forty years, Joel Schumacher’s career has been memorable as much for zeitgeist icons like ST. ELMO’S FIRE and FALLING DOWN as for his notorious entry in the Caped Crusader saga, BATMAN AND ROBIN. Throughout his time as a designer, writer, and director, he’s worked with everybody from Corey Feldman to Colin Farrell to Jim Carrey (twice).

Schumacher is back on both VOD and in theaters with his new thriller, TRESPASS. Starring Nicolas Cage, who Schumacher directed in 8MM, and Nicole Kidman, who worked with the director on BATMAN FOREVER, TRESPASS is a tightly-wound home invasion thriller set almost completely in the sleek waterfront domicile of the Millers.

Though the film is limited to almost a single location, Schumacher was determined to make TRESPASS more than just a filmed play. “It has to be very cinematic,” the director says. “You have to make sure that you’re not shooting it like an action movie, rather than a play. But you never know if it’s going to work.”

This isn’t the first time that Schumacher has backed himself – and his characters – into a tight spot. In 2002, the director made PHONE BOOTH, starring Farrell as a man whose survival depends on his staying on the phone. The similarities between that film and TRESPASS were not lost on Schumacher, who considers each a “concept” movie.

“A guy in a phone booth and voice on the other end says ‘if you hang up, I’ll kill you,’” says Schumacher. “What if four people invade your house and you, your wife, and your daughter are in jeopardy? Both good ideas, but then you wonder ‘what’s going to happen for the next 90 minutes?’”

PHONE BOOTH / Courtesy 20th Century Fox

Tweet or Facebook us whether you like or are creeped out by Clive Owen's Creepy Movie Poster For INTRUDERS (@Millennium_Ent)...