THE SOURCE (2002) Been there, telekinesed that Teenagers with psychic powers killing other teenagers whose only powers lie in their own assholery? Seen it. The Source is a low, low-budget (might be shot on video) teen-horror flick about high school students who get superpowers and don't become the X-Men, or even the Teen Titans. The Source did little to endear itself to me, but somehow left me without a bad taste in my mouth and months after I've seen it (with only a page of notes and my unreliable-as-usual memory to guide me) I look back on it with...actually I didn't look back on it at all. Could be worse. The movie mostly focuses on the surly new kid in town, who wishes his dumb dad didn't move him out to...wherever this is. Everybody else at his school is a jock, or yuppie larva, but membership in cliques is no hindrance to anyone who wants to listen to some really terrible nu-metal, seemingly the same song again and again and again. A few fellow outcasts seize on him immediately and they run off into the woods, where a magic rock gives them superpowers. (right there, I'm thinking...this movie would be way more fun if it was set in Stalinist Russia) One of them says, "There's no lasting psychological effect!" after waiting, like, two seconds. Then they go superpower-bitchslap some of the douchebags at school and find out that great power in the wrong hands can have a lasting psychological effect. They are not very imaginative about how they go about this, with the most satisfyingly amusing moment probably being when they listen in on the varyingly vapid thoughts of people in history class. It's the one who seems to have the least to be angry about that goes off the deep end; some background involving a parent's suicide comes in way too late to make much of an impact. The goth guy looks increasingly clown-like and the girls wear increasingly sexy clothes as they learn to master their powers, in limited acquiescence to a sexual/romantic angle that comes up once and disappears. The Source is made with a (limited) effort toward Michael Bay-style rock video flashiness, which has to be slick, and I mean K-Y slick, to work and this movie just isn't slick (Batman-style tilted camera shots abound). It's way too lightweight as a horror movie to spook or chill even the most virginal viewers; as a fantasy revenge movie, it has a lot of stiff competition to live up to. Lots of great-looking girls though. Seems like a school project. Also known as The Surge and The Secret Craft, in unsubtle homage (I assume) to The Craft. BACK TO THE S's BACK TO THE MAIN PAGE