First film from a new distributor, RAM Releasing: Nate Taylor's creepy/sad FORGETTING THE GIRL

If any of you out there have wondered, sometimes, at least, why a company like Film Movement -- that possesses one of the higher art/mainstream taste levels among our current lot of distributors -- doesn't occasionally get a little more down-'n-dirty and give us a kinky or grueling genre piece, you can now say hello to RAM RELEASING, which is a subsidiary or maybe just a division of Film Movement that will be releasing some of those genre films. The first (that TrustMovies has seen, anyway), directed by Nate Taylor (shown below) from a screenplay by Peter Moore Smith, comes upon us this Tuesday, April 1, on DVD and Blu-ray, and is called FORGETTING THE GIRL.

If Music Box Films can spawn Doppelganger, Miramax birth Dimension, and IFC create a Midnight division, why not Film Movement? And if the previews for two upcoming RAM releases on this new DVD -- APP and Hide and Seek -- look more interesting than the movie at hand, so be it. Forgetting the Girl certainly starts well enough, with our "hero," photographer Kevin Wolfe (played by an alternately cute 'n creepy Christopher Denham, below) recording himself on camera and telling us that, if we're watching this, then things are not so good. Then we begin to learn about some of the girls that Kevin needs rather desperately to forget.

The first of these is a blond looker named Adrienne (nicely played by Anna Camp, below), who actually asks Kevin for a date, rather than what usually happens: He asks the girl and the girl says no.

Another very pretty, though rather quiet and shy young woman named Beth (Elizabeth Rice) enters Kevin's life, and soon one of the girls has disappeared. What has happened?

Suspicion falls on everyone from our nutty shutterbug to his landlord (Paul Sparks), a fellow who goes in for crude porn photos (which we hear about but do not see), and even on his erstwhile office manager, a young woman named Jamie (Lindsay Beamish, above) who clearly has a yen for her boss.

The boss, as we know from nearly the first scene, is greatly troubled by a childhood incident involving his younger sister. This is related verbally, as well as shown us in bits and pieces, over and over again. When at last -- in one shocking, sudden moment -- what's going on becomes clear, this is both a relief and a bit of cheat.

Most viewers, I think, will have cottoned on to what has happened in the past, and will not much care about the would-be hero of our film, which slowly goes from interesting and off-kilter to tiresome and obvious. There is a real sadness here, however, and a shockingly high level of wasted lives to account for. If only all this were not simply the fodder for some heavy-duty blood & gore. Well, movie-makers must bow to what their genre audience wants, I guess....

In any case, the movie will make young, would-be actress/models think twice before agreeing to get those head shots they've been putting off for who knows how long. Forgetting the Girl hits the street on DVD and Blu-ray this coming Tuesday, April 1. Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to the next pair of releases from RAM....