Irish Film Institute -DRIFTWOOD

DRIFTWOOD

Director: Tim Sullivan

U.S.A.| 2006. COLOUR. DIGITAL VIDEO. 89 MIN.


Following his horror-comedy 2001 Maniacs, a tribute to the Herschell Gordon Lewis 1963 gore flick, director Tim Sullivan has made a much more serious and ambitious film in Driftwood. Riddled with guilt over the loss of his rock star older brother, 16 year old David Forrester (Ricky Ullman) becomes obsessed with death, leading his misguided parents to send him to Driftwood, an ‘attitude adjustment camp’ for troubled youths run by the sadistic Captain Doug Kennedy (Diamond Dallas Page). Once there, David becomes haunted by the spirit of Jonathan (Connor Ross), a former inmate who met a mysterious end—a mystery whose resolution could very well be David’s only way out of the hellhole that is Driftwood. Inspired by the proliferation of privately run correctional schools in post-Columbine America, Sullivan’s film is a character-driven supernatural thriller rather than a horror movie. It’s an expression of Sullivan’s philosophy that no one should be forced to be what they are not.

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