We met the producer of Text, Jennifer Maskrey outside of the theatre of the screening of another film playing earlier at Freakshow. She was charismatic, but so aggressive with her sales pitch that it made me hesitant. She spent her five minute pitch telling us how well the movie would sell and how it would appeal to its target audience. Compared to how George Clark and Graeme Livingstone sold their film with genuine excitement and belief in what they were doing, this pitch distanced me. I don't care how well it will sell, I want to connect with what is happening on screen.

Thinking about the conversation with Mrs. Maskrey afterward, I turned to Jason and said, “I don't think that there's any way that I don't enjoy Text.” I probably could have used more efficient wording, but the sentiment was what counted. Regardless of what the motivations were behind it, I did indeed feel connected with the film conceptually. I am disgusted with how our society is turning into a communication wasteland. Text messages and “Facebook” and their promotion of plastic, meaningless half-conversation are quickly taking the place of meaningful interactions between people. Finally with Text (I thought), here is a film that is cautioning against this breakdown of society, intentionally or otherwise. Well executed or not, I would have no choice but to applaud it.

Nothing could have prepared me for what was ahead.

Never before have I ever seen a film that was so focused on appealing to its target audience, with absolutely zero idea as to who its target audience actually is. If anything, Text is condescending to the very people that it is attempting to engage. Its characters talk in a stuttered half-slang (the first time I heard one of them say “Oh, snap!” I knew the film was in serious trouble), and to say that they are one-dimensional implies dimension, which is far too generous. If I was a teenager watching Text, I would wonder to myself if this was what adults truly thought of me and if so, what had I done to deserve their ire? I know I'm not this stupid.

Consider a scene that introduces a character for comic relief. Oh I'm sorry. For “comic relief.” He's a little older than the crowd, and he has a mental disability. He explains his idea for a new kind of blue-tooth that he's invented. It involves a headband and a cordless phone. Get it? The fact that the film has to go to such an extreme in an attempt at humour, says very little for the other characters. Someone more subtle would have blended right in. Thankfully, this character is inexplicably killed off mere minutes after his introduction, sparing the audience any more of his wacky antics.

Or how about when the group is attempting to figure out who could be responsible for the killings, and come very quickly to one conclusion. It must be Roger! (I don't remember the character's actual name.) The reasoning? Well, he's a real freak, you know?

That's it. Seriously. They think “Roger” is a pretty weird guy; therefore he must be the one who is committing multiple, horrible murders.

The punch-line?

They're absolutely correct. Roger is the killer, and no real alternative is even presented.

I don't know what to say. Played to camp, this is all fine. But nothing about Text says to me that it realizes how moronic it is.

I feel bad, because I don't want to imply that the film angered me in any way. It really didn't. The young cast is all well-intentioned, potentially talented, and completely oblivious. One of the actresses actually does a nude scene which surprised me, and I fully appreciate the fact that she was daring enough to do so. Text is just wickedly inept, and coupled with the intention of being marketable rather than entertaining, it fails at being either. I wanted so much to like it.