The Box is from director Richard Kelly, who is best known for the cult classic Donnie Darko. While that film is amazing, he is also responsible for the God-awful Southland Tales, and currently I regard the man as a one-hit wonder. Can The Box move him out of that designation? Possibly. It looks good but not great, though it has one of those concepts that is either going to work exceptionally well or not at all. Only time will tell.

Watch The Box movie trailer here:

The Box arrives in theaters on October 30, 2009.

Bloody-Disgusting first broke the rumor, and hopefully it will stay as just that: a rumor. But given that S. Darko wasn’t a complete disaster, it’s no real surprise that money-grubbing sons-of-bitches at 20th Century Fox (isn’t that name a little outdated now?) want to take another stab at ruining the great original.

However, word has it that Richard Kelly, the director and creator of the original Donnie Darko, may have some involvement in this third film. Given that he has so far proven to be a one-hit wonder, this can’t be considered a complete surprise, but still, don’t mess with your own masterpiece! And frankly, I don’t know if this is good news or not. Kelly refused to be involved with the second film, and as such the movie received direct-to-DVD treatment and our ability to shrug off the sequel as if it didn’t actually happen. If Kelly is indeed involved, that gives more legitimacy to the project and perhaps means a theatrical release.

Good, right? I don’t think so. It’s obvious that Kelly always intended the movie to be a singular story, and even though he created the Donnie Darko world, another sequel just won’t be able to match the original. More than likely, it will suck, and a theatrical release could have a damaging effect on the original (think Matrix sequels).

What do you think?

Wednesday night. Eight people. Only four survivors. The emotional toll for those who endured was almost too much to handle.

The situation: Southland Tales, the two-hour, forty-minute Richard Kelly follow-up to the classic Donnie Darko. It was a massacre if I ever saw one, where fifty percent of the audience was shot down, their lives destroyed in an instant. Only it wasn’t an instant. One man, popcorn still in hand, didn’t make an hour, and the three large young ladies who had to sit down right behind me, most likely just to annoy me by talking the entire time (though as it turns out their commentary helped get me through the rough patches), left just before the scene where one SUV humps another SUV. I’d never seen so many people walk out before, but I don’t really blame them: Southland Tales is a mess, and not the fun mess Kelly was shooting for.

I am a big fan of Donnie Darko, and in terms of theme, Southland Tales isn’t that far removed. There are wormholes, time travel and distortion of reality, but how all of that is delivered is so absurd and unruly that it’s nearly impossible to enjoy. Southland Tales is like one of those movies you see in another movie, where some low grade director is trying to make an epic, and when he sits down at the premiere he watches in horror as everyone falls asleep or gets up and walks out. The movie is an epic; it’s just an epic that doesn’t find its identify and isn’t able to engage the audience. It has a message, but without interesting characters or an entertaining plot, Southland Tales falls apart at the seams.

Read my full Southland Tales movie review.