Skull and Bones

Recently, against my initial and better judgment, I rented the DVD for "Skulls 3", an ill-fated sequel to the 2000 film "The Skulls".

The original film was about a Skulls initiate who discovers a murder and cover-up involving a student journalist (his best friend) breaking into the lair of the infamous campus secret society known as Skull and Bones. I liked the film because of its use of a real secret society and its publically known rituals, but it failed to hold upon repeat viewing because I noticed how little the story actually depends on the villains being part of a secret society.

What I mean is that the story could have gone on just as well about any organization protecting itself against an unlawful breaking and entering and one individual's such for truth about his roommate's death. The fact that this was involving the Skulls is only secondary and incidental at best, providing a fascinating but ultimately unnecessary background.

Skulls 3 starts promising - how can the infamous society handle its first female recruit? Unfortunately, that plot is largely resolved and abandoned for a near carbon copy of the original Skulls murder plotline, with a military contract thrown in as the motive. But once the film makes that switch, do we really, truly, care that this involves the Skulls as opposed to any old defense industry CEO manipulating a Congressman's daughter to get a bill passed?

A decent element of the film making is its distinct lighting for dreams and flashbacks, quite similar to how the Nightmare series does it. The acting isn't bad either, although the cast is distinctly B-list. Don't get me wrong here - this and its precedessor(s) were perfectly good films as murder stories go, it's just the secret society wasn't a compelling part of the story, just a backdrop to get you to watch the movie.

My take is you can watch one or the other of the 3 Skulls movies, but you'd be wasting your time if you watched more than one.

Actually, the first Skulls movie and its imperfections helped inspire me to write the Adams trilogy - to try to improve on the conspiracy genre involving secret societies. More on this genre will follow as I give more literary and film reviews.