I grew up watching these guys and both made a significant impression from my early teens onwards. Devon Sawa is the eldest of the two, being just over a year older. (Sawa is roughly half a year older than me with Stahl being about the same younger so yay, PERFECET ages!!!) Now both actors receive super geek love from me due to involvement in super fucking cool movies all made by my X Files peeps…plus both starring the lovely Chad E. Donella. But more about that in a bit. ;)
Early career wise, I’ve liked Devon Sawa since movies like Little Giants and Now and Then (nice coming of age drama with a fucking awesome cast, including a young Thora Birch). Plus he was Caspar the friendly ghost…in boy form (a personal favourite of my sister Susan’s, who likewise, has major crushes on both). <3 Love of him in these movies got me renting films like The Boys Club (which is criminally underrated and really annoying that you can’t buy it on DVD in the UK!!!) and Wild America.
(Above: Devon Sawa going all Evil Dead on us in Idle Hands)
Idle Hands, released in 1999 is easily one of my most favourite of his movies to date, it is also in my top 3 favourite zombie movies and probably top 5 most quoted movies of all time too. Can you guess how much I love it!?! ;) Plus it’s perfect zombie comedy, years before Shaun of the Dead!!! It’s ridiculously funny, fantastically gory, has a superb cast including Seth Green, Elden Henson and Jessica Alba, plus an Offspring cameo that doesn’t end well for Dexter Holland. Amongst all the weed smoking, there is definitely a tip on what NOT to smoke as well haha. Something that always makes me giggle when I’m in the supermarket purchasing either nutmeg or oregano. ;) It also has a banging soundtrack as well, what more could you want for in a movie!?! Hell I even named this awesome pumpkin man Halloween decoration Anton after his character in the movie. Muchos dorko’s much??? (And no I’m not talking about a whales peepee!!!)
“As usual, marajuana saves an otherwise disatrous day!” (Above: Jessica Alba in turmoil; saved by getting high, haha.)
Thinking it impossible for him to follow up on the genius of Idle Hands, he does it with the one and only Final Destination. Now I’ve have major love for Final Destination right from the start…I mean how could I not love a movie that started as an episode of The X Files. Written and directed by James Wong and Glen Morgan, two guys responsible for some of the most amazing episodes of The X Files, including Home which was basically Wrong Turn before Wrong Turn. Oh yesss, the lovely Peacock family!!
Ans speaking of favourite X Files episodes brings me to a co-star of Sawa and Stahl, Mr Chad Donella, or Rob Roberts from the episode Hungry (“What is this, good cop…insane cop!?!”). I’d be lying if I said I didn’t do a major squeee when his name came up in the opening credits. Anyhoooo…funny story, when I went to see Final Destination, I convinced my flatmate Chris to come along (yes, Chris is a boy before I get to the amusing part). Our flatmate Becky had come along with her boyfriend (who freakishly looked like Heath Ledger) but they went to see Three to Tango and the plan was to meet them out in the foyer afterwards. So anyway, you know the part in the film when Death is at Miss Lewton’s house; just before all the knives fall…Chris gets up and leaves because he can’t take it anymore as he’s too scared, ahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!! True story!!! Becky, her boyfriend and I went back to the house and continued to freak Chris out by throwing stones at his window etc. Totally childish but so worth it, lol.
Getting off track though, Final Destination proved yet again that Devon Sawa had what it took to lead an all star young cast. I have to admit I was a bit pissed off that he wasn’t in Final Destination 2 and my reaction to them killing off the Alex character was “They killed Devon Sawa off with a fucking brick!!!” Can’t say I was a very happy bunny with that one. I basically sat and grrrr’ed throughout the whole movie totally hating it. I’ve still never actually given it a chance so if you think I should, let me know prescisely why and I might give it another bash!
Following Final Destination he was the lead Eminem obsessed character in Eminem’s superb video for ‘Stan’. He didn’t even need to speak to put across a wonderfully powerful performance that perfectly encompassed the lyrics of the song.
With the movie Slackers with Jason Schwartzman and a few others afterwards, he then went quiet for a number of years however has recently been making an incredibly welcome comeback starring in geek love shows NCIS: Los Angeles and also a recurring role in Nikita. More exciting however, and what led me these ramblings is discovering that he has indeed just started filming a new movie 388 Arletta Avenue with Nick Stahl.
Now Nick Stahl I’ve adored ever since The Man Without a Face. Starring opposite Mel Gibson, he must have been about 12 or 13 when he filmed this and he held his own without a doubt. I can’t say I’m the biggest fan of Mel Gibson however this is a brilliant film and both performances from Nick Stahl and Mel Gibson are ace.
Now the next movie from Nick Stahl that I totally love and that follows The X Files theme is Disturbing Behaviour (see right with Chad Donnela and James Marsden). “paranoid, paranoid, everybody’s coming to get you!!!” plays over in my head when I think about this movie. Like Final Destination this movie is all full of X Phile’ness, from being directed by David Nutter, music by Mark Snow, a cast filled with lots of ex-Files cast members as well as future X Files “monster”, Chad E. Donella who plays Stahl’s best friend, albino stoner UV who sums up him and Gavin (Stahl) as being “freaks ALLLLL week!!!”. A term to which I can most definitely relate too haha. Disturbing Behaviour is great in that it still retains that early 90’s feeling of claustrophobic paranoia, combine that with a great cast, brilliant director, eerie score and great soundtrack, you’re in for a winner. Plus if you’re an X Files fan then you’re gonna enjoy playing ‘who’s the character and what episode are they from?’ throughout the movie. Throughout the noughties Nick Stahl, in my humble opinion, kept a pretty darned good balance of both indie and studio films and a bloody good TV show, Carnivále under his belt.
Indie crackers such as Larry Clark’s Bully, starring the late Brad Renfro (whom alongside Stahl, Sawa and Edward Furlong, was one of the four young actors around my age who I absolutely adored), Sunset Strip, In the Bedroom and Wasted kick off the decade before acting chops turn to action chops with Terminator 3. Now when it was announced that Edward Furlong would not be reprising his role as John Connor in Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines I was inititally disappointed, but as soon as I read that Stahl was to take over, I was more than happy with this news. Replacing one of my favourite young actors with another of my favourite young actors, can’t argue with that. And yes, Terminator 3 has got nothing on the downright awesomeness of Terminator 2, but doh, how many movies do!?! I still like the movie though and the addition of Claire Danes is definitely an added bonus.
The next couple of years were followed with the wonderfully quirky yet, big surprise, not commercially popular show Carnivále. A weekly tale of freaks (all week, teehee) and superbly kooky characters in a travelling carnivále, this was a superb show and it was great seeing Nick on the small screen as well. Although it was cancelled after just two seasons, Carnivále had a cult following that was gutted by its cancellation. I guess it was just too quirky for mainstream America.
Post Carnivále, Nick played Roark Jr./Yellow Bastard in Frank Miller’s Sin City, a role in which he got all twisted and torturous with Sawa’s Idle Hands obsession, Miss Jessica Alba (pictured below with Stahl as Yellow Bastard). Both played characters obsessed with her and both ended up a bit worse for wear afterwards, I think Sawa won in the end though, haha.
He has picked back up again at a major pace however with ten listed films on IMDb for 2010 alone. The one I’m most looking forward to is Dead Awake with Rose McGowan and Amy Smart which has just been released in the States last week. It sounds depressing as hell, but at the end of the day it has a great cast and I’m a sucker for all things depressive!!!
So anyhoo, getting back to why I started writing this in the first place, and the reason for my excitement…the Vincenzo Natalia (Splice) produced 388 Arletta Avenue. The synopsis for this film is as follows:
“Shot from the point of view of hidden cameras, the film follows a thirty-something couple, James and Amy Deakin, as they are secretly videotaped 24/7 by a mysterious stalker in their home, on the streets, and at their workplace. The stalker uses information gleaned from the footage to subtly manipulate the unsuspecting couple, and cracks in their relationship surface. When Amy suddenly vanishes, James is not sure whether she has been abducted or has simply left him. As the acts of the tormentor become more twisted and violent, James desperately tries to figure out who is behind the terror in order to save his wife. But it seems the stalker is always one move ahead…”
“Shot from the point of view of hidden cameras, the film follows a thirty-something couple, James and Amy Deakin, as they are secretly videotaped 24/7 by a mysterious stalker in their home, on the streets, and at their workplace. The stalker uses information gleaned from the footage to subtly manipulate the unsuspecting couple, and cracks in their relationship surface. When Amy suddenly vanishes, James is not sure whether she has been abducted or has simply left him. As the acts of the tormentor become more twisted and violent, James desperately tries to figure out who is behind the terror in order to save his wife. But it seems the stalker is always one move ahead…”
388 Arletta Avenue is being billed as a Hitchcockian thriller and I can definitely see why. And being the hardcore Hitchcock fan that I am, I’m more than excited to see such a vast array of talent in this type of film. Stalker movies are always fun and I have high hopes for this one. BloodyDisgusting.com posted this teaser poster last week. I love the creepiness of the emoticon as well So yes, to end this. Devon Sawa and Nick Stahl ROCK and I'm pretty sure that my sister and I won't just be the only ones routing for this movie. Now if only Chad Donella was in it, mwahahaha.
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