The Channeler (2 Stars)

"The Channeler" is included as a bonus feature with "Teenage Exorcist" as a rare film. Okay, if we're getting something for nothing, we shouldn't expect too much. The picture quality varies between mediocre and poor. It looks like it's been upscaled to 1080p without any remastering. It was difficult for me to make good screenshots of the film, because most of the frames have dirt on them.

I always have problems with films whose titles are spelt incorrectly. The correct spelling is "Channeller". Some of my readers might exclaim "That's the American way to spell it", but I don't accept arguments like that. In my opinion, there's no "British English vs American English". It's a matter of "Right and wrong spelling". Some people think that the variant English spellings slowly developed in America, but that's not true. American English was invented by Noah Webster, the author of the first English dictionary written in America in 1806. He deliberately included new spellings that had hitherto been called slang. There always have been and always will be slang, for instance "u" and "ur" instead of "you" and "your", but we know that they're mistakes. In the early 19th Century uneducated people were writing "color" instead of "colour", so Webster arbitrarily said that "color" is correct. Why? He was strongly anti-British. He thought that American independence could be expressed by using different spellings. That's inexcusable. He used his political biases as an excuse for ruining the English language.

I'm not saying Noah Webster was uneducated. On the contrary, he was a great scholar. That made him worse. If he'd been uneducated, his lack of intelligence would have excused his awful dictionary. As it is, he deliberately vandalised the English language. Now, 200 years later, it's difficult to go back. Difficult, but not impossible. Americans have grown used to "color" and "channeler", but in our high tech age there are aids to put things right. If you're not sure how to spell correctly, set your computer's language to English (UK). Then words will be highlighted that you write with a variant American spelling.

But proper names shouldn't be changed. That's why I grudgingly call the film Channeler instead of Channeller. Maybe I should give the film a completely different name, like "The Case of the Disappearing Beard". The director didn't film the scenes in chronological order, and he made no attempt to synchronise Jay Richardson's facial hair.

This is what he looks like on the first day. Clean shaven.

This is the morning of the second day. That's a lot of hair to grow overnight.

But later in the day he's clean shaven again, apart from a slight shadow.

He's still relatively clean shaven on the third day.

But ten minutes later he's already looking hairier. If you watch the film carefully, you'll see that his facial hair frequently changes from one shot to the next.

I'm probably boring you with my endless talk about Filmfehler, so let's move to the film itself. The initial premise isn't easy to accept. Pam is a teacher who's taking a group of students on a hiking trip to an old abandoned mine. One of them is Jay Richardson, an older PhD student, doing a doctorate in Environmental Research. The other five, three boys and two girls, are younger undergraduate students. I don't understand why students would go on a nature trip with a lecturer. I certainly wouldn't have done it when I was a student, unless I'd had a crush on her.

Pam's real goal is to investigate reports of supernatural occurrences at the mine, but she keeps it a secret. She doesn't even tell her boyfriend.

The supernatural occurrences have been caused by creatures with claws on their hands and feet. It's possible that they're possessed miners. They kill anyone who comes close to the mine. One of the boys in the group, Scott, is a channeller. There, I spelt it correctly! An even older creature speaks through him, warning everyone about the dangers at the mine. None of the students take him seriously. Pam suspects that his warnings might be genuine, but she doesn't tell anyone. As they get closer to the mine, the creature takes full possession of Scott and uses him to seal the clawed creatures in the mine.

I have to apologise for making the film sound so interesting. It's not. Very little happens for the first hour. The film is spoilt by having too many characters. The team of seven hikers is too large for good character development. It would have been better with five, maybe even four hikers. I was glad when the first two students were killed. They were superfluous.

As I said, the film was free, so I shouldn't complain about it. I doubt I'll watch it again.