By Ernest Kearney — Tomb borrows from Stephen King’s The Shining and George Lukas’ classic THX 1138. There’s nothing wrong with that, except they haven’t borrowed the interesting parts. The play, instead, is like a first draft of an Outer Limits episode, which was later discarded.
What was most egregious however about Tomb, which ran during this year’s Hollywood Fringe, was its failure to take what they were doing seriously. A mystery in outer space but, on stage, cups of tea and medical items pantomimed poorly; exits from the scene involve just standing up against the wall.
In addition: no program, nothing online either, neither who directed nor who the actors were.
I once saw a low-brow comedy that made me laugh myself sick. I watched and re-watched the film to try to understand why this lightweight comedy –unlike the scores of others I had viewed– worked. I came to understand it was that “added inch.”
One scene had the heroes of the film sneak into a compound they shouldn’t be in, and I saw the thought process that had been exchanged between the script’s writers:
FIRST WRITER
Okay so something in the compound chases them out. Big
junk yard dog?
SECOND WRITER
Naw, it’s always a dog. Geese will chase trespassers. How
about a goose?
FIRST WRITER
Wait! How about an ostrich? An ostrich could chase them!
SECOND WRITER
Ooohhh! A flock of ostriches could go after their asses!
This odd, low budget film succeeded due to the filmmakers going an extra “inch.” Soon I came to realize that the possibility of success in any creative venture simply came down to taking every idea or giving every aspect of the undertaking a little more thought, a little more effort, doing your best and then just a little more.
An “inch” more.
Tomb fails in this.
No Award.
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